Fantasy Realism and the Other in Recent Video Games

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Fantasy, Realism, and the Other in Recent Video Games

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313

Fantasy, Realism, and theOther in Recent Video Games

Leigh SchwartzSan Diego State University

Despite the growing use and complexity of the virtual environments of video games, geographershave neglected investigation of the representation of video game spaces. Game spaces are entirelyartificial, and whether they feature swords-and-sorcery fantasy worlds or gritty urban streets,video game environments are embedded with metaphors and ideas for political and mythologicalconstructs. This article examines the virtual environments of four recent games, conducting visualand textual analysis of the representation of fantasy, realism, and othering.

Keywords: virtual; geography; othering; media; fantasy

From online worlds populated by thousands of players, to single-player epic fantasylandscapes, to modern-day urban fantasy environments, the complex and varied virtualgeographies of video games present interactive spaces for consumption. These increas-ingly sophisticated artificial environments are influenced only by human imaginationand technological limitation; the result is imaginary geographies that are embeddedwith ideas and messages, spaces of imagination that can be explored and interacted withby human beings. Video games are an increasingly popular form of entertainment; mostgamers are adults, and video games earn more annually than cinema (EntertainmentSoftware Association, 2005; Gray, 2005; Riley, 2005). However, this rapid growth hasresulted in a situation in which there has been increasing academic interest in the sub-ject, and there are insightful works to build on, yet there remains much that is notunderstood about interaction with and through artificial environments.

My goal with this research project is to examine the relationship of fantasy and real-ism in terms of the representation of the familiar and the foreign in video games.Through examining video games as culturally constructed spaces of entertainment andcommunication, specific topics I explore include othering in foreign games, escapism

space and culture vol. 9 no. 3, august 2006 313-325DOI: 10.1177/1206331206289019©2006 Sage Publications



314 s p a c e a n d c u l t u r e / a u g u s t 2 0 0 6

and virtual tourism, cultural identity and the avatar, the engaging of realistic versusfantastic environments, and violence in othering. For this research, I investigate theinteractive landscapes of four popular video games featuring both fantasy and realisticenvironments. Using qualitative research methods and loosely applying discourse andvisual analysis, I use images, textual materials, and interviews for my analysis. Morespecifically, I examine images and videos of the game environments, notes taken fromplaying each game, online group interviews with fans of the games, and Web sites andonline communities. I used a USB device for my personal computer to create still imagesand videos, and for analysis I used Atlas.ti for coding.

Each of the four games I selected is a high-quality game with a following of onlinefan communities, which is essential for the online interviews. Two of these games fea-ture imaginative fantasy landscapes, while the other two present more realistic, urbanenvironments. The variety in terms of genre, year of publication, gaming hardware,and country of origin allows for a broader analysis of gaming rather than an exami-nation of only one or two specific games. These games were chosen for their qualityand diversity of game environment. I selected Shenmue (Sega-AM2, 2000) for the SegaDreamcast, a pioneer of the hyperrealistic urban game environment; Grand TheftAuto: San Andreas (Rockstar North, 2004) for the Sony PlayStation 2, which features aremarkably polished urban landscape; Suikoden III (Konami, 2002) for the SonyPlayStation 2, with its unusually complex and detailed fantasy cultures; and Worldof Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004) for the personal computer, featuring amassive and very popular online game world.

Visiting Azeroth

As argued by Rob Shields, if “real” means that something exists independently, sothat other people can verify its existence, then virtual worlds, such as the Internet,online games, and video games, are certainly real. Shields (2003) suggests that thoughvirtual spaces are real, they are not actual, physical space; they are ideal rather thanactual and real rather than possible. The virtual worlds of video games exist as infor-mation. Game designers’ ideas are brought to life through the game environments,and when they resemble material reality, it is because the game designers have chosento represent their ideas in terms of physical space (Adams, 2002; Dodge & Kitchin,2001). Yet although many games do resemble physical environments, there is also anelement of abstraction, even in photorealistic games, that engages players’ minds whileproviding an orderly world (Wolf, 2001, 2003). And though game environments arenot physical, like other media, they can still exist as geographic space by serving socialor communicative purposes (Adams, 1992).

