VIS 201 Visual Culture and Digital Media
Name : Eris Hiu Ying, Wong Student no. 1061049
Lecturer: Dr Carol Archer Date: 14 December 2007
Blog: http://eriswong.blogspot.com/

Digital games as virtual reality and certain influences of experiencing in virtual reality of violence game

Nowadays, many popular Digital games are highly technical and excellent. In fact, some of the games attempt to create those “environments” as real as possible since the higher technical home video game consoles are produced, like PS3, X-Box360, Wii, etc. The purposes of this trend, in certain extends, are making player can be more substitute in the game like being in Virtual reality through the vision, sound and manipulation.

This essay will try to elaborate how virtual reality is being created and the process of operating to virtual reality experience for players; furthermore, discuss about the influences of experiencing in violence games’ virtual reality.

First, before elaborate on those home video games, it’s better to define what Virtual Reality is. According to Wikipedia’s definition, “Virtual Reality can simply define as a technology which allows user to interact with a computer- simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one”[1]. (To further information, it may better to refer to the article of “What’s Real about Virtual Reality?” written by Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr.)

This idea of Virtual Reality was being cleared in a great invited lecture by Ivan Sutherland in 1965[2], “The Ultimate Display,” about the computer graphics, he said, “Don’t think of that thing as a screen, think of it as a window, a window through which one looks into a virtual world. The challenge to computer graphics is to make that virtual world look real, sound real, move and respond to interaction in real time, and even feels real.” Indeed, he suggested the high- fidelity techniques of computer graphics would be able to operate interactively as created a virtual environment by making those effects as real as possible; which seems as a development approach of some newest modes of game consoles.

Under those sensory conditions, spectator is able to operate virtual reality experience in the virtual reality. According to Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr.[3], a best-known software engineer and computer scientist, the definition of Virtual Reality experience as “any in which the user is effectively immersed in a responsive virtual world. This implies user dynamic control of viewpoint.”

Indeed, such virtual reality experience and Virtual Reality technology have been used for pilot or combat training (fig.1), or even medical therapy[4] (fig.2). In these cases, the Virtual Reality is operate with view, sound, responsive action and even certain feel; therefore, their experience are highly- fidelity. Actually, those technology are extremely close to physical world by blocking out those contradictory sensory impressions from the real world; like the head mounted display (HMD) system[5](fig.3).
(fig.1)US. Navy personnel using a VR parachute trainer
(fig.2) (fig.3)

So, home video game indeed have less less degree of creating a high-fidelity Virtual Reality in popular vedio games as those technology above by the limitation of blocking out the physical reality. That limitation is expected to eventually be overcome as processor; imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time. Even so, game players can still be having certain Virtual Reality experience by substituting into the game world recently through certain vision, sound and manipulation. (Game companies are attempting to develop those areas as real as reality) In this essay, I will elaborate how popular home video games create virtual reality via an example of a new video game – “Bioshock”[6]. (fig.4)
(fig.4) (fig.5)
Before taking about “Bioshock”, it’s better to know a brief history about home video game.

The first video game was invented by William Higinbotham[7] (fig.5) on 1958, after that, the first home video games appear until the early 1970s and become widely popular until 1975. (To further information of video games’ history and development, pls refer to the article “The first of Video game” [8]and “A history of home video game consoles”[9])
Nowadays, most of the video games are story-based; it can be seen as the influences by literature and mythology, this is useful to use science fiction, myth and fantasy texts to shape their game narratives. The involvement of literature and mythology can enrich the game world and also enhance to be entertaining successes[10].
The experience of playing this kind of games is more similar with watching movie, but more substitute into the virtual world. And the story-based structure may give the gamer more ideas about the imaginative world and being a mean for player substitute into it. Moreover, first-person shooter[11] and role-playing video game will cause higher rank of substitution.
“Bioshock” is a first-person shooter and role-playing video game designed by Ken Levine, and is available for the PC and the Xbox 360 video game console. It was released on Aug 21, 2007. The game received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and ranks as the thirteenth best video game on Game Rankings based on reviews from critics[12]. This game is setting in 1960, an alternative history; the game places the player into a plane crash survivor called Jack, who accidentally goes into the underwater Objectivist-dystopian city named Rapture, full of the mutated beings and mechanical environment.

“Bioshock” can be seen as an artificial virtual reality world by the forms of story telling, manipulation, vision and sound.

First, the story telling bases of the game mainly brought by those Computer Graphics fragment (CG); the first CG of “Bioshock” is the opening, I mention before, it gives a basic ideas for player substituting into the game world, even though the world isn’t same/ familiar as our physic environment, it sets in an undersea 60’s like city – Rapture; after the opening, player have got the basic concepts of “the world”, than, the game started to allow players taking control the character movement through the buttons.

