New media, which it is thought to provide relative activeness to the viewer in the production of the media content, represents a new dimension of the virtual world that is unlimited and allows for interaction at the highest level. New media discussed since the 1970s became the most important tool of transition from city-spaces to virtual-city-spaces with the millennium. For this reason, constituted by the reproduction of social reality by means of the computer, virtual spaces are con-sidered to be simulated reality. In this sense, virtual reality is the restructuring of the real or a simulation of it (Tosun, 2013: 115). Individuals in virtual reality check computer-generated three-dimensional simulations through various devices. This actually represents a step forward in human-machine interaction. In machine-machine interaction, considered as the next stage of human-machine-machine interaction, the existence of artificial intelligence machines expected to act independently of people has been emphasized.
Even though the virtual reality debate goes back to the 1980s, the results of this new technology indicate a point that digitalization has reached which has never been so exciting. Virtual reality has already become a more integral part of everyday life in the form of entertainment, creativity, or applications (Cawkell, 1993: 325). It is believed that virtual reality will lead to major changes in our personal life, business life, and professional life. In addition to this, it is believed that the educational and health effects of virtual reality will be seen in the not too distant future. Games are the most popular tool of entertainment and the creative fields of virtual reality. Therefore, virtual reality technology brings improvements in coordination with the game industry. Game developers and console manufac-turers, directing their attention toward virtual reality applications, open the door to a world of interactivity offering the highest level of interaction for the audience.
Selahattin Çavuş 148
Digital games have passed to a new level in parallel with the development of virtual reality technology. Benefitting from interface technology, body motion control has been engaged in playing digital games and has moved game-user interaction to higher levels than ever. The most important representatives of vir-tual reality applications in the present generation are Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, and Sony PlayStation. Nintendo Wii occupies a unique place in high-level intuitive player interaction. In 2006, the company started to produce tools that provide intuitive control, which has provided users with the opportunity to play any popular sports games (football, basketball, etc.) as if it was real thanks to its camera-based motion control feature. Following the success of Nintendo, Mi-crosoft “Project’s Natal” and Sony’s “PlayStation Move” became partners in the competition driving intuitive motion tracking accessories to the market (Choi, Yang, & Yuen, 2012: 53). From smartphone manufacturers such as HTC, Apple, and Samsung, to companies developing Internet-based products and services, many technology manufacturers have accelerated their investment in this field.
International companies aimed at proving their existence not only in the game sector, but also in the movie and advertising world have entered into product development and the search for partnerships.
Trials on digital technology continue with augmented reality6, three dimen-sional (3D) sound and images, intuitive communication technologies, and “smart”
technologies. While smartphones, smart televisions, smart watches, smart homes and smart clothes bring artificial intelligence to life in the millennium, the idea that “robots that can make their own decisions”, fictionalized in movies, is one of the essential components of the digital game industry. Marked in the 1980s by the “Terminator” and “Robocop” movies, and then by “Artificial Intelligence”, written and directed by Steven Spielberg in 2001, the subject is fictionalized read-ily through digital games. The death struggle of people fighting machines that reproduce their own is often presented in a dystopian style to the audience-player.
These games push the limits of the imagination, creating an infrastructure of ideas that appear at first to be impossible.
Criticism
Games have had an undeniable place and importance in the thousands of years of cultural accumulation of humanity. The development of games throughout history
6 Augmented reality is combining electronic systems with the physical world (Mackay, 1998). A new physical environment is created by combining applications such as audio, video, and global positioning system (GPS) generated by computers and the real world.
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cannot be considered independent from political, economic, technological, and other social processes. Shaped as a reflection of the individual’s relationship with the environment and nature, the game has had a variety of functions, such as education, competition, physical and mental development, and especially entertainment. Used as a power device in ancient times, the game maintains the same function today of being part of the culture industry’s changing format. While festivals, the Olympics, gladiator combats, and similar sporting events were performed for power control throughout history, games and entertainment tools serve a new kind of power under the control of transnational capital and industrial giants in the modern era. On the other hand, due to advances in computer technology, emerging digital games have also been considered as the premise of technological developments from the mil-lennium onwards. The imagined science fiction universe in movies and games in the digital world are transformed a little more into reality with each new invention.
Furthermore, the perceptions of traditional players in this process have changed, becoming technology-dependent and an extension of the digital industry.
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