Piggy!.. Why are your pork chops so valuable?

So recently I got side tracked by the virtual realm of Minecraft, which is a game where you basically mine, craft blocks and what nots (It’s like lego for grown ups). Upon Fridays lecture this game popped into my end when I started thinking about agency and affect.

My idea’s on agency with this game were similar to what Jacob Hui mentioned earlier in the forum and that Minecraft seems to contradict quite well with Steven Poole’s idea’s on agency, in “that possessing any agency in videogames is an illusion”, however the more I think about it the less timid my argument against Poole becomes. The way I see it, this game is a template for the players decisions and creative mind to go nuts on. There is no princess to save, threatening terrorist organistation or bad boy ‘to cool for school’ street racers that need putting in their place. All you do is create!

FOR EXAMPLE!

I really can’t pre-call doing anything like those in Duke Nukem… This game really has no plot line or objective at all, for all you wish you could sit in a hole, watch the clouds go by and the game will still think you’re a champion. This is what got me to thinking ‘ha-ha!! In your face Poole, your argument is invalid! But then I started thinking…

The game is still a virtual finite space as there is only so high, low and far you can go in the game before your path is blocked by the impassable. There are no interactions with other characters in the game even though I have come across people like things; I can’t have a dog, drive a car or techno rave with a baboon. The actions the player can do in the game are more or less restricted to survival in terms of mining, crafting, hunting and zombie killing!! (may have forgotten to mention that one, personally I find it a secondary experience of the game). By talking about restrictions I can see how Poole’s idea’s can land as true and I can only do in terms of agency, what programmers intended, even though there is no linear plot path.

Onto affect in Minecraft and how you pull my heart strings so… I have piggy farm filled with 16bit pink coloured squares that pass off as pigs that have been coded to jump, wonder, oink and stand next to other such squares to mate. My farm started with two pigs, (gender is not important on my farm, so don’t worry) with these pigs a grew my farm to 20 filling my heart with triumph and joy all before the dark and rain of night…. The night was cold, rainy, fire torches lite the way as I drew my sword under the moonlight. Walking up to my farm gate, I took a deep breathe and shut my eyes… The first squeal was heard as the 7 block piggy was standing before me evaporated into two raw pork chops and green orbs of exp, I stood in silence. I knew I had to continue, one sequel after the next until I’d cut my drove by half…

That experience was strange and if I’m honest it hurt inside. Sure I’d killed many piggy’s in the game before, being the savage raw masculine hunter I am, but not ones I’d captured and breed all their virtual lives, until Friday I couldn’t understand why I’d feel so much grief for my blocky little friends. Damn you ‘affect’.

PLUG… if anyone out there plays battlefield 3 (PS3) and wants a battle buddy, I’ll be your friend… we can discuss violence in videogames. Name is ‘captain_tiggles’

And just because i thought this was cool...

It's a very interesting fan made trailer called, 'Team Fortress 2 - law abiding Engineer"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjGrHBpfqCo