REAL LIFE
CONTENT More and more people get addicted to online role-playing games. A growing number of adolescents tend to play these games. In the gaming jargon they are called an MMORPG: massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Some people play these games to escape from reality and not a few of them get alienated from reality. This publication supports my end result: a trailer to promote real life. Online gaming addiction is a growing fenomenon in worldwide society, though it’s very underestimated. In these games you pick a fictional character who will be part of an enormous online society. Your avatar will evolve, gain skills, make money and will come in contact with a lot of other people from around the world who will help you build a social network. As the game progresses you get more experience and appreciation of the game and your opponents. This is also a very brief description of what life itself has to offer. Since these games have many similarities with life itself I formed the following research question: “How can I promote reality to MMORPG-gamers?” The aim of this project is to create a view on a regular day, supported on and inspired by games and existing gaming interfaces. As I am the creator and author of this project, I will be the main character in my real life trailer. The interface is based on my skills, interests and values. For my target audience it’s a proposal of a lifestyle and a mindsit to kick reality in the balls and make something out of your lifetime. They feel comfortable in a gaming environment so i’m showing them the reality of life supported by an interface. The world is one giant playground and is bursting of possibilities in comparison to online games. Real life is harder, but doesn’t everyone want to achieve their goals for themselves, their loved ones and their legacy? “Real life” is the newest, biggest, baddest and hardest game that will ever by designed.
1. RESEARCH 1-26 I started my research for this project started watching a lot of online documentaries, watching movies and reading books about online gaming. These influences were evenly positive as negative. I realized that some people really can have positive experiences by playing RPGgames. A Japanese architect who is living in Tokyo can enjoy walking around in al types of landscapes thanks to World of Warcraft. This was enlighting for me. These positive impressions do not outweigh the negative impressions and effects that i read and witnessed by watching and reading things about this matter. I didn’t have a lot of experience with online gaming since I’m not a gamer at all, but I’ve watched friends and family play these games alot. Their motives to play always fascinated me.
2. COMPARISON 29- 62 There are a lot of projects where real life images are mixed with interfaces of well-known games, like Call of Duty or GTA V. Other projects reflect on how augmented reality technologies like a Google Glass could change our lives. I got a lot of inspiration out of these looking at their interfaces and their way of assembling images. I’ve determined that there is just little awareness about online-gaming addiction. Since I known a few people who are of where addicted to online gaming I think that I’ve determined a good way to approach gamers to make them aware of their addicition. This way is not by bringing out a huge campaign out in the open, visual in the streets for everyone to see but rather a small initiative to reach my target audience through their own favorite medium: the computer.
3. PROCES 65 - 98 Before starting this project, I didn’t have any experience what so ever with designing an interface or with assembling images. If you visit my blog about my project (jasperjoris.wordpress.com) you’ll notice that I’ve did a lot of research on how the interface should look, how this interface should move and how the assets on the interface are best readable on a moving background. Once I’ve put everything in order I planned out a regular day which I filmed with a GoPro attached to my head. In this way the perspective of the images would refer to the popular perspective for online role playing games: first person. This day had to consist of gaining new experiences, like exploring places that where you’ve never been before. I wanted to lear about culture and spend time with real friends. Not online friends.
4. RESULT ONLINE The final result of this project is visible on popular online platforms like Youtube and Vimeo. So go ahead, search for ‘graphics look better in real life’ and find out how my gameplay-trailer for real life looks like.
