Do you do this? You see it all the time in the blog world: authors who set off their most salient points in big, beautiful boldface. It makes an article easier to skim, a boon to web surfers trying to cram as much content into their information addicted brains in as little time as possible. And y’know what? I detest the practice. It’s like with sitcoms. They either tape in front of an audience, or they dub in a laugh track, so the viewer knows which parts were supposed to be funny. Bloggers do the same thing with Ctrl+B.

I hereby name such writers, Boldgers.

Boldfacing has the same effect as putting up big signs that say, “Here’s the important bit. You don’t have to read the rest unless you really feel like it.” Why neuter such a large portion of your work like this? Instead of hitting a few talking points and then adding a heaping helping of foamy fluff, why not just write a shorter article? Or better yet, why not get your writing abilities to the point where people will want to read everything?

I think I might start boldfacing random sentence fragments, just out of spite. What do you bloggers think of that?

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One of those most insightful game-related sites on the Internet, The Escapist, is focusing on sex in games for this week’s set of editorial features. One article in particular stood out for me: Pressing The Right Buttons.

The author presents some mid-to-high level game concepts on how sex might be worked into a game context. He contends that, thus far in games, sex, in those rare instances where a developer is brave enough to weather the political backlash that always follows its portrayal, has been limited to either non-interactive cut scenes, such as in Mass Effect, or timed sequences of button presses, such as in God of War (which is a terrible example, but the best I could think of). His argument is that this removes the emotional involvement from the encounter, furthering the already cheap perception of sex that pervades the major gaming demographic of teenagers and young adults.

The author’s ideas for how to create in-depth gameplay around sex are quite interesting, and I’ll leave those points to his article. What I want to present here is a minor counterpoint to his argument against the way sex is currently presented in games. I say minor because, while I agree with his main point, I want to give a justification for why sex shows up in such a noninteractive context. I don’t necessarily believe it to be right.

Let’s look at sexuality as what all things as emotionally charged as sex fundamentally are: biological imperatives. Just as we get depressed and uncomfortable when we don’t get enough food, so too do we get when we don’t have enough sex. Remember that emotions exist to provide an instinctive impetus for us to perform certain beneficial actions, such as fighting for one’s life, sleeping, and eating. In the case of sex, we tend to form emotional bonds with sexual partners because it increases the likelihood of reproduction (or rather, those of our ancestors who did so tended to reproduce more effectively).

How are biological needs handled in games? You walk over a plate of food to eat it. You click a button to make your Sim go to the bathroom. You choose a menu item to have your character rest for the night. If we look at sex as just another biological imperative, then it makes sense that it show up in the same manner as the others, by viewing the act as given and moving on to the more interesting and less ordinary parts of life.

On the other hand, perhaps the Escapist author’s idea could be applied to other biological mundanities. We could use shoulder triggers to move a character’s jaw up and down while using an analog stick to make the character’s tongue move the food in his mouth around to improve chewing. We could time changes in sleeping positions during the night to optimize the amount of rest the character gets. We could use rhythmic button presses to relax the character’s bowels so he can go to the bathroom. Okay, maybe not everything needs to be a game.

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You find yourself thinking it towards the end of December every year. You might not say it aloud, but it’s there in the back of your mind, incessantly reminding you of how oppressively mortal you are:

Where did the time go?

Every year feels shorter than the last. Yesterday, you were graduating college. Today, you’re getting married. Tomorrow, you’ll be moving your oldest kid into the dorms. Why does life feel like it’s speeding by now that you’re an adult?

When you started kindergarten, you had 13 years of school ahead of you. Finishing 12th Grade and never having to go to boring ol’ school again was so far off as to be unfathomable. You couldn’t even conceptualize such a length of time back then; you only had two or three years worth of memories to draw reference from. Nevertheless, you focussed on that day in the untouchable future, and life crawled by because of it.

College was the same way, though perhaps to a lesser extent. Four (or five) years doesn’t take as long to get through, and you certainly had a better concept of that length of time by the time you started. Still, college felt like it took years to get through.

Now you’re out in the working world, doing the 9-to-5 dance, and suddenly time is flying. Years don’t feel like years anymore. What happened?

Look closely at how you think about time now, and you’ll see why:

“I can’t wait for the weekend.”

“Is today over yet?”

“I just need to get through this month.”

What happened to thirteen years from now? What happened to four? Unfortunately, when we enter the workforce, we begin to ignore far-off — but major — milestones, in favor of the mere relief for which we need only wait a few days. We look at the future in smaller quanta, perceiving time in weeks instead of decades. Without some faraway, nigh-unattainable point to focus on, we instead see the tiny blocks of time that we only get to experience for an instant relative to a lifetime.

When are you and your significant other getting married? When do you expect to have enough money to finally buy a home? When do you plan to open that restaurant? When is retirement? Think about these things daily. Life can be made to feel long again if, from time to time, we allow ourselves to disconnect from the present to consider the distant future.

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