David Cronenberg says eXistenZ wasn’t about predicting modern gaming, but if the 1999 sci-fi thriller did do that, ‘that’s lovely’
eXistenZ is the more traditionally entertaining movie, with an eerily vacant Jude Law at one point building a biological gun in one of my all-time favorite movie scenes, but Videodrome’s more abstract take on virtual reality was arguably the more prescient one. Today, it’s social media feeds and 20 second video clips that have the power to define our reality, while playing games with actual VR headsets remains a somewhat niche hobby despite Mark Zuckerberg’s big dreams.
But Cronenberg wasn’t aiming to predict specifics about the future of videogames, telling GamesRadar in a recent interview that he’s not much of a gamer himself.“I think people interpret things they see in those movies in anticipation,” said Cronenberg. “I mean, I’ve never been a great games player … but I was interested in [videogames]. It can be another art form—creating another world that is immersive, and so on.
“It intrigued me because, of course, in a way, movies have always been that as well. So people who think that eXistenZ anticipated some things about game playing—well, that’s lovely. But, really, I don’t think of art as prophecy.”
To me, Videodrome and eXistenZ are foremost stories about mass media and the ideas of theorists like Marshall McLuhan (famous for his “the medium is the message” maxim) and Jean Baudrillard (the hyperreality guy), and I take Cronenberg’s comment to mean that the VR game in eXistenZ was designed to serve the ideas expressed by the story rather than to predict a specific future. (As is generally the case in sci-fi, however much it’s accused of having gotten specific tech developments ‘wrong.’)
Still, there are parallels between eXistenZ’s VR game and the games of today. Most superficially, there’s the fact that VR headsets are now common. We don’t have anything as advanced as what’s depicted in the movie, but I can’t not mention that Valve founder Gabe Newell owns a brain chip company.
The NPCs in eXistenZ also have some of the same uncanniness you get with today’s large language model AI chat bots, and the way the VR game is influenced by the thoughts of the participants somewhat anticipates today’s emphasis on user generated content in games like Roblox and Fortnite.
If any type of game has produced new realities, though, it’s not VR games but the MMOs that came out within a few years of eXistenZ, namely EverQuest, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online.
EVE’s simulated financial and political world has in particular been very real to many of its players, and it feels appropriate to mention here that developer CCP recently announced a plan to acquire the literal blood of some of its players to use as ink. (The medium is the message, indeed!)
Prophetic or not, Videodrome and eXistenZ would make a great double feature if you haven’t seen them. Annoyingly and a bit ironically, the mass media entertainment complex hasn’t made eXistenZ available to watch on any streaming platforms right now, and a recent 4K Blu-Ray run sold out fast, so you might have to hit up eBay.
While I’m recommending Cronenberg films, try Possessor from his son, Brandon Cronenberg. PC Gamer brand director and noted horror enthusiast Tim Clark and I can be counted as fans of the younger Cronenberg, and Tim recently pointed out Possessor’s influence on Bungie’s Marathon.
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