I thought I had finally come to understand the message of the grasshopper

"Why should creatures who do not know themselves to be grasshoppers, and who have been playing games thay they do not know to be games, suffer annihilation upon discovering that that is what they've been doing; and why, if they are playing game3s don't they know it?"

I've been reading The Grasshopper from Bernard Suits. It's a strange book and really meshes well with the messages and ideas of Homo Ludens. It's just a shame that so much wisdom has to be wrapped and delivered in a way that is so maddening. I suppose this is the way with philosophy as a discipline, overly wise folk above us so much to the point that a mere riddle will free us from our mortal coils. 

This got me thinking about some things; namely, progress. The Bijker developed concept of the seamless web consists of an unbreaking and unnoticable web of technical, social, economic and political elements to technological developments. This became part of the SCOT frame but also exists within the ANT method. For Video Games, I think this is an important thing to think about.

Ever since we decided to stick some games in some vaccum tubes, we've been obsessed with technological 'advancement'. This typically has meant that things 'look' better. It has never meant that things 'played' better. Sure, there have been some improvements in play through things like hit detection, artifical intelligence, and controller movement, but these things are all part and parcel of the look of a game. My Rainbow 6 Vegas guy can't move or look like Mario, but I still do a lot of the same things that Mario does. 

My question is, "When will this unending chain of technological advancement begin to truly include advancement of the social realm of gaming?"

The interesting thing here is that while there is a social aspect to gaming, the social messages within gaming are never that complicated. "My girlfriend died so I need to bring her back." "My friend got killed so i'm going to find the guy." "Princess got kidnapped again!"

I think that I can bring together a few things i've been reading and hearing around the net to talk about messages in games. Resident Evil 5 is often touted to be callous toward racial relations in other countries aside from it's origin; Nevermind the fact that Japan has some of the most horrible inequality in the world with regard to women. I was listening to Brainy Gamer, pod cast guests N'Gai Crol and Manveer talk about various other types of characters in games (Around 40 minutes in the GDC Volume 1). We can't see this kind of message within gaming until someone, somwhere, goes out of their way to start developing the narriative of games.

An interactive piece of fiction allows us to explore some of the most interesting scenarios we could imagine. The only issue is that we are so reliant on the latest and greatest thing that we take too much time programming the system these things exist in and forget to put in believable ambiance to make that system feel real. There is more to a situation than the flappyness of my pretend priest outfit in Assassin's Creed. 

In any case, I can only hope that the systems after the current gen take a direction away from MORE POWER, and actually demand from their 3rd Parties, games that make us actually feel something. 

I need to start posting these before it's time for bed so I can keep the ideas clearer.