This kind of Computer Graphics fragment (CG) not only appears in the opening and ending, but throughout the whole game while players arrived to certain place or under certain condition; it’s called “Event”, Event quests are a useful way to gain experience and to obtain some rare items; sometimes, event will lead to decision making of player, and the decision of player may lead to an alterative plot or even ending. For example, in “Bioshock”, under certain condition, player will meet “little sister” (fig.6), the game will ask a question about kill her or not which actually is a key condition to alter the ending.
(fig.6)In this case, players are not only empower to control the persona action, but, in substitute to playing the role of the main persona – Jack for decision making, in certain extended, the game allows player make decision to alter the story, like reality.

Furthermore, in term of the vision, “Bioshock” is a first-person shooter game, which means “a first-person view where the main character's gun and part of his/her hand is shown, almost always centered on the act of aiming and shooting handheld weapons.”[13] Indeed, the perspective of first-person shooter is very similar to our vision in reality, people are mostly can view their hands only, and first-person view does making player substitute into the view point of being Jack.

In addition, the CG of “Bioshock” is excellent; the environment of game is 3D and detailed that highly- fidelity close to our reality. Moreover, the view points are always changing by the manipulation of changing direction and action of persona and providing the synchronic visual feedback on the screen, which make player being in the Virtual Reality experience on vision for it providing many visual cues[14] for player to perspective as 3D space inside the screen; for example, the view point will change according to the virtual position of the player, the thing “seem” close when player get closer; when the persona is being attack, it will cause a shaking scenes; or even when player break the glass, the glass will break synchronically, etc.

On the other hand, the sound effect of the game also is a important elements to create a virtual reality, in “Bioshock”, that is Stereophonic sound, which “is the reproduction of sound, using two or more independent audio channels, through a symmetrical configuration of loudspeakers, in such a way as to create a pleasant and natural impression of sound heard from various directions, as in natural hearing.”[15] This kind of sound dose make the game world become more “real” by the different sound output of loudspeakers that create a illustion sense of 3D space. Moreover, this game dose excellent in the detail of those surrounding sound in the game reality, for example, player will hear the water dropping, breaking glass, video sound and shocking sound, etc; those sounds are also help to bluid up a virtual world that siminlar to our physical world would heard in that environment.

However, all the virtual reality experience in this game is not complete for the limitation of hardware. Obviously, it is not the time for home video game being able to use head mounted display (HMD) system or even providing touch sense as well as smell and taste. The existence of synesthesia[16] is limited in virtual reality recently and far distance to physical reality because of the sensory conflict[17] of the different sensory systems.

As Ivan Sutherland in 1965[18] mention, “The challenge to computer graphics is to make that virtual world look real, sound real, move and respond to interaction in real time, and even feels real.” Recently, some home video games are able to make their virtual world visually real (on screen), sound real, visually move and respond to interaction in real time, etc. But there is still having the limitation of technique; home video game doesn’t blocking out those contradictory sensory impressions from the real world.

Further, the experience may different for different players refer to their display of screen and loudspeakers qualities. Some of the screens and display cards are not able to display the full quality of the high-fidelity CG; and the Stereophonic sound can not be delivering by one single loudspeaker.

Even so, the virtual reality experience do operated to player by the active substitution. As Sutherland suggested, “Don’t think of that thing as a screen, think of it as a window, a window through which one looks into a virtual world;” which implied certain “make believe” process is needed. The experience of being in virtual reality by home video game is more similar to hypnosis[19]. Players substitute into the virtual game world by their self-hypnosis that focusing their attention on the display, and also “let go” and accept those displayed suggestions.

The responsibility of the game world is to provide those “cues” of the artificial virtual world as well as possible that provides a higher believable or imaginable suggestion for player. However, the main element of substitution and the degree of experiencing in the virtual reality depends on the player him/herself, the hypnotic susceptibility [20]of the player to become hypnotized that being in the virtual world, it need the cooperation with the players how they’re “believing” in to it.

In addition, in most cases, the game virtual reality won’t make confusion with the physical reality. This question may significant explained by Noel Carroll’s cognitive approach[21] about horror film. He argued that people did clear to divide “real horror” or “art horror”, if people experience horror in daily real life, the reasonable response is leave, however, audiences of horror film are rare leave the cinema while they experiencing the “horror” in film, and it’s because audience do make believe to substitute in certain extents, but also know the “art horror” is not real.

If apply Carroll’s approach to the experience of being in game virtual reality, it is clear to know that once player keep that thought in mind, that will difficult to make confusion between virtual reality and physical world, but still highly substitute and experience in the game reality and playing the role.

Therefore, some critics argue about the violence game is the cause of crime like “The Columbine High School massacre”[22]; they raise a controversy about the “the first-person perspective adds a level of imitable realism to the act of killing, and that FPS desensitizes gamers to this sort of behavior”[23].

Indeed, although player are concessiously know the different in reality and the virtual one, even may know some action are restricted in real life; the game reality may stilll possible for player practicing or modeling on such violence behavior via the virtual reality experience.

On one hand, the first person shooter game can be a platform for player practicing shooting, like being some of the combat training of army, even though the senses in game are not fully accurate and senory synesthesia, it still gives player certain virtual experience about shooting to people (fig. 7), i.e., shooting to the head would get extra credit; it might be the cause of the killer of “The Columbine High School massacre”[24] often shooting at the people head.
(fig.7)
Indeed, there is no any evidence to prove that those violence video games directly cause to violence act. However, those video games have play the role of giving space for players to stalk and attack to humanlike figure or even human, which desensitizes those gamers to this sort of behavior, as well as giving a space for them to learn and do it.

According to the study of Anderson & Bushman (2001)[25], they concluded that violence game do increase aggressive behavior in children and young adults. On the other hand, playing violence video game is cause to increasing physical arousal and aggressive thoughts (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Fleming & Rickwood, 2001), and even encouraging imitation of aggressive actions, and lead them to be aggressive in real life.

After all, those evidences show that it is impossible to say those video games are causing nothing negative to people while playing video game is higher degree of interactive, active and substitution than other passive perceiving media, the game world is a kind of virtual reality. The influences of playing video games may not very obvious but do effecting on children or teenage mentally or action being aggressive.

To sum up, beyond the limitation of senory synesthesia, most of the home video games do create a virtual reality by the realistic CG, Stereophonic sound and interactive manipulation; and the virtual reality experience is provoked by the active self- hypnotized into the “world” following those “cues”.

However, some of the games are bloody and violence, especially those first person shooter games; the substitution of being in that violence virtual realities may cause certain bad effects on children or young adults to their real life.


[1] “Virtual reality”, form wikipedia, retrieved from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality
[2] Brook Jr., F.P. (1990). “What’s Real About Virtual Reality?”, IEEE Computer Graphics And Applications, retrieved from http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/WhatsReal.pdf
[3] Brook Jr., F.P. (1990). “What’s Real About Virtual Reality?”, IEEE Computer Graphics And Applications, retrieved from http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/WhatsReal.pdf
[4] Virtual Reality Medical Centre, 2007, retrieved from http://www.vrphobia.com/
[5] “Head mounted display (HMD) system”, form wikipedia, retrieved from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Mounted_Display
[6] “Bioshock” (2007) official website, retrieved from, http://www.2kgames.com/bioshock/enter.html
[7] “The first video game”, Brook haven history, retrieved from, http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/history/higinbotham.asp
[8]“The first of Video game”, Brookhaven History, 2007, retrieved from, http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/history/higinbotham.asp
[9]“A history of home video game consoles”, InformIT, 2007, retrieved from, http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=378141&seqNum=1
[10] Douglass C. Perry, May 17, 2006 ,“The Influence of Literature and Myth in Videogames”, IGN.com, http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/704/704806p1.html
[11] “First-person shooter genre”, form wikipedia, retrieved from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter
[12] “Game Rankings”, retrieved from, http://www.gamerankings.com/

[13] “First-person shooter”, form wikipedia, retrieved from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter
[14] Coon, Dennis. pp213-239, “ Introduction to Psychology”. Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning. BelMont. 2004.10th ed.
[15] “Stereophonic sound”, form wikipedia, retrieved from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound
[16] Coon, Dennis. pp175-177, “ Introduction to Psychology”. Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning. BelMont. 2004.10th ed.
[17] Coon, Dennis. pp. 201-202, “Introduction to Psychology”. Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning. BelMont. 2004.10th ed.
[18] Brook Jr., F.P. (1990). “What’s Real About Virtual Reality?”, IEEE Computer Graphics And Applications, retrieved from http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/WhatsReal.pdf
[19] Coon, Dennis. pp. 264-266, “Introduction to Psychology”. Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning. BelMont. 2004.10th ed.
[20] Coon, Dennis. pp. 264-266, “Introduction to Psychology”. Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning. BelMont. 2004.10th ed.
[21] Carroll. Noel, from “The Philosophy of Horror”
[22] Ames. Mark, “EXCERPT: The Scene of the Crime Was the Cause of the Crime”, AlterNet. Posted October 3, 2005., retrieved from, http://www.alternet.org/story/24801/
[23] “Video game controversy”, from wikipedia, retrieved from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy
[24] Ames. Mark, “EXCERPT: The Scene of the Crime Was the Cause of the Crime”, AlterNet. Posted October 3, 2005., retrieved from, http://www.alternet.org/story/24801/
[25] Coon, Dennis. p.321, “Introduction to Psychology”. Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning. BelMont. 2004.10th ed.