Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 305)

Trigger Happy
307
9
SIGNS OF LIFE
A jaundiced figure floats across the screen. He is
constantly searching for things to eat. We are looking at
a neo-Marxist parable of late capitalism. He is the pure
consumer. With his obsessively gaping maw, he clearly
wants only one thing: to feel whole, at peace with
himself. He perhaps surmises that if he eats enough—in
other words, buys enough industrially produced
goods—he will attain this state of perfect selfhood,
perfect roundness. But it can never happen. He is
doomed forever to metaphysical emptiness. It is a tragic
fable in primary colors.
You may well have played this game: it’s called
Pac-Man. Videogames, like anything else, can be read
in many different ways. A videogame may not be a
“text,” but it is true that videogames talk to the player
in a special sort of language, one that the experienced
user knows by heart. And this isn’t a verbal language,
it’s a graphic one. Videogames talk to us with signs.