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I’ve always been a bit obsessive compulsive when it comes to games. One lazy summer ages ago, I played Pac Man for 48 hours straight. With over 5 million points and no end in sight, I was “in the zone.” Even after two days of staring at a computer screen and inhaling food without looking at it, quitting never entered my mind. I was ready to see how far the game would let me go. My mother stepped in and ended the streak by pulling the cord out of the back of my Atari 2600. I was mortified, hurt and more than a little pissed off at her. Out of fear for my health, she pulled the plug on my dreams of video game greatness. All the work I put in the game suddenly amounted to nothing.

The collection of art here is a study in the worth of video game rewards. McGonigal quotes a study that found that “5 million gamers in the U.S., in fact, are spending more than 40 hours a week playing games -- the equivalent of a full time job!” Wow. That’s staggering. Why? “According to studies by Daphne Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, video gamers show real-world improvements on tests of attention, accuracy, vision and multitasking after playing certain titles.” That’s a benefit of playing, but not the reason why we play.

A study reported on in Science Daily might shed some light on this subject. “A game can be more fun when you get the chance to act and be like your ideal self,” says Dr. Andy Przybylski, a research fellow at the University of Essex who led the study. “The attraction to playing video games and what makes them fun is that it gives people the chance to think about a role they would ideally like to take and then get a chance to play that role.” According to the article, video games, in a way, are a visceral connection to our childhood, when we often used our imaginations to project ourselves in different roles.

This is awesome. Sign me up. I love to day dream. I love to aspire to greatness, even to heights this sad reality will never allow me to reach. I’m hardwired to love this style of play. Most of us are. Oh, but this sad, gritty reality seldom exceeds our expectations. My art project focuses on the chasing of those dreams in a world that is set to force failure on us.

How many of you have spent hours in front of a computer, playing a game built around a shell of a world, decent graphics, a closely metered leveling system and what seem like paper cut-out quests? Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying games are particularly notorious for this. To a large extent they rely on us to fill in the blanks. Single-player roleplaying games like the Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls series do much the same. They’ve given us the bricks, lumber and paint. We add the mortar, nails and sweat, bringing their world to life. We deftly use the brushes to add the finishing touches to their creations. They give us the scenery; we breathe life into it.

But what are we really doing for over 40 hours a week? The easy answer is sitting in front of a monitor or TV and clicking. Ever get tired of playing a video game? We know this at a basic level. The mind-blowing, genre-defining game that was our favorite last week begins feeling like work next week. Especially fine games can take months to become tiresome. Eventually, no matter how much we love them, the luster fades. Yet, we don’t mind giving up those long hours clicking away in front of a TV for great games. We don’t regret it. We had fun after all is said and done.

MMORPG’s have a unique problem: they have to keep you coming back week after week. How do you keep people coming back long after the glow is gone? Positive feedback. Metered rewards. As an idealized extension of ourselves, it is inherent in us to want our avatars to flourish, gain prestige and even dominate the world around them. By metering these rewards and accomplishments, games keep us engrossed long after the pretty graphics and awesome gameplay’s ability to entertain us has diminished to nothing. Press a button; get a level. Rinse repeat. Most games have a level limit and end of game quests. Once these are complete, the gamer has few options. Keep playing the character through the same old quests for the sheer joy of playing that character, starting over with a different character or giving up on the game. A few games, Like Dungeons and Dragons Online have a built-in incentive program for reincarnating your existing maxed out character back as a first level whatever. For this, you’ll get a minor bonus to stats and new options. All the while, we’re clicking away.

Take a step back and look at what you’re doing. Stripped down to their essence, these games are little more than click, push a button get a level.

Cards

            The cards were one of my first ideas to abstract the gaming experience down to its essence. Yes, we’re enjoying ourselves. Yes, we’re exploring sides of our personalities and dreams we might otherwise let atrophy. In the end, we’re just clicking away in the dark of our psyche. Turning the cards over, revealing the next-Congratulations! You’re now level 2!-one gets a sense of what all those hours with a controller really were. I had a choice of a few different sizes for the cards. Ultimately, I chose this size because it most closely approximated the feel of a controller. I chose glossy black, because it was highly reflective.

Movie

Video games are by their very nature interactive, but many moments of accomplishment in these games force us into passivity. Though we have to follow its predetermined logic, we do our best to force our agency on the game. After plowing through enemies and assimilating the narrative, few things are more satisfying than a creative cutscene that moves the story forward. Yet, this is the antithesis of interaction. We push ourselves to master control of the mechanics of the game so we can have that control taken from us. This movie puts us in a passive trance. The levels scroll by just fast enough to keep us watching.

Calendar

Gamers have a history of scheduling their life around the games they play. Guild raid coming up? Better mark it on your calendar. Tournament in a week? Chances are it’s also marked. Play is a big part of our lives. For some, it takes precedence over everything. After playing DDO regularly for over a year, I wanted to create a calendar that faithfully represented how many people I’ve encountered in that world approach the game. However, Walgreens messed up my calendar and I was forced to rush to patch it in a way that pleased as many of my classmates as possible. Ultimately, I wanted to patch the game in a way that would get me an “A.” Analogy for how publishers approach patching to keep people paying? Yes. I wanted to address as many of my classmates suggestions as possible in the time I had remaining.