CS Social Studies

[|hobbes|]

go daily show!

[CabalSoljea]

this would b another reason for us to continue play CS.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

JdeFalconr wrote..

The question becomes, then, at what level of "realness" in a game (such as CS) do actions begin to have true ethical connotations and has CS reached that point?

Well, I take a rather futuristic view of things, I suppose.



When talking about video games, particularly 3D ones, we often talk about "immersion" or "suspension of disbelief" -- basically how much the game makes us feel like we're actually performing the actions we're watching. Certainly there's a more convincing element to today's 3D games than there was in the vector-graphics of years past, but the fact remains that you're looking at a flat image on a screen.



I think the defining line comes at whether a) you're imagining something, with the knowledge that it's not real and not actually happening, or b) you're unsure of whether you're actually performing what you seem to be doing, or even fully convinced that you are. Granted, this is only one guy's opinion here, but that's where I stand on the issue. What would lead to this suspension of disbelief? What could actually trick you into thinking something was real? Perhaps a GeForce FX? Maybe ATI's next generation card running Doom 3? No.



The technology is far beyond anything we have around right now, but I do see a future glimpse of what will be pushing, and perhaps breaking, the ethical lines seperating fantasy from reality. Basically, it involves intercepting all communication to and from the brain, and redirecting it to a computer interface.



Basically you disable all muscle outputs, and instead convert those electrical signals into control for your character in-game. Then you bypass the eyes completely, and send optical signals directly into the brain, so that there's no ability for you to see anything that isn't part of the virtual world. Same thing for your other 4 senses. Obviously, life support signals are allowed to pass through so that you don't stop breathing and such. :)



Basically, what this means is that your body is completely disconnected from your mind, and all interaction is directly within the virtual world. I don't want any of you to think that this will happen remotely soon, because the technology is still a very long ways off. Some of this is being researched, however, and as computer power increases with time, it will become more and more possible.



Think about it for a moment, and tell me what company wouldn't love to be the first to develop a convincing simulation like this? You wouldn't sell units... you'd do "pay to play" on it, because it would be so totally addictive. Violence is just one of the fantasies people would go after, and I'm sure the sex industry would thrive on such machines, sending all the correct sensations to the brain directly to create pleasure or whatever.



It's really scary where that could lead, however. Once virtual reality hits this point, we'll have to ask ourselves a question. If we wake up and have a handgun sitting on our desk next to our bed... are we still in the game or not? Can we shoot someone to find out? If we aren't even sure... how is killing someone in that virtual world any different (as far as our own minds are concerned, not just the effects on others) from doing so in reality?



There's some thoughts to ponder. Thanks for the initial food for thought, JdeFalconr.

[hobbes] wrote..

man u guys totaly lost me

Same hobbes, just not quite smart enough yet. :)

MikeJ wrote..

For an article written by a professor it just seemed to kind of skim the surface and relay what we (gamers) already know. I was hoping for something a little more intricate that went deeper past the surface of what is already apparent to anyone who actually sits down and plays an online action game for more than 30 minutes.

http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/wright/



That is the full article. Read that if you want something a little deeper, though there's still limits. As it was, this was simply a news article relating some details from the actual article, which is much longer. The actual article also doesn't try to say that there isn't a lot of insulting, cheat accusations, and such, but simply says they want to focus on the more creative communication that also happens during CS games, and analyse that some. Interesting read, though very preliminary in my opinion.

[disabled]

reminds me of a similar article I saw somewhere else:



haha

[mouth]

"2) joking, irony and word play"



This is where the article really lost me, as far as being able to take it seriously. In CS, joking is denoted solely by gratuitous smileys and throwaway LOLs, irony consists of someone FBing his own team, and word play rarely surpasses the lofty heights of "GAYwp".



At best, the researchers were incredibly naïve. CS players draw from 'net "culture" and 'net "culture" is derived from human nature, in simplest terms. They would've produced findings far more direct and valuable by just looking at base human behavior and "real world" social interaction. They acknowledge the parallels without actually paying attention to them. These guys get nice shiny nameplates; 1 can be Captain Obvious and the other Captain Extrapolation. The third guy's just gonna have to share.



"We argue that the playing of FPS multiplayer games by participants can both reproduce and challenge everyday rules of social interaction while also generating interesting and creative innovations in verbal dialogue and non-verbal expressions"



Anything that requires 2 or more people to interact with each other in ANY WAY is going to exhibit signs of their respective social influences.



