The Experience of Information in Computer Games

This paper responds to Espen Aarseth’s provocative proposition about the way First Person Shooter games reveal a fundamental modality of human experience by embodying a dialectic of “aporia and epiphany.” It is argued that if the First Person Shooter Doom tells us something fundamental about living today, then this is because of the programmatic nature of the prevailing cybernetic world view of which Doom is an elegant illustration. The military origins of this world view are then examined. The logistical tendency to order and control contingent events is discussed as a central legacy of the military source of cybernetic thought influencing contemporary technoculture. The concept of information in the widespread notion of information processing is cited as a key element of this legacy. Information is examined in its initial mathematical conception as a means for calculating future eventuality in a cybernetic communication system. The experience provided in the First Person Shooter is discussed as a ludic variant of the logistical tendency to anticipate the future by means of modelling and simulation. The ironic or critical potential of the First Person Shooter as a game which not only plays out but also plays with the prevailing values of technoculture is discussed.