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Thus the situation of characters within videogames shows an example of distraction, the test-space and its tactile appropriation through habituation. Initially, the player encounters the characters or objects in an optical, contemplative sense. An unfamiliar videogame is prone to prompt such thoughts: Can I jump this chasm? Am I strong enough to overcome that enemy? A player at this stage will likely look for representational cues to choose a course of action. As the player becomes habituated and learns the specificities of the game-space, their reactions become more unnatural- they no longer judge a chasms length by their own real-world experience, but by the distance they know their character can leap safely.
As the player tests the game-space, threats once formidable become incidental, handled automatically. Of course, in most videogames, the space is designed to test the player back. Perhaps the tetraminoes fall faster onto the screen, or the enemies require more shots to defeat. At length, though, the player tends to see through the representations to the actual ratios of the simulation itself- even if the visual information is erroneous, a canny gamer can correct for the fault by force of habit. We dont really see the assumptions been proven by any measurements in the article but they may be approved by taking a look at some other researches upon an issue, in our case this is a Boards article. As Board, a fine guide amidst all this distraction, writes, It is no problem to see the force of distraction at work in the connection of any kids fingers to the buttons of his or her videogame controller.
Can we imagine a time when our brains are wired directly to those buttons, when the brain itself is a distraction-machine that can call up its own diversions at the merest thought? When we no longer appropriate the scene tactilely but through our nervous system? It is certainly possible to imagine the innervation of the nervous system directly to distraction, but for my purpose here it overshoots the mark. This then is where - in this eleventh-hour inflection of the apparatus - videogames gain their own particular felicity. The videogames distraction is still channeled through the fingers to the buttons. This is the particular pleasure of the form thrown into relief: the testing and tactile appropriation of a range of virtual spaces through the specific apparatus of the videogame.
Newman seems to agree with the fact that videogames are not reducible to narratives or to games as there is a specific kind of fun to be had in not being completely immersed in a game or in a story, in controlling through an apparatus a body with a set of simulated characteristics and occasionally not being in charge of whats going on. Extending his consideration of the idea of character in videogame spaces, Newman draws from an analysis of god games such as Civilization (Micro Prose, 1991) and SimCity (Maxis Software, 1992) by Ted Friedman which suggests a specialised relationship between the player and the entire game world rather than discrete representative parts. While this is an understandable approach to games in which the player directly controls the functioning of entire civilizations or municipalities, Newman suggests that it has broader resonances across the various videogame genres: Player accounts are structured around action, around environment, around activity. In this way, any model of connection based around identification with a single entity in the gameworld is perhaps oversimplified... Clearly, this demands a totally new framework within which to understand the relationship between player and gameworld. Even the notion of On-Line character as an identifiable and singular entity embodied by the player may be an oversimplification indicative of an implicit reliance on existent models of audience...
this linkage is best considered as an experiential whole that synthesis, action, location, scenario, and not merely as a bond between subject and object within a world... On-Line, the player is both the goal and the act of attaining it. (Newman) Concepts presented and analyzed in the article are actually deeply explored and pretty clearly defined. The operational part of the videogames is investigated and the assumptions are really correspond to the initial definitions of them as they appear in other researches and literature concerning the subject. While this seems a pure case of habituation and distraction, it must be recalled that videogames often demand concentration from players. Threats must be ascertained and dealt with in a systematic manner, and new challenges are presented which test the player in new ways. A good example of this is the ubiquitous gamer term boss fight, where often at the end of a level or stage, a powerful and unique enemy waits to test the players abilities.
Players must be simultaneously habituated enough to their characters abilities to act swiftly and surely, while concentrating to discern the strategy required to beat the boss. Often, representational clues are important in these situations and the usual rules to which the player has become habituated are broken... in a way, it may be said that the game-space is suffused and overwhelmed by character. Thus conceiving of games as virtual architectures or regimes of desire and affect requires a consideration of the constant and complex interplays between distraction and concentration.
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Research essay sample on Fingers To The Buttons Test The Player Distraction
