Games and culture/history/myth

[Tigranes]

Folks,

 

Something I've been curious about for a while, and now will tangentially bear on a small paper of mine. Do games play any role in your exposure to or thoughts about different cultures, history, myth, religion and ritual? I don' t necessarily mean that in a typical 'are games educational' sense, since I think that's rather silly and limiting. I'm asking more generally about being able to access and play around with history/culture through games, or games shaping your impression about those bygone times / faraway places. I'd love to hear about some examples, whether it's any different from movies or books, etc.

 

E.g. for my part, I've always preferred games to other visual media like film, and when I moved to New Zealand at age 10, I suddenly discovered Baldur's Gate and Final Fantasy (I'd been mainly playing Sonic, before). I remember that in the process of looking up walkthroughs online, no less, I found out FF7/8's summons were a mishmash of Hindu, Arabic, Aztec and other spirits; and later, of course, I'd find obvious similarities between Western high fantasy architecture / art style in games like BG and medieval styles. I also remember Age of Empires and Civilization actually helping me synthesize the stuff in History classes (and find them more interesting).

 

Looking back, probably because I wasn't a big fan of TV or films, I found that a lot of my impressions about things like the inquisition, Crusades, shamanism, monks, etc. came from a combination of 'serious' books on history and their derivative portrayals in games. I don't think it was ever about games giving me the 'wrong' idea about those things, but the fact that even if the games weren't focused on delivering an accurate portrayal of those things, they were still a big factor in me enjoying the games and imagining different cultures and historical periods.

 

(Hrmm... here or WOT? Oh well )

[Gorgon]

It probably helps good stories become a part of popular culture as much as movies.

[Orogun01]

It probably helps good stories become a part of popular culture as much as movies.

The Epic of Gilgamesh starring: Megan Fox.

 

Yep, totally see that happening.

[LadyCrimson]

Do games play any role in your exposure to or thoughts about different cultures, history, myth, religion and ritual?

Mm....I'd say generally not. There have been random instances of hunting for game info and coming across mentions of what historical things were an influence to the game, but usually I was aware of those historical culture things already. Not because I'm some kind of super history buff, but because I tend to play games that are set in cultural periods of history I'm interested in...eg Rome.

 

Movies/TV definitely does it to me a lot more, where after watching something (whether fiction or documentary) I may run to my PC and do a search out of curiosity re:known recorded fact vs. subjective fiction or conjectured opinion.

 

Since games are about me manipulating rules/gameplay for a certain outcome (including outcomes that aren't historically accurate at all), they don't tend to move my brain towards that kind of curiosity. Or maybe I'm just too busy playing the game to think about such things while playing .. vs. sitting on the couch watching TV as a mere observer. Not sure.

[Gorgon]

It probably helps good stories become a part of popular culture as much as movies.

The Epic of Gilgamesh starring: Megan Fox.

 

Yep, totally see that happening.

Theres a dozen greek mythos movies this year already.

[Raithe]

Theres a dozen greek mythos movies this year already.

 

There's a dozen movies using the names of Greek myths and stories. The content is pretty darn negligible of the actual myth/story..

[Rosbjerg]

The first Shogun TW game spurred my interest in late medival Japan. And especially the Europa Universalis series have made me look up historical periods and people.

[Cantousent]

_{Yeah, I think Europa Universalis was definitely interesting and I did learn things about various areas I hadn't known before. Of course, I would never take for granted information I learned from a game, but sometimes it's a basis for discovery and, if you can corroborate what you've learned, then it serves just as well as a book or movie. I think games, because they are interactive, are far more useful in forming meaningful opinions than movies in that you must make decisions. Books are different because you move at your own pace and can take the time to dissect an argument and assess it before continuing. Same thing with games, of course, but we have a societal inclination to take books more seriously than other media, even works of fiction.}

 

