Daniel Golding is writing a PhD on the spatial element of video games. Photo: Simon SchluterThe reach of these games is expanding with the take-up of smartphones and tablet computers. A recent study by the head of media communications and technology at Bond University, Jeffrey Brand, found that about 95 per cent of Australian children under 15 play video games.
Usage is also rising in other demographics, helping propel the industry to stratospheric financial heights. Here in Australia, home to some of the world's pre-eminent gaming developers, the sector (there are more than 1600 Australian video game companies) is growing by more than 15 per cent a year, and is projected to earn revenue of $4 billion this year. That means it is contributing almost as much to our economy as agriculture.
Globally, video games have eclipsed other leading cultural forms. Research company Gartner recently released a report showing games generated $US67 billion last year and are estimated to bring in close to $US75 billion ($A71 billion) this year. That makes them bigger than the music, movie, book or DVD industries.
Jeffrey Brand reckons they are on track to become the main educational tool in the classroom.
Melbourne University academic Daniel Golding is here in The Zone to champion the legitimacy of video games, to dispel the cliche that they are the bastion of young males and to assuage concerns they are a waste of time and, worse, somehow a corrupting influence.
"Both men and women love games. In terms of why there are cultural problems, or perhaps the unwillingness to embrace video games, there are many, many reasons I could mention. It's treated either as something that's quite horrible generally across the board or something that's going to make our kids stupid and do all sorts of horrible things to them, or on the other hand something that's quite exotic and weird.
"And, of course, the reality is that it's not either of those things, it's essentially just another entertainment form, another cultural form and I don't think there's anything inherently right or wrong, positive or negative about it."
Golding is particularly interested in the spatial element of video games, the subject of the PhD he is writing. He grew up exploring the imaginative environments created by games developers, and thrills to the wonderful worlds being created.
He's got company. CityVille is the most popular game on Facebook, itself the most popular place on the net, with more than 750 million active users. There are now about 85 million people — about four times the population of Australia — playing CityVille, a social city-building game released by juggernaut developer Zynga as recently as December last year. CityVille knocked another Zynga hit, FarmVille, from the top spot. There are still 84 million monthly users of FarmVille.
The graphics on these two major successes are good, but not as sophisticated as the spaces presented by some other games. Among Golding's favourites are Portal 2, a puzzle platform, and Red Dead Redemption, a beautiful homage to the spaghetti western.
He says this genre of games takes the ability to transport people, traditionally the domain of cinema, to the nth degree, for once actually justifying the hackneyed language of advertising and PR that such spaces create "a living, breathing environment".
"I know some virtual spaces better than I know some real spaces. In fact, I know some real spaces because of virtual spaces. I went to New York two years ago, and this was after I had been playing a game for a while with a GPS-perfect re-creation of New York, and I was able to navigate around the city because of that game.
"Spaces really give games their texture and their flavour . . . It's true that often the best characters in games are their environments. It feels almost in a sense like tourism, returning to a place you have not been to for a while or going back to a country you haven't seen for a while, something like that. It's what really excites me about video games."
Daniel Golding, a marvellous melange of sagely gravitas and youthful verve, stresses he is not an evangelist. Just as there is rubbish to be found alongside the classics in film and music and literature, there is flotsam in the flow of video games.
"Certain sectors of video games, especially in the 1990s, fell into a cycle where they were sort of trying to gain attention and notoriety by being violent and presenting the craziest and most outrageous images possible.
"That is still maintained in video games as an entertainment form in general, where it's not unusual to see a game that is essentially selling itself on how hard it is. And I'm not necessarily against violence and video games, I think it's something that is perfectly acceptable to be explored, but some of the more ultra-violent things are not to my taste.
"Also, video games generally don't have a good track history when it comes to representations of women and when it comes to representation of minorities. They can be homophobic and there have been several instances where accusations of racism wouldn't be too far off."
But, at their best, games are didactic as well as entertaining, and are starting to explore a role in news and editorialising, working with traditional media.
"There was a game called September 12th, which I think is really fascinating and was released, I think, in 2003 by an activist game designer.
"It was released about six months after the Iraq war had begun. You are in charge of strategic strikes on a Middle Eastern village and that's the only thing you can do in the game, to choose where the strikes are going to take place. But the game is actually completely unwinnable, in that every strike you do just takes the regular citizens and turns them into terrorists."
Another example he cites is Cutthroat Capitalism, developed by Wired magazine, which is set in the Sea of Aden and reveals some of the economic factors behind piracy. There are also popular budget-balancing games that explore the difficulties of public policy in a parliamentary democracy.
Australia is seen as a hub of gaming creativity, with Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane particularly powerful. Melbourne is home, for example, to developers Firemint — internationally famous for Flight Control and Real Racing — and Blue Tongue, which gave de Blob to the Nintendo, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii crowd. Each year, the Freeplay festival, held at Melbourne's State Library, brings together aficionados and regular fans to examine the industry.
Where that industry is heading is impossible to predict, such is the pace at which it is evolving. But that it has arrived smack in the middle of our lives is beyond doubt. Here's Daniel Golding's advice to parents and carers: "The most consistent thing that has come out of studies of how children interact with video games is not that they desensitise or traumatise, or that they help them become obese, or any of the traditional things you might necessarily expect.
"It is that video games are generally a socialisation tool for kids, and that kids who aren't allowed to play video games are actually more likely to be excluded from social circles because it is now what kids do . . .
"Understanding what your child is playing can be rewarding for you as well. There is a classification scheme in Australia, but I don't think just basing your decision on whether your child can play a game on that is as good as just simply sitting down with them and seeing what they are doing."
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/fun-and-games-20110807-1ihid.html#ixzz1UQjTAVLV
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