Reality Augmented Games

When a designer creates a video game, a video game being a technical product, a designer, like all designers, engineers, or people who make technical products, are critiquing society. They are looking for a gap or a question that isn’t being asked in reference to some technology or in the design of something, In asking this question, that designer creates a new piece of technology, an answer to that question; a bridge. This idea comes from Bruno Latour in his work Aramis.

The designer of a video game, then, is looking to answer some design question; some technological issue that the previous designer of a similar product came up with. It is this mechanism, this process that keeps things changing. It is this process that keeps design in a constant state of flux.

However, money enters the equation at a wide variety of places. Will this design change impact the sales of the new product? How will a precedent influence consumers? Actor-Network-Theory tells us that the answer to those questions lie within the actors themselves. However, those particular answers are measurable. We can tell how much brand influenced sales with two similar products (in moves, for example: 13^th Floor vs Matrix or Wyatt Earp vs Tombstone). These designs almost universally rely on a similar idea; an established norm; an accepted means through which business is done. In movies, it’s the structure of a story, what characters do and do not know vs the audience, etc.

In video games, these processes exist as well. There are a set number of ways we’ve decided video games are. While a new way appears, it is typically couched somewhere in between two previously established types. Any ‘radical’ game will not be so much radical, but a new translation of an old idea, with a twist.

In video games, as Ian Bogost tells us, we rely on procedure. Procedure dictates how machines do things like draw rocks or how fast an object can thrust upward, or how different mushrooms interact with a particular character. There is no part of a video game that escapes these procedures. It is this predictability that allows us to practice, to become good at a game; at other games like us.

These procedures are always based on translations of realistic things. Rocks fall, like gravity. If I jump, I’m also going to come back down. The procedures of nature become the procedures of things. However, in video games, you can mess around with those procedures. Only, you can’t stray too far or it just doesn’t seem believable. While you can put fantastic things in games: Flight, Lazers, Surfing down from an exploding spaceship on a piece of metal inside a mechanized suit being piloted by the president of the united states, and other such things, those things are always couched in reality.

Reality is inescapable. You cannot design something without referencing it. The point of this post then, is why spend time designing things like cities, artificial intelligence, and other such procedures when the data for those things are out there, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Why should a game like GTAIV worry about designing patterns of traffic for its citizens when expansive studies of New York City’s traffic patterns are done constantly?

Hundreds of thousands of hours are spent programming things we already have data for. Census data, ethnic data, demographic data about sicknesses, traffic patterns, consumer spending, public opinion, gun ownership, if guns make you happier, crime data, property values, voting records, salary data for public officials, and more. Social science drowns daily in the data it has unearthed. You have data going as far back as the origin of statistics.

I suppose, as Lucas Zen Hannon put it, what about reality augmented games as opposed to augmenting reality?

Shenmue tried to do this with almanac data and the weather. Grand Theft Auto IV tried to capture the feel of New York City by having research teams watching the sky:

Because we were working in high definition and we knew we’d need a shitload of research, we wanted to be somewhere where we had a foothold. We have a full time research team here off doing things every day, from how one building looks over another or photo shoots of hundreds of different kinds of pedestrians or video in the sky over 12 hours to see if how we make sky move is correct. There’s so much weird research: The ethnic makeup of every neighborhood. The traffic patterns. To try and get a feeling. We’re not trying to be 100% accurate, but we’re trying to capture the essence of the place.
From Ben Fritz's interview

However, imagine if Grand Theft Auto IV contained up to the minute traffic data for New York City? Concurrently, imagine if Grand Theft Auto IV also held events in the same event schedule as New York City does and created traffic patterns based on the location of those events? If game makers want their cities to feel alive, what better way to do it than to augment their game with live data from a live city?

This opens up a whole new realm of escapism (for good or for bad), whereupon you play yourself, in your neighborhood, in your house, with the normal amount of money you make. What would happen if you, living where you do, suddenly gained some sort of super power? What if aliens came to Earth? Instead of a player having to relate to a character through narrative, the player plays themselves in a fantastic situation. Further, friends living nearby could come over and all take part in what is transpiring. The living, breathing representation of the sum total of social science research can be shared by everyone, or just 1 person. Modular game experiences based on proximity and actual travel to that particular city. The game generates maps and buildings based on real life housing data, maps.

