PLAYING WITH THE FUTURE: DEVELOPMENT AND DIRECTIONS IN COMPUTER GAMING

ABSTRACT

Computer Games as a Form of Computer Mediated Communication
and the Changing Images of Childhood

Friedrich Krotz

Computer Games are a new form of mediated communication, as it is the case with other interactive media: it is not (traditionally mediated) communication with other persons, and it is not a form of media reception as, e.g., TV watching or reading. Instead, playing a computer game on a stand-alone-computer means that the player constitutes an own, unique 'conversation' within the frame of the possibilities given by the software product. And in playing games with others mediated by the internet or under similar conditions, we can understand this as a form of communication with other persons which may be mediated by artificial intelligence products.

Thus, Computer games as communication allow the players new intellectual and emotional experiences, new modes of constructing reality in and outside the game and new types of relations to other persons. With regard to complex games which simulate social or economic worlds and have its own rules and modes of existence, it is a challenge for communication research and cultural analysis to find out what consequences these new experiences may have - not so much as consequences of content but of the new forms of mediated communication in general. For example, if the Netherland author Huizinga was right that playing games should be seen as the core of a culture, we come to a lot of interesting questions.

Another point is that computer games are mostly played by children and only seldom by adults. To play is one of the most important activities of children and young people. By that they socialise themselves, they learn the roles, the norms and values of their parents generation as their own ones and they reproduce Culture and Society. By analyzing children's play, one must take into consideration that playing is different for girls and boys and for children of different ages, classes and cultures. Now, more and more Computer Games become part of the growing up of children and young people. If the modes of playing, the importance and meaning of games and the contexts of playing are changing, this may have consequences for Culture and Society, at least on the long run.

In each case we can guess that such changing conditions of socialisation and growing up may change our view and the image of childhood and, evidently then also our understanding of being adult, in as far as childhood and adult are concepts which belong together. The presentation will discuss such problems on the base of explorative empirical research and theories on childhood as on development of society, e.g. the process of Civilisation by Norbert Elias.

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