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“You substitute the real world for this world.” (BBC Panorama)
“Designed to keep us wanting more!” (BBC Panorama)
“These computers on our desks are turning into portals to other realms of existance.” (Edward Castranova - synthetic worlds economist)
“These realms will soon be preferred to earth.” (Edward Castranova - synthetic worlds economist)
“What if we had a world where everyone started at the same starting line.” (Edward Castranova - synthetic worlds economist)
“I would definitely consider myself a resident of the virtual world.” (Random gamer)
“A place where I can control my own destiny.” (Young Ki-Jang - gamer)
“I love wide green open spaces in World of Warcraft.” (CaoJun - gamer)
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
HISTORICAL NOTICE A good way to understand online games is to trace how they emerged from the intersection of several historical trajectories: miniature wargaming, epic fantasy literature, role-playing games and multiplayer video games. In 1812, the Prussian army developed Kriegsspiel, a compex tabletop board game, to train officers in military tactics and strategy. It was certainly not the first board game -chess also fits the description- but where chess is a metaphorical abstraction, the Prussians developed Kriegsspiel to be a realistic war simulation. Miniature figures represented infantry and cavalry armies; square terrain tiles, laid out on the table, created a grid-based and dice determined individual combat outcomes. Rules governed how far each unit could move each turn, how much damage each unit could inflict, and how terrain modified movement and combat. A neutral empire would asses and resolve the players’ actions. In 1880, the United States imported Kriegsspiel, again for military training purposes. Miniature wargames first became commercialy available in 1913, when the writer H.G. Wels simplified the rules, added a mechanical cannon and sold the toy soldier package as Little Wars. In role-playing games, players first create their characters based on predefined templates of different races and abilities in the rulebook. Elves may be more proficient in archery, and Dwarves may be able to endure more combat damage before dying. Players can choose different combat specializations, such as warriors trained for combat or mages trained for casting spells. Combat is initiated and won using conventions from minituare wargames. Characters and monsters have health points, and when combat damage exceeds their health points, they die. As characters defeat monsters, they accumulate experience points and escend to higher levels. This allows them to improve their skills or learn new ones over time. Typical role-playing campaigns are weekly social gatherings that may run week, months over even years. These games encourage players to cooperate in a variety of ways. Although it is often possible to fight creatures and level up alone, this generally becomes more difficult beyond the beginner areas. Also, different character classes complement one another well when taking on more challenging monsters. (The Proteus Paradox - Nick Yee) The first games ever were developed with the purpose of gaining experience and knowledge when it comes to situations in real life. This connection is gone in popular games nowadays. We have a whole -and growing- population of largely male youth who are gaining experience in things that aren’t relevant in our society.
Phil Toledano - Gamers - 2011
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“If we can master 10 000 hours of effortful study, at anything, we will be virtuoses at it.” (Jane McGonigal - game designer)
“What exactly are gamers getting good at?” (Jane McGonigal - game designer)
“What we are looking at is a whole generation of virtuoso gamers.” (Jane McGonigal - game designer)
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Phil Toledano - Gamers - 2011
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
World of Warcraft character - mage
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World of Warcraft character - warrior
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WHO PLAYS AND WHY? “The introduction of every communication medium has caused a moral panic centered on teens.”
When arcade bars appeared in bars and nightclubs in the 1970’s, gaming was largely an adult pastime. In analysis of three decades -1970 to 2000- of news articles on video games, Dmitri Williams, a professor of communication at the University of Southern California, has documented how media portrayal of gaming shifted dramatically in the 1980’s. News and magazine articles began to associatie gaming with male teenagers and to warn of the addictive and corrupting nature of video games: gaming was not only a gateway to deviance; gaming was deviant behaviour. The reaction to gaming is not unique. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the introduction of every communication medium has caused a moral panic centered on teens: movies in the 1920’s, radio in the 1930’s, comic books and rock and roll in the 1940’s and 1950’s and so on. Much as with comic books and rock and roll when they first appeared, the unrelenting media association between video games and teenagers led to the stereotype that only teenagers play video games. According to the news media, moreover, gaming wasn’t just for teenagers: it was specifically for teenage boys. In addition, media reports repeatedly suggested that boys were biologically hardwired for violent video games. Even after thirty years, these stereotypes still strongly influence how we perceive gamers. Despite the common portrayals, studies of thousands of online gamers by different researchers accros varied games and over the past decade have consistently found that players’ average age is around thirty, with some players as young as eleven and some as old as sixty-eight. Only about 20 percent of these online gamers are teenage boys. Other findings show that many online gamers are leading normal adult lives outside of games. Fifty percent of online gamers work full-time, 36 percent are married and 22 percent have children. (The Proteus Paradox - Nick Yee) The group of teenage boys is the most influental group of online gamers. They are still in school and working on their skills to start a normal adult life. Gaming addiction can seriously stand in the way of these goals with even causes of suicide as result. This is a growing fenomenon in our society. With this is mind, there is just little awareness about this issue.
Schauna Frischkorn - Game Boys - 2007
(Nick Yee - social scientist)
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“I wondered if there was a way to unconsciously tease out aspects of people’s personality, and capture it on film. So I had them play video games.” (Shauna Frischkorn - photographer)
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Schauna Frischkorn - Game Boys - 2007
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
Robbie Cooper - Emmersion - 2011
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Robbie Cooper - Emmersion - 2011
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Robbie Cooper - Emmersion - 2011
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Robbie Cooper - Emmersion - 2011
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Robbie Cooper - Alter Ego - 2009
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Robbie Cooper - Alter Ego - 2009
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Robbie Cooper - Alter Ego - 2009
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Robbie Cooper - Alter Ego - 2009
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
WHY PEOPLE PLAY “Gamers get better feedback and feel more rewarded in games then they do in real life. We have to start to make the real world look more like a game.”
Understanding the diverse reasons why online gamers play these games is another way of moving beyond stereotypes. Players’ answers vary tremendously. One player in Evequest writes: “Overall, I enjoy taking on the role of a happy, silly little gnome who eats bugs.”, while another player in Star Wars Galaxies explains that he is “trying to establish a working corporation within the economic boundaries of the virtual world. Primarily, to learn more about how real world social theories play out in a virtual economy.” Richard Bartle’s analysis of player types is a well known taxonomy of why people enjoy online games. He categories players as achievers, socializers, killers (players who enjoy inflicting misery on others), and explorers (whether it’s the geography or the game rules). My research in gameplay motivations built and expanded on Bartle’s types. Statistical analysis of survey data from online gamers has consistently indentified three clusters of gameplay motivations, these relate to achievement, social interaction, and immersion. The motivations within each cluster are highly correlated with one another and largely independent from motivations in the other two clusters. The achievement cluster focuses on different ways of gaining power within the context of the game. The social interaction cluster is about different ways of relating to other people in the game. And the immersion cluster is about different ways of becoming a party of the story. These aren’t separate categories that players fall into but rather the building blocks that allow us to understand individual players. Thus, most players have high scores on one or two clusters while having average or low scores on the reamining clusters. (The Proteus Paradox - Nick Yee) The main reason why people are addicted to these online games is emmersion. They use the games to break free from reality, which is too demanding. They experience a lack of feedback and feel less rewarded then they do in games. In some cases, they get totally alienated from reality and think of the online world as their own reality. My project is about creating a mindset in which you reward yourself when completing a goal. These goals can be aimed at one perticular day, a month, a year or a lifetime. It’s also about being aware of the things you have to do to achieve these goals: the feedback.
Klaus Pichler - Just the two of us - 2013
(Jane McGonigal - game designer)
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Klaus Pichler - Just the two of us - 2013
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DOCUMENTARIES
World of Warcraft: Looking for group documentary
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World of Warcraft: Looking for group documentary
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World of Warcraft: Looking for group documentary
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World of Warcraft: Looking for group documentary
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IRL (in real life) documentary
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IRL (in real life) documentary
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MOVIES Surrogates’ main concept centres on the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase remote controlled humanoid robots through which they interact with society. These fit, attractive, remotely controlled robots ultimately assume their life roles, enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes.
‘Surrogates’ - Jonathan Mostow
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‘Surrogates’ - Jonathan Mostow
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
“I’ve got no strings, so I have fun. I’m not tied up to anyone. They got strings, but you can see, there are no strings on me.”
This movie is called Gamer. In 2024, inventor and professional computer programmer, Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall), has revolutionized the gaming industry with his self-replicating nanites that replace brain cells and allow full control of all motor functions by a third party. Castle’s first application of this technology is a game called Society, which allows gamers to control a real person in a pseudo community (much like The Sims or Second Life). This allows players to engage in all manner of debauchery, such as deliberately injuring their “characters” and engaging in rough sex with random people. As a result, those who work as “characters” in Society are paid very well in compensation. With Society’s success and huge profits, Castle (now richer than Bill Gates), creates a second multiplayer game, Slayers. The “characters” in this third-person shooter game are death-row or life imprisoned inmates used in lethal battles with real weapons on specially created battlefields. Any inmate who survives 30 matches earns his freedom, while minor offenders only need one match while being limited to a pre-programmed path that they cannot deviate from.
‘Gamer’ - Mark Neveldine
(Hackman - character in ‘Gamer’)
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‘Gamer’ - Mark Neveldine
“We made computers to work for us.” (Nick Yee - social scientist)
“We react to digital bodies the way we react to physical bodies.” (Nick Yee - social scientist)
“How our brain works doesn’t change when we slip into a digital body.” (Nick Yee - social scientist)
“Instead of developing new social forms, we fall back on the ones we’ve learned from the physical world.” (Nick Yee - social scientist)
“Video games have come to demand we work for them.” (Nick Yee - social scientist)
“The offline burdens we thought we could leave behind follow us in the virtual world.” (Nick Yee - social scientist)
“A fascinating aspect of many contemporary online communities is that they are able to incentivize people to work for free.” (Nick Yee - social scientist)
“Games are uniquely powerful in converting paid work into free labor.” (Nick Yee - social scientist)
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME
life as a video game - bron: 9gag.com
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life as a video game - bron: 9gag.com
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GAMES VS. REALITY
games vs reality - bron: froot.nl
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games vs reality - bron: froot.nl
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GAMING ADDICTION CAMPAIGNS
NSW/Alienation - gaming addiction campaigns
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NSW/Alienation - gaming addiction campaigns
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IF SEX WAS LIKE CALL OF DUTY
Above Average - If sex was like Call of Duty
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Above Average - If sex was like Call of Duty
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SIGHT
Eran May-raz & Daniel Lazo - Sight - 2013
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Eran May-raz & Daniel Lazo - Sight - 2013
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Eran May-raz & Daniel Lazo - Sight - 2013
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Eran May-raz & Daniel Lazo - Sight - 2013
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
AUGMENTED CITY
Keiichi Matsuda - Augmented City - 2013
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Keiichi Matsuda - Augmented City - 2013
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
FUI - future user interfaces
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FUI - future user interfaces
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ENDER’S GAME
FUI - future user interfaces
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FUI - future user interfaces
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UI - World of Warcraft
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UI - World of Warcraft
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THE SIMS
UI - The Sims
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UI - The Sims
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GAMING LOGO’S
logo - City of Heroes
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logo - World of Warcraft
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logo - Final Fantasy XI
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logo - Diablo
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GRAPHICS LOOK BETTER IN REAL LIFE
games vs reality
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games vs reality
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games vs reality
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games vs reality
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GAME TRAILERS
study of popular game trailers
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study of popular game trailers
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study of popular game trailers
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study of popular game trailers
“In the real world you have to conform to expectations of your parents, teachers, and peers.” (Young Ki-Jang - gamer)
“Playing Final Fantasy XI is like going to Japan without leaving my house.”
(Mat Bedford - gamer)
“The path forward is up to you. play well, and you will get ahead.” (Young Ki-Jang - gamer)
“Second Life allows me to go places and hang out with people without the fuss of having to find a babysitter.” (Charmaine Hance - gamer)
“It’s not like in the real world where things are set for you.” (Young Ki-Jang - gamer)
“I hate the level of frustrated progress in the real world so I play the game and level up instead” (male gamer)
“We invest 3000000000 hours weekly playing online games.” (Jane McGonigal - game designer)
“So far, we’ve spent 5,93 million years solving the virtual problems of Azeroth” (Jane McGonigal - game designer)
Masterpublication: Jasper Joris
GIF study of interface movement
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GIF study of interface movement
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GIF study of interface movement and symbols
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GIF study of interface movement and symbols
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research for the real life campaign
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research for the real life campaign
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copywriting research for the real life campaign
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copywriting research for the real life campaign
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symbol research
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symbol research
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symbol research
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symbol research
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SKILLS
BACKPACK
MENTAL
PHYSICAL
GEAR
TRAITS
SKILLS
BACKPACK
MENTAL
PHYSICAL
GEAR
TRAITS
SKILLS
BACKPACK
MENTAL
PHYSICAL
GEAR
TRAITS
symbol research
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SKILLS
BACKPACK
MENTAL
PHYSICAL
GEAR
TRAITS
SKILLS
BACKPACK
MENTAL
PHYSICAL
GEAR
TRAITS
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symbol research
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research for begin and end credits
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research for begin and end credits
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research for begin and end credits
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research for begin and end credits
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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green screen test
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green screen test
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green screen test
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green screen test
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green screen test
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green screen test
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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still of the gameplay-trailer
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still of the gameplay-trailer
“It takes more than full-time dedication” (Yoon Yoon Jae - gamer)
“I found out that if I didn’t play I would become a bit of a social outkast.” (Yiang Chen Yi - gamer)
“We don’t get that constant feedback in real life.” (Jane McGonigal)
“Online games are like schools in many ways. Both provide predifined rewards for a set of highly constrained and objectivly measured activities.” (Nick Yee)
“There are a lot of characters who are willing to trust you with a world saving mission.” (Jane McGonigal)
“When we are in a gaming world, we try to be the best version of ourselves.” (Jane McGonigal)
“There is no unemployment in World of Warcraft” (Jane McGonigal)
“Reports repeatedly suggested that boys were hardwired for video games.” (Nick Yee)
GRAPHICS LOOK BETTER IN