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Video games, they allow us to become the hero, explore new worlds, and let us live ideal lives through avatars. However, as humans grow ever closer toward crafting a true virtual reality, we just may lose sense of the present reality. This worrisome problem stems from an idea known as the “uncanny valley theory” created by Japanese robotics professor Masahiro Mori in 1970. Kurt Gray, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, breaks down Mori’s theory to one simple sentence. “An increasingly humanlike appearance would lead to an increased liking up to a point (by a human audience), after which robots become ‘too’ human, and become unnerving” (Gray 1). When graphics engines came into play in video games in the 1980’s, the world could clearly tell just what was real and what a game was. However, in the last 30 years, graphics engines have exploded in advancement to dangerously high levels. If humans continue on this path to creation of an entirely new reality, the surreal and real will become so blurred that it will confuse people on just what is real life. It can also desensitize people to violence in certain video games to where the players can develop psychotic tendencies. Animators need to set a limit on just how far the world can go with animation; gaming companies should not pass the limits of Japan’s newest creation, The Fox Engine, a new graphics engine that almost parallels reality. Humans should also pause on the path to virtual reality gaming for the time being, because with growing reality in graphics people could lose themselves in a whole new reality. This problem needs to be addressed now before the massive amount of players and fans can succumb to this reality twist. The theory of the uncanny valley needs to be taken more seriously because it really is more of a threat than an idea. Because graphics are rampantly increasing at an alarming rate we are etching closer to making this threat a problem people won’t be able to solve. For instance, the world was recently introduced to the Fox Engine, the newest project to emerge from Japan in which graphics are at an eerily lifelike quality. The first tests proved just how confused humans can become, and just how easily the human eye can be manipulated and tricked. Kojima Productions, the company behind the Fox Engine, took photos of their offices with a real camera, and then created those same images in their program, they released the photos side by side under categories A and B. (eurogamer.net) People were absolutely dumbfounded on which images were real without being told which photos were true and which were made on a machine. This engine is already producing its first game, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, which has had multiple trailers displaying the power of the new Fox Engine and the characters and scenery are too real. Thankfully, this game is not one consisting of virtual reality environments, so the players will not risk losing their sense of reality. If Kojima Productions has already come that close to making games that are too real, their competition is going to try to beat the Fox Engine, guaranteed. This is the reason this problem needs to slow to a halt, because competition is king. If companies begin to work towards graphics supremacy, the race to a new reality will be a race that will never end. The solution is simple; graphics need to have a set limit to which they cannot cross in the arts of animation. The Fox Engine would provide the perfect limit because if humans are slightly disturbed at the ultimate culmination of graphics that are created in the present age, then what the future holds could be a sight truly disturbing to the mind. The Fox Engine may have some people mildly worried but has gotten all around positive reviews. Currently, people can still distinguish between fantasy and realism, but just barely. The Fox Engine has gone as far as animation should go before twisting and augmenting the human reality. We should also halt any attempt to throw players into a new realm of virtual reality. People should not feel as if they were really in these environments and no longer in the real world, the player could risk suffering severe mental damage and can be prone to motion sickness, developing epilepsy, and even mild psychosis. Even worse, action games like Call of Duty or Battlefield appeal to young and impressionable children under the age of 17. If these games were to get the virtual reality treatment then these children will be thrown into simulated war and become even more desensitized to real world violence and believe that violence is more than alright. This connection between violent video games and violent tendencies has been analyzed and proven in an experiment run by a panel of four professors of psychology from four different universities. The experiment exposed the focus group subjects to current violent video games for 20 minutes a day for 3 consecutive days and the remaining subjects played current non-violent games for the same allotted time. The result was that “aggressive behavior and hostile expectations increased over days for violent game players, but not for nonviolent video game players, and the increase in aggressive behavior was partially due to hostile expectations” (Bègue 1). The experiment was also conducted on older college students and not children. If mature adults were proven to have more violent tendencies when playing these games, impressionable children are at a higher risk of developing these violent tendencies to the games of the current age. If children are already at this high a risk right now, it can only get much worse with next generation animation and virtual reality right around the corner. We cannot stop children from playing these violent games but if we remain with the graphics we have currently and promise not to go any further in animation and stop on the path to virtual reality technology we can limit the risk of children developing far more severe violent tendencies. The beauty of this solution is that it is almost costless to competition companies to implement this solution. Companies throw endless amounts of money into developing the next big graphics project to completely dominate the gaming field, only to have it be beaten by the competition a few short months later. For example, Crytek’s CryEngine 3, used for popular games such as a Crysis, cost $1.2 million dollars to license for use (digitalbattle.com). This