_{Games are great in that you have a personal investment by dictating the outcome and you can control the speed at which you move through the experience. On the other hand, because it involves more effort, I don't always have the time or energy to enjoy them. I'm also limited to where my gaming device is, whether computer or console. I enjoy a good movie because I need very little personal investment to receive the entertainment. On the other hand, unless I'm watching at home and pause, the movie moves at it's own speed. T.V. shows are the same only cut into smaller, more manageable chunks of time and much more accessible in terms of replay. On the other hand, because of the limited time frame, the need to extend the series as long as possible in order to maximize return on investment, and constant interruptions for advertisement, T.V. is generally more shallow as a practical matter, although some television is much better quality than some movies. Both movies and television are generally even more limited by location than gaming. Books are king of accessibility. You can read them in the park, in the bath, at the beach, or on the pot. They allow the reader to take as much time as he needs or desires, and he can save at any time by something as simple as turning down the corner of the page he is reading at the time. On the other hand, the process, not only of comprehension but also imagination, requires more effort on the part of the reader than either movies or television and, sometimes, maybe just as much as gaming. Hell, maybe even moreso from time to time.}

 

_{As far as important beliefs go, I don't think it matters if there is a direct historical reference behind the game. Most games, really most fiction, tend to be a hodge-podge of ideas thrown together. Even someone like Tolkien, who wanted to create an entire mythology from scratch, took different ideas and put them together in his own way. The important thing is that games force us to assess these ideas and make a decision. Is it better to spare Jeyne in Dungeon Siege 3, or kill her? Should we pursue science or finances in Civ V? Should I concentrate on far away colonies or build up my European holdings in EU? Of course, since developers put their own biases into the mix, it's never a real question. It's far simpler to say that corporations are big evil entities and should be brought down or destroyed. You very rarely see a game that treats issues in any sort of realistic way and, even when they try, the designers still can't escape from their own personal history, upbringing, and culture. But, what the hell, neither can I.}

 

_{As far as mythology or history, I think games and movies are overall a good thing. Yeah, they get facts wrong about history all the time and the mythology is often completely screwed up, but that's okay. If I find the mythology aspect of a game intrigues me, then it's my choice to learn about it outside of the game. If I don't do that, it's not the game's fault. Same with history. I have seen things in media that have caught my interest only to read about them later and find out the premise in the story was all messed up. Who cares? As a citizen with ready access to a variety of authorities on any number of subjects, at some point it's my responsibility to get things straight.}

[Starwars]

I remember when I was a kid and played Civilization. That game definitely "educated" me in some ways, obviously not in terms of history chronologically speaking, but it opened my eyes to various civilizations, buildings, the wonders and so forth.

 

I can't think of any games that actively awakened my interest in a very specific culture as such though. There have been occassions where I've looked up something briefly, just to see how they would compare to the game, but nothing really deeper than that I think.

 

Popular culture though? Yes, I've gotten into a lot of that stuff (books, movies and so forth) because of games.

[Malcador]

Agree with Civilization, that Civilopedia was a nice primer on all sorts of things for me. Other than that, not much, the Total War games did prompt me to look into the units and factions and history of the setting a bit, but nothing overly thorough.

[Tigranes]

Thanks all. It definitely does vary depending on what age you entered into games, what kind of gamer you are, and what kind of games you play.

 

One of the things I'm currently mulling over is whether it's significant that some rituals, group experiences and social bonds no longer exist in the same way in our society, and we only get to experience them through the proxy of games (and other media). So if it's a question of knowledge, well, you learn that Greek phalanxes used sarissa spears, then you move on, nothing special there. But if it's a question of experience - you know, we don't know what it's really like to be participating in sacrifices, shamanic rituals or potlatch, or even hangings, coronations and such that only some people really get close to. I'm wondering whether it's significant at all that we get to experience and live through the drama and emotion of such things only through games and other media now.

 

I remember really liking NWN2's trial because it actually tried to make me feel like I was being assaulted by unseen forces, that I was perpetually in a state of uncertainty about my own freedom and righteousness, and that I had to go through this process of vindicating myself. It didn't always work very well in practice (because I can reload, etc), but I really ended up liking it more than the design itself probably deserved just because that was a feeling of 'being there' very different from, well, feeling like you're an awesome goblin-chunker. It's probably indicative that my favourite genre is RPGs, but I also find myself getting stuck on things like really wanting my King in Crusader Kings to get the 'Crusader' trait for participating - maybe there's a small bug that doesn't make him get it, and it doesn't really make any difference in the wider scheme of my empire, but it pisses me off because the story I'm knitting in my head as I play has already made him a Crusader.

