Video Games as a Posthuman Media
As someone who enjoys gaming since a very young age, I have seen the evolution of video games in recent years. In my experience, they have become more immersive and interactive, which in turn, has great potential for knowledge making. While in the past, video games were deemed as merely entertaining, scholars in the 1990s started recognizing their potential to create meaningful stories through narration (D. Melnic and V. Melnic 2018,173). The games addressed in this project, for example, invoke posthuman themes, which, contrary to the more popular shooting video games, have the ability to produce knowledge and raise moral and philosophical questions “towards contemporary social issues” (Leonardo 2016, 7).“in relation to video games, can be briefly defined as the player’s ability to effect changes in the game and the system’s ability to respond to the player’s input in a meaningful way” (Melnic and Melnic 173).
While other forms of media, such as movies and literature, are also able to create ‘narrative knowledge’ (Leonardo 2016, 8), “‘only interactive media [can] trigger our motor cortex directly’” (D. Melnic and V. Melnic 2018, 171). Interactivity being one the core virtues of video games, players can better immerse themselves into the gameplay. Indeed,
Video game producers can therefore make significant games in which players, through complex plots and characters, “riddled with ethical dilemmas” (D. Melnic and V. Melnic 2018, 174), can experience “otherness in a new, meaningful way” (D. Melnic and V. Melnic 2018, 174). Through gaming’s interactive and immersive nature, then,“In order for this degree of immersion to take place […] it is necessary for the user to both gain intertextual knowledge of the world they are participating in, assimilating it to a certain degree, as well as to become familiar with the interface necessary to access it” (D. Melnic and V. Melnic 2018, 171).
“players [can] bring with them the sum of all of their experiences, learned statements, critical thinking, and cultural expression. Like when facing a painting or assist a theatrical piece, these enter in contact with issues stated by the videogame in a more or less evident manner. If this contact is made with awareness and an open mental predisposition that is not only limited to the purpose of winning the game or end its narration, critical inquiry can arise and influence the pre-existing set of knowledge. (Leonardo 2016, 7)
