Last Geek

Gamer: Sympathy for an Avatar

Warning: Spoilers

Gamer is finally out on DVD, so I decided to check out their portrayal of a futuristic gaming world where people play real humans in their games. It started in a game called Society that was basically Second Life where players took over the body of an “actor”.  The players of Society have no regard for the people they control and use them to do all the bizarre things that players of Second Life do: everything from bizarrely dancing to fulfilling sexual fantasies.  Then came Slayers, where players take control of death row inmates promised freedom if they can survive 30 rounds of the game, a near impossible feat.

The rules of Slayers are never fully explained.  It is only clear that there is a number of people being played by actual gamers who start at one location and once they reach a “save spot” on the other side of the battleground they win that round. It is assumed that more than one player is able to win the round since more than one person is shown to survive a round.  In a sense it can be considered a co-op game or even an MMO.  Besides the gamer controlled humans, there are people on the battleground that act as NPCs. They are shown to be there for decoration, in the same way pedestrians do in Grand Theft Auto.  While it is never clearly covered, it is assumed some of these NPCs take on the role of the enemy and act as the obstacle between the player controlled human and the save spot.

Despite the movie’s name, it does not focus on the gamer who controls on the Slayers. The star of the movie is Kable, the human controlled by Simon, who is just a few rounds short of earning his freedom.  You may be wondering why anyone would care  about Kable since it is Simon who’s skill has kept Kable alive.  It explained by the “ping”, the time it takes for Simon’s commands to reach Kable’s brain so he reacts.  During that brief time, Kable is in control and it is his own abilities that keep him alive.  It could be said both Kable and Simon are responsible for Kable’s success.

Kable being controlled by Simon

In the real world, Kable has a wife and daughter. His wife, Angie, works as an “actor” in Society.  We briefly see her try and win back custody of her daughter but that is contrasted from her time in Society. She is controlled by an overweight mostly naked boy who uses her to have sex with men inside the Society. The other people inside Society are  shown to be treated worse than Angie, with some “actors” being left bloody and hurt or used to fulfill sexual desires.  We see brief glimpses of  the players and their looks are shown to be more disturbing than what they use the actors for. People who would use an avatar to do such things are off to begin with, but since the avatars are actual humans, it is far worse.  The movie never explains what kind of money an “actor” of Society gets paid or if they receive some sort of compensation if they take damage during their “performance.” I assumed they must be paid an outragous amount to be willing to subject themselves to that kind of punishment.

Angie while she is “acting” in Society

Unfortunately, while the movie brought up some interesting ideas it fell apart about half way through with an unrealistic villain and absurd back-story, turning it into a shallow action movie (though the dancing scene was kinda cool). The most disappointing part was that Simon, the gamer, was hardly seen during the movie and barely had an effect on the events of the movie.

The first half of the movie did seem to have a subtle message of sympathy for  the avatars.  Kable and Angie are subjected to inhuman acts since the gamers don’t recognize them as human.  The wall between player and the game created by the TV screen distances them from the reality of their actions.  They get to do the worst things man is possible of without guilt. A gamer’s murder of another human is just written off as part of the game; even those able to momentarily realize they are human write it off as killing another psychopath who volunteered for it. Simon, Kable’s controller, even describes Kable as “his psychopath” at one point. The gamers are gods in that world.

Any gamer can think about a time they ran in to a deadly situation without concern because they knew they would just respawn or a time they tortured their Sim by not letting him use the bathroom or trapping them in a pool without the ladder.  We can get away with all of that because we know we are not controlling a person, it just a game.  Would gamers show concern for their character if they knew they were playing a real human? What if we could talk to our characters while we play them? I don’t think I could tell Nathan Hale from Resistance I was about to send him against aliens forces that would most likely kill him, even though I did a hundred times when playing it. If he only had one life, no continues, no resets I think I would play the games a lot differently. I can say even before I watched the movie, I made a point to not kill anyone who didn’t provoke me; this means no running over hookers in GTA or murdering random townsfolk in RPG’s.

You have to wonder when real gamers will feel guilt sending their characters to their death time after time. When the graphics get lifelike and our heroes so real, will we feel a tingle of guilt when the screen reads Game Over? Its a long way off, but the future of gaming might cause many gamers to ask themselves more philosophical questions about the value of the character’s life than asking how many lives their character has. For now, we are just gamers playing a game.

Tags: Gamer