 

Growing up I've always been really skeptical of 'real life' public ceremonies and such. Olympics / World Cup opening/closing ceremonies bore me to tears, I thought the Superbowl half time show was awful, I used to sneak out of high school assemblies, and I've only been to three weddings but I'm bored to tears of them already. So it's interesting to me that I've probably never been in a real life ceremony that I really found moving or profound, but I've seen a lot of game/film/etc descriptions that do sound really amazing.

[Cantousent]

Here's a question: How often do you replay a game to change your moral actions? That is to say, you can change classes, talent trees, and other build related things, but how often do you explore a situation from a moral point of view? And how often do you think the moral choices reflect anything truly meaningful or just build into the biases of gamer culture?

 

To be fair, I would fail dismally at this particular test. I love Bioshock, but I'm always going to save the children rather than kill them because I stop enjoying the game if I try to be the bad guy and then I lose interest and stop playing. ...But a game that is evil in its premise and doesn't beat me over the head with my own evilness isn't so bad. I enjoyed Dungeon Keeper, for example.

 

I think the battle of idea is often weighted pretty heavily before we even begin. Just as Tigr says, his King is a Crusader from the very beginning, and so his gameplay is tailored to make the game reflect that fact. He plays a certain way to fulfill a meta-game desire rather than making the decisions he would normal make without the bias.

[Gorgon]

I wonder why they never did a WW1 strategy game. I'm sure there's one out there, but nothing approaching how much the Napoleonic wars or WW2 have been used.

 

Steam ships, legendary rail cannons able to shoot across the channel, zeppelins, Von Richthofen, the birth of airial dogfighting, cavalry units in active use.

[Starwars]

Here's a question: How often do you replay a game to change your moral actions? That is to say, you can change classes, talent trees, and other build related things, but how often do you explore a situation from a moral point of view? And how often do you think the moral choices reflect anything truly meaningful or just build into the biases of gamer culture?

 

To be fair, I would fail dismally at this particular test. I love Bioshock, but I'm always going to save the children rather than kill them because I stop enjoying the game if I try to be the bad guy and then I lose interest and stop playing. ...But a game that is evil in its premise and doesn't beat me over the head with my own evilness isn't so bad. I enjoyed Dungeon Keeper, for example.

 

I think the battle of idea is often weighted pretty heavily before we even begin. Just as Tigr says, his King is a Crusader from the very beginning, and so his gameplay is tailored to make the game reflect that fact. He plays a certain way to fulfill a meta-game desire rather than making the decisions he would normal make without the bias.

 

If I replay a RPG, I almost always explore the other options on replaying. Replayability (if we define it as unique content per playthrough) is something I really cherish, so I really loved it in New Vegas where you could really create a character concept, roll with it and end up having very different experiences each time around.

 

My enjoyment really varies though. Most of Bioware's games (well, many games overall) really feels like they are written to be experienced as a good character, and the "evil" path feels slapped on and often petty. If we take Mask of the Betrayer, most of what you can do is still really Chaotic Evil stuff, being a huge jerk. But it works oh-so-much better than most other story-based RPGs because the story actually makes sense when playing it that way also. It doesn't feel like an afterthought.

[Cantousent]

Yeah, the devs took real care to allow the player to pursue evil options in MotB. I had to play through a lot of evil scenarios and some of them were laugh out loud funny. Others were insightful. I thought you could enjoy the game if you wanted to be good, evil, or somewhere in between without a lot of intrusive prejudgment by the design team.

 

This really goes to Tig's main point about exposure to different cultures and histories or mythology. You don't get anything from the real world, but you are forced to make meaningful choices that rely on ideas and virtually all of those ideas are a mirror image of something somewhere in the world.

