Game space: “an atopia, a placeless, senseless realm… needs no longer enter into it. not even desire matters. gamers do not win what they desire; they desire what they win” (pg 22). Our lives are populated by desires and needs. Nothing is concretely decided for us. Yes, we are influenced, and perhaps desires or projected onto us, but desire influences each decision we make. if we desire pizza over a salad, we will choose that. in a game, if you have to choose a salad to get to the next level, even if you hate salad, you will choose it. they desire to win to further the life of the character they play, not to further their own life.
Our debate group views utopias as fantastical worlds of freedom where our decisions are based on moral relations and desires. Atopias are worlds reduced to quantitative relations. Wark argues that society is a gamespace bec use we once had the resources and freedom to embrace utopian schemes, but now society has devolved into an atopia where “there is no time for calculation” and we have to make quick decisions based on needs rather than desires (124). We have to make quick, algorithmic decisions to further us to the next level in life just like we would do in a game.
Atopia has one quality in common with utopia – its aversion to ambiguity. An example is the game Vice City. Vice City may take place in a dark world of guns and drugs, but every mission produces an exact and tangible reward. You do whatever it takes it takes to further and ensure the success of your character. (i.e.: picking up porn stars and running over their pimp.
Also, your reward is always the same — $1,000 no matter how many times you play.**
If utopia thrives as an architecture of qualitative description, and brackets off quantitative relations, atopia renders all descriptions arbitrary. All that matters is the quantitative relations. By excluding relations utopia excludes violence; by privileging relations, atopia appears as nothing but violence, but only because it excludes instead any commitment to a stable description.**
Game Studies 