Introducing: Gamer Theory

McKenzie Wark wants to ask you something:

Ever get the feeling you’re playing some vast and useless game whose goal you don’t know and whose rules you can’t remember? Ever get the fierce desire to quit, to resign, to forfeit, only to discover there’s no umpire, no referee, no regulator to whom you can announce your capitulation? Ever get the vague dread that while you have no choice but to play the game, you can’t win it, can’t know the score, or who keeps it? Ever suspect that you don’t even know who your real opponent might be? Ever get mad over the obvious fact that the dice are loaded, the deck stacked, the table rigged and the fix--in?

If you're like me, you read that passage and thought to yourself: "Why yes, yes I do get that feeling. Does that make me some kind of paranoid weirdo?"

The answer? No:

Welcome to gamespace. It’s everywhere, this atopian arena, this speculation sport. No pain no gain. No guts no glory. Give it your best shot. There’s no second place. Winner take all. Here’s a heads up: In gamespace, even if you know the deal, are a player, have got game, you will notice, all the same, that the game has got you. Welcome to the thunderdome. Welcome to the terrordome. Welcome to the greatest game of all. Welcome to the playoffs, the big league, the masters, the only game in town. You are a gamer whether you like it or not, now that we all live in a gamespace that is everywhere and nowhere. As Microsoft says: Where do you want to go today? You can go anywhere you want in gamespace but you can never leave it.

"An atopian arena," "a gamespace that's everywhere and nowhere." If this is what our culture has given us, then what are we going to do about it?

The idea of "the game" is all around us--we just have to realize that it's there. In a way we already have. None of us is surprised when we hear finance types and drug-dealers alike refer to their respective professions as "the game." How many times have you heard someone dismiss office politics (or real politics, for that matter) as one big silly "game?" They're right, but the fact remains that these "games" have consequences that are very real--the person who gets the promotion--or the person who wins the election--is the one who's the most skilled at navigating the "gamespace." And if life is in fact one massive gamespace, where are we to look for guidance as to how we are to get through it all?

McKenzie Wark has an idea--why don't we look to...games? And thus, Gamer Theory is born. It's an idea that's radical not only in terms of content, but also in the novel way in which it took shape (more on this later). Suffice it to say that it'll be one of the more provocative university press books you're going to see. For now, get a taste of how Wark operates by watching this interview he did inside the video game Halo--an interview that ends with a (virtual) bang.

Comments

[Naruto]

Well i do agree with your first statement regarding how frustrating a bad game can be, yet there is such a thing as choice that prevents me from keep playing it.

Yet i do like your idea.