A game that took these things into account would quite possibly be the greatest application of statistical data of all times. The only weakness is the reality of sampling and the distortion of data associated with the weaknesses of statistical analysis.

Please steal this idea.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Redo

Globalization is the term assigned to the general shape of the trillions of business interactions conducted since World War II. There are two loose phases generally linked to sweeping changes in the general epistemology of the first world nations. The first is called the development project. The most simplistic explanation of the development project is a quote from 1949:

“What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair dealing”
– Harry S. Truman

This program, broadly defined and even more broadly instituted through programs associated with the Bretton Woods portion of the Marshall Plan directly after World War II, sought to help those countries that would be developing according to the general belief at the time: Modernization Theory.

Modernization Theory was (and loosely still is) a belief that societies develop in a universally similar, predictable way. By bringing our knowhow to the countries just getting started on this project, we would be helping them do so more quickly. The goal of this project was a universal standard of living that should mimic the most developed country at the time, the United States.

In video games, you can see development ideology at work most blatantly through the game Civilization (and to a lesser extent the games that mimic civ). Civilization breaks modernization theory down to its core mechanic: what that civilization knows. When a country develops a particular area of knowledge, let’s say mathematics, that country has a decisive advantage over those other countries. However, this advantage is only truly an advantage if the local government is stable, income is predictable, and there is a lack of violence from other nations nearby. Further, significant developments inevitably become intertwined with production of weaponry. This weaponry is needed to either scare other nations into making treaties with you or to expand your civilization. Inevitably in all games of Civilization, the “primitive” groups are trounced very quickly. While Civilization, and games like it, pick up on the development project, the turn to the globalization project has not quite made it into video games. However, the mechanism that keeps globalization going, has.

The most simplistic way I can think of to explain the paradigm shift between the development project and the globalization project is the science wars. This war was fought on paper, between those who attacked the idea of objectivity both in the physical sciences and in the liberal sciences. On the one side, you had the post-modernists. These intellectuals believed that objectivity was not possible and that it should not be sought after. A redefinition and recalibration of scientific principles was needed as we had developed our minds well past enlightenment principles (exploration of the rational world through rational means). On the other side are the relativists. This camp believed that there were social factors at work in the construction of knowledge but that the end goal was still a rational exploration of the natural world. The end of this war has left the methodology and epistemology of social research in a state of extreme flux. For the business world, this intellectual exchange signified the conscious shift from development theory to globalization theory.

Globalization theory begins with a post-modern belief applied to the world. Whereas we were all going somewhere together through global development, the irreconcilable differences omni-present throughout the myriad of cultures in the world mean that a globally developed, global society is not possible. Instead, a forced standard of doing business will ensure that products for sale in the major countries of the world can be created for the cheapest price. In other words, culture was partially removed from globalization and replaced with economic standardization.

Within sociology there is a theory developed by Robert K. Merton that places people on a continuum of adaptation to the culturally favored goals of the society they live in. In our case, the global goal is the cultural goal and that cultural goal is an economic one: supreme economic success. Merton tells us there are five ways in which people adapt to the gap between their individual means to achieve the culturally favored goal and the goal itself:

Conformity	+	+	Conformity occurs when individuals accept the culturally defined goals and the socially legitimate means of achieving them. Merton suggest that most individuals, even those who do not have easy access to the means and goals, remain conformists.
Innovation	+	-	Innovation occurs when an individual accepts the goals of society, but rejects or lacks the socially legitimate means of achieving them. Innovation, the mode of adaptation most associated with criminal behavior, explains the high rate of crime committed by uneducated and poor individuals who do not have access to legitimate means of achieving the social goals of wealth and power.
Ritualism	-	+	The ritualist accepts a lifestyle of hard work, but rejects the cultural goal of monetary rewards. This individual goes through the motions of getting an education and working hard, yet is not committed to the goal of accumulating wealth or power.
Retreatism	-	-	Retreatism involves rejecting both the cultural goal of success and the socially legitimate means of achieving it. The retreatist withdraws or retreats from society and may become an alcoholic, drug addict, or vagrant.
Rebellion	+/-	+/-	Rebellion occurs when an individual rejects both culturally defined goals and means and substitutes new goals and means. For example, rebels may use social or political activism to replace the goal of personal wealth with the goal of social justice and equality.

