Project One (now with home shopping)

Project One

Commodity in Video Games

      For the first project, I wanted to explore the idea of commodity in video games. Commodities, in economics, are goods for which there is no “qualitative differentiation” – meaning there is really no distinction between products – they are of uniform quality and value. I thought it was interesting how often this is employed in video games. Especially since it could be argued that this could apply to items in-game that are not part of a game’s own economic features; like items such as collectables.

     I wasn’t satisfied with the idea I first had for this project, and in the eleventh hour this concept and this issue came to me. What intrigued me would be the translation of in-game items into reality, and how that would manifest. I was thinking about how a player’s character can store raw meat and other perishables in their inventory and never having to worry about it going bad. Or the fact that the inventory itself – which can often be a mere backpack, satchel, etc. – seems to be like some sort of black hole; containing not just an excessive amount of items, but often items that are not tangible. The idea of in-game commodities followed. One aspect I wished to explore was how we devote so much time and effort to acquiring some in-game items. People will play a game for hours on end, repeating the same action or repetitively engaging in the same fight for a chance to get a “rare” item. But it’s not even tangible, at least to the player – and could be gone in an instant if their game breaks or their save file is deleted. I thought how peculiar this was; I mean, even though I understand it and have done it before – and especially since some of the items that gamers toil endlessly to get – frustration and multiple searches on gamefaqs happen with astonishing frequency – items that, in real life, we’d balk at. Collecting feathers across a country? Collecting herbs from one end of the earth to the other? It just seems so ridiculous.

     I chose to express this in the format of a home shopping television show, which, first of all has great potential for hilarity, but also because I think it works really well for what I’m trying to express. Home shopping, in a way, is much like gaming; there's an element of escapism to it, there’s a timer ticking down to the moment when the deal ends, and sometimes you’re pitted against other home shoppers in a race to buy the product being sold before it runs out of stock. More often than not, the products bought through these networks are not necessities, but rather luxury items just like many in-game items are to us in both the in-game and real world. Also, of course, there’s the part where home shopping is, obviously, done from the convenience of the house like video games are.

     Other issues I wanted to bring up were the fact that we pay actual currency to obtain items for our games – which, and I’m not talking about extended gameplay DLC, but rather the $4 you would pay for your avatar to change their outfit. And, on a less serious note, how the stylized items would translate to the real world…and my project tackles this a little perversely.