The name is absent

reflected in films such as Tron (Lisberger, 1982) in which the protagonist
Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is literally absorbed by the game. Today,
videogames are the perfect example of a global, post industrial cultural
product, a product that represents the fusion of digital technology and the
culture and economy of the late 20^th and early 21^st century.

Videogames can certainly be observed from different perspectives, and
although they have a strong ‘disconnection’ component they are not
necessary asocial. Using a ‘Jungian’¹⁴ theory of videogames culture we
observe that videogames are strong active agents in the creation of the
archetypes and myths of our society, thus representing the ‘storytelling’ of
today. Indeed, videogames have an inestimable power to draw us into an
alternative reality and simultaneously to teach us to think and interact with
others in a different way (Wolf, 2002: 174-176). In this sense, we should see
the competition element intrinsic to many games as a way, as sports were
originally created, of ‘blocking out competing stimuli of a more threatening
kind’ (Robins, 1996: 120).¹⁵ Videogames also facilitate players in
understanding and assimilating rules. The intrinsic rules of the virtual games
do not necessarily have to be extrapolated to the reality, but ‘the process’ is
useful to live and interact in the real social world. Paradoxically, videogames,
which can be used as an escape from our society, can simultaneously help us
to adhere to our society. However, videogames are not simply an escape from
the reality of daily life: they may also constitute, when playing the game, an
alternative to the world in which we live. They are able to create worlds that
‘are ‘self-contained’ and completely independent from the complexities of
the real world outside, where we are playing’ (Robins, 1996: 48). In this
sense, Bob Hodge and David Tripp (Hodge, 1996: 105) use the term ‘modality’
to define the (un)reality of a videogame. ‘Modality’ refers to the level of
certainty or belief that one can find in a videogame, and is therefore a very
useful concept in terms of differentiating the duality reality/unreality.

¹⁴ See The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Jung, 1968) for a Jungian theory of the
construction of archetypes.

¹⁵ Indeed, the concept ‘e-sport’ has been created to refer to games in which the competition is more
important than the plot, graphics, realism or any other factor.

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