The most useful of these modes of adaptation is innovation. While in video games and technology we often see the commoditized version of this term (a synonym for revolution), this term essentially means using illegitimate means to achieve the culturally favored goal. While we most often associate this with criminals, this mode of adaptation is the very reason that new ways to make money appear. These means can be seen through simplistic things like new products or more complex things like stock market trading. It is through this particular social theory that we can best explain the endgame of the change between the globalization project and the development project:

The development project assumes that we are all heading to the same place culturally and economically. The globalization project realizes we will not head to the same place culturally but takes that difference and rationalizes it. Instead of everyone heading to the same place, we are all heading to a different place but the amount of different cultures are minimized. Citizens are given the same culturally favored goals but are also pressured not to conform to them entirely. Instead, globalization produces a global system of differently flavored innovators.

But this is where everyone is headed, not where they are. What exists now is a combination of these two ideologies: Development and Globalization. The Bretton Wood organizations (IMF, World Bank) are pursuing their new economic goals while all of the old developing nations are pursuing the development goals. The result is a state of confusion that supercharges innovators to take radical measures to ensure their success in pursuing the globally favored cultural goal.

We look down on those radical individuals (or radicalized nations in this case) because, in game terms, they are not acknowledging the magic circle and would be considered cheaters. Cheating is not acknowledging the game’s rules or breaking them entirely. Innovation as criminal is only criminal if the players of the game deem an innovation to be illegitimate. This has lead to the creation of a wide variety of problems that video games then use to give their own games depth: rebellion.

Rebellion, typically in the form of fundamentalism, is a complete and total rejection of the system we use to do business along with the culturally favored goals. This rebellion is presently labeled “terrorism.” In his work entitled Jihad vs McWorld, author Benjamin Barber expresses his concern about the clash between a need to go backward and the ever present need to go forward. In his words, “…in history’s twisting maze, Jihad not only revolts against but abets McWorld, while McWorld not only imperils but recreates and reinforces Jihad” (Globalization Reader: 34). Even in the globalization project, a resistance to itself, a form of reinforcing the need for itself is omni-present. While this seems like Orwell’s greatest fear, all of this is created to maximize the possibility of innovation. In this way, globalization, however confining and destructive to certain aspects of culture, allows us to explore this very central ideological need that has been nigh ubiquitous in every culture the world has produced. We will see this idea becoming more and more central to western sci-fi and themes as we move further into this century. Japan, through video games like Metal Gear or even Final Fantasy, are already exploring that idea.

It is at this point that we turn to the original video game topic of this entry: Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a game that takes place inside the chaotic ecumene of Jihad vs McWorld. The locations of this game are what most people refer to as the global south, periphery, or third world countries. Bolivia, Chilie, and portions of Russia all make an appearance in this game. Video games, especially war games, will rarely take place in a 1st World, or Core country unless it is because of a terrorist act. It is easier to pick these locations because, quite simply, these nations have no face other than “suffering” or “primitive” or “backwards.” They are logically places where conflict will happen.

There are a series of assumptions I want to posit here:

• Because Battlefield: Bad Company 2 wants to be humane, they remove civilians from cities.
• Because Battlefield: Bad Company 2 wants to be a game with destructible environments, they place structures to be destroyed, that should be inhabited by civilians, along every route of the game.
• Further, because these places are considered to be infested with badguys, they must be destroyed in order to destroy the bad guys.

These are assumptions I am making. I am not saying that the game designers thought this way; I am simply trying to make an argument about the a priori, or metaphysical building blocks that began at the design process. In the designer’s mind, I would imagine these ideas never consciously occurred. In no way am I assigning some sort of blame, a person cannot help where or when they are born. The makeup of our knowledge is entirely an action of the society, region, and local area that produced it. However, that we should think about these things is something that should be addressed. As we all live in the current dominant country; however, it will probably not be.

