Systems Simulator) project is a key moment in this history. To provide the visual display inside the VCASS or “Super cockpit” helmet prototype, Sutherland developed the basic architecture of the realtime generation of a moving first person view from a database of representational elements. While the VCASS’ helmeted virtual view of the operational environment was more successful as a forerunner of VR technology, the project’s flight simulator engine was a crucial plank in the development of digital simulator training systems which have become pervasive in military and commercial aviation and vehicle “piloting” more generally. The breakthrough video game to deploy this first person perspective was Atari’s Battlezone (Atari, 1980). Made initially as an arcade machine, the procedurally generated vector graphics—which use mathematical expressions of basic geometrical elements like lines, curves and regular polygons—portrayed combat between the player and enemy tanks in a sparse wireframe world with minimal but effective visual cues to orient the player in the game world (see figure 2). If by this time the most advanced military and commercial vehicle simulators displayed far richer, more illusionistically satisfying landscapes, Battlezone nonetheless delivered to the masses an equally realtime simulation of piloting a vehicle in combat. The “irreal” green world evoked the hi-tech abstractions of targeting reticules, radar monitors and computerized warfare in this immensely successful game. Something central to the “first person” view is readily apparent in Battlezone: the player’s positioning does not correspond neatly to that of the reader of the first person novel or the viewer of a point of view shot in film or television. Battlezone’s player is best understood as playing at being the tank operator, or even as the tank inasmuch as
figure 6) but also in realtime tactical battles where they must manouevre and engage the enemy on the fly (see figure 7). Realtime Strategy games have gained more widespread popularity over the last decade. In games like Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void (Blizzard Entertainment, 2015) the player makes decisions about the kinds of units to “build” and how to deploy them under the pressure of the clock and the imminent arrival of the enemy player (or game AI) who brings their own means and method of attack to the encounter (see figure 8). These games play at the moment-to-moment control of that dangerous contingency comprised of the enemy and the unpredictable future with precisely the digital technologies at the very heart of both the accelarated exacerbation of the danger and the ever-expanding effort to anticipate and avoid it. This is gametime as the “fun” register of the ambivalent—Bernard Stiegler would say “pharmacological”—realtime transformation of temporal experience of conflict in the digital age. Epistemological Engagement: Immersive – Informational This screenshot of League of Legends (Riot 2009) gameplay illustrates a powerful trend toward a predominantly informational and systemic engagement in the gameworld that is increasingly evident in recent video games (figure 9). The screen provides a multifaceted and constantly updated status report on all of the elements in play in the game software’s provision of simulated combat. Starting at the lower right, there is a minimap situating the current action in the main command view within the wider game map along with player and fellow team member avatar icons and stats. On the upper right are score and various team progress stats along with elapsed gametime and screen frame-rate. The game’s text chat is shown on the lower left and
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