Overview of:Game research

Rikke Toft Nørgård, Ph.D.Centre for Teaching Development

and Digital Media

Research on:

Games Gameplayers Gameplay

Game research

Game-objects

Game-subjects

Game-activiti

es

3 Main areas

1. Game-objects

The farm of game

research on games

Games as textual media

Games as systems or simulationa

l media

Games as narrative

media

Games as visual media

2. Game-subjects

The farm of game

research on gameplayers

Gameplayers as

voyeurs

Gameplayers as

thinkers

Gameplayers as

situated selves

Gameplayers as social or cultural

selves

Gameplayers as

avatars

3. Game-activities

The farm of game research

on gameplay

Gameplay as digital

transportation

Gameplay as dramaturgic performance

Gameplay as cognitive

transmission and

transference

Gameplay as perceptual

differentiation

The ontology of games

What is a game?

The object-oriented side of the area

Game-objects

Bejeweled 2: Action

http://www.popcap.com/games/bejeweled2/online?mid=bejeweled2_pcweb_en_full

Trying a game-object

Field 1: Games as textual media

“The text I construct as I read Tomb Raider or

Half-Life belongs only to me, and to me alone, in effect, ‘I wrought the urn’. No other player or reader reads or writes the same text. It is unique. It is an original. Every one of us is an author, every one of us is an artist. There is something truly radical here, something significantly novel, something that demands that we rethink the ways in which we view the artwork, and our relationship with the individual work of art.” (Atkins, 2003, p. 153)

Field 1: Games as textual media

“Are games texts? The best reason I can think of

why one would ask such a crude question is because one is a literary or semiotic theorist and wants to believe in the relevance of one’s training.”

(Aarseth, 2004, p. 47).

Field 1: Games as textual media

Field 2: Games as systems or

simulational media

“As a formalist discipline, it [game research] should

focus on the understanding of [games] structure and elements – particularly its rules – as well as creating typologies and models for explaining the mechanics of games” (Frasca, 2003, p. 222).

“The computer game is the art of simulation.” (Aarseth, 2003, p. 52)

“…it is clear that the game is its rules” (Eskelinen & Tronstad, 2003, p. 214).

Field 2: Games as systems or

simulational media

“As a formalist discipline, it [game research] should

focus on the understanding of [games] structure and elements – particularly its rules – as well as creating typologies and models for explaining the mechanics of games” (Frasca, 2003, p. 222).

“The computer game is the art of simulation.” (Aarseth, 2003, p. 52)

“…it is clear that the game is its rules” (Eskelinen & Tronstad, 2003, p. 214).

Field 2: Games as systems or

simulational media

Field 2: Games as systems or

simulational media

Field 2: Games as systems or

simulational media

Field 3: Games as narrative media

It does not make much narrative sense to

knock down rows of colored blocks if the behavior of those blocks has no connection to your presence in the gameworld. Once you identify those colored blocks as a force field designed by the forces of evil to stop your advance through the universe, you are much more motivated to enter into a conflict with them. Your action becomes meaningful within the narrative frame of the game.

(Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 387)

Field 3: Games as narrative media

Field 3: Games as narrative media

Field 4: Games as visual media

“In fact, the distinction between the more

hypermediated and the more transparent games often turns on whether the primary remediation is television or film” (Bolter & Grusin, 2000, p. 91)

“Video games remediate cinema; that is, they demonstrate the propensity of emerging media forms to pattern themselves on the characteristic behaviors and tendencies of their predecessors”

(Rehak, 2003, p. 104)

Field 4: Games as visual media

Field 4: Games as visual media

Field 5: Games as presentation

Field 5: Games as presentation

1. Game-objects

The farm of game

research on games

Games as textual media

Games as systems or simulationa

l media

Games as narrative

media

Games as visual media

The anthropology of games

What is a gameplayer?

The subject-oriented side of the area

Game-subjects

Power Pamplona

http://www.fungamesarena.com/power-pamplona.html

Being a game-subject

Field 6: Gameplayers as voyeurs

Field 6: Gameplayers as voyeurs

Spectatorship is clearly central to the form. As we play we watch ourselves play […] Thus it is more accurate or at least more inclusive, to speak of the avatarial relation: a “structure of seeing” in which the subject, acting on its desire to see itself as other, pursues its reflection in the imaginary like a cat chasing its tail. (Rehak, 2003, pp. 118-119)

“Since our actions are visible on a television or computer screen, it is where we actually act […] Today, the mirror is replaced with the screen” (Filiciak, 2003, p. 100).

Field 7: Gameplayers as thinkers

Field 7: Gameplayers as thinkers

“Recent studies indicate that the intellectual activities that constitute successful gameplay are nontrivial, including the construction of new identities, collaborative problem solving, literacy practices that exceed our national standards, systemic thinking, and, as one might expect, computer literacy.” (Steinkuehler & Duncan, 2008, p. 532)

”Good Game designers are practical theoreticians of learning, since what makes games deep is that players are exercising their learning muscles” (Gee, 2005, p. 5).

Field 8: Gameplayers as situated selves

Field 8: Gameplayers as situated selves

“The Internet has become a significant social laboratory for experimenting with the constructions and reconstructions of self that characterize postmodern life, we