Interviews with fans of these games showed that although the games were all, insome way, fantasy, enthusiasts found each game to be “realistic.” For instance, fans ofShenmue emphasized its detailed urban environments, while fans of Suikoden IIIfocused on realism in war, intolerance, and suffering. Fans discussed how certain ele-ments of realism helped them experience the game spaces as reality. In this way, gamespaces become travel spaces of a sort. The following quotations from the online groupinterviews, conducted via Internet Relay Chat, illustrate this:

I found the locations in Shenmue to “feel” very realistic. They had background soundssuch as, dogs barking, bird song and crowded areas sounded crowded. The looks were



F a n t a s y , R e a l i s m , a n d t h e O t h e r 315315

also amazing, many of the people actually went about their lives, for example, leavingtheir homes, going to the shop, getting a bite to eat, then returning home. It felt like theywere all real people with real lives. (Tom)

Ambient sounds really add to the feel of the game. if it sounds like there are really otherpeople around rather than just you, the character, and a bunch of non-playable charac-ters, then you don’t feel as though you are playing a game, you feel as if you’re in a realtown/city with other people. (Tom)

Well, I think that Shenmue is particularly daring in the fact that it is trying to representnot only a specific geographical space, but also a time period. For those outside Japanwho play the game, it’s a little like having a virtual tour of a small town in Japan - rightdown to the bathroom in Ryo’s house. (Paul)

I spent more time in certain areas, reading up on certain cities, talking to everyone there.You inhabit a castle, watch areas grow. Towns, surfaces, etc . After several hours, the gamehas a bit of a familiar feel to it. The landscape, that is. (Don)

As indicated by these fans, realism and detail allow gamers to accept game spaces as“real” and visit them as tourists. Game designers seem to present their games in sucha way as well. This is indicated by the following excerpts from a virtual book found inSuikoden III:

Every village and city has at least one specialty, and it’d be foolish not to try them all.Here, for the first time in one book, is all you need to know about the finest sustenanceyour potch can buy.

There’s no use going to Caleria if you’re not going to indulge in their FRIED RICE.

Thus, when a player visits Caleria, he or she does not only complete the game objectivesbut also takes in the sights. Clearly, one aspect of engaging with game environments isthis virtual tourism; game designers present the spaces as such, and as shown from theonline interviews, players also spoke of the game environments in terms of visitingexotic locations. John Urry (2002) suggested that tourists gaze on something that is outof the ordinary for them, for the purpose of removing themselves from their ordinaryspheres of residence and employment. Virtually visiting an exotic location, such asCaleria, Shenmue’s Yokosuka, or Azeroth in World of Warcraft, is certainly separate fromthe ordinary lives of players. Players can interact with virtual characters and engage inactivities that exist only in the games, escaping from their material lives without havingto go to the trouble of traveling.Yet when players accept game spaces to experience them,the abstracted and fantasy elements of the games become more real as well.

Fantasy and Realism

When a player interacts with a game environment, he or she encounters both real-istic and fantastic game elements. The suspension of disbelief allows a moviegoer toexperience film space as reality, taking in the cultural meanings that are reproduced,challenged, or elaborated on through cinema (Aitken & Zonn, 1993; Hopkins, 1994).Similarly, the suspension of disbelief enables players to experience game spaces, caus-ing them to take in not only the realistic and fantastic game elements but also themeanings underlying the representation.




Shenmue offers a highly realistic and detailed urban setting, in this case a smallJapanese town in the 1980s (see Figure 1). Integrated into the game are also fightingsegments that are part of a heroic fantasy story. Although the fantasy and realistic ele-ments might not mesh well, as discussed by one of the interviewees, the use of the real-istic environments might help players accept the fantasy elements as well.

On the one hand, you have this attempt to be slavishly accurate to 1985 Japan, and thenon the other, you have all these martial-arts movie elements. I think perhaps the idea wasthat the realism of the setting would make the martial-arts segments more believable.(Paul)

Similarly, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas combines a gritty urban setting with a vio-lent fantasy element that leads to escapism. Although Shenmue was an earlier pioneerof this immersive urban fantasy environment, San Andreas polishes its presentationfor a stronger blend of urban fantasy. When asked about the urban setting, the inter-viewees responded by emphasizing the fantasy elements of the game:

The level of destruction in SA [San Andreas] was unrealistic, but the fact is that the thingsin the game do happen on a regular basis. (Jennifer)

Even though the violence in San Andreas was probably made excessive to boost sales, Ithink they ended up painting a more realistic picture of modern culture and society thanthey had intended. (Jennifer)

If GTA [Grand Theft Auto] were set in my hometown, I’d still be stealing cars, doing mis-sions, engaging in criminal acts . . . totally removed from the mundane. (Paul)

Because of this combination of fantasy and realism, differentiating the two elementsbecomes difficult. At what point do the carjackings and drive-by shootings becomefantasy? With the incorporation of both elements, players are able to accept the fan-tasy as part of the game reality.

In Suikoden III, the setting is a fantasy world that strives for realism through adetailed and layered portrayal of imaginary cultures (see Figure 2). The fantasy cul-tures, at war in this game, are portrayed through clothing, food, architecture, music,dialogue, and story events. This level of detail in the presentation seemed to impressthe fans of the game; during interviews, they emphasized this aspect of Suikoden III:

well the cultures can be realistic because they have their own ways of life and all that.clothing etc. (Scott)

Figure 1. Shenmue Features Detective and Kung-Fu Fantasy Mixed Into a Modern and ExtremelyRealistic Yokosuka, Japan.

Source: Reproduced with permission, ©2000 Sega-AM2.




The games try to present all the cultures equally. Each civilization has its own architec-ture, its own belief system, its own politics. And like in the real world, there’s a lot of big-otry and misunderstanding about what other cultures are like. (Edward)

but unlike the real world, there’s a lot of after-school-special style “let’s all understandeach other” (James)

In other words, a thorough and realistic presentation makes fantasy cultures morebelievable.

Like Suikoden III, World of Warcraft presents a fantasy world that attempts its owninternal consistency, pitting players against other players in the epic battle of Hordeversus Alliance. World of Warcraft does not achieve the detail in cultural representationevidenced by Suikoden III but offers something the other does not: a fantasy worldpopulated by real people. World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online game inwhich thousands of gamers play in the same world at the same time. This adds anundeniable realness to the interaction of the game; although players do not actuallydefeat hideous monsters, the fact that others share that experience with them adds tothe fantasy. Games such as this superimpose a fantasy adventure over simple onlinechat, merging fantasy with real human interaction.

With each game, the fantasy and realistic aspects of the environment blend tobecome a believable, fantastic place for players to visit, just as people imagine farawayplaces when reading stories about foreign countries. This blending of fantasy and real-ity is interesting in and of itself; combined with an element of control over the envi-ronment, this allows for escapist entertainment:

Well, just that, if you mix a realistic setting with a fantastic story, that’s escapism rightthere. That’s something you could never do in real life, in those real settings. (Paul)

If a game has nothing but unrealistic fantasy elements then it just flies away, you can’t getinto it as well. It’s the little things like having to eat or shop, the kind of things we all doevery day, that ties it down and allows you to feel like a part of it. (Jennifer)

Yeah, back to my example of the Girl making the blossom blow around her. Obviouslynobody could do that in real life. If the player can do magical things, or do something theycan’t do in real life then they feel as though they can do anything. The modern environmentshelp the player feel like its really happening because they can relate to that environmentbecause they live in a similar environment. (Tom)

The modern setting itself isn’t entirely necessary IMO [in my opinion], a fantasy envi-ronment with a great level of detail that retains elements of real life will work just as wellfor me. (Jennifer)

Figure 2. Suikoden III Portrays Detailed Fantasy Cultures Through Game Play, Game Architecture, andthe Narrative.

Source: Reproduced with permission, ©1995, 2002 Konami.




Escapism all boils down to control, the more control you have over the game environ-ment and your character the more you lose your self in it. Even if it’s only control overyour own character and not the npcs [nonplayer characters]. (Jennifer)

GTA makes you feel like you’re god. You can kill anyone and do pretty much anythingyou want without any rules. In Shenmue you help people. For example, a character wasbeing beaten up for his money. You then come and help him and beat up the bullies. Youthen help the bully later who gets bullied. Helping people is also a great feeling. Maybe inreal life you cant beat the bully. In the game you can do anything you want to. (Tom)

The gamers touch on an interesting aspect of the medium. In video games, not onlyare game worlds rendered in a way unlike that of film or literature, but games alsooffer players some degree of control over environments that can be explored at will(Woods, 2004). Yet players interact with environments in forms foreseen and codedby the game designers. Through this, through rescuing the helpless in Shenmueor through killing in San Andreas, players not only take in but participate in thegeographical ideas that are embedded into the game spaces.