[Enoch]

Growing up I've always been really skeptical of 'real life' public ceremonies and such. Olympics / World Cup opening/closing ceremonies bore me to tears, I thought the Superbowl half time show was awful, I used to sneak out of high school assemblies, and I've only been to three weddings but I'm bored to tears of them already. So it's interesting to me that I've probably never been in a real life ceremony that I really found moving or profound, but I've seen a lot of game/film/etc descriptions that do sound really amazing.

It always struck me as oddly alien that the many of the core ideologues behind the French Revolution thought that the great thing that would be missed if they succeeded in defeating the influence of the Church was the experience of regular communitarian ritual. These thinkers were confident that they had exceeded what the Church offered in terms of philosophy, moral guidance, etc., but they felt that society might well crumble if the common people were no longer able to get together and chant in unison on a regular basis. Thus, they sort of adopted the Freemasons, and actively promoted the Masons as a secular source of ritualistic civic involvement.

 

I guess that what they were seeing was a human need for a structured social/cultural experience that wasn't related to work. And, while the elites could attend their salons and discuss fancy philosphy, science, and literature, the common folk need a more dictatorial, ritual-based rubric.

 

Of course, the 20th-Century decline of ritualistic fraternal orders like the Masons is well-documented. Modern folks seem to prefer their social and cultural experiences with a minimum of accompanying ritualism. (Indeed, this even reflects back to the original source-- take a look at the changes made to the Catholic Mass over the course of the 20th Century.) They want to see or experience something entertaining or otherwise fulfilling, and discuss and share it with people of their choosing. And, unlike 18th-Century audiences, they can choose to interact with people other than their neighbors.

Edited April 2, 2012 by Enoch

[Zoraptor]

This will be a little bit disorganised, no doubt...

 

A lot of the decline of traditional 'meeting' based systems is directly attributable to the telecommunications revolution- as it becomes less and less difficult to meet it becomes less and less Special to meet so the level of ritualism vs entertainment has to change to keep attracting people. Going to church on Sunday used to be the one time everyone in a community could meet up during the week, for example, now there are alternatives that don't require the extra effort of going to church. In effect it's a competition between the time and monetary costs of Special Occasions vs mundane occasions and staying at home.

 

In terms of gaming I think that- as entertainment vs education- you get out of it what you put in. If you look at the 3 main games Ken Levine has written the stories for as examples (Thief 1, System Shock 2, Bioshock) most people who will have played them will have played them as straight games without anything 'deeper' than that. I tend to view them as not only being good games but having something to say beyond that, about the dangers of extremism- Anarchism from The Trickster/ Viktoria, Fascism/ Communism from Shodan/ The Many, and Capitalism/ Libertarianism for Bioshock. I'd also say that the most important 'philosophical' question from Planescape Torment is not "What can change the nature of a man?" but "Is that your answer?"- because the answer to the first is entirely dependant upon who is answering it. Hmm, now that I think about it the ending of StalkerSOC was quite similar to that of Mass Effect 3 in many ways, almost as much so as DX...

 

On the slightly more narrower front I'd have to echo games like EU being good educators- EU2's more determinist structure meant a lot of historical events lacking in later Paradox titles but I have done things like find out about Jainism (which will never be in an official Paradox title- it's symbol is a swastika) and the like from mods, plus things like SM's Gettysburg for the ACW.

 

Overall though I think most of this sort of stuff is subjective- some people will always prefer going somewhere and meeting people in person, more ritual etc, some won't and some people will get more than just entertainment out of games and some won't. That's not really a very helpful observation though.

[zero_or_more]

Concerning the OP I echo the sentiments on Civ while adding that Civ4 had a really great selection of music, some of which - classical pieces - prompted me to search for them. I would have looked up Lacuna Coil as well after playing Bloodlines, but I already knew them...

 

I do try to play 'morally consistent' characters in video games, however since no game can possibly offer to represent your exact thoughts throughout, more often than not the actual choices reflect the game mechanics/economy rather than my thoughts. Good games try to do their best to hide this limitation, imho. (I do plan to replay The Witcher 2, but it's partially because of the new content... still one of the better games to capture 'neutrality' as a concept.)

