Game studies

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Game studies is the still-young field of analyzing games from a multi- and inter-disciplinary perspective.

Contents

[edit] Introduction

Prior to the late-20th century, the academic study of games was rare and limited to fields such as history and anthropology. For example, in the early 1900’s Stewart Culin wrote a comprehensive catalog of gaming implements and games from Native American tribes north of Mexico [1] while Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois explored the importance of games and play as a basic human activity that helps define culture [2]. As the videogame revolution took off in the early 1980’s, so did academic interest in games. To date, the field of games studies can be characterized not only as multi-disciplinary but also as inter-disciplinary. Over the years, different fields and disciplines have demonstrated an interest in videogames and their study. The approaches taken thus far can be broadly characterized in three ways:

  1. Social science approach
    • Studying the effects of games on people
      • What do games do to people?
      • How do people create and negotiate a game?
  2. Humanities approach
    • Studying the meaning and context of games
      • What meanings are made through game use?
      • Studying games as artifacts in and of themselves
        • E.g.: Affordances of the medium, critical analysis, rhetoric
  3. Industry and engineering approach
    • Understanding the design and development of games
      • E.g.: How to make better games
    • Games as drivers of technological innovations
      • E.g.: Graphics, AI, networking, etc.

In addition to asking different kinds of questions, each approach tends to use different methods and tools. A large body of social scientists prefer quantitative tools and methods while a smaller group makes use of qualitative research. Academics from the humanities tend to prefer tools and methods that are qualitative. The industry approach is practice-driven and usually less concerned with theory than the other two. Of course, these approaches are not mutually exclusive, and a significant part of game studies research blends them together. Tracy Fullerton and Kenji Ito’s work are examples of interdisciplinary work being done in games studies[3][4].

The youth of the field of game studies is also another reason for blurred boundaries between approaches. Williams, in a call for greater inter-disciplinary work in communications-oriented games scholarship, noted how the “study of videogames is poised to repeat the mistakes of past academic inquiry” [5]. He argues that the youth of the field means that it is not bound to follow the traditional divisions of scholarly work and that there is an opportunity to rediscover the strengths and contributions that different scholarly traditions can offer.

[edit] Social sciences

Broadly speaking, the social scientific approach has concerned itself with the question of “What do games do to people?” Using tools and methods such as surveys and controlled laboratory experiments, researchers have investigated both the positive and negative impact that playing games could have on people.

Among the possible negative effects of gameplay, perhaps the one most commonly raised by media and the general public has to do with violence in games. What are the possible effects that playing videogames, in particular those that feature aggressive or violent elements, might have on children and youth? Social learning theory (e.g., Bandura, 1986) suggests that playing aggressive videogames would stimulate aggressive behavior in players in particular because the player is an active participant (as opposed to a passive observer as the case of aggression in film and television). On the other hand, catharsis theory (e.g., Feshbach and Singer, 1971) implies that playing aggressive videogames would have the opposite effect by channeling latent aggression resulting in a positive effect on players. Numerous reviews of existing literature have been written and there isn’t a clear picture of the effects of playing violent videogames might have (Griffiths, 1999; Sherry, 2001).

As for positive effects, educators and learning scientists have also debated how to leverage the motivation students had for playing games as well as exploring the medium of videogames for educational and pedagogical purposes. Malone explored the intrinsically motivating qualities that games have and how they might be useful in designing educational games (Malone, 1980; Malone, 1981) while Kafai utilized the design of games by schoolchildren as the context for them to learn computer programming concepts and mathematics (Kafai, 1995; Kafai, 1996). Similarly, Squire has explored the use of commercial games as a means for engaging disenfranchised students in school (Squire, 2005). In addition to their motivational factors, Gee and Shaffer have argued that certain qualities present in the medium of videogames provide valuable opportunities for learning (Gee, 2003; Shaffer, 2006). In her book Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle explored how people that participated in online multiplayer games such as MUDs used their experiences with the game to explore personal issues of identity (Turkle, 1995). In her book Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor recounts her experience playing the massively multiplayer online game Everquest. In doing so, she seeks to understand “the nuanced border relationship that exists between MMOG players and the (game) worlds they inhabit” (Taylor, 2006).

Finally, economists have also begun studying games, in particular massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), to better understand human behavior. The economic activity in these games is being studied as one would study the economy of a nation such as Russia or Bulgaria (Castronova, 2001). Different theories, such as coordination game theory, can be put to the test because games can produce contexts for natural experiments: a high number of participants as well as tightly controlled experimental conditions (Castronova, 2006). From this perspective, games provide a unique context in which human activity can be explored and better understood.

