Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 268)

Trigger Happy
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except for the wealthy. Yet in a culture where the form
of an activity is held in such high esteem for its own
sake, being able to recreate that form in a videogame
context is, it seems, a decisively valuable pleasure.
This is not so different from a Western driving
game. Most of us will never be able to hurl a Dodge
Viper at two hundred miles an hour through the Tokyo
suburbs. But we can play Gran Turismo, and as the
form of the videogame becomes an ever more accurate
analogue to the form of the real activity (with our
provisos about playability), that is a better and better
consolation. The gallimaufry of Japanese simulation
games are attractive because they can provide the
dynamic form of an activity even though the content
(the physical paraphernalia of that activity: actual fish,
or a real garden) are missing.
Now, of course, irrespective of their varying
approaches to character design or formal realism,
Japanese videogames are still, fundamentally, games.
And Japanese people like to play as much as anyone
else. One of their biggest leisure pastimes, in fact, has
much to tell us next.