Contrler le monde en vilain : limportance dune impression de

libert dans Evil Genius

Par Jrmie Bernard

Introduction

Videogames are simultaneously simulations of reality, fictional narratives, games qua games, and crafted
aesthetic objects. To understand emotional responses to videogames, we must recognize that the experience
of gameplay involves responding to videogames in all of these roles .

-Jonathan Frome (2007), Eight Ways Video Games Generate Emotions

Plan machiavlique de la prsentation

-Les plaisirs du contrle chez Torben Grodal

-Prsentation dEvil Genius (Elixir Studios, 2004)
-Une impression de libert dans Evil Genius
-Comment cette impression de libert influe-t-elle sur le plaisir du contrle du joueur? (Grodal)
-Limpact psychologique et psychanalytique dtre dans la peau dun vilain (Rehak et Santos)
-Conclusion : Les limites de cette impression de libert

Les plaisirs du contrle chez Grodal

Emotions are motivators for actions and are labeled according to the players active coping potentials
-Torben Grodal (2000), Video Games and the Pleasures of Control

Ce sont les choix possibles pour le joueur qui vont gnrer des motions.
Ces motions vont ensuite pousser le joueur agir selon ses capacits et les informations obtenues.
motions, libert, contrle, actions : des notions retenir et lier.

Les plaisirs du contrle chez Grodal

The player has to cope with antagonistic forces and processes according to some game-world time. The
sense of realism is enhanced because the players control is not absolute, but relative to his skills
-Torben Grodal (2000), Video Games and the Pleasures of Control

Le contrle du joueur se fait lintrieur des limites du systme de jeu.

Limmersion du joueur se fait par le contrle relatif de ce systme.

Les plaisirs du contrle chez Grodal

Le texte de Grodal peut sappliquer des jeux hors des deux grandes catgories quil exemplifie.
Lmotion est au centre de la manire dont le joueur va actualiser son contrle du systme.
Les plaisirs du contrle existent cause de quoi ?

The emotional experience will therefore consist of phases : a cause, an arousal, a cognitive appreciation
and a labeling, followed by some actions that remove the cause of arousal
-Torben Grodal (2000), Video Games and the Pleasures of Control

Evil Genius (Elixir Studios, 2004)

Dvelopp par Elixir Studios et dit par Sierra
Entertainment
Jeu de gestion dun empire de domination mondiale
situ dans une base souterraine secrte
Humour et style graphique trs guerre froide
Un seul mode de jeu

Influences principales :

Lobjectif du joueur

Le joueur choisit son avatar parmi trois super vilains

Il doit ensuite construire le quartier gnral de son projet de domination mondiale

Diffrentes interfaces grer

Diffrentes interfaces grer

Diffrentes interfaces grer

Diffrentes interfaces grer

Diffrentes interfaces grer

Une impression de libert pour un plus grand sentiment de

contrle
In order to experience our exertion of agency and free will, we need to feel that we are not enacting some
stimulus-response patterns. Not only do we need to have a choice between a series of different options, we
also need to feel that they are real options
-Torben Grodal (2003), Stories for Eye, Ear, and Muscles:
Video Games, Media, and Embodied Experiences

Les limites du contrle dans Evil Genius

While I can appreciate the minion's dedication to perform the job at hand, the lack of control over them is
one of the major drawbacks in the game. From a gameplay perspective, the lack of control and overall bad AI
of your minions is extremely frustrating. Especially when they keep walking into the traps which enemy
agents set off, killing them off lemming style. I've had better luck trying to herd cats...
-Robert Howart (2004), ENLIGNE : http://ca.ign.com/articles/2004/09/29/evil-genius-review

Une impression de libert pour un plus grand sentiment de

contrle
Video Games may have some high-order motivations, but for a series of reasons games will often also have
a strong focus on the execution of low-level (sub)goals like simple navigation and handling processes
-Torben Grodal (2003), Stories for Eye, Ear, and Muscles:
Video Games, Media, and Embodied Experiences

Les bienfaits dune grande libert pour le joueur

Of course, you don't just magically start off with an evil underground lair. You'll have to build one, which is
precisely what you do for most of Evil Genius. With a remote island as your canvas, you design the base of
your dreams and have your minions carve it out of the rock
-Duke Ferris(2004), ENLIGNE : http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/evil-genius

Une impression de libert pour un plus grand sentiment de

contrle
Thus, interactivity is not centrally about changing a world; on the contrary it is about changing the mental
states of the player, whether that takes place by changing some objects in the world of by changing ones
point of view
-Torben Grodal (2003), Stories for Eye, Ear, and Muscles:
Video Games, Media, and Embodied Experiences

Une impression de libert pour un plus grand sentiment de

contrle
Avatarial operations flow from two elements that interdepend in various ways. First is the foregrounding of
an onscreen body, visible in whole or in part. Second is the conceit of an offscreen but assumed body
constitued through the gaze of a mobile, player-controlled camera
-Bob Rehak (2003), Playing at being

-Ce rapport double de lincarnation est encore plus fort dans Evil Genius, un jeu de gestion avec un
personnage nous reprsentant lcran.

