Editor’s Choice: Kafka and Videogames

To prevent my almost inevitable fall into the uncultured slob of a man I’m likely to become in a few years, I’ve started trying to read those books you should read. My Kindle is great at helping me here, as are my more literate friends. One of whom has lent me a collection of short stories by Franz Kafka.

Wikipedia:

Franz Kafka (July 1883 – June 1924) was one of the most influential German-language novelists of the 20th century, whose works are now regarded existential classics; and among the highest achievements of world literature. The term “Kafkaesque” has become part of the English vernacular.

They’re interesting stories, but I’m going to need to do two things to feel like I’m truly understanding them. Firstly, I’m going to need to read the stories again. There are details in books that can only be brought out through hindsight. Secondly, I need to talk about the story, the plot, the characters and the possible meanings with other people.

My first experience with this is, came with BioShock; when we move on to talking about gaming. A game so dripping in imagery you would need to be not just blind, but borderline catatonic to miss the topics at play. Thankfully I didn’t miss them, and neither did you. We talked long into the night about the surprise, the characters and the themes.

There’s the moment in the game, the one we’ve probably talked about most. The one that smacks you round the head with surprise and an echo, you realise it’s not just about your character’s control, but about your relationship with games. As you discussed later, it made you realise how every game you ever play is asking you, kindly, to do what it wants. You, in turn, are telling your in-game self when to act, where to shoot, and how to die.

We spoke about how we love Sander Cohen. How his insane character fascinated and pleased us and how our simple, unmarked choice of whether to leave him to his madness or end his life later impacted us in an equally subtle way.

And it was an exception. Not by the substance contained within the game, many games have equal, if not more artistic volume. But because it is one of the few games we can all understand, I would gamble that more words have been written about meaning within BioShock than for any other game. We had our first “Book Group For Games” gathering, and now we want more. Let’s learn from what BioShock did, how it did it, and let’s apply that to other games, openly and without hesitation.

The AC130 in Modern Warfare; a fun aerial bonus for your team, or an abstraction layer temporarily taking you out our of war and putting you in an almost invisible, God-like position? The tank in Halo Reach; simply a large vehicle with a fairly specific purpose, or a reflection of where man-kind will take war machines in the future, when it will still rely on brute force and ignorance to win the day?

Pretentious, yes, but we should try to be more receptive, understanding and vocal about what goes on in games, beyond simply what we see and hear. Maybe those deep and meaningful games we so crave are already here, we just can’t see them.

Image: The BioShock Wiki