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Realism. Consoles strive for it, with ever improving specs and capabilities to allow games to be created around more convincing worlds. Even cartoonish games seek to resemble the picture quality of watching a real animated show.
Of course, other entertainment media have also been challenging the limits of technology to raise standards in realism. Tvs have evolved from black and white tiny screens to huge widescreen sets in incredible color. VHS edges aside for DVD, itself threatened by new, more capable, media. Speaker sets offer pin drop clear surround sound. Everything is geared to making our experiences as true to life as possible.
So what?
Well, I was watching a football match on tv. The crowd noises were irritating me. Just the way you could hear a couple of loud-mouthed muppets who were close to the microphone above the general noises of the stadium. Just like a recent match I’d been to see live. I pondered for a second how incredibly easy it would be to arrange and balance a couple of mics to eliminate their whinging chants. It wasn’t just coming through the commentators’ microphones, but it was edited in for the soundproofed studio.
Then it hit me. Having their voices in is intentional. I doubt that you’re supposed to notice, but it’s reminiscent of watching a live match, it’s the tv company’s method of adding to their feeling of being there, in the stands.
Then something else popped into my head. The default camera angle on ISS 2000 was set to rotate about a fixed point, meaning the pitch would be at a different angle to the screen at one goal compared to, say, the centre of the field. Other games (old FIFA games on the mega drive) used a camera that moved around to keep the overhead view showing the pitch at the same angle to the screen, which in terms of gameplay, kept things far simpler, especially shooting controls.
So why change it for ISS? To mimic the camera view of a match shown on tv. As tv try to create an experience as close to watching the real game as possible, the game so too tried to imitate the tv.
Then something else occurred to me. This could apply far more widely, but I’ll stick with the football example here.
Why try to imitate a real match experience for the tv program? To enforce the link of realism between what a viewer expects from a real match and what they see on their screen.
So what if playing a football computer game becomes more popular than going to a real match? Maybe it already is, but what if it becomes much more popular, and with older age groups too? I think we could see a situation where the tv show would find itself in the position of needing to create similarities to computer games to create this association with peoples’ experience of the game.
Maybe the commentators wouldn’t need to speak in games’ fragmented sentences, or restrict themselves to a small selection of clichés, but such changes as graphics being employed more extensively to represent substitutions, replays and tactical features. Maybe we’d lose the voices standing out of the match crowd, in favour of a more subdued throng of activity?
It may not be likely soon, but it could happen, and if it did, we’d see a huge victory for the video game world, demanding recognition from other media, and setting the new standards in what we perceive to be ‘normal’.
Is this our future?
Of course, other entertainment media have also been challenging the limits of technology to raise standards in realism. Tvs have evolved from black and white tiny screens to huge widescreen sets in incredible color. VHS edges aside for DVD, itself threatened by new, more capable, media. Speaker sets offer pin drop clear surround sound. Everything is geared to making our experiences as true to life as possible.
So what?
Well, I was watching a football match on tv. The crowd noises were irritating me. Just the way you could hear a couple of loud-mouthed muppets who were close to the microphone above the general noises of the stadium. Just like a recent match I’d been to see live. I pondered for a second how incredibly easy it would be to arrange and balance a couple of mics to eliminate their whinging chants. It wasn’t just coming through the commentators’ microphones, but it was edited in for the soundproofed studio.
Then it hit me. Having their voices in is intentional. I doubt that you’re supposed to notice, but it’s reminiscent of watching a live match, it’s the tv company’s method of adding to their feeling of being there, in the stands.
Then something else popped into my head. The default camera angle on ISS 2000 was set to rotate about a fixed point, meaning the pitch would be at a different angle to the screen at one goal compared to, say, the centre of the field. Other games (old FIFA games on the mega drive) used a camera that moved around to keep the overhead view showing the pitch at the same angle to the screen, which in terms of gameplay, kept things far simpler, especially shooting controls.
So why change it for ISS? To mimic the camera view of a match shown on tv. As tv try to create an experience as close to watching the real game as possible, the game so too tried to imitate the tv.
Then something else occurred to me. This could apply far more widely, but I’ll stick with the football example here.
Why try to imitate a real match experience for the tv program? To enforce the link of realism between what a viewer expects from a real match and what they see on their screen.
So what if playing a football computer game becomes more popular than going to a real match? Maybe it already is, but what if it becomes much more popular, and with older age groups too? I think we could see a situation where the tv show would find itself in the position of needing to create similarities to computer games to create this association with peoples’ experience of the game.
Maybe the commentators wouldn’t need to speak in games’ fragmented sentences, or restrict themselves to a small selection of clichés, but such changes as graphics being employed more extensively to represent substitutions, replays and tactical features. Maybe we’d lose the voices standing out of the match crowd, in favour of a more subdued throng of activity?
It may not be likely soon, but it could happen, and if it did, we’d see a huge victory for the video game world, demanding recognition from other media, and setting the new standards in what we perceive to be ‘normal’.
Is this our future?
