Response: Rehak’s Playing at Being

Continue? Presenting the player with the opportunity to begin again is a fortune rarely found, away from the screen. Attracting players to fantasy experiences, videogames offer an opportunity to deeply connect with individuals in ways impossible for the majority of media. Although the telegraph can displace our expressions across oceans, videogames encase our mind within imaginary landscapes for our transported body to explore. In a game, it is possible to displace the body through its functions into a different environment. In the text, it is made clear that for as long as we can contrast the playing area from our living space, we can enjoy being consumed by games. Both abstractions and augmentations of our day to day environment help create a signature diversion. At a point where a breach is no longer perceivable, Rehak's theory suggests games will not offer the same enjoyment.

Rehak demonstrates that a player's identification to maneuvers abstracted through control mechanisms is only a fraction of the avatar's true potential. On-screen renditions of players give rise to questions of disembodiment and uncertain identity. It is important to feel that your presence is incorporated in a game experience. Today, the 'life' of an avatar remains quite different from our own. Pause, play, start and stop. Our on-screen characters take shape at our control. We do not intrude in their lives, like puppet masters. Instead we incarnate them as lifeless containers.