We weren’t even the best of friends. I taught a laboratory course with him, I played soccer with him, and I had him over to my apartment a couple of times to play Rock Band, but we certainly could have spent more time together. I often wonder if I would have been able to pick up on any of his personal issues, or if I could have done something to prevent his decision to end his own existence, were we closer friends. But of course, this line of thinking isn’t helpful for anything.

All I can do now is hope to hang onto the good memories I have of him. I lent him my copy of The Orange Box, since he wanted to try out Portal, but didn’t particularly care about any of the rest of it. He kept telling me he’d pay me back by lending me his copy of Mass Effect someday. Another time, I invited several of my fellow graduate students over to my place for drinks and games. He showed up with his laptop, and he proceeded to use my wi-fi to play World of Warcraft. Everybody else eventually coerced him into singing “Still Alive,” which is the worst/funniest rendition I’ve heard of the song to this day.

The more I thought about the fun memories of him that I have, the more I thought, “we sure do live in some strange times.” Should my memory ever fail, there are persistent records of all occurrences, accessible to everybody on the Internet. If I need to be reminded what he looked like, there are photos on Facebook. If I can’t remember what he sounded like, there are videos on YouTube. If I want to read about the research he did, I can search his name on SciFinder. And if I have an inexplicable urge to analyze his gaming habits, I can always check his Gamercard.

Clearly, he was more of a PC gamer than a console gamer, logging only nine unique 360 games over the course of about two years. Mass Effect, the game he repeatedly tried to get me to play, he hadn’t touched since December of 2007. Scrolling up a bit, he has The Orange Box, last played in May of 2008. As far as I know, it’s the only existing record that I had made any measurable mark on his life.

At the top of the list, there is Dead or Alive 4. Last played on Friday, July 10th, 2009. It will always be the last game he ever played on his 360. Indeed, the entire page will remain frozen in this state for who-knows-how-long, until Microsoft decides an appropriate amount of time has passed to consider his account defunct. It fascinates me and makes me sick to my stomach at the same time.

It’s a tired cliché that gamers don’t understand the reality of life and death. “In life, there is no reset button,” or “in this game, you only get one life.” That’s all bullcrap. I will never fully understand my late friend’s motives, but I do know that he knew what he was doing. He knew that it’s a decision that, once effected, cannot be undone. And he must have considered the anguish he’d cause his friends afterward. For that, I can never forgive him.

But along with the pain he left me with, he led me to some introspection. If I were to die tonight, would I be content with the mark I’ve left on the world? Have I accomplished what I wanted to at my age? Have I eaten enough food, have I made enough love, have I played enough games, have I touched enough people? Would my persistent digital footprint suffice? And if not, what can I do to make it so?

What will be the last game I ever put on my Gamercard? Will it be great, mediocre, or terrible? Will I even finish it? I can’t know the answer to most of these questions, but you may notice that I have finally begun playing Mass Effect. Though I will never get a chance to discuss it with him like he wanted, it is the one final thing I feel I must do to pay my respects. So long.

Suffice it to say that some major plot spoilers follow.

Alex Mercer wakes up in a morgue, with supernatural powers for which he has no explanation or recollection.  He goes on a murderous journey for answers, and he eventually find them, to his dismay.  He learns that as a researcher for a biomedical engineering firm, he stole a virus (the one currently ravaging Manhattan), was chased to Penn Station, and killed.  The consciousness inhabiting Mercer’s body is explained to be the virus itself, as the man named Alex Mercer is dead.

Though the game’s script would have the player believe it is cut and dry, I think it is more complicated than that.  I would argue that Alex Mercer lives.

A common discussion of self identity asks the question, “If Person A loses a leg and requires a prosthetic, is he still Person A?”  Most agree that he is the same person he was before.  The question can be further extended to replacement of all nonvital body parts, and through to the hypothetical implantation of a man’s brain into another person, an animal, a robot, or even an inanimate computer.  Does this being retain the identity it once had?  Does the self reside in the body, brain, mind, or elsewhere?

An example for discussion is the classic Romero zombie.  It has become almost a cliché at this point, but as voiced in Shaun of the Dead, once she is zombified, the body Shaun is forced to destroy is “not [his] mother any more.”  Zombies are creatures with the bodies of the former living, but most would agree that even the full body of a person without his mind can no longer be considered to be the same person.

