Video Games are Patriotic :)

Bolster, David Jay and Grusin, Richard. Remediation: Understanding New Media. MIT P.,
2000.

Video games attempt to mimic the real; through transparent immediacy they literally "get into the heads" of players," which may be why many "gamers" have that foggy stare with gapping mouths as they are consumed in their virtual life :). For me the transparent immediacy and the mental consumption that many video games possess is terrifying, especially given that so many of the popular games today are saturated with death, devastation, violence and war. Yet despite the collective goal of violence and destruction that many popular games now promote, Bolster and Grusin claim that "ideologically the player is asked to defend or reestablish the status quo, so that even though the violence of the games appears to be antisocial, the ultimate message is not" (91); which is an interesting thought given that I had believed prior that war video games only sprouted mini-spawns of Satan. .So maybe video games aren’t from the devil after all; I only look forward to examining the cultural affect interactive games seem to have upon people.