One type of representation of geographical ideas is through equating fantasy cul-tures to real-life cultures, to real-life cultural traditions such as “Eastern” or “Western,”or to mythologies (see Figure 3). This was observed by the gamers during interviewsas well, such as this interviewee’s comment about the geography of Suikoden III:

Many of the towns in Suikoden III were caricatures of towns from different periods inthe world. (Don)

But in video game spaces, these representations are scaled down, stylized, and simpli-fied to the point at which, as Don’s word choice indicates, they become caricaturesrather than accurate representations. Just as the fantasy elements are a form ofabstraction, this reduction of complexity is an abstraction as well. By abstracting inthis way, even a realistic game becomes an involving yet comprehensible environmentfor the player (Wolf, 2003).

With this more orderly world, players can accept and understand game culturesand landscapes. The environment intrigues players and draws attention to the ideasportrayed through the space. In Suikoden III, the more Western nation is portrayed ascorrupt yet advanced, whereas the indigenous nation similar to Japan’s Ainu is por-trayed as innocent and unsophisticated. The Chinese villains of Shenmue make dan-ger seem to come from abroad, reflecting a view of modern Japan as a destination forforeign negativity. And in World of Warcraft, modern corporation The VentureCompany, with its blue-collar workers, mines, and clear-cutting operations, is theenemy of players on both sides of the conflict. Although the negative portrayal of amassive corporation is nothing new, the juxtaposition of the evil corporation withblue-collar employees, all directly damaging the natural environment, makes an inter-esting statement about modern corporate culture.

These cultural meanings are further complicated by the effect of identity through theavatar, a player’s character in a game. Identity and space influence political and socialperceptions, while race and identity also shape a player’s perspective and role in a gameenvironment (Ow, 2000; Shome, 2003). Furthermore, if games offer players the oppor-tunity to escape the mundane and gaze on the exotic, the provision of exotic identitiesallows players to escape from their material identities as well as the physical world(Nakamura, 2002; Urry, 2002). In the examples listed above, Suikoden III allows players




to not only explore the indigenous Grasslands culture or the sophisticated ZexenFederation but also to experience these cultures from different social roles. The percep-tion of the Zexen Federation is influenced as the player experiences the towns first as anenemy, then as a leader, and finally as a neutral outsider. The feel of Shenmue couldchange significantly if the hero were Chinese, exploring a Japanese town as a foreigner.And although in World of Warcraft, the player’s identity opposes the evil VentureCompany, this role might either challenge or reinforce the player’s existing beliefs aboutcorporate culture and blue-collar workers.

With World of Warcraft, the real-time interaction of players makes it easy to see whatgamers make of these geographic ideas. To examine it further, in World of Warcraft, themore Western, or possibly First World, Alliance fights the more non-Western, or ThirdWorld, Horde. Although both cultures are presented more or less equally, with equalresources and impressive capital cities, many players insist that the Alliance are the “goodguys,” and it’s easy to see why: One look at the Alliance’s bald eagle gryphon mounts isenough to show that the Alliance are “us” in this war. With the fantasy trappings of thisgame, designers mask a world infused with modern constructions and messages as afantastic world, influencing the way players take in these constructions and messages.Perhaps the representation of the Alliance as owning a large library is a reflection of theidea of Western learning, for instance.

Othering the Virtual

Additionally, othering plays a strong role in the representation of culture in each ofthese games. Representations of foreign cultures reveal not only opinions and beliefsabout the cultures being depicted, but also quite a bit about the cultures of the authors(Said, 1978). This has been explored not only with fiction and nonfiction but alsothrough travel writing, advertising, film, digital media, and other forms (Duncan &Gregory, 1999; Konzett, 2004; Moeran, 1996; Shaheen, 2003; Sorenson, 1991).Christopher Douglas’s (2002) exploration of orientalism in the Civilization gameseries reveals the ways in which game designers reinforce cultural meanings whileappearing to challenge them. Each of the four games explored in this article attemptsto represent familiar and exotic cultures.

With a single-player game, the interaction is between the player and the game itself.Shenmue, a Japanese game, features a Japanese protagonist who must fight Chinesemartial artists and Japanese gang members to avenge the death of his father. The playertakes on this role, investigating with a distinction between Japanese and foreign. The

Figure 3. The Interactive Environments of Video Games Range From the Imaginative Fantasy Culturesof Suikoden III to the Highly Realistic Cityscapes of Shenmue.

