Gesture as Meaning... or Gesture as Artifice?

Ian Bogost put up an excellent post on Gamasutra regarding the rhetorical meaning inherent in using real-life gestures as game interface.  He provides the example of the (in)famous indie experiment/board game Train, in which players emulate the logistical planning of sending people to die at Auschwitz:  In this board game, it isn't simply the result of physical action that is important, but the action itself.  The action represents a psychological complicity in the heinous act, and thus forces the player to reflect, possibly with a degree of disgust, on his/her actions.  It's that sort of postmodern ah-ha moment that only the most innovative and ingenious of games are able to create.

Bogost also uses the example of Manhunt 2 for the Wii, and this is where he and I part somewhat on what makes for a meaningful gesture.  I write in the comments section:

[...]there is a fine line between a game interface that highlights the mechanism (in this case, the use of gestures as representational of agency) and one that highlights the rhetorical exigency (in the case of Train, the seeming complicity of an entire industrial complex in the deaths of millions). Take, for example, the aforementioned Manhunt 2, and let's compare it to God of War: Chains of Olympus. Is the act of moving one's hands in real life to execute a digital person any more a sign of agency and complicity in the imagined act than rapidly pressing the X button in GOW:COO to force Kratos away from his one love in life, his daughter? Unless Manhunt 2 gives the player a chance to make very real associations between the gesture and the act--to use the Wiimote to interact in a way that can ONLY be accomplished through gesture--the presence of the gesture can be taken as mere gimmickry that marginalizes the perversion inherent in the act.

To put it another way, in Trains, you are actively planning as those complicit have planned. There is no separation between semantic agent and semantic instrument. You, alone, are agent and you use the instrument (the set) to act. In Manhunt 2, as with GOW:COO, the instrument is still the agent: "It's not me executing that person, it's the controls, and through the controls, it's the character."

If there is a way around this on the Wii, I'm not sure what it might be. The Wii's controls always take center stage by the very nature of the paratext that surrounds every game ("Now with motion controls! Wowzers!"). Perhaps a game that invites others to act as witness to your supposedly heinous interaction with the game and then somehow report their opinions interactively?

The Eyetoy, Project Natal, and the PS3's forthcoming Eye-based motion control wand may be able to break that one dissonant step by crafting imagery in which the player is indeed making 1:1 connections between the interface and the act. By seeing oneself onscreen, acting upon others, the agency produced by gesture will not simply be a *facet* of the gameplay, but the focus.

To clarify:  I'd argue that the Wii controls are essentially a more complex version of "rolling the die," linked more to the result than the meaning inherent in the gesture.  Sure, the player is physically using the wiimote to emulate murder, but there's a whole layer of artifice stacked upon the Wii's controls that distinguishes the agency of the player from the agency of the instrument itself.  The emphasis for the Wii version of Manhunt 2 is placed more on the supposed brilliance of the "immersive" Wii motion controls than on the complicit nature of voyeurism.  This is partly a fault of Manhunt 2's design, and partly the fault of Nintendo's marketing mentality for the Wii that has trickled down to most developers.  The controls are rarely used to make a point that can't be made with regular controls.  Whereas Train sheds light on the significance of an act, Manhunt 2 reflects only the self-important significance of game design.