Notice, I said “mind,” as a zombie still presumably contains the brain of the individual who used to reside in the body.  Until it meets up with the business end of a shotgun, of course.

This brings us to the assumption that the mind exists within the brain, and perhaps as a function of the brain.  With all of the proper neurons firing and synapses exchanges neurotransmitters, the human brain can produce unique thought, character, and personality.  Is this what makes a person who he is?

And that brings us back to poor Alex Mercer (or to the virus inhabiting Mercer’s body).  For the better part of Prototype, he believes he is Alex Mercer, although he has physiological abilities he didn’t have before.  He identifies himself as Alex Mercer, he holds on to some memories of his past life (his sister Dana, for instance), and this consciousness lives in the body of Alex Mercer.  It is difficult to believe that this person is anything but Alex Mercer.

If we consider the biology of it (realizing that it is science fiction, of course), the virus had to do a number of things to Mercer’s body after he was shot to death.  It had to use the existing framework (bones, muscles, skin), and find a way to not only reanimate, but control the body’s muscles.  It is possible that it built entirely new signaling pathways in order to tell the body what to do, or it is possible that the virus replicated enough and spread through his entire body, yet each individual virus shares a consciousness with the collective, but the most plausible action of the virus is that it inhabits the brain, and uses the existing neuronal connections to control the body.

If this is the case, then it is also likely responsible for the neurons firing that contain Mercer’s memories and his identity.  Unlike in the case of the Romero zombie, his brain is present, but it is also still functioning.  So either the virus has a collective conscious and each individual virus controls some aspect of Mercer’s body, or it essentially just gave Mercer a second chance at life, with his same brain, and more importantly his same mind, though in a biologically altered body.  Considering the implausibility of the former case (simple chemical signaling between viruses in his eyes to his legs would just be too slow, especially considering the physical feats he pulls off), I would argue the latter.  Prototype would have you believe that Alex Mercer is not Alex Mercer, but I would posit that if somewhere in that freakish body exists the functioning mind of Alex Mercer, then he is in fact Alex Mercer.

What do you think?

Men who described themselves as game players reported a higher body mass index (BMI) on average than those who described themselves as non-players.  Additionally, women who described themselves as players were more likely to have mental health issues than non-players.

The second bit is initially a surprising finding given the report that came out just yesterday on games as a means to assuage mental health issues.  However, it is possible that the correlation found in the CDC’s study shows a causal link in the opposite direction; that mental health issues can cause a woman to turn to games for relief, rather than playing games predisposing women to psychological disorders.  This is, of course, purely speculation at this point.

The former correlation is still a worrying, if not expected result of the study.  It is not difficult to imagine that heavy video game use could be a part of a largely sedentary lifestyle, which can obviously lead to a higher BMI and the health risks that come with it.  Though this could possibly be received by the gaming community as another attack on video games by science, it should come as common sense that exercise is an essential part of any healthy life, gamer or not.

[via ScienceDaily]

What takes this story from a nice anecdote on the positive aspects of gaming to something greater is what happened next.  Nichols emailed PopCap, the game’s developer and publisher, to tell them about how their game has helped her.  PopCap then went on to fund an independent clinical study on the benefits, if any, that can be effected on one’s mental health by video games.

Carmen Russoniello of East Carolina University is heading up the research.  Preliminary studies, published in the Annual Review of Cybertherapy and Telemedicine, show that patients who played Bejeweled showed improved mood compared to those who did not play.

Further studies are in progress in which a control group will be instructed to read websites on mood disorders, while the experimental group will be instructed to play video games.  This is presumably to rule out that it is simply screen time that is helpful for allaying symptoms of depression.

Russoniello hypothesizes that only certain games have this mental healing quality, and that it requires the player’s attention, but without introducing stress.  In other words, a game too simple or easy would be boring, but a game too complex or difficult would be frustrating, and only a game that can exist in between can elicit the zen-like reaction that Nichols describes as helping her get through the night.

[via The Washington Post]

The touchable hologram was developed by the Hiroyuki Shinoda group from the University of Tokyo, as part of Takayuki Hoshi’s Ph.D work.  It uses an ultrasound generator in tandem with two Wii Remotes for hand tracking in order to generate tactile feedback.  The holographic image is produced using a concave mirror.  A video demonstrating the technology, with an interactive holographic ball and raindrops that can be felt, as well as the augmented reality material, can be found after the jump.

