In Steven Johnson’s article, “The Long Zoom”, from the New York Times, he described why our era would most likely be termed the long zoom. Johnson gave numerous examples, including our ability to use Google Maps to zoom in from an image of North America to a neighborhood in a matter of seconds. Furthermore, the new way we are seeing things has changed the way we think about things.

Johnson also stated that a new cultural product would dominate this century: the computer game. Will Wright is creating Spore, which the player will be able to “layer by layer, create an entire world that at the end of the day is entirely yours: the creature, the vehicles, the cities, the planets.” You start as a single-celled organism and as you progress through levels, acquire the use of the “creature editor.” People do not often put computer games in the same category as artwork, yet what is most interesting from the article is that Johnson states “the game deserves to be seen as a work of art—a way of seeing and making sense of the world.”

Through games like these, people have a valuable perspective that is often times deeply personal. Even by just simply taking five steps back, we are able to examine life through a different perspective. Our knowledge on the complexities of the universe has expanded greatly to the point were we may feel incredibly insignificant despite the massive knowledge we have to comprehend the universe and the functions of life itself.

Taken from Jean Baudrillard’s writings, the world of Spore could be taken as a copy of the real and becomes truth in its own right. In a sense, it is a hyperreal, or exaggeration of reality, so incredibly realistic in detail that it is difficult to decipher one from the other. Just as Disneyland is a “copy of a copy” or a “simulacra to the second power”, so is Spore. In these games, are we creating fake realities (or even “prepared” realities) where illusion is no longer possible?