engine was at the top of the graphics food chain until the release of the Fox Engine to where the CryEngine is now worthless. But now because the solution is to solely use or create the equivalent of the Fox Engine, companies would have to spend less to nothing to make games and retain more profit from sales. The only thing stopping this solution from being implemented in the gaming industry is the timeless pursuit of competition. Competition has been present in all business for centuries and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But competition in this field should be based on the quality of the game, including the story, gameplay, and overall player satisfaction. Companies should not only depend on their graphics to make a great game, sure it can be beautiful but people could really hate it because of the weak plot line, or the glitch plagued gameplay. If companies are really concerned that this solution would kill their business because they are all using the same graphics, then they obviously have no faith in the game itself. For instance, to this very day the most popular and common video game according to G4’s top 100, which polled thousands of people and had multiple votes is the original Super Mario Brothers which came out in 1985 when games were just being born (G4tv.com). By today’s standards that game has terrible graphics but it’s the game itself that players fell in love with, not its animation. Companies should not be graphics dependent and really work on the cores of their story and gameplay. Companies should all convert to the Fox Engine or a graphics equivalent and leave the graphics at the same level as their competition, and make the struggle for dominance over the quality of their products as a whole. Now, many players and companies respectfully embrace the growing technology of game graphics, and would not complain about getting closer and closer to a new reality. People will claim that this is just another form of human progress. The path to expanding our knowledge should never be stopped, but in this case companies should reconsider. If graphics were to get any more real, it can have dramatic and long lasting effects on the players of these games. True game companies are not all about the profit, they have an obligation to their fans to create a quality product, one that will keep people coming back for more. If companies really were obligated to their players, then they will always be concerned about player safety. The players come first no matter what, because without the players, there would be no gaming industry. And if this trend does continue, and people do get lost in virtual reality or develop detrimental health effects, it will kill the company who made that game, or even make people begin to reject video games as a whole, not out of dislike, but out of fear for themselves. Another argument companies have is that there is already enough warnings before most games claiming certain people should not play these games so that children of an easily malleable mind cannot buy or play mature games. However, once other people have purchased this game, you cannot trust or control them to really pay attention to these labels. With the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, multiple amounts of parents over the age of 17, bought this game for their underage child to play and be exposed to. According to a study on opposingviews.com, children will play this game if their parents will buy it for them, saying it will not harm them because it is “pixelated violence” and that studies prove that children who see a game labeled as mature or adult only makes these children want to play it more (Parents and Modern Warfare 2). We cannot stop these children from playing violent video games, but this solution would stop games from becoming too real to where it can desensitize impressionable children to violence in general. If graphics had a cap that could still convey easily to children what is real and what is not, we would eliminate the risk of children believing that violence is fine in the real world. The problem of graphics technology is rapidly advancing and if we do not address this problem as a serious one and keep ignoring the possible consequences, we will have people grow confused on just what is the true reality and what fantasy is. We have to set a limit at which animators should never cross, for the sake of the player’s safety and overall mental stability. The limit of graphics should not surpass those of the Fox Engine, if the engine has already been labeled by a slight few as ‘too real’, then that is a few too many. These people are foreshadowing the masses that will follow in the madness of a new reality which people will confused with the real world. If companies could set aside their competition of graphics advancement, then we could stop the madness before it begins and it would cost them almost nothing to accomplish this task on only implementing one graphics engine or its equivalent. If we don’t solve this growing threat soon, the players will then become the characters of the game, and if video games give control to the players to command their characters, who will control the players in a twisted and blurred reality? Works Cited "#1 Super Mario Bros." G4tv.com N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2013. Bègue, Laurent, Brad J. Bushman, Youseff Hasan, and Michael Scharkow. "The More You Play, the More Aggressive You Become: A Long-term Experimental Study of Cumulative Violent Video Game Effects on Hostile Expectations and Aggressive Behavior." ScienceDirect.com. N.p., 16 Oct. 2012. Web. 03 May 2013. "CryEngine 3 Costs $1.2 Million to License” DigitalBattle.com N.p., 16 Mar. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2013. Gray, Kurt, and Daniel M. Wegner. "Mind Perception and Morality Lab at UNC, Directed by Kurt Gray." Mind Perception and Morality Lab at UNC, Directed by Kurt Gray. ScienceDirect.com, June 2012. Web. 03 May 2013. "Hideo Kojima Shows off Impressive Fox Engine Screenshots." Eurogamer.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2013. "Should Parents Let Kids Play "Call of Duty-Modern Warfare 2?”” OpposingViews.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2013. "?troperville." Tvtropes.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2013.
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Video games, graphics, Uncanny Valley, violent games, graphics engines,
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