[Gorth]

Yeah, I think Europa Universalis was definitely interesting and I did learn things about various areas I hadn't known before. Of course, I would never take for granted information I learned from a game, but sometimes it's a basis for discovery and, if you can corroborate what you've learned, then it serves just as well as a book or movie. I think games, because they are interactive, are far more useful in forming meaningful opinions than movies in that you must make decisions. Books are different because you move at your own pace and can take the time to dissect an argument and assess it before continuing. Same thing with games, of course, but we have a societal inclination to take books more seriously than other media, even works of fiction.

 

While I didn't pick up a lot I didn't already know from a Eurocentric view, if definitely made me more interested in medieval Indian and Asian history. Started reading up a lot on a lot of stuff from the Mughal Empire over various south-east Asian realms to the various Chinese kingdoms. Also re-kindled my interest in the part of European history leading up to the games start (1100-1400).

 

It always struck me as oddly alien that the many of the core ideologues behind the French Revolution thought that the great thing that would be missed if they succeeded in defeating the influence of the Church was the experience of regular communitarian ritual. .

 

Wasn't that why they invented the Guillotine?

 

Here's a question: How often do you replay a game to change your moral actions? That is to say, you can change classes, talent trees, and other build related things, but how often do you explore a situation from a moral point of view? And how often do you think the moral choices reflect anything truly meaningful or just build into the biases of gamer culture?

To be fair, I would fail dismally at this particular test. I love Bioshock, but I'm always going to save the children rather than kill them because I stop enjoying the game if I try to be the bad guy and then I lose interest and stop playing. ...But a game that is evil in its premise and doesn't beat me over the head with my own evilness isn't so bad. I enjoyed Dungeon Keeper, for example.

I think the battle of idea is often weighted pretty heavily before we even begin. Just as Tigr says, his King is a Crusader from the very beginning, and so his gameplay is tailored to make the game reflect that fact. He plays a certain way to fulfill a meta-game desire rather than making the decisions he would normal make without the bias.

 

Where such options are available, I usually try to strike a balanced approach first. If I like the game and suspect it might be worth the effort, then I play the extremes. First the Lawful Stupid character and then the Chaotic Neanderthal option. I often find myself cringing at my characters actions in both extremes.

 

Speaking of Crusader Kings, I wonder how many people have some kind of romantic notion about Richard "Lionheart" based on the Hollywood movies?

Aka, Richard Plantagenet, french duke of Aquitaine, mostly interested in murdering fellow noblemen and when in short supply of victims, resorting to wholesale massacres of thousands of pow's, earning him the epithet "The Butcher of Accra". Funny trivia, he only visited the most remote province of his realm (England) a very few times in his lifetime and he didn't speak English at all.

Yes, too much reading, blame it on EU III

[Tigranes]

The moral/choices stuff is interesting. I remember when I realised that I tended to play more or less the same character in RPGs, and even the same style in strategy games. I would sometimes start out a new game thinking I'll see the consequences to choices I hadn't picked before, but it wouldn't 'feel right'. I'm still not sure why that is. Some of it was definitely that the character would then not feel like me, or the kind of person I imagine I'd like to be in such circumstances - but I think it's also what kinds of characters or events I would feel are 'plausible' given the kinds of settings they draw on.

 

For instance, that I read rather one-sided accounts of longbow power at Crecy probably accounted for my love of the English in Age of Empires II, since my imagination of a victorious army in medieval wars would shoot their opponents down before they got close. The Frankish knights were actually heavily overpowered after one patch, but it just didn't feel right to me. I also struggle to remember when I've actually had the option of, or taken the option of, helping benevolent large-scale religions. Unless it's a persecuted minority religion or a primitive one, they all seem to be conspiratorial con men or well-meaning but sadly backward and rigid institutions.

 

I wonder whether it's because several widespread conventions are built into most games - that you are special, that you will experience a dramatic and instantaneous transformation in your life, it is the individual that can save the world and not institutions, etc.