"New Report: People act like people in games, researchers claim

'No shit, Sherlock' responds player"



Cool beans that someone tried to look at online gaming like this. For the life of me, i just can't figure out what the hell they were trying to accomplish by going in the direction they did.

JdeFalconr wrote..

Yeah rizzuh I agree with you, I don't think this bit about fantasy and CS being some sort of experimental outlet is quite on the mark. In fact I think it misses the mark completely. I'm speaking for myself here, but when I play CS I'm not doing so because I really want to know what it feels like to commit acts of terrorism.

The most anyone can assume, as far as fantasy is concerned, is that people play CS because they want to see what it feels like to cock up a terrorist act in every conceivable way. If people were concerned about discovering some insight on terrorist/counter terrorist actions, we'd actually see a much higher willingness of players to complete the objectives.

But ooh what an ethical dilemma this could bring up. Even if we're "experimenting" or "playing with things" that are known to be wrong in real life (i.e. blowing up buildings with C4 or shooting people) is it therefore okay to do these things when there aren't consequences?

Of course it is. The thing is, you cannot really do those things without a slew of consequences. In the event that you could do such a thing and not get caught, the actual consequence happens to be that a building was blown up or a person was shot. Whether these matter to someone or not has absolutely nothing to do with the game.



There is no real ethical dilemma here. In CS, we either bomb or defend, but we do not do it based on beliefs or moral obligation. There's no personal attachment to those goals. There is no REASON for such an attachment.

The question becomes, then, at what level of "realness" in a game (such as CS) do actions begin to have true ethical connotations and has CS reached that point?

Right from the get go do games like CS have "ethical connotations". Cheaters, TKers, spammers, those twats who play .WAVs over voicecomms, etc..



The question is "What the fuck kind of question is that?". This vagueness is really toeing the line of mental masturbation. You're questioning the game so much that you can't see the forest for the trees. What is reality? What is the definition and separator of "ethical" and "unethical"? What constitutes consciousness? Games are wholly irrelevant.

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

Basically you disable all muscle outputs, and instead convert those electrical signals into control for your character in-game. Then you bypass the eyes completely, and send optical signals directly into the brain, so that there's no ability for you to see anything that isn't part of the virtual world. Same thing for your other 4 senses. Obviously, life support signals are allowed to pass through so that you don't stop breathing and such. :)

Yeah. We have that already. It's called "dreaming".

[abel]

If you are so into the game that you in real life, you respond to footsteps by jumping behind the nearest corner, turning around, and aiming your finger at angle near headlevel and waiting for someone to come, I seriously think you need to cut back on the Counter-Strike. its fun and all.. and when you die it can be frustrating.. but it took me a while to burn into my skull that this is a game.. i've had my 5th mouse and 3rd keyboard for a long time and havent really broken anything yet (besides my desk).. so imho, im making good progress.

[azz0r]

This was posted a few days ago right?

[Brutal Sponge]

JdeFalconr wrote..

This article was a very enjoyable read. It's always gratifying to read about someone taking the time to seriously have a look into the game.

I don't think it was taking a serious look at it, there is far more to Counter-Strike and why people play it than mentioned in the article, nevertheless, it was an enjoyable read.

JdeFalconr wrote..

Wow by that criteria then the majority of CS players must be teenage boys. Oh wait...they are...::shudder::

That is what's wrong with Counter-Strike, even though i'm a "teenage boy", I don't whine and insults other peoples mothers when they kill me, or go "omg h4x!!!111 wallha0x!!!!" when i'm shot.

abel wrote..

...I seriously think you need to cut back on the Counter-Strike. its fun and all.. and when you die it can be frustrating.. but it took me a while to burn into my skull that this is a game.. i've had my 5th mouse and 3rd keyboard for a long time and havent really broken anything yet (besides my desk).. so imho, im making good progress.

I don't really get mad when i die, i'll usually just laugh, and wait for the next round, although it is annoying when the remaining two players decide to camp it out instead of taking the "huge" risk of going and killing the enemy. Oh well, there's always Natural Selection.

[JdeFalconr]

mouth wrote...

The question is "What the fuck kind of question is that?". This vagueness is really toeing the line of mental masturbation. You're questioning the game so much that you can't see the forest for the trees. What is reality? What is the definition and separator of "ethical" and "unethical"? What constitutes consciousness? Games are wholly irrelevant.

I'd say that the question isn't at all irrelevant, nor are games irrelevant to the question. When we deal with games that are designed to model or even replicate reality and allow people to take part I would say this is a very important question to ask.

[mouth]

The whole ethical situation in a game that goes that far requires the asking of questions that don't require a game of that nature to be asked. In questioning ethics, we don't need a game that replicates what we already have and are constantly in. The only time morals come into the equation is when the replicated reality directly affects "original reality". Or, more specifically, its participants.



Is it ethical to destroy the fun that other players are trying to have ingame by using an aimbot? Even with the current state of technology, i can generally be a fuckwit and start TKing everyone on my team, which is very much an ethical situation. However, some form of technology-based proto-reality isn't necessary to debate that question of ethics, as i can perform the same basic actions of lameness in the park by tackling my teammates in a game of football. You don't need a computer game to ask whether or not it's ethical to be an asswad. You can play GTA3 while knowing that gunning down random people probably isn't right. Reality doesn't matter, nor does the game itself. The only thing that does matter is whether or not you are affecting another living thing. Cue endless wonderings about what "a living thing" is, A.I., and whatnot.



If there were a game that modeled reality so closely that people actually died when shot, would it be ethical to shoot them? Is it "ok" to blow something up? If so, under what circumstances? Are these not the questions you'd ask yourself in "real life"? If the environment models real life so closely, why would the rules of real life ethics not apply? The fact is that you're skipping a step. It does no good to ruminate on what level of reality does ethics come to play in a game when we don't really have a quantifiable explanation of ethics in reality. Is it bad to really kill people?



Deus Ex goes a long way to give you an experience where your decisions on who to kill and why plays a serious role. Still, i found myself asking "what would i do if this situation were real?", not "Am i going to feel guilty about tapping this guy?". The main separator here is that none of the people i'm killing are actually people. They are not alive. My actions do not affect anyone. Any confusion on the matter is due to our shady understandings on "right", "wrong", and "alive", as well as our tenuous grasp on reality.

[WuTangKillaBeez]

games are neither good or bad. Games are just in the middle. Games are only to entertain us like movies, if you take CS seriously, you got some real life issues and you need to put away your keyboard and mouse. No one plays as a team on pubs, its all about getting the best score and if you play with clans in leagues, no one really cares about his/her score and having a good score in matchs actually doesnt mean squat because you can only win if you play as a team in leagues. As I said, these acticles are a bunch of bullshit. As the acticle said that we play first persons because we are scared of guns and that is not simply true.

[31Charlie]

i guess charlies post wasnt good enough



31C

[Stiffer]

you couldnt keep your mouth shut again mouth :/



btw i remember you from cs-generalforum lolz

[disabled]

[-:Nighthawk:-]

mouth, you bring up some decent points. However, I think the reason we rather much disagree fundamentally with one another over whether virtual reality is at issue or not here is because of the following statement.

The only thing that does matter is whether or not you are affecting another living thing.

I personally believe that the effects you bring on your own mind, the way you affect what you think and such, do matter. Yes, whether you're affecting another living being certainly does matter, but I would argue that doing things that seem wrong to you affects your conscience. That matters, in my opinion. Then again, you seem to be much more relativistic in your views than I am, so perhaps that enters into the equation.



As far as the "dreaming" comment, well, I don't have any active control over my actions in a dream. In dreams, things that would otherwise would seem ludicrous are perceived as normal, and we "react" to these things in stride. I see that as rather different from any virtual world (even if it is a far different reality from what we are used to) where we are directly controlling our actions, and have full control of our mental faculties.



WuTangKillaBeez... I fail to make any sort of intelligent response to your comments, because there's nothing rational there to respond to. If I played you a game of basketball, and kicked you in the nuts while you were playing, would that be okay? Afterall, "Games are only to entertain us like movies" so like you said, you shouldn't take anything that happens in a game seriously. So any form of cheating, fouling, etc should be all fine, because it's just a game, and games don't matter, right? Then you go on to claim that no one tries to work as a team in pubs. From my experience, that is dead wrong. Many don't, but there's a significant number of us who do. In short conclusion, you're a fucking idiot (who happens to think cheating is fine) and your opinions are worthless.



I'd really recommend people read the full article before responding, though. No, I don't agree with all of it, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.