Reading 3 - Panpan Deng

In the first chapter of the book Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture by Galloway, Alexander R, he mainly talked about the four steps of the classification system of video games. Combining the experience I have with the computer games and the context in this chapter, I would like to describe human's action of playing computer games as a dance with imaginary characters. There are several reasons why I hold that point of view.
 

First and foremost, the games could not be games if no one play with them. Alexander wrote in his book that "they(video games) exist when enacted" (Page 2). He believed that without human participation, video games were nothing but dead computer codes. Dance is the same. If there is only one dancer, other people could only consider the whole action as a show.  For example, the game Dance Dance Revolution makes players to control the movement of the characters.  the players input the wrong buttons, correspondingly the characters will make the discordant movement. There would be just like a cartoon show for the players if dancers' action have nothing to do with players.

Also, the devices players use can be considered as a platform for the human-player dance. On that platform, they communicate with the computer code which plays a role as a shared knowledge. Different platforms can hold different types of dances. However the mission is the same which is to corporate with each other in order to present a high-quality dance. Besides, it is very significant for the players to find a "suitable" dancing partner on the basis of their own levels. Skilled players can corporate better with high level dancers and new players may be better to practice with low level partners.

Last but not least, the designers of the game work as a dj while players are dancing with the characters. Designers control the pace of the dance even though it is not real-time control. Gunfight games are always the exciting one while the education simulation games are leisure. 

In all, video games can not run with the absence of the players' participation.