Source: Reproduced with permission, ©1995, 2002 Konami, ©2000 Sega-AM2.



representation of ordinary Chinese immigrants, owners of Chinese food restaurants andbarber shops, as knowledgeable about the Chinese mafia isolates and draws attention toforeigners in Japan. Although the Chinese residents are portrayed as exotic, the repre-sentation is not overly negative, seeming more descriptive of the reality of the social rolesof foreigners in a small Japanese town in the mid-1980s. And yet the Chinese, be theyordinary citizens, villains, or allies, are clearly different from the Japanese protagonist.This othering is engaged by the player toward virtual inhabitants of the game world.

On the other hand, the more cynical and violent Grand Theft Auto: San Andreasdoes not identify foreigners as different or dangerous; instead, the player runs a gangthat is at war with every other element of the city. With a paranoid and somewhatsociopathic viewpoint, the player takes on not two or three but hundreds of othersby engaging in virtual violence. These others include opposing inner-city gangs, cor-rupt police officers, and ordinary citizens of varied economic and racial back-grounds. Gonzalo Frasca (2003) argued that the environment of Grand Theft Auto 3is entirely immoral and that the lack of virtue and humanity converts virtual char-acters into potential victims. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, like Grand Theft Auto3, also portrays an immoral city governed by greed, corruption, and violence, a citypopulated by offensively caricaturized and dehumanized others who are thusacceptable targets for violence. Both San Andreas and Shenmue feature urban envi-ronments, and both use othering in varying degrees, together with fantasy elements,to provide players with powerful roles in these large cities.

Rather than merely providing a role for players, in Suikoden III, game designersused othering as a narrative theme. The more European nation, the mercantile ZexenFederation, fights a war with the indigenous hunter-gatherer nation of Grasslands. Ina move somewhat unique among other such games, Suikoden III allows players toexperience both sides of the conflict. By using a chapter format, players experienceeach segment of the war first from one side and then from the other. Although Zexenis vilified during the Grasslands chapters, Grasslands is similarly dehumanized fromthe Zexen point of view. Through this format, players identify first with one cultureand then the other, engaging and challenging their notions about war. While this ishappening, the game’s narrative events lead to Zexen and Grasslands learning to coex-ist peacefully. Suikoden III uses known interactive and narrative methods to draw onand challenge players’ own tendencies to other the unknown while telling a story aboutovercoming cultural intolerance. With this portrayal, a keen awareness of otheringemphasizes the natural tendency to define and fear the unfamiliar.

Once again, the massively multiplayer status of World of Warcraft makes it a differentexperience from these other games. Rather than merely accepting the fantasy andregarding virtual beings as foreign, online players engage in othering toward oneanother. The majority of the players on the North American servers are American orCanadian, yet it is not along real-life boundaries that players divide themselves. Instead,players are at war with players of the opposing faction. The game encourages animosityby disabling communication between factions (through languages) and allowing play-ers to attack only members of the other faction. What was surprising to me was theenthusiasm with which many players took sides in this virtual conflict. I experienced thegame on a role-playing server and observed that some players would role-play hatredand bigotry to make the game environment more real to them. This role-played intoler-ance made it appear that players did not really care to escape from the social problemsof material life as much as, perhaps, the unfair, real-life dimensions of these problems.Additionally, the players often took this dislike outside of a role-playing environment,




complaining about the other faction on message boards or in game chat. “I hate theAlliance,” said one player in Horde chat. “They should all just die and go to hell.”Although the war, the Alliance, and the Horde are all fantasy, the feelings of triumph,frustration, or anger experienced by players in virtual conflict are certainly real.