The augmented reality system, called SCOPE, is a work in progress developed by Frantz Lasorne, a Master’s student at the Nantes Atlantic School of Design.  It appears to allow basic turn-based strategy between two players, putting various heavy weapons in the hands of childrens’ toys.  The main focus of the augmented reality system is to marry traditional toys with more modern video games, in an effort to keep children interested in movement, physical play, and imagination.  The video in the link below shows off the technology, which is admittedly buggy.  It features a Lego man wielding an arsenal of weapons, and it concludes with him firing a rocket at a rubber duck.

Augmented Reality Toys.v2 (Work in progress) from Frantz Lasorne on Vimeo.

[via Popular Science (1, 2) and SIGGRAPH (1, 2)]

These studies were all done in the persistent virtual world Second Life, in which players create avatars with which they live out virtual lives.While the  study sounds like it could lead to a powerful tool for weight loss, or at the very least, fodder for arguments that games can make people more healthy, the article on it leaves me particularly skeptical.  The more easily understandable portion of the study shows that 80% of respondents who reported high levels of physical activity for their their avatars also reported high levels of physical activity in real life.

The issue here lies clearly with the classic “correlation does not imply causation” idea.  In fact, I can think of no more sensible explanation for this data than that physically active people are more likely to create physically active avatars.

Another portion of the study is not quite as clearly interpreted.  Twenty-nine people were interviewed through Second Life, with roughly half interviewed by a thin avatar and half by an obese avatar.  Those interviewed by the thin avatar were more likely to report their own avatar as thin, whereas those interviewed by the obese avatar were less likely.  The author of the article, Elizabeth Dean, a researcher at the Research Triangle Institute, explains the results: “Avatar-respondents are more likely to report a higher real-life BMI to a heavy avatar than to a thin avatar because a heavy avatar conveys that a higher BMI is more socially acceptable.”

It’s a bit difficult to accept this rationale.  Other explanations could be just as valid, such as that respondents felt more sensitive to the fat interviewer’s obesity, and so they reported higher body mass indices in order to make the interviewer more comfortable.  They hypothesis that respondents are more likely to admit being heavier if it’s more socially acceptable is unprovable.

This isn’t even to mention the surprisingly small sample size of only twenty-nine respondents.  Though the parameters reported are relatively objective, it is difficult to trust a statistical study on such a small set of data points.  With only fourteen or fifteen respondents in each group, small random deviations would appear as huge statistical differences.  I would approach the claims with extreme skepticism.

[via ScienceDaily, primary literature available here]

As expected, playable video game characters are dominated by whites, adults, and males, whereas groups that were underrepresented with respect to real world populations are Hispanics, Native Americans, children, the elderly, and females.  While these findings mimic those found when studying movies and television, the representation of identifiable Hispanics as video game protagonists is behind that in the other areas of entertainment.

The concern is that with fewer chances to connect with a character on a personal level, members of underrepresented groups will be less likely to pursue a future in game design, thus creating a cycle of an industry dominated by white males.

It’s an interesting study, however it appears as though a larger data set could refine it a bit.  The authors of the study note that not a single playable character in the games surveyed was identifiably Hispanic, but I was personally able to come up with one off the top of my head: Dominic Santiago of the Gears of War series.  He also fits into the other requirements to be considered for the study, which are that he is a human character, and that the player can see him (as opposed to seeing through his eyes).

Still, even with that added data point (and presumably, hundreds more randomly selected games), it would not be surprising to see the trend hold up, and that the general population of video game characters does not match up with the general population of the world.

The abstract for the study, published in New Media & Society, follows:

A large-scale content analysis of characters in video games was employed to answer questions about their representations of gender, race and age in comparison to the US population. The sample included 150 games from a year across nine platforms, with the results weighted according to game sales. This innovation enabled the results to be analyzed in proportion to the games that were actually played by the public, and thus allowed the first statements able to be generalized about the content of popular video games. The results show a systematic over-representation of males, white and adults and a systematic under-representation of females, Hispanics, Native Americans, children and the elderly. Overall, the results are similar to those found in television research. The implications for identity, cognitive models, cultivation and game research are discussed.

[via Science Daily]