Journal Entry 2

The NBA2K series is critically acclaimed as one of the best sports franchises of all time.  The game play and presentation is as realistic as actually watching an NBA game live at court side.  The best feature of the game, in my honest opinion, is the create-a-player mode.  In this mode, you can create and customize your player any way that you want to.  This player is your avatar.  An avatar is referred to by Farmer and Morningstar as a controllable, humanoid, animated character.  I created a slashing guard named Eddy “Easy Breezy” Booker.  Eddy went on to win Rookie of the Year, as well as MVP in the one year I played with him.  I created him exactly the way that I like players in the NBA to play…balls out and to the glass. 

I mean, what a baller, right? 

When playing with him I couldn’t stop to think about what we talked about in class that day, the Hagelian Dialectic. The Hagelian Dialectic can be used to find the relationship between the player and their avatars. 

The Hegelian Dialectic consists of three parts, the thesis, antithesis, and syntheses.  The thesis (sein in german) is a single idea or concept.  The antithesis is a conflicting idea, that which stands in opposition to the original proposition, or thesis.  The synthesis is the incorporation of both ideals into a new reinterpretation.  These three ideas can easily explain why I choose to make players that I create.  In this situation, the thesis would be the fact that I would love to be an all-star NBA player. I mean, how cool of a gig is that! The only problem is that there is no way in hell I could be anywhere close to an NBA player.  I wouldn't even make the UMD team!  The antithesis in this situation would be my create a player in the game.  He is an NBA all-star but he is in the virtual world.  The syntheses would be me actually controlling the avatar and essentially becoming an NBA all-star.  Playing the game helps connect the Thesis of me wanting to be an NBA player to actually being one by being able to control my player in the virtual world, who is the antithesis.

References: Downs, E (2010). Eighteenth century video games: Using the Hegelian Dialectic to explain the individual-avatar relationship in video game play. Presented at the Video Games Interest Group of the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, June, 20-24, Singapore, Malaysia.