The Pull of Altered Reality / Sympathy for the NPC

~tetris

Right up until my mid 20's, there was nothing I wanted to do more than to play video games.

As I got older, work started to dominate my evening and then my nights, and then work itself became the hobby I couldn't put down. However, every now and then, I see a video of some new shiny triple-A game that appeals to me, and I feel the call of the controller.

Cheats and Mods

Now as a kid, I used to enjoy these games in their vanilla fashion, but nothing would stop me from going onto online forums and searching out for the official cheats that I could use to modify the game to better achieve the game goals.

Better yet, were the *unofficial* cheats such as GameShark, which work like modern day trainers today: finding the fixed portions of memory that relate to a certain stat (e.g. health, money, damage), and modifying that stat for fun-related reasons. As a kid, GameShark seemed like complete magic to me: "How does it come with all these cheats inside?"

As I got older, I moved away from the console gaming and more towards PC gaming, where real modding communities were thriving (and still are, more so than ever before), and it was here where I learned what I truly enjoyed about these games: Modifying them to better suit my desired reality.

Sandbox games such as the Sims, Morrowind/Skyrim, and GTA really piqued my interest here, and I would fashion out these intricate realities based on these worlds where I could really project myself onto my character and Mary Sue my way through the game until I myself got sick of how easy it was.

This was only made possible through modding. The games themselves restrict your freedoms on purpose, mostly in order to keep the game objectives from being absurdly easy, but also mostly to increase your enjoyment.

Gamer God Complex

Here's a thought exercise - imagine being God: having all the power to change your reality, to get everything you ever wanted exactly when you want, being able to defeat your foes by snapping your fingers. That God would soon be very *very* bored of always getting their way.

And this was something that often happened with me, I would play a game, mod the game to some desired degree, and then defeat the game through cheats, effectively removing the challenge that made the game fun in the first place.

As a full time working adult, this had the incredible benefit that I would get bored of a game very quickly, and could then refocus my energies on my usual day-to-day tasks. Contrast that with my teenage self who would obsessively try to beat a game the regular way for weeks, losing sleep and losing time spent towards more healthy activities.

There has to be better way though. One where the game would be modified to the desired degree, but still be enjoyable.

A Bored God

What does a God do then, when he is bored?

I'm guessing he tries to appreciate the world he has. Yes, the game presents no more challenge to him, but he can still slow the game down when he wants and marvel at his champion dodging the swinging blows of the blade wielding demon like a masterful pre-cognitive acrobat.

He could then record this encounter, and play it back to himself from the perspective of the demon; imagining the growing rage of watching this puny, under-dressed weakling of character, deftly dodge your best attacks with lightning reflexes that no mortal should have. "How did such an inexperienced champion suddenly become a master swordsman?" he would wonder.

God would crack out a wry grin, sip from his beer, and quip out an anecdote that would go into some unofficial in-game bible, with some half-thought drivel like "never underestimate those you deem to be lesser than you" or something.

God might then decide to put a silly hat onto the demon without him knowing, and giggle himself silly at the idea of the next champion being so dumbfounded at the wardrobe malfunction that he lets the demon cut him in half without any protest.

Leaning on the Story

At first I was projecting these silly little stories onto the characters, forcing my own desired narrative for comical purposes. But once I got into it (and by that I mean a few more beers deeper), I really started to wonder about some of these characters.

For instance, one of the NPC bystanders in my GTA game had just witnessed a man fall out of the sky in front of them with a jet exploding over their heads and setting the surrounding shrubs on fire. Their reaction was to fall backwards in shock, stand up, yell "oh my god!" and then whip out their smart phones to record the incident.

This is not entirely out of line with reality, with the exception that the bystander did not have the mental faculties to perceive what the situation might mean for them: i.e. that they might be in danger, or that they should try to help. With the next-generation of games, a future bystander might have this perception to feel the reality of the situation around them, and might be more immediate to scramble away, to scream, to call for help, and likewise to offer a helping hand themselves.

Reflections

As an NPC in this real world of ours, there are horrors happening not even a few hours away, and yet to me seem to exist primarily through a screen of biased news reporting and social media videos. Just yesterday I saw one of a helicopter being blown out of the sky by an anti-aircraft missile, of a sparse unarmed crowd walking calmly towards soldiers shooting above their heads. I've heard first-hand reports from friends and colleagues of the horrors their relatives have had to endure, of the string of orphans filling up the childrens wards, of the rising energy prices the conflict will produce, as the world readies itself for an even hotter summer than before....

Maybe the bystander in that GTA game wasn't under perceiving the situation. Maybe they knew exactly what it meant, but they were just so numb to the constant worsening state of affairs around them, that the only thing that made sense to them in that moment was to pull out their smart phone and watch the whole thing unfold.