Gamer: Is It Really a Game?

               I find it ironic that this movie begins with the song Sweet Dreams, as the future presented in Gamer seems much more like a nightmare.  In the movie, the future of videogames has arrived with gamers controlling real people instead of virtual characters.  Every movement or command of the gamer must be obeyed by his or her character because of mind controlling nano-cells implanted in the person’s brain.  There are two different types of games, Society and Slayers.

                       In Society, players can pay to control someone else or get paid to be controlled by someone else.  It’s basically a much lewder version of Second Life with real people.  Gamers can make their avatars socialize, go to raves, or engage in some kinky sex.  The movie also shows how the gamers use Society to take on new identities.  For example, a morbidly obese pervert uses a woman in racy attire as his avatar.  Of course, he doesn’t care because his fake identity hides the real him. 

                      

Society looks a lot like a Lady Gaga music video

                         In Slayers, gamers control death row inmates in Modern Warfare like death matches.  When a player dies, it is a real person getting killed.  Slayers’ creator defends the ‘game’ by arguing that the convicts volunteer willingly because they will be released if they can survive thirty matches.  So is it really a game?  Certainly not for the convicts themselves.  They may volunteer, but within the arena or ‘the magic circle’ they are little more than puppets. 

 My finally question is: can anything designed to take a human life really be considered a game?  What about games that can put human life at serious risk, such as mountain climbing or bull fighting?  What about Society, in which the gamers force their avatars to do terribly demeaning things?  Don’t games ultimately require fun and harmlessness as a fundamental part of their nature?