[Cantousent]

I think a strictly functional perspective of church, religion, and faith is non-sensical. That's not to throw down the gauntlet on atheists in this thread, only an observation that the functional view of church and religion assumed that the function that religion incidently plays is the only purpose it has in the lives of the members. There are many, many arguments one could make against religion, and I would concede a lot of them in the exchange, but I don't want to devolve further into a religion discussion. The real point to me is that the world is a battle-place of ideas. Sometimes those ideas take form in activity or armed conflict, but the ideas themselves are the real power as weapons and armies only reflect the ideas in conflict. Because of that, whether an idea in a game (or novel or movie) is real-world specific or not really isn't all that important because there is no idea in a game (or book or movie) that does not reflect real-worldness. We cannot come up with an idea for a game that doesn't reflect our reality. Once formed, every idea is a real world idea. The only difference is how that idea translates into reality. If I propose that we have dragons fly us to the moon, the idea is either in jest or insane. However, the idea of flying to the moon, once conceived, is real. For that reason, the backstory of elves who become less elvish in the presence of humans and mages who draw power from the fade can still be excellent proxies for real world things like aboriginal assimilation and alleged psychic activity.

[Gorth]

I actually think Paradox did a fairly decent job of modelling religion in EUIII. Move the slider in one direction and you limit your technological achievements (heh, trade research is heretical my butt), but gain stability and more colonists to settle in heathen lands, move it the other way, you encourage technological research, but at the cost of revolting peasants when the going gets tough and war exhaustion starts climbing. Not so much a right or wrong as different consquences from national policies. Oh, and of course the casus belli you get against the non-believers is worth it's weight in gold. A simplified world model, but it works (at least in the game world). The world worked in different ways in the fifteenth century.

[Cantousent]

I actually like it because, while it made assumptions about specific religions, it was actually religion neutral. Ironically, what I liked about that slider is that it did something I suggested is mistaken up above. It treats religion as entirely functional. ...But I would rather games just treat religions as a function of society than have them do the oh so 'edgy' pardoy of religion (after all, it takes real guts to insult Christians in our society) and end up being completely superficial in the process.

[Calax]

I think that games do offer a window into the mental perspective of a different culture, but it requires some SERIOUS digging to get to the really relevatory bits. The thing about the Final fantasy summons would be one thing, but Japan also has some VERY strange christian systems. Sephiroth, for example, is (DR WIKI GO!) "the 10 attributes/emanations in Kabbalah, through which Ein Sof (The Infinite) reveals himself and continuously creates both the physical realm and the chain of higher metaphysical realms". Which makes a wierd perverted sort of sense when you consider that Sephiroth was basically a physical manifestation of a god, created by humans.

 

Similarly, the Japanese form of christianity was... adjusted to make it more invisible during the Shogunate. Thus they have concepts like killing god, and god-slaying spells, as integral parts of their mysticsim and traditions. Thus you wind up with stuff like Xenogears, where you literally slay a God... with giant robots that use martial arts (and now I feel like any scholarly attitudes I had have disappeared).

 

Hmmm *goes digging through the nets* Ah!

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-myth-of-the-gun

Watch that and you'll see one way that the differing mindset/culture of the hemisphers leads to different things.

 

Personally, I will say this, games made my degree choice. I've always been interested in history, and games have some history to be found, in even the most unlikely of places. Dynasty Warriors actually made me go out and BUY the four volume epic of the Three Kingdoms and read the entire thing. I did a spanish report on El Cid because of Age of Empires 2. And my exposure to various literary styles within by education, ends up with me looking at something like "King of Dragon Pass" or Skyrim and saying "well this is traced to Norse mythos".

[Orogun01]

I know of El Cid because of my real life name.

 

I don't think that games make good mediums for religious views, or philosophies with some exceptions. They have the potential to be better mediums for it than movies because of length, but few rarely focus on the real aspect of philosophies preferring to supplant them with their own theocratic systems and views.

 

Although I got to confess that I learned more religion from Kreia that I did from the Bible, just a fact not trying to incite anyone. Just the idea of anthropomorphize the Force and bring Determinism, Free Will and God into the game's themes makes it stand out. It worked very well there because of the story implementing and using those themes at it's core instead of just making background to "flesh out" the universe.