Layoff: FAIL?

Não tive tempo para comentar o jogo Layoff. Aliás, nem me dediquei a isso, julgando que o que eu havia percebido nele era consensual e, talvez, óbvio. Qual não foi a minha surpresa ao notar que no excelente blog Play This Thing, a avaliação era contundentemente contrária e crítica ao jogo?

Se o jogo não é uma perfeição ou uma obra-prima, acredito que há muito mais a ser explorado do que simplesmente aquilo que é posto no blog em questão. Acho que devemos ter cuidado (e falo isso por que acabo assumindo, mesmo que não querendo, o papel de interpretar jogos e dar versões "autorizadas" sobre ele, por conta de expor idéias em espaço público, respaldado por um título de mestre em uma universidade respeitada e um linguajar academicista muitas vezes) em opiniões muito contundentes e que limitem outros possibilidades interpretativas de jogos. Há muito, pelo menos, isso foi ultrapassado em análises de textos/discurso.

Segue, então, o que consegui escrever e expressar em meu inglês adquirido na Internet e nos videogames, em resposta à análise do post do Play This Thing:

Hello! My name is Henrique and I'm graduated in language and technologies studies of the Apllied Linguistics Departament of Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. I always read this blog, and usually I agree and learn with the posts we have here. However, in this case, I need to present another point of view.

First of all, the games are systems, developed and created by someone who cames before the player. So, all the player choices (there are "real" choices?) depend on the designer previous ones. Well, in the LAYOFF, aren't we take over a role in a system bigger than us? So, I think if we start considering that a game could be a kind of metaphore, it will be easier to find some similarities and interesting relations.

Obviously, we have more than a apropriation of one game logic in another context. We have intertextuality. Why this is so important? There is a agreement in the discourse and textual studies about this concept: the purpose of intertextuality is to bring some characteristics of the original text and reshapes it in the new text.

The player role is to dismiss/layoff people to save money. Someone (some invisible one) of the original game tells that you need eliminate equal pieces to reach a good score. This "innocent" logic is placed in a new context and the player need to make the same thing, the expected right thing to be rewarded. Well, like Pazzon, the "good" thing you need to do is not so good and your only choice is "continue" or "not continue". That means the player is more powerfull than the employees, less powerful than the managers (you can't dismiss them) and its efficiency rewards the corporation, prejudice people and don't bring more than a "good score" to it. And the player (could) keep acting until the employees board allows.

Let's back to intertextuality. In the original game, we are talking about "gems". This abstraction could be transported to the new game and we can have a tension about the material part (employees) and abstract part (the similar objects that needs to be in lines). The pop-ups helps to intensify this tension. Treat "people" as pieces to be eliminated is more than a good metaphore. It's the essencial thing to act like the corporation wants. To act in this way (in the game or in the life) it's essencial to keep away from the emotional involvement or to consider the employee as a human being. A guilty conscience needs this involvement.

So, who dismiss? Who really act? The "corporation"? The one that create the rules? Or someone that obey the rules? And what is be rewarded in this system? Who is winning? The player?

Well, I hope that the things I wrote could be readable. I intended write more and more clearly, but it's not easy to write in English. I only think that we need start to interpret some intertextuallity in games in a different way. And we could consider that sometimes the social criticism appears on differents and tenous forms. I think that we don't need only September 12ths.

Bem, é isso e um pouco mais que penso. Gastei tanto tempo elaborando isso em inglês que meu cérebro não consegue comentar nada mais... rá.