Be that as it may, a significant factor to consider is the main focus of the single player game is that of a non-nuclear weapon of mass destruction. This is to say that BFBC2 makes it a point to show that everyone is in a state of panic, not because of nuclear weaponry, but because of an innovation that people talk about, but had never actually had: Scalar technology (EMP weapons). Scalar technology has become an increasingly used idea in fiction: 24, Escape from New York, Goldeneye, and a few others just to name a few.

Most (some?) Globalization theorists will tell you that the pursuit of nuclear weaponry is of primary concern to a globalizing nation. It is as such that America will physically attack or economically undermine a country that is developing such technology in order to keep them in their place. Once that weapon is created; however, America will change it’s stance and will be willing to enter into peace negotiations. Scalar weaponry, if it exists (it is a central component of conspiracy theory at the moment), serves as the inevitable and forced escalation of mutually assured destruction. These are weapons that can be deployed and, if a preemptive strike at a key location is achieved, there can be no mutually assured destruction. These weapons are the weapons of the cheater according to the current rules. While they are cheating; however, all involved countries will mostly likely continually try to develop them.

Here is another set of assumptions:

• Innovation is a key component of Battlefield Bad Company 2

Innovation is a central concern of BFBC2 through the actions of previous Bad Company title. Continually, higher ups sending these gentlemen refer to their tactics as unorthodox. “Just do like you do boys!”

And here is where a significant, albeit unintentional social criticism takes place.

Assumption:

• The members of Bad Company just want to go home.

This sentiment is an echo of a wide variety of people of people in the world (probably 90+%). People just do what they need to at work in order to get it done and head home. Referring back to Jihad vs McWorld, only the people at either end of the spectrum really and honestly care about pursuing their agenda. Put on a continuum, most people will fall in the middle, or around the middle as not really interested in either agenda.

BFBC2 takes this one step further. People on one end of the spectrum are taking this attitude and are using it to their advantage. Because they are misfits and because they are your stereotypical type of person to join the army (just want to make money, don’t fit in the normal world), they will do their duty without question as long as they are promised a paycheck and some relaxation at the end of the day. It is through these middle of the road types that Jihad vs McWorld pursue their agenda. The power of a person who just wants to go home is wildly powerful.

At the end of the day, Bad Company 2 has a lot to say about the world as it is. Ideologically, it tends to favor the westernization through its messages about why Bad Company is doing what it's doing but overall, it shows the plight of those who have little choice but to do as the higher ups ask. While it may not make absolute social commentary, it does have that unique glimpse to the very mechanism that keeps whatever ization or ism we live in, going. It shows the American disregard for nations that are not our own when we want something from them. It shows our love for guns, money, and just how far we're willing to go to get it. It also shows how much we manipulate the world. Metaphorically, Bad Company are the developing nations and Aguire / Rasputin (can't recall actual name) are the western powers. In a game style mimicked by almost every developer out there, modernization theory, that predictable path to modernity and rewards for hard work can be found ubiquitously throughout this game. If pick yourself up by your own bootstraps just for a little longer, you'll have another plot point.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

I had thought about writing a bit on the basic ideas of Globalization. In particular, I wanted to talk about how globalization, particularly westernization, works. I was going to write a bit about the 3 big theories out there with special care on Wallerstein and on World Culture Theory, but in the end, it's too long and too hard to talk about these things. Instead, I have this amazing 5 minute summary of a much longer coffee house talk from Chomsky on what, exactly, we mean when we talk about Globalization. Watch it, and we'll continue after that:

Light stuff, to be sure. In any case, this is a review. I don't do reviews, truth be told. Games are games and the design of such are ever more rationalized while the indie movements do the opposite of that rationalization, or some mixed mode of what could be the most stable dialectic known to humankind, conformity noncomformity.

