Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 66)

Trigger Happy
68
Now, I have conscientiously played these games in
the interests of research, and I find them exceptionally
tedious. Even so, God games are highly successful.
Many people who aren’t at all interested in any other
sort of videogame—such as the high-speed, colorful
action experiences of racers or exploration games—
will often confess a sneaky addiction to Civilization or
Age of Empires. Some people simply prefer the
challenge of fiddling relaxedly with a process to that of
a high-speed test of reactions.
It seems, anyway, from the method by which God
games model dynamic processes, that they are not
primarily about cities or tribes or any of the putative
content. They are process toys. Time is transformed
from prison to Play-Doh. Perhaps the fantasy appeal is
really about a chance to observe the world over a
longer, more sober chronological span than that of a
single human life. But if the classic shoot-’em-up or
platform game is triumphantly individualistic—one
hero against the hordes—the God game is quite the
opposite. The individual doesn’t matter. He or she may
as well be an ant (in SimAnt, the individual actually is
an ant). The gameplayer doesn’t count as an individual:
he or she is, after all, God. What matters is the
inexorable march of the corporate machine. There