A Game Outside of the Game

This week’s reading was perhaps the most difficult for me to connect with this semester. Not because of the writing but because I did not have a reference point to connect with as I read. I have only played video/computer games a few times in my whole life. I guess being the son of workaholic parents who encouraged me to become a workaholic has impacted my game play experience. In this stage of my life I am not sure if I will start to explore the world of gaming.

However, I would agree with McAllister, “it’s important to closely examine computer games. . . precisely because they are having at least this [assumptions and ideologies] reinforcing effect on a broad cross-section of the world’s population” (p. 144). When a medium is presented as fun or relaxing consumers of the medium are less likely to question what ideologies are being presented for their consumption. One of the most striking things I took away from the text is the game outside of the game or the marketing process and its similarities to the game Black & White.

In the game the player attempts to increase belief within the game and manipulates other economic system of the game with the player actions. The game industry like others uses similar tactics to sell products. Almost a year ago I was asked to design a research methods course with practical applications to industry. During this process I spent time at both Scarborough Media Research and Nielsen Media Research. This was the first time I was exposed to a look book- a 5 to 7 inch binder of research for a specific product and its consumers. The specific book was for a high-end ice cream brand that was examining a new print media campaign. The book contained the profile of the average consumer, their likes, their dislikes, their daily habits, the spending habits, the type of car they would drive, the types of jobs they would work, what their would buy while grocery shopping.

The amount of detail the researchers produced about who purchases the product and the perceptions others had about the product would be used to develop ads to hit this market. One of the researchers said their job was not only to help provide data to sell the product, their job was also to provide data to help connect the product to a lifestyle. McAllister discussed how due to limited processing capacity of home computers a decade ago the game designers did not include a sophisticated way to process and compare matrixes of data to the user, but this information would be presented in a straightforward way like “we need food.” One thing is for certain; modern advertising professionals have already answered the tagline of Black & White and already know exactly who we really are.  

Players of this game attempt to influence their world with belief, miracles, and wonder. I cannot think of any recent adverting campaigns that do not attempt to do the same with a product, idea, or company.