In any case, I picked up Bad Company 2. I did it because I got a $20.00 credit to use on another game AND because I was interested in what became of Haggard, Sweetwater, et al. I like the Bad Company storyline because of 3 things:

1). The stories are mostly fun

2). I like the sound that you hear when you are near a large explosion

3). It shows the major reason the elites can continue their endless expansion

This post is about reason number 3. In Bad Company 2 you have two sides fighting for supremacy, The United States and a privately funded mercenary interest. This is a pretty symbolic gesture due to a simple fact. Under the ideas of globalization you have one economy. The IMF, World Bank, and other commercial interests have more than 20 ways to stop a government from doing what it wants to do. As such, a general lessening of the power of the state can be seen around the world. The state still matters, however, as it can be blamed for things. As such, we see a myriad of games whereupon the sovereignty of a nation is threatened directly by a commercial interest wanting to destroy its consumer base. This serves to keep us reminded that this is surely the reason to do the things we do.

So, commercial interests versus the dying idea of a nation state. Bad Company 2.

Guys in the army are typically in a situation whereupon they want to be out of the army because they want the GI Bill, Love the Army, or couldn't find any other alternative for education. Bad Company 2 picks up on this. In Bad Company 1 you had these guys on the "worthless" squad. But through blind luck, grim determination, and want for huge amounts of GOLD, these guys ended up taking down a privately funded mercenary interest.

All of the members of Bad Company have their own sad stories. All of them want to go home. At some point, Redford starts talking about "adult education classes." Haggard just wants to be buried in Cowboy Stadium if he dies. Marlow and Sweetwater seem to be mostly educated. So, you have a Texan, a down on his luck black guy, and two educated white males driving wherever uncle sam tells them to because they just want to get home.

There are some lessons to be learned from this game. First, even if you do things in an unorthodox, or some would say stupid way, you can still accomplish most tasks. Second, the want to go home, rest, or to just finish work is very strong.

It is the central motivation that the characters from Bad Company have. Occasionally, they feel patriotic about what they do but it is still the same devotion to finishing work that keeps them going. Throughout the game, these characters don't care that they are driving through nations that have been devastated by globalization. They don't care that they are destroying entire countrysides of those nations just because they want to go home and get it over with. Bad Company doesn't care that the centers of trade they just decimated will probably have a tremendously negative affect on the farmers making money this season. They just want to go home and they'll do anything they can to get there.

It is through this that globalization, westernization, the rationalization of every aspect of our lives; from video games to to eye surgery, because predictable, comfortable, and safe. Corporations call it crunch time, Army calls it...whatever the army calls it. It is this willingness to soldier on just one more mile that keeps, as Chomsky said, "the system working for those who matter."

Who mattered it Bad Company 2? Did we actually see them? We almost never have a face to the ultimate puppet master even though we write about them all the time. Every super villain, every evil person in control of a global character is just groping for the thing we know that is out there. It's been reduced to such an absurdity though, that all we can do is read comics, watch movies, read books, or play games that can only guess what it's like to be one of those guys.

Western powers have a tendency to call nations trying to develop nuclear bombs a threat to global security. However, the western powers will only negotiate, take seriously, or listen to, those who have nuclear weapons. Games like this make us think that it's because they want to destroy the world.

Conclusion!

Bad Company 2 has a lot to say about the world as it is. Ideologically, it tends to favor the westernization through its messages about why Bad Company is doing what it's doing but overall, it shows the plight of those who have little choice but to do as the higher ups ask. While it may not make absolute social commentary, it does have that unique glimpse to the very mechanism that keeps whatever ization or ism we live in, going. It shows the American disregard for nations that are not our own when we want something from them. It shows our love for guns, money, and just how far we're willing to go to get it. It also shows how much we manipulate the world. Metaphorically, Bad Company are the developing nations and Aguire / Rasputin (can't recall actual name) are the western powers. In a game style mimicked by almost every developer out there, modernization theory, that predictable path to modernity and rewards for hard work can be found ubiquitously throughout this game. If pick yourself up by your own bootstraps just for a little longer, you'll have another plot point.

In short, this game is what an army game should be, an advertisement for the American way.