Conclusion

Examining games as culturally constructed spaces reveals how fantasy, realism, andcontrol are used to create virtual destinations for players to visit and escape from themundane. Realistic and fantastic environments alike communicate cultural meaningsthat are experienced not only through game environments but also through avatars,identities provided for players. When experiencing these virtual spaces and the ideasembedded in the representation, game designers and players alike bring othering to theexperience. Is there no “us” if there is no “them”? Even many of those games that do notinvolve war seem to establish foreigners as dangerous or, at the very least, different. Someof these games are Japanese, and some are American, and yet both define the foreign inopposition to themselves. For instance, the Japanese game Suikoden III portrays two fan-tasy cultures, each distinct from Japan in different ways. Zexen is mercantile, sophisti-cated, and corrupt, highlighting a belief of Japan as influenced by foreign infrastructureand corruption in the post–World War II reconstruction. Similarly, to the hierarchicalJapanese, the tribal Grasslanders are egalitarian as well as animist. In the AmericanWorld of Warcraft, the more Western faction is learned, sophisticated, and religious,whereas the other faction is tribal, spiritual, and struggles to overcome a dark culturalhistory. These representations reflect the designers’ views of their own cultures, a view-point that is taken on by gamers through interaction with the virtual environment.When a game is translated and shipped overseas, these viewpoints become distorted.Zexen and Grasslands are no longer defined in opposition to Japan but rather are com-pared with players’ own cultures. Perhaps players will relate to the more Western ZexenFederation or feel drawn to the exotic Grasslands. In World of Warcraft, the Westernimagery and the bald eagle gryphon mentioned earlier probably hold an entirely differ-ent meaning on the Chinese servers.

Lisa Nakamura (2002) has argued that virtual identities in online spaces reinforceracial stereotypes and offer stereotyped avatars for consumption. As asserted byNakamura, although online identities are “fluid,” they are also defined by cultural hege-monies. Games such as those in the Civilization series reinforce imperialism while mask-ing this ideology through providing exotic cultures for play (Douglas, 2002). Similarly,the games explored in this article provide exotic avatars that allow players to experiencealternate identities while reinforcing a comfortable view of the other. A player of GrandTheft Auto: San Andreas experiences the game as an African American gang member, asympathetic avatar that provides identity escapism without causing discomfort by chal-lenging the player’s views of inner-city gangs. And although Suikoden III challengesnotions about war, the presentation of an innocent and unsophisticated tribal culture anda sophisticated yet corrupt Western culture are likely to fall comfortably within players’expectations. Shenmue, on the other hand, provides an exotic identity even to Japaneseplayers: Ryo, the protagonist, is a skilled martial artist who explores the Japanese under-world, an opportunity not available to the typical high school student. To NorthAmerican gamers, there is an added dimension of identity tourism through exploringJapan as a Japanese person.





Like Suikoden III, World of Warcraft provides a variety of potential identities forplayers. But because of its status as a massively multiplayer online game, anywhere thatWorld of Warcraft might challenge cultural hegemonies, players are free to assert theirown, more comfortable viewpoints. This contributes to the fan discourse insisting thatthe Alliance are the heroes of the game, despite the obvious attempt by game design-ers for equality between the factions. Thus, through collaborative effort between theplayers and the designers, virtual spaces reproduce larger ideological patterns. Unlikemost other media, games portray domestic and foreign cultures in a space that can bedirectly experienced by players. When players suspend disbelief to take in a game envi-ronment, they participate in and perhaps reinforce these views of what is foreign andwhat is familiar.

People bring perceptions and beliefs to these fictional, recreational spaces—spaces that are entirely artificial, made of, in a way, ideas rather than physical space.Although the realistic, urban environments gain authenticity in their resemblance toreal-life spaces, the fantasy landscapes might gain a more uncritical acceptance.With San Andreas, players are concerned with how well the game mimics real life.Where it and Shenmue succeed and fail in this area was a popular topic for discus-sion in the group interviews. Elements of representation in urban games that mightbe directly compared to real life include the callous disregard for players’ victims inSan Andreas, as well as the representation of race and economics. On the other hand,Suikoden III fans seemed to enjoy analysis of the series, but they focused on theabstract, such as the validity of the philosophy of complete cultural tolerance. Itis a subtle distinction, but whereas the cities of San Andreas might obviously fail toaccurately represent urban life in some way, fantasy environments such as that ofSuikoden III require examination in terms of the fantasy world’s own internal con-sistency and mythological tradition. Thus, a distinction in the way players engage in“realistic” and “unrealistic” fantasy emerges. Although all four games include realis-tic and fantasy elements, the dominating environmental characteristics seemed toencourage either connection to or distancing from real life.

