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The border between video games and the “real” world Does virtual photography change the gaming experience? Thomas Spies, a German virtual photographer and game scientist at the University of Cologne, does not draw a sharp line between the world of video games and “reality”. He sees the online and offline spheres as two interconnected worlds, since our daily lives are also defined by digital encounters and interactions that are no less real. In his work, he deliberately mixes them in order to understand what new games can tell us about virtual experiences, communities and worlds, but also about our society and our own identity.

His photo series Mimicry captures random passers-by or a supermarket clerk – both NPC characters from GTA V – staring intently into Spies’ camera, while their virtual portraits in a diptych are complemented by silent photographs of (real) plastic figurines. The decisive poses of GTA characters or the chilling mannequins thus raise many questions, for example, about what imitates a person better – a work of the real world or the virtual world? “We wouldn’t consider the mannequins we see in clothing stores to be real people. But is a virtual person in GTA more realistic than a mannequin? If I combine the two, I can remove the imaginary boundary that would otherwise divide them,” explains Spies, who captured the images for the series in boutique windows or in a weapons store in virtual Los Santos.

Americana is another similar series by a German virtual photographer, who, through GTA V, projects a critical image of how game developers represent society through familiar stereotypes and scenes reflecting reality, where poverty is omnipresent and American prosperity is a thing of the past. However, elements of artificiality never completely disappear from game worlds. This is also because the physics in games work differently, objects sometimes merge, and you usually don't find anything at all in beautifully rendered houses.

Online community of gaming enthusiasts Frenchman Ludovic Helme, who has been taking pictures of video games for five years, doesn't play one these days without taking one or twenty virtual snaps. He is always tempted by the feeling of absolute freedom to capture every millimeter at his own pace, which is not possible in the real world. "Virtual photography is much less restrictive and cheaper than that in the physical world," thinks Helme, who works from Osaka, Japan under the pseudonym Shinobi. "In a video game, you don't need a drone to take a photo from above, and you don't need an expensive camera or studio lights to get a sharp shot with good light. You just need one photo mode, with which you can do everything." Stop time, control the light, adjust the depth of field, contrast, camera position or use creative filters – however, each game has its own photo mode. Their quality and control options also depend on how much time and money developers invest in them. For example, those in popular games such as Horizon Zero Dawn or The Last of Us II from the development studio Naughty Dog work on the principle of “freezing the scene”, thanks to which the textures of avatars and surrounding objects are temporarily rendered in a much higher resolution (4K or even 8K).

Helme, with his five years of experience in virtual photography, sometimes helps development studios as a consultant – he has already participated in the development of photo modes for the games Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn or Deathloop. At the same time, the French virtual photographer sees the growth of virtual photography and more opportunities for cooperation with development studios as the success of a small online community of enthusiasts, which has gradually gained recognition from the gaming industry. “Since we also want to capture the game in the best light, our shots are free marketing for the studios,” comments Helme, who was hired by the game company Kepler Interactive specifically to shoot promotional shots for their game Flintlock. The reward for such assignments is usually access keys to the games – but Helme would not like it if the artistic value of virtual photos was turned into a business in order to catch free games.

Spies, who studies this community of virtual photographers as part of his own research, criticizes the way development studios profit from publicly shared shots from photographers, who are usually big fans of the games. “Studios deliberately improve their photo modes so that virtual photography becomes part of their ecosystem. This strengthens their own advertising and profit at the expense of the creative activity of the players,” believes the virtual photographer and game scientist. In academic circles, this is referred to as "playbour" - work through play that is often underappreciated and exploited by development studios. “While we own the image, they own the game”

We also see a grey area about who owns the copyright to the creations of virtual photographers. The fact is that the development studio and companies have the intellectual property rights, so they are the largest owner of the game content. “Although we, the virtual photographers, own the intellectual property rights to the image, which the development companies cannot use without our consent, we cannot just sell our photos, since they own the rights to the game,” Helme says. Helme’s photos breathe ethereal compositions of surreal worlds, mystical beings in the midst of battle or chillingly detailed portraits of characters, and they reach thousands of views on the social network X.

However, virtual photography primarily fulfills his need to create and he sees the dilemmas about copyright as an opportunity for new debates. He managed to find an interesting angle for this: “In virtual photography, you can express your creativity through the creativity of someone else – the development team and the game itself,” thinks Ludovic “Shinobi” Helme. Just like in the offline world, gaming reality can be perceived anew through virtual photography. For scientist and video game enthusiast Lars de Wildt, this is precisely the meaning of good photography, which transforms real life in a way that is almost unrecognizable – and connects bits with being.