Gaming anger

Anger and games are not something that comes to mind immediately when considering what games are or what they entail. In my personal experience, gaming at a young age resulted in frustration and anger that would otherwise have taken extreme real life (or gamespace) circumstances to produce. Back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, multiplayer games were not well developed, at least, online multiplayer games. When I was playing, I would usually play against the computer, against the algorithms. This was very interesting to me because it made me think that my frustration was the result of another human’s expression through algorithm. It is sort of like a proxy. According to McKenzie Wark, the reason we seek games (and possibly this frustration) is because we want to and are able to in many cases, master these games. As a kid I would often slam the keyboard when the computer cars beat me in Need for Speed. These cars are just polygons and math but they created such rage and anger that one doesn’t really see come out unless relentlessly provoked in real life. Why is it that these algorithms caused so much anger when in reality it doesn’t matter evolutionarily speaking? We feel the need to master them because we know we can master them, even though sometimes it is extremely difficult. Knowing that the game is linear, that it has a beginning and end, we have something to look forward to which is a sort of guaranteed victory. When was the last time you threw something across the room in a fit of rage? When was the last time you yelled FUCK at the top of your lungs at a LCD screen? I would guess that the latter is something that happens more often, but is it a result of human interaction? Well, now that multiplayer games are a primary focus, it seems that human interaction through proxy, or game, is something that can create such anger and rage that it seems bizarre to step back and look at it.

It has become so normal through the use of youtube and other social media sites that exhibit the rage of the gamer. How is it that these algorithms that are created and then partially controlled by humans in the multiplayer setting resulting in fury that is almost on par to that of the character Liam Neeson plays in those movies where he murders hundreds of people. Is this frustration something we enjoy? At the time it seems like we hate it, we hate the game, the whole idea of it. We should be the ones succeeding, not the high-pitched voice middle-schooler on the other side of the zeros, ones, and electric current. Is it more of a sort of riddle or puzzling solving pleasure? Is that part of the fury and frustration? I think this frustration is a necessary part of games that binds us to the actual game itself. The anger created causes us to stay. We failed to conquer the algorithm. We failed to assert our dominance, our pride, so we must press on. WE HAVE TO CONQUER IT. That is what we say to ourselves during games. The sense of success and victory can be satisfying it can be addicting. To illustrate this I used game footage of myself playing a World War II first person shooter. I choose this type of game because it is the most common that I have experienced and see people express the most rage from. The FPS is known to be frustrating because people get so good at it. The skill levels vary so much. Someone who hasn’t played more than one hour is playing with someone who has played for 30 days. To express the idea of rage I used an image of an explosion. It’s cliché but it is so appropriate. How else would you describe it when someone jumps off the couch screaming “NO FUCKING WAY! I HOPE YOU DIE IN A FIRE;” a furious explosion. I wanted to illustrate the rage built up internally and how it explodes in relation to the events in a game. The silence was chosen to accent the power and loudness of the explosion and thus rage. Death in FPS is always an igniter of rage. It’s not always over the top or even expressed, but it is there. These algorithms are setup to provide a challenge that is beatable, but with the added secondary human element in multiplayer games, sometimes the victory cannot be achieved immediately. That’s one of the reasons multiplayer games take up so much of people’s time, they have to work at it, like a craft, to increase their skill, go through the frustration and rage in order to become victorious. My video piece is a very simple illustration of an endless number of variables and processes that result in anger by the playing of games. Coming back to the binding aspect of anger, it is a key aspect that keeps us returning to the game.

Anger and frustration is one of the driving forces that make us spend more and more time playing games. My friends were obsessed with keeping their kill to death ratio above 1:1 in Call of Duty. That ratio has nothing to do with real life or reality, but it becomes a sort of reality they have complete control over. If they aren’t successful then it results in anger, which then results in more time playing games. It’s a crazy cycle that has increasingly become prevalent in our lives today. It will be very interesting to see how the human race evolves in regard to games. Looking back on human evolution it could be that rage was part of the driving force that caused our ancestors to evolve and use weapons or tools. How will that play out in regards to rage and the games we create for ourselves today? War games are the norm today and books like Ender’s Game make us think, where will this rage lead if anywhere?