Apocalypse vs. Boredom

Ever since human being realized that they are mortal the idea of Apocalypse have emerged. However only Christian tradition have taken this idea to its extremes and made it popular and well know to every brain they could reach. Religions of India and Far East do not use excessive fear of Doomsday, Judgment Day and Savior as a last hope.  They postulate concept of everlasting and ever-changing world in general. I'd like to stop my reference to religions and philosophical practices at this point, to avoid going astray.   

Like it or not, Apocalypse is used and re-used countless times in movies, books and other cultural references. It is part of any European cultural understanding of world, and majority of  other cultures at least understand what do we mean by Apocalypse.

In game design however it has became an ultimate answer to boredom and i think the ultimate excuse in setting development. Whenever you need to portray dark, hopeless future/past or situation and therefore justify the need of exterminating the opponent "A" in various forms is present. To bring some popular examples which allows player to act out of mundane life restrictions: 

1) the War, which wipes out humanity and finally allows us to kill everything that moves,

2) invasion of horrible aliens - no sentiment here, get out of my lawn you alien/nazi punk!,

3) zombie horde - I will remain alive-white-human-armed-with-shotgun no matter the cost!

4) we made it - human activity finally screwed everything on the planet. Yuppi! Its shotgun time!

5) personal "A" - they killed my dog/family/canary/planet/tentacle choose appropriate, guess what's gonna happen.

6) Not on my shift! - apparently the "A" is about to happen and player must stop it using lots of bullets and pressing the red button in the end.  

I may have missed some interpretations of Apocalypse in games but the point of "A" remains the same: give a player an excuse to act without thinking too deep why he is doing it, a strong emotional anchor that he not only pressing the right button, but he is making something IMPORTANT. Some players may bluntly ignore the storyline, especially in FPS games or table-top war-games where primary activity is concentrated around annihilating opponent, but the reasoning why has been done before the game begin: my action matters.  

Accordingly, the bigger the threat of "A" the more important player should feel himself, when in fact he has not even left the sofa. The better the reasoning behind it the more people relate to matters of game and characters on the screen, the more real the Apocalypse becomes and more meaningful players actions become. 

After all how many chances we get to save the world in our mundane lives? That is the biggest catch of a really good and well-selling games (with exception of solitaire, perhaps :-) ). 

 

Oddly enough, computer games industry have outperformed movie industry in volume of sales by 2005 (i think),  a good proof that some real talents are going there to make this illusions believable and keep players occupied and happy.