Une impression de libert pour un plus grand sentiment de

contrle
The video game avatar would seem to meet the criteria of Lacans objet petit a. Appearing on screen in
place of the player, the avatar does double duty as self and other, symbol and index. As self, its behavior is
tied to the players through an interface (keyboard, mouse, joystick) : its literal motion, as well as its
figurative triumphs and defeats, result from the players actions. At the same time, avatars are unequivocally
other. Both limited and freed by difference from the player, they can accomplish more than the player alone;
they are supernatural ambassadors of agency
-Bob Rehak (2003), Playing at being

Une impression de libert pour un plus grand sentiment de

contrle

Une impression de libert pour un plus grand sentiment de

contrle
In his analysis of the sim (simulation) game genre, Ted Friedman locates within the human-machine
collaboration a cybernetic circuit in which the line demarcating the end of the players consiousness and
the beginning of the computers world blurs. This blurring constitutes an effacement of self, in that agency is
simultaneously diluted by being transferred to a mechanical other, and amplified in resulting onscreen
behavior
-Bob Rehak (2003), Playing at being

Incarner un vilain : limpact sur le joueur

Comic reversals presuppose some kind of moral maturity that prevents viewers and players from
experiencing such reversals as normal interpersonal relations
-Torben Grodal (2000), Video Games and the Pleasures of Control

Incarner un vilain : limpact sur le joueur

If our unity is itself a misrecognition, then the video game, for all its chaotic cartoonishness, may constitute
a small square of contemplative space : a laboratory, quiet and orderly by comparison with the complexity of
the real world, in which we toy with subjectivity, play with being
-Bob Rehak (2003), Playing at being

The artificially constructed space of the video game becomes a safe space in which we can indulge in
fetishistic play with a simulation of the Real
-Marc C. Santos et Sarah E. White (2005), Playing with ourselves: A Psychoanalytic Investigation of Resident
Evil and Silent Hill

Conclusion : Les limites de limpression de libert chez le

joueur
Formal and experiential elements of the game work to create a representation that emerges out of the
procedures of game play. We call this form of depiction procedural representation
-Katie Salen et Eric Zimmerman (2004), Rules of Play

Le jeu ne cherche pas reprsenter une libert infinie

Le but est de prsenter assez de libert pour laisser un espace de jeu au joueur
Limpression de libert fonctionne parce que le jeu la permet et lencourage

Evil Genius est construit autour du mchant mgalomane comique, et le communique bien au joueur

Bibliographie
FERRIS, Duke (2004), Evil Genius Review, ENLIGNE : http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/evil-genius
FROME, Jonathan (2007). Eight Ways Video Games Generate Emotions, Situated Play, Proceedings of
DiGRA 2007 Conference University of Georgia, p. 831-835
GRODAL, Torben (2000). Video Games and the Pleasures of Control, on Dolf Zillmann et Peter Vorderer
(dirs.), Media Entertainment: the Psychology of Its Appeal, Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p.
197-213.
GRODAL, Torben (2003). Stories for Eye, Ear, and Muscles: Video Games, Media, and Embodied
Experiences, in B. Perron et Mark J.P (dirs.), The Video Game Theory Reader, New York: Routledge, p. 129155.
HOWART, Robert (2004), Evil Genius Review, EN LIGNE : http://ca.ign.com/articles/2004/09/29/evilgenius-review
REHAK, Bob, (2003). Playing at Being, in B. Perron et Mark J.P (dirs.), The Video Game Theory Rearer, New
York: Routledge, p. 103-127.
SALEN, Katie et Eric Zimmerman (2004). Rules of play: Game Design Fundamentals, Cambridge, The MIT
Press, 672 pages.
SANTOS, Marc C et Sarah E. White Santos (2005). Playing with Ourselves: A Psychoanalytic Investigation of
Resident Evil ans Silent Hill, in Nate Garrelts (dir.), Digital Gameplay: Essays on the Nexus of Game and
Gamer, Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland & Co., p. 69-79

MERCI !