[edit] Humanities

In general terms, the humanities approach has concerned itself with the question of “What meanings are made through games?” Using tools and methods such as interviews, ethnographies and participant observation, researchers have investigated the various roles that videogames play in people’s lives and activities together with the meaning they assign to their experiences. For example, Consalvo explores how players choose to play the games they buy and negotiate how, when, and for what reasons to subvert a game’s rules (Consalvo, 2007). It turns out that “cheating” is a very complex phenomenon whose meaning is continually negotiated by players, the game industry, and various gaming sub-cultures that revolve around specific games.

Other researchers have focused on understanding videogames as cultural artifacts with embedded meaning, exploring what the medium of the videogame is, and situating it in context to other forms of human expression. Laurel’s book Computers as Theatre, while principally focused on applying tenants of dramatic criticism to the design of human-computer interface design, describes how videogames are the natural result of computers “capacity to represent action in which the humans could participate”. (Laurel, 1991). Rather than considering the computer as a highly efficient tool for calculating or computing, she proposed understanding the computer as a medium. The thesis of her book attempts to draw parallels between drama and the computer, with computers allowing their users to play equivalent roles to both the drama performer as well as the audience member. Throughout her book, Laurel uses different videogames as exemplars of many of the ideas and principles she tries to communicate. Jenkins, on the other hand, explores the role that videogames play in a broader context he calls transmedia storytelling. In Jenkin’s view, content moves between different media and videogames are a part of the general ecology of storytelling media that includes movies, novels, and comic books (Jenkins, 2003). Similarly, Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck, described the computer as a new medium for the practice of storytelling (Murray, 1997). By analyzing videogames along with other digital artifacts such as hypertext and interactive chat characters, Murray explores the new expressive possibilities allowed by computers. In particular, she views videogames as part of an expanded concept of storytelling she calls cyberdrama. Espen Aarseth, in his book Cybertext, disagrees with Murray’s idea and holds that “to claim there is no difference between games and narratives is to ignore essential qualities of both categories” (Aarseth, 1997).

This disagreement has been called the ludology vs. narratology debates. The narratological view is that games should be understood as novel forms of narrative and can thus be studied using theories of narrative (Murray, 1997; Atkins, 2003). The ludological position is that games should be understood on their own terms. Ludologists have proposed that the study of games should concern the analysis of the abstract and formal systems they describe. In other words, the focus of game studies should be on the rules of a game, not on the representational elements which are only incidental (Aarseth, 2001; Eskelinen, 2001; Eskelinen, 2004). The idea that a videogame is “radically different to narratives as a cognitive and communicative structure” (Aarseth, 2001) has led the development of new approaches to criticism that are focused on videogames as well adapting, repurposing and proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about videogames.

Juul’s Half-Real explores how videogames blend formal rules with the imaginative experiences provided by fictional worlds. He describes the tensions faced by games studies scholars when choosing to focus on the game or the player of the game. “We can examine the rules as they are found mechanically in the game program or in the manual of a board game, or we can examine the rules as something that players negotiate and learn. We can also treat the fictional world as a set of signs that the game presents, and we can treat the fictional world as something that the game cues the player into imagining and that players then imagine in their own ways (Juul, 2005).” Bogost’s comparative approach to videogame criticism also stands out as one of the more recent steps in the direction of proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about games. In Unit Operations, Bogost argues for explicating videogames through a new form of criticism that encompasses the programmatic and algorithmic underpinnings of games together with the cultural and ideological units (2006).

[edit] Ludology and narratology

Like most academic fields, those who study video games often have differing approaches. While scholars use many different theoretical and research frameworks, the two most visible approaches are ludology and narratology.

The term ludology arose within the context of non-electronic games and board games in particular, but gained popularity after it was featured in an article by Gonzalo Frasca in 1999.[6] The name, however, has not yet caught on fully. Major issues being grappled within the field are questions of narrative and of simulation, and whether or not video games are either, neither, or both.

The narrativists approach video games in the context of what Janet Murray calls "Cyberdrama." That is to say, their major concern is with video games as a storytelling medium, one that arises out of interactive fiction. Murray puts video games in the context of the Holodeck, a fictional piece of technology from Star Trek, arguing for the video game as a medium in which we get to become another person, and to act out in another world.[7] This image of video games certainly received early widespread popular support, and forms the basis of films such as Tron, eXistenZ, and The Last Starfighter. But it is also criticized by some game scholars (such as Espen J. Aarseth) for being better suited to linear narratives than to analysis of interactive video games with multiple, semi-linear or non-linear narratives.

The narrativist approach can also be found in the works of Lev Manovich, as well as in the works of Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, which deal more with the concept of new media in general, and its historical roots than with video games as such. But these authors still fundamentally approach video games as 'a text that can be read' - much like a book, poem, or film, and as a media form that has many of the same elements.

There are some standard arguments that usually are used to claim that games are narratives, as in the explanation from Jesper Juul:

  • Everything is narrative
  • Most gamers use narratives as introductions and backstories
  • Games share certain elements with narratives

The ludologists break sharply and radically from this. Their perspective is that a video game is first and foremost just that, a game, and that it needs to be understood in terms of its rules, interface, and in terms of the concept of play. Ludologists such as Espen J. Aarseth argue that, although games certainly have plots, characters, and aspects of traditional narratives, these aspects are incidental to gameplay. In one essay, he memorably claims that "the dimensions of Lara Croft's body, already analyzed to death by film theorists, are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently... When I play, I don't even see her body, but see through it and past it."[8] Stuart Moulthrop, another ludologist, takes a slightly more moderate perspective, arguing that one cannot completely divorce games from their social context, but still fundamentally arguing that games are not narratives in any meaningful sense.

In another opinion, the dualism of a strict division between ludology-narratology is quite artificial. Ludology does not exclude the so-called "narratology" approach.[9]

Jesper Juul's arguments for looking at games as non-narrative, or as a ludologist:

  • Games are not a part of the media landscape of movies, novels, theater etc.
  • Game time is different from narrative time
  • The relationship between the reader/viewer and the story world is different from the relation between the player and the game world

One can say that some narrativist approaches are useful when examining strongly narrative-like games such as Zork, and Return to Zork, and more contemporary text-heavy games such as the Lunar series, the Final Fantasy series, or Odin Sphere - but some video game genres have taken a different approach to their design. Fighting games, sports games, or first person shooting games, to name a few, can hardly be analyzed using the narrativist approach. One can also point to the way that narrativist approaches may have something to say about where "big world" games have come from historically; immense game-worlds do seem to have roots in narrative pulp and popular fiction (Lord of the Rings, etc) and fantasy film epics (Star Wars trilogy, etc).

Henry Jenkins attempts to find a compromise between ludology and narratology with the following points:

  • Not all games tell stories
  • Many games have narrative ambitions
  • An analysis of storytelling in games can be done in more than one way
  • The gaming experience can never be reduced to the experience of a story
  • If games tell stories, it is unlikely that they do so in the same manner as other media

Many games can be seen in light of this compromise. For instance, the first-person shooter game Bioshock is in many ways typical for the genre. However, as the protagonist fights through the game, pieces of the narrative are discovered as audio recordings authored by the inhabitants of the game world. In this way, the actions taken in-game and the story of the game become interconnected. Shadow Of The Colossus is a different example. Although any explicit narrative elements are extremely spartan, nearly dialog-less and consist mainly of an introduction and ending, all in-game actions taken by the player would have no context without a story to give these actions meaning.

[edit] Pre-history of video games

There is now also an emerging field of study (Oliver Grau, 2004, and others) that looks at the "pre-history" of video games, and at the branch of their roots that lie in: fairground attractions and sideshows such as shooting games; early "Coney Island"-style pleasure parks with elements such as large roller-coasters and "haunted house" simulations; nineteenth century landscape simulations such as dioramas, panoramas, planetariums, and stereographs; and amusement arcades that had mechanical game machines and also peep-show film machines.[10]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Culin, S. (1907). Games of the North American Indians, Twenty fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1902-1903. Government Printing Office: 1-840. 
  2. ^ Huizinga, Johan (1954). Homo Ludens. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. 
  3. ^ Fullerton, Tracy (2005). "The Play's the Thing: Practicing Play as Community Foundation and Design Technique". Changing Views: Worlds in Play, Selected Papers from the 2005 DiGRA Conference, Vancouver, Canada: DiGRA. 
  4. ^ Ito, Kenji (2005). "Possibilities of Non-Commercial Games: The Case of Amateur Role Playing Games Designers in Japan". Changing Views: Worlds in Play, Selected Papers from the 2005 DiGRA Conference: 135-145, Vancouver, Canada: DiGRA. 
  5. ^ Williams, D, “Bridging the methodological divide in game research”, Simulation & Gaming 36 (4): 447-463 
  6. ^ Frasca, Gonzalo (1999). Ludology meets narratology: Similitudes and differences between (video) games and narrative (HTML). Ludology.org. Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
  7. ^ Murray, Janet (1998). Hamlet on the Holodeck. MIT Press. ISBN 0262631873. 
  8. ^ Aarseth, Espen J. (2004-05-21). Genre Trouble (HTML). Electronic Book Review. Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
  9. ^ Frasca, Gonzalo (2003). Ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place (PDF). Ludology.org. Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
  10. ^ Grau, Oliver (2004). Virtual Art. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-57223-1. 

[edit] Relevant resources

[edit] Professional associations

[edit] Academic journal publications

[edit] Conferences

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading