Gaming- Essays on Algorithmic Culture

Song, JunhoDigital Contents Convergence, GSCST,

SNU16 April 2010

Gamic Action, Four Moments Origins of the First-Person

Shooter Social Realism Allegories of Control Countergaming

Flow

Gamic Action, Four Moments

Photographs imagesFilms moving imagesVideo game actions(ARG experience)

Camera vs joystic (vs media )Image vs action (vs experi-ence)Watching vs doing (vs surprising )Interactivity- Player act <-> Machine act

Operator, machine and diegetic, nondiegetic

Gamic Action, Four Moments

Diegetic

Nondiegetic

Operator Machine

Pure Process-ambience act-‘Shenmue’

Subjective Algorithm-pause, cheats, setup ac-tion-‘Warcraft3’, ‘Final Fantasy X’

Code-game over, gauge

Play-move act, fire

(knowing – unknowing)

Subjective Shot

Origins of the First-Person Shooter

Subjective Shot

Origins of the First-Person Shooter

Mental Affect- to show the optical perspective of a drugged, drowsy, drunk… intoxi-cated character

Detachment or Distancing- the feeling of disembodiment

Criminals and Monsters- criminals, monsters or characters deemed inhuman

Computers- computerized, cybernetic or machinic vision (Terminator, Robocop, Predator)

cinema, subjective shot game, FPS

Gamic Vision

Origins of the First-Person Shooter

film gameangle director has complete control over player controlspace build only the portion of the set all framestime & space director control & discontinuous player control & con-tinuousfirst-person use it for special occasions use it effectively

Social Realism

- realistic narrative and realistic representation SOCOM VS. The Sims, Unreal Tournament VS. Grand Theft Auto 3※ representation-- chasm --empirical reality

- realism in the cinema “phenomenological qualities” (dirty details, hopeful desires…) social critique Neo-Realism : nonprofessional actors, real life scenery, long takes …. social political practice

“Realisticness” vs Social Realism

- new generation of cyber-warriors ready to fight real foes realistic training tools- representation correspondence watch play, action meaning creation Plato Mimesis Aristotle

Issues

Social Realism

- realism in game not just realistic representation, but reflect critically personal drama, everyday.. ‘reality game’ kumawar.com

“Realisticness” vs Social Realism

- ‘play will become more and more linked to broad social structures of con-trol’

- protorealism

- riot game : State of Emergency rife with absurdities, brutal realities of urban violence marginalized communities(disenfranchised youth, ethnic minorities) unbridled anticorporate rebellion

- Etoy vs eToys

social reality of the gamer game environment

The Congruence Requirement

Social Realism

- ‘America’s Army’ designed and published by the US Army vs realism (direct criticism of current society) fun, well designed but not realist

- ‘Special Force’ released by the Lebanese organization Hizbullah- ‘Under Ash’ released by the Syrian publisher Dar Al-Fikr

social ideology

Are Military Games Realist?

The Affect of the Gamer- realism in gaming requires a special congruence between the social reality depicted in the game and lived by the player

- Hollywood filmmaker : representation realist filmmaker : social realities realist game designer : social realities and correct social milieu

fidelity of context is key for realism in gaming

Allegories of Control

- ‘Allegorical interpretation is a type of scanning that, moving back and forth across the text…

- ‘They are structuring absences.’ - ‘digitization’ of allegorical interpretation text video machine + PC

- ‘intermedia network’ called by Gene Youngblood

- Deleuze ‘disciplinary societies’ ‘societies of control’were characterized by physical semiotic immaterial ones signature, document password, computer(networks) confinement, enclosure extension of controlled mobility

- social transformation MS call center : from Redmond to Bangalore SARS : global medical surveillance system military : computer networks weapons system

Playing the Algorithm

Allegories of Control

- film : informatic control is the most important thing (CONTROL) representation of political control is eclipsed The Wrong Man - Hitchcock, The Killer – John Woo, Bad Boys, Heat…. conspiracy film

- video game play play the code of the game win know the system interpret interpret its algorithm (to discover its parallel ‘allegorithm’) ex. Sid Meier’s Civilization 3

- player can execute an algorithm in order to win hidden login – its algorithm

- not sublimating, but making it coterminous with the entire game

Playing the Algorithm

Allegories of Control

- definition of allegory extended metaphor enacted metaphor- parallelism : actual playing of the game AND the playing of informatics

A Theory of Pretending

Deep allegory Control allegory

Emblematic medium

Cinema Video games

Political expres-sion

Class struggle Informatic control

Hermeneutic Reading Processing

Parallelism Other-speak Other-act

- allegory consists of NOT a text and another text, BUT an enacted text and another en-acted text

Countergaming

- video game is modified by visual design, rules of the game, software technology- spaces to be seen and watched , rather than played

Artist-Made Game Mods

Brody Condon

- countercinema against the formalist and ideological domination of Hollywood cinema

Countergaming

- fiction vs. reality : not a useful classification scheme for gaming

Radical Action

Transparency Foregrounding

Gameplay Aestheticism

Representational model-ing

Visual artifact

Natural physics Invented physics

Interactivity Noncorrespondence

Gamic action Radical action

Conventional video game Countergam-ing