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It’s very natural to think that we have full access to our mental activity and to assume that we act according to our beliefs. It’s also natural to assume that our emotions are based on what we believe. Unfortunately, none of these assumptions happen to be true.

When we assume that our minds are rational and consistent, the fact that we have emotional responses to videogames forces us into questionable conclusions. If our emotions are based on our beliefs, then we must believe either that fictions are real or that our emotions are not real (they’re just pretend). Or, if our emotions are not based on our beliefs, then they are based on thoughts about situations—but then it’s not clear why thoughts and reality cause different emotions.

We react to videogames and other art forms11 in some ways as if they are representations and in some ways as if they were reality. Different parts of our minds react differently to the same stimuli. We know that Wind Waker is a game and we’re happy when we win. We know that it’s been designed, and we admire many of the design decisions. But, although at a high level we know the characters are not real, some unconscious aspects of our minds don’t know this, and they react as if it were real. Our non-unified minds cause emotions at multiple levels and can result in strange combinations of feelings and behavior. And as videogame simulations approach reality, we may expect that our emotional responses to them will approach our responses to reality as well.

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Look Before You Warp

DOUGLAS WILSON

There was always more in the world than men could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being.

—John Ruskin (quoted in Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel, p. 218)

Ask any serious hiker: the joy of backpacking lies not in the destination, but rather in the total journey. Romanticized wisdom, perhaps, but wisdom nonetheless. In Yosemite National Park, for example, the drive to Glacier Point provides some of the most dramatic scenery in the park; but the easy, one-hour drive, as well as the postcard vistas framed by the Point’s pre-constructed viewing platform, betray a surface-deep tourism that encourages the quick consumption of space. The tough seven-mile trek up to Cloud’s Rest, by contrast, rewards grit and patience with a more nuanced understanding of the park, its terrain, its wildlife, and its general character.

In the multifaceted virtual worlds of videogames, journeys aren’t so straightforward. In many games, the destination becomes the central goal. Often, the ever-looming challenge to reach the next level or world plays a key role in a game’s entertainment value.

One particularly familiar videogame convention that prioritizes destination is warping—instantaneous travel between or within virtual environments. According to traditional game design wisdom, warping keeps players entertained by allowing them to jump to the next gameplay goal, straight into the action. Yet many videogames are no longer simple games, but complex three-dimensional virtual worlds. Warping increasingly seems like an anachronistic artifact of the 8-bit age.

The tension between “game” and “virtual world” is particularly evident in Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Wind Waker shows that even though the convenience of instantaneous travel may gratify in the short-term, we lose something valuable in the process. Warping fragments our experience of space, preventing a deeper understanding of the total environment.

Environmental Presence

In making claims about environmental presence (and its degradation), I’m considering a very specific human sensation: the experience of physical place (or in this case, virtually physical place), both perceptual and psychological. Roughly speaking, presence is the feeling of “being there.” More