Written by Zack in early 2007

Recent technological advances in video games are helping to bring about a new era of interconnectivity and equality. Games have a way of offering a unique glimpse into an amazing world, and a way of drawing us in to the action by encouraging us to explore and learn. Up until recently, the main gateway through which a player could interact with the environment was with a controller or keyboard by pressing buttons. Interaction with others in a game was limited to family or friends who were in the same room as you were. Creating games that were accessible and understandable to a wide range of people simply wasn’t possible. Now, however, new technologies (such as the availability of high-speed Internet and motion-sensitive controls) are breaking these barriers.

For example, examine the young boy playing the Nintendo Wii in the first picture. It is quite clear that he has a physical disability that prevents him from being able to partake in certain physical activities in the same manner as someone without a disability. In some physical disabilities, such as Cerebral Palsy, it is common for the afflicted person to lose fine motor control. Up until the release of the Nintendo Wii, mainstream gaming has relied on the use of increasingly complex controllers. The original Nintendo Entertainment System, released in 1983, relied on a directional pad, start and select buttons, and A and B buttons. The GameCube (the Wii’s predecessor released in 2001) relied on a complex control scheme of A and B buttons, L and R buttons, X, Y and Z buttons, a directional pad, and two joysticks. This overwhelmingly complicated control scheme had a steep learning curve and made it impossible for people with severe motor control disabilities to interact with the game’s environment.

The Nintendo Wii’s main controller is motion sensitive and places the main two buttons right beneath the thumb and index finger. This simplified control scheme has allowed game developers to create games that make use of intuitive movements. In the game Wii Sports, simply swinging the controller allows the player to hit homeruns, bowl strikes, and serve in Tennis. In addition to making games much more immersive, the Wii’s controller makes it much easier for the physically disabled to play video games.

Now let’s take a step back and look at the entire photograph. Here we have what is presumably a family, all gathered in one room and having a great time. In today’s fast-paced society, getting the entire family together for anything can be a challenge. Video games offer a good excuse to bring families together and share in the fun. Everyone is engaged in the game. Even the two women on the sides of the photo appear to be absorbed in the action as much as the children. The amount of enjoyment they are sharing is clearly evident in the smiles on their faces. In my own life, some of the best memories I have are of me playing video games with my dad.

However, interconnectivity isn’t limited to strengthening already present friendships. The rise of Internet access in many homes around the world has opened up a new medium for interacting with others, regardless of distance or language. The second image of the group of teenaged boys demonstrates the widespread popularity of online games. Although it isn’t known, I would guess that this picture was taken in an internet café somewhere in Asia. These cafés have grown tremendously in popularity in countries such as China and South Korea, and are often the meeting spots for groups of friends who belong to the same guild in a certain online game. Guilds can be composed of gamers from every part of the world. When I was an active guild leader in the game Guild Wars, my guild contained not only friends I knew personally, but people from other parts of the United States, Canada, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Europe with whom I formed friendships. In most major online games it is uncommon not to encounter a gamer from another country. Although all the young men in the picture are presumably playing the same online game, they probably aren’t all in the same location in the game itself. Some of them could be defending a castle from the enemy, while others could be across the game’s world mining some rare gems to sell for the game’s virtual currency.

A powerful draw for these games isn’t necessarily the diversity they offer, but the fact that everyone starts out with a fair chance to become the most skilled fighter, the best miner, etc. The character the gamer makes after launching the game is his or her virtual representation through which he or she can interact with the game’s world. This virtual representation is free from the unfair and unwanted traits of its creator. Players of these games can be tall, short, skinny, overweight, or anything else, yet they can have complete control over how they look in the game. The handicapped boy can become a character who can hit homeruns and the girl can become a major league pitcher. While they are playing the game, they are in a world of true equal opportunity.

The teenagers in the second image represent what I earlier referred to as the “hardcore gamers”. Most games are aimed toward this group. One of the first things I noticed about this photograph when compared to the one of the family was that not one of them was smiling. This may be due to the nature of the game they are playing. From the computer screens that are visible, they are playing an online game called World of Warcraft. Although this game (and many other online games) is often noted as being incredibly fun and addicting, they also require total concentration during many parts of the game in order to ‘win’. Most online games like World of Warcraft do not have an ending, and require several hours (and several weeks) of playing time to completely develop the character’s attributes. This sort of game stands in stark contrast to the game the family was playing in the first photo. Wii Sports is a very lighthearted game that was made to be instantly playable by the general audience and doesn’t require multiple hours of playing time to master. Shigeru Miyamoto, one of the world’s most celebrated game designers, summarized the strengths of Nintendo’s latest console when he said “I think the greatest strength of the Wii is that it allows you to create games that are very intuitive and very easy to pick up and play, such that people who’ve never played a video game before can easily pick up the controller and start playing”. Despite the contrasts, both of these types of games utilize a connected, multiplayer environment. One could argue that playing a game with someone else offers a much more dynamic experience for those involved, and, as a result, makes it that much more enjoyable.

Until recent times, what was seen as the ‘gamer culture’ was embodied by the individuals in the second photograph. The industry seemed to think that this large target audience was the only group that would be interested in buying video games. Although the teenage market is large and generally willing to spend (their parents’) money on ‘unnecessary items’ such as music and games, the gaming industry had perhaps become too narrow in its focus. The general population had stopped playing video games because they were becoming too complex and required too much time to complete. The online game Guild Wars makes use of almost every single key on the keyboard, and to be responsive in the game, players have to commit many of these key meanings to memory. As a result, complicated games which take lots of time to beat generally attract those with lots of time to spend; namely teenagers. However, the intuitive approach is getting noticed by many game developers because of families like the one in the first picture. The technology has finally been developed to allow a complicated series of key presses to be turned into a simple motion that many people understand. Games built around this technology are attracting an audience that is much larger than the ‘hardcore gamer’ group. Many families who have been neglected by the gaming industry or were disinterested due to the complexity of the games are now part of the ‘casual gamer’ group that is helping to redefine the gaming industry.

In conclusion, the two photographs depict two very different gaming perspectives yet both reveal how new technologies are allowing unprecedented levels of interconnectivity and equality in gaming. Online games that take advantage of an intuitive, motion-sensitive control system are already in development. These developing titles will make the gaming experience that much more enjoyable and dynamic for everyone from the physically handicapped to the ‘hardcore gamer’ group in many areas of the world.