Hypermediating the Game Interface: The Alienation Effect in Violent Videogames and the Problem of Serious Play

Abstract

This article looks at the practices of customization in violent urban videogames (such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) that create “hypermediated” interfaces. Drawing from Bolter and Grusin's theory of hypermediation (which stands in contrast to immediate and immersive interfaces), this study looks at gaming practices that resist immediacy and instead focus on the disjunctions and contrasts created by forming avatars that starkly juxtapose their surroundings. Such an approach offers gamers the ability to create a space of cultural critique while simultaneously interrogating the term “serious game” because this category creates false binary oppositions between serious–trivial and serious–play.

Keywords:

• Avatars
• Immersion
• Interface
• Serious Games
• Urban Environments
• Videogames

Notes

As Rashid, Bamford, Coulton, Edwards, and Scheible (2006) noted in their article, “PAC-LAN: Mixed-Reality Gaming With RFID-Enabled Mobile Phones,” “[m]ixed reality is the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce a new environment where physical and digital objects can co-exist and interact” (p. 1).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jason Farman

Jason Farman (Ph.D., University of California–Los Angeles, 2006) is an assistant professor and director of the Digital Technology and Culture Program at Washington State University.