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Realism. Consoles strive for it, with ever improving specs and capabilities to allow games to be created around more convincing worlds. Even cartoonish games seek to resemble the picture quality of watching a real animated show.
Of course, other entertainment media have also been challenging the limits of technology to raise standards in realism. Tvs have evolved from black and white tiny screens to huge widescreen sets in incredible color. VHS edges aside for DVD, itself threatened by new, more capable, media. Speaker sets offer pin drop clear surround sound. Everything is geared to making our experiences as true to life as possible.
So what?
Well, I was watching a football match on tv. The crowd noises were irritating me. Just the way you could hear a couple of loud-mouthed muppets who were close to the microphone above the general noises of the stadium. Just like a recent match I’d been to see live. I pondered for a second how incredibly easy it would be to arrange and balance a couple of mics to eliminate their whinging chants. It wasn’t just coming through the commentators’ microphones, but it was edited in for the soundproofed studio.
Then it hit me. Having their voices in is intentional. I doubt that you’re supposed to notice, but it’s reminiscent of watching a live match, it’s the tv company’s method of adding to their feeling of being there, in the stands.
Then something else popped into my head. The default camera angle on ISS 2000 was set to rotate about a fixed point, meaning the pitch would be at a different angle to the screen at one goal compared to, say, the centre of the field. Other games (old FIFA games on the mega drive) used a camera that moved around to keep the overhead view showing the pitch at the same angle to the screen, which in terms of gameplay, kept things far simpler, especially shooting controls.
So why change it for ISS? To mimic the camera view of a match shown on tv. As tv try to create an experience as close to watching the real game as possible, the game so too tried to imitate the tv.
Then something else occurred to me. This could apply far more widely, but I’ll stick with the football example here.
Why try to imitate a real match experience for the tv program? To enforce the link of realism between what a viewer expects from a real match and what they see on their screen.
So what if playing a football computer game becomes more popular than going to a real match? Maybe it already is, but what if it becomes much more popular, and with older age groups too? I think we could see a situation where the tv show would find itself in the position of needing to create similarities to computer games to create this association with peoples’ experience of the game.
Maybe the commentators wouldn’t need to speak in games’ fragmented sentences, or restrict themselves to a small selection of clichés, but such changes as graphics being employed more extensively to represent substitutions, replays and tactical features. Maybe we’d lose the voices standing out of the match crowd, in favour of a more subdued throng of activity?
It may not be likely soon, but it could happen, and if it did, we’d see a huge victory for the video game world, demanding recognition from other media, and setting the new standards in what we perceive to be ‘normal’.
Is this our future?
Of course, other entertainment media have also been challenging the limits of technology to raise standards in realism. Tvs have evolved from black and white tiny screens to huge widescreen sets in incredible color. VHS edges aside for DVD, itself threatened by new, more capable, media. Speaker sets offer pin drop clear surround sound. Everything is geared to making our experiences as true to life as possible.
So what?
Well, I was watching a football match on tv. The crowd noises were irritating me. Just the way you could hear a couple of loud-mouthed muppets who were close to the microphone above the general noises of the stadium. Just like a recent match I’d been to see live. I pondered for a second how incredibly easy it would be to arrange and balance a couple of mics to eliminate their whinging chants. It wasn’t just coming through the commentators’ microphones, but it was edited in for the soundproofed studio.
Then it hit me. Having their voices in is intentional. I doubt that you’re supposed to notice, but it’s reminiscent of watching a live match, it’s the tv company’s method of adding to their feeling of being there, in the stands.
Then something else popped into my head. The default camera angle on ISS 2000 was set to rotate about a fixed point, meaning the pitch would be at a different angle to the screen at one goal compared to, say, the centre of the field. Other games (old FIFA games on the mega drive) used a camera that moved around to keep the overhead view showing the pitch at the same angle to the screen, which in terms of gameplay, kept things far simpler, especially shooting controls.
So why change it for ISS? To mimic the camera view of a match shown on tv. As tv try to create an experience as close to watching the real game as possible, the game so too tried to imitate the tv.
Then something else occurred to me. This could apply far more widely, but I’ll stick with the football example here.
Why try to imitate a real match experience for the tv program? To enforce the link of realism between what a viewer expects from a real match and what they see on their screen.
So what if playing a football computer game becomes more popular than going to a real match? Maybe it already is, but what if it becomes much more popular, and with older age groups too? I think we could see a situation where the tv show would find itself in the position of needing to create similarities to computer games to create this association with peoples’ experience of the game.
Maybe the commentators wouldn’t need to speak in games’ fragmented sentences, or restrict themselves to a small selection of clichés, but such changes as graphics being employed more extensively to represent substitutions, replays and tactical features. Maybe we’d lose the voices standing out of the match crowd, in favour of a more subdued throng of activity?
It may not be likely soon, but it could happen, and if it did, we’d see a huge victory for the video game world, demanding recognition from other media, and setting the new standards in what we perceive to be ‘normal’.
Is this our future?