(Spoiler Warning)
When I was a wee lass I would sit for hours and watch my brother go on massive quests, through dungeon, field and forest to defeat enemies and restore peace and light to the kingdom of Hyrule. It was high entertainment and I would be swept away in the adventure. I think it was more thrilling then any sort of movie or television show because of the personal relationship I had with the hero. When he held that remote in hand, my brother took on the power of Link and his real life force was closely tied to the heart containers at the top of the screen. Each battle he fought was a testament to his bravery and made him that much more heroic in my eyes. And that was all in 2D…
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Recently I was reading an article in Time Magazine on gaming. Specifically within the article there was piece on e-gaming, which seems to be taking the world by storm. South Korea is apparently a hotbed of video game action that is being broadcast through live television feeds and millions are tuning in.
Games have always had the power to bring people together, channel energy and entertain. And as the texture, depth and realism of video games is growing people are starting to understand that our fantasy lives can have a place in reality. Since the beginning video gaming has been competitive not only within the game spaces but in terms of peer to peer competition (who doesn’t remember that 80’s video game competition movie The Wizard?). And what seems to be happening in South Korea is that people are realizing our capabilities within game spaces are far more fascinating then live sports; “The 2004 StarCraft league finals, held in the port city of Pusan, drew 100,000 spectators — a far larger crowd than those of that year’s English F.A. Cup final (71,140) or the Super Bowl (68,206).” So with video gamers being granted star status and being paid to match I believe we are finally seeing a shift that is coming into a true virtually dominated age.
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According to the theory of the universal wavefunction there is, in some sense, a very large, perhaps infinite number of universes in which all of the alternate possibilities of our existence play out. Let us then apply that theory to our imagined universes (video game universes for example) and assume that once a video game universe has been conceived of that it exists, fully functioning, at all times. All we need to do to access it is to enter into the game space and play by the rules, thus the universe enters in and out of our known reality.
Once one of these imaginary game universes exists I believe it can be viewed as its own entity. Detached from its interface, it exists, as our own universe does with operational rules, social structures, myths, heroes, villains, problems and solutions. Detached from its interface it is, in essence, an alternate reality. Then, continuing with this theory, a game interface is simply a way in which we can access a specific game universe and draw it briefly into our own reality.
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