An idealized representation of war further engages players through a blending offantasy and realism. From the urban street wars of San Andreas and Shenmue to theepic fantasy wars of Suikoden III and World of Warcraft, a defining feature is that warbecomes fun. San Andreas is violent, but there is little suffering as a result of the vio-lence. When the player kills a civilian, he or she will not hear weeping from nearbypassersby but rather exclamations of “Wow, I’m glad that isn’t me!” In Shenmue, thevictims of the player’s heroics are thugs and mobsters, justifying the violence. And inSuikoden III and World of Warcraft both, war is represented as tragic but as less tragicthan real-life war.

All of these games justify violence just as they justify war: Typically, the justificationis that the players are not, after all, killing real people; and in World of Warcraft, inwhich there is a real player behind each character, death is temporary. This allowsplayers to enjoy violence without experiencing any guilt. Combined with the dehuman-ization the World of Warcraft players direct toward one another, war becomes a contestof skill, a sport in which teams are evenly matched and either side could win. Thatone team reveals a Western or First World influence whereas the other is more tribal orThird World in style betrays a highly idealized view of the real world. When playersvoluntarily role-play bigotry toward one another, it is done in an environment inwhich no race holds undue power over another. Life may not be fair, but life in Azerothsurely is.



Video games centered on aggressive human conflict emphasize the role of dehu-manization in justifying war and violence. But how does this reflect media represen-tations of modern wars? In real life, war propaganda strives toward the same goal indehumanization: to allow soldiers to kill without guilt and to allow civilians to sup-port war without guilt. Suikoden III can challenge players’ notions about war throughinteractive and story elements. At the same time, San Andreas provides an identity andenvironment in which even the most mild-mannered players can become mercilesscriminals. These two examples are merely fantasy; what effect could be created bygame representations of actual, present-day wars?

Within a geographical context, these games speak to modern American gamers indifferent ways. Shenmue, a foreign and pre-9/11 game, is somewhat lighthearted, withChinese mobsters who wield martial arts rather than guns and bombs. Suikoden IIIfeatures a compassionate and somewhat tragic representation of both sides of a war.Although the selection is small, both of these Japanese games represent stronger anti-war themes than the other games and feature sympathetic or stylized foreign villains.On the other hand, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas represents urban war as brutal andviolent, with enemies residing around every corner; this might resonate with gamerssaturated with media images of danger. And the recent World of Warcraft features themost idealized war of all of these four games. Both sides of the conflict are portrayedas equally strong, and the tragedy of war is seen rarely. Suitably for its medium, war istruly a game. The reasons for portrayal of war in such a way most likely reflects thedesire to represent a utopian environment meant to inspire gamers to continue topay a monthly fee. Yet this representation seems well in line with the representation ofAmerica’s ideological wars on the evening news, in which the day’s deaths in Iraq arementioned but only in passing, along with discussion of the progress of Iraqi democ-racy, and in which, like World of Warcraft, corpses and grieving families are shownbriefly – if at all. As foreign or domestic products, the ideological messages of thesegames participate in the larger cultural pattern of media representations of war. Thisis relevant not only because games participate in this but also because of their exis-tence as virtual environments: People visit these sanitized war spaces and engage invirtual violence for fun; this could reflect a fascination with our own far-off wars.

This research begins to explore what is potentially a very interesting and importantfield. How people relate to others through virtual environments, as well as how theyrelate to the virtual environments themselves is a question that has interesting implica-tions in an age when people frequently communicate through technology, such as thetelephone and the Internet, sometimes without ever meeting face to face. Can the waysthat people interact with game environments be taken as a reflection of the ways theyinteract with other virtual environments? This encourages future research overlappinginteraction with video games and interaction through the Internet. Examining thesefour games leads to the question of why so many games reproduce war, hatred, andracism. Some games feature nonviolent conflict, such as Animal Crossing, Tetris, andDance Dance Revolution. But many games seem to represent human hatred and violenceas the central conflict. Even the utopian games, such as World of Warcraft, feature war.Does this reflect a lack of variety in the games industry, and if so, why is this the case? Isit simply a feature of a young medium, or are people more universally drawn to thesehuman conflicts? What role do virtual environments play in the larger cultural situationwith media and entertainment? This research only begins to explore such questions, ina broad field that could reveal fascinating insights into the representation of space inmedia and human interaction with virtual environments.





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Leigh Schwartz recently graduated with a master of arts in geography from San Diego StateUniversity. Her current research interests include the representation of and interaction with thevirtual spaces of video games, the Internet, and other visual media. She will begin doctoralstudies at the University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 2006.




Fantasy Realism and the Other in Recent Video Games

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