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Cry me a river

·230 words

Interesting article on Wired about if video games can provoke emotions in players beyond simple victory and frustration. To see if people get carried away so totally into a game that they make personal connections with a character.

The question is:

‘Did a videogame ever make you cry?’

The killing of Aerith in Final Fantasy VII is named as a pivotal moment in video game history with regards to emotional weight. I cannot find an image or movie of that scene. If anybody can, I woul be very interested to see it.

A similar question was posed concerning the medium of photography last week in De Wereld Draait Door. Erwin Olaf was present Friday and they showed some fragments of his new movie work.

One of the reasons he gave for moving on to the more complicated discipline of movies was that movies have a greater capacity to touch people on an emotional level. Ask yourself the question have ever cried over a photograph? Over a movie?

I knew some work by Olaf before and I must say that his movie work had the same feeling about it but was much much more compelling.

A similar extrapolation can be made from movies to videogames. Videogames are becoming more and more realistic and have the added component of interaction and user identification to provide for a far deeper almost enveloping experience.

Alper Cugun
Author
Alper Cugun

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