A Dromology of the Videogame

1
A Dromology of the Videogame

• Alex Wade
• Loughborough University
• UK

2
The Effects of Time and Space on the Social

• the functions traditionally distributed within
  the real space of the town are now exclusively
  taken over by the real time of the wiring of the
  human body as the inhabitant of the teletopical
  metacity can no longer clearly distinguish here
  from elsewhere private from public (Virilio,
  1997 56).
• With the increase of ICTs there is a new
  supremacy of real-time over real-space (Virilio,
  2000/1990 7), with the ultimate outcome that the
  temporal obliterates the spatial, here no longer
  exists, everything is now (Virilio, 2000/1998
  125).
• This is common in contemporary Sociology
  societies are stretched over shorter or longer
  spans of time and space (Urry, 1997 132)

3
Time, Space and the Social

• Movement is no longer measured by distance
  (space) but duration (time). E.g. when boarding a
  plane, passengers are told how long, rather than
  how far they will fly.
• There were once three terms of the departure,
  trip and arrival, now there are only two the
  departure and arrival (Virilio 2008 110)
• no doubt there will be no longer anything but
  arrival, the point of arrival, the departure will
  itself have disappeared in the instantaneity of
  the projection (Virilio, 2008 110)

4
Speed and Technology

• Storage capacity has increased exponentially
  while reducing its impact upon lived spaces. E.g.
  RAM Bytes, Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes,
  Terabytes
• the reality of information is entirely contained
  in the speed of its dissemination (Virilio,
  1995 140)
• information is only of any value if it is
  delivered fast better still that speed is
  information itself! (Virilio, 1995 140).
• The obsession with speed helps understand the
  proliferation of information such as 24-hour
  news, conspiracy theories email, texts, social
  utilities etc.

5
Dromology

• Dromology, brings objects surroundings towards
  the user.
• Dromoscopy is, therefore, paradoxically, the
  wait for the coming of what abides (Virilio,
  2008 110)
• The key feature will be control over ego-centric
  (introverted) space, not as in the past, the
  arrangement of exo-centric (extroverted) space
  (Virilio, 2000 68), such as DNA exploration,
  nanotechnology and videogames

6
Flattening Space and Time

• For the user of digital technologies, everything
  can be satisfied in the present chronos
  consumption, communication, navigation.
• The emphasis on the ego-centric means that the
  greatness of the universe is compressed in a
  perpetual shrinking effect (Virilio, 1995 41),
  as shown by GPS and Google Earth physical space
  is flattened onto the square horizon of the
  screen (Virilio, 1997 26), where there is no
  more delay, no more relief (Virilio, 199726).
• Everything is flattened, speed permits all and
  prohibits nothing liberating us from the
  volume of the object (Virilio, 2008 134)

7
The Vehicle and its Environment

• Virilio sees the evolution of the vehicle, with
  increasing speed as vital to a society addicted
  to speed. Autobahns allow for unlimited speed
• Deserts, the most homogenous of all environments
  are not only the venue for land-speed-record
  attempts, but where the fastest technologies are
  tested and developed those of the military.
• This is fully realised in the development of the
  USAFs Reaver Unmanned Aerial Vehicle which is
  in two deserts simulteneously.

8
Early Driving Games Sprint 2

• Sprint 2 (1974). Pre-historic, pre technological

9
Early Driving Games Monaco GP

• Monaco GP (1980), was one of the first games to
  project the landscape onto the player.
• It was also the first to have a deluxe model
  which lies the player down in front of the screen
  as if they are in a car.

10
Early Driving Games Motor Mania

• Motor Mania (1982) one of the first games to
  include a dashboard to aid the player.
• Shrinking its passengers field of vision, the
  frame of the dashboard gives rise to an
  acceleration of the sequencing that reinforces
  the effect of the acceleration of the vehicle
  (Virilio, 2008 103)

11
Battlezone Territories Unknown

• If the dashboard can identified with a
  victorious vision, to the point where the
  dashboard comes to seem rather like a
  misunderstood game of war (Virilio, 2008 107)
  then Battlezone fully realises this

12
Battlezone

• Radar flattens space, in common with previous
  conceived spaces such as maps and blueprints.
• The technology of vectors and its use as a
  graphical representation thus comes to replace
  the tactics of bodies (Virilio, 2008 107),
  replacing human input.
• Battlezone was revised for military use in the
  form of Bradley Trainer demonstrating the link
  between entertainment and war in the MIMENET
  (Military Industrial Entertainment NETwork) (Der
  Derian, 2001)

13
Inertia of Speed

• Pole Position II (1983), colourful, sprite based
  racing game.
• It generates what Virilio terms real speed as
  the background moves so quickly it appears not to
  move.
• This phenomenon is greatly desired by F1 drivers
  so that the impression is that you are moving in
  slow motion (Prost, cited Virilio, 2000 15)
• the irresistible attraction of the course
  dissolves the time of the movement the distance
  time (Virilio, 2008 105)
• Therefore, the image is the only high
  performance vehicle, the real time image which is
  supplanting the space where the car still moves
  from one place to another (Virilio, 2000/1990
  14

14
Vanishing Point TX-1

• TX-1s key innovation was the use of three
  screens to simulate the view from inside the
  passenger compartment of a car.
• the automobile forms a quadtriptych where the
  travel lover is the target of a permanent assault
  that recalls the perspective of the painting
  (Virilio, 2008 106).
• TX-1, with its technical artistry increases the
  distance in space by providing the gamer with a
  choice at each checkpoint which leads to Time
  Extend!
• Therefore, the greater the speed, the more
  distant the horizon . . . the future decides the
  present of the course (Virilio, 2008 106)

15
Vanishing Point OutRun

• Definitive sprite based driving game.
• Deluxe cabinet moved the player on hydraulics
  through two axes as well as the illusion of depth
  in the screen.
• Extensive use of the dashboard to choose music.
• Includes extended play from other games by
  extending time via reaching a point in space.

16
Control of Speed Operation Wolf

• Cabinet equipped with a scale-model Uzi replica
  in first person perspective.
• As with Battlezone the screen displays the
  logistical formation of the battlefield (health,
  ammo, enemies).
• No control of the movement through space.
• Although alarms sound and the screen flashes,
  there is no damage to the gamer.
• Virilio says that this is pure war a vectoral
  image of a combat without battle, but not without
  fear, that gives rise to an extermination that
  extends throughout the world and spreads its
  victims across the field of excess speed
  (Virilio, 2008 56)
• Airports have the tragic character of the
  extermination camps (Virilio, 2008 97) This is
  seen in the prohibition and regulation, the
  movement through lines of people, the use of
  pseudo-paramilitary personnel, and the
  humiliation of being ordered to take your clothes
  off in front of others.

17
Concentration of Speed Operation Wolf

• Pure speed is pure war is pure control the
  movement to the ego-centric means that
  individuals, groups, races and entire societies
  has rendered every one of us a passenger on an
  aircraft, accelerating but inert.
• As we are distanced from the spaces around us we
  take part in pure war through Call of Duty 4, as
  gamer/soldiers warring in a technology of speed,
  we are separated from interaction, present but
  disenfranchised we enter a concentration camp of
  speed where segregation and incarceration stem
  far more from the violence of displacement than
  from various police controls (Virilio, 2008 57)
• This is professed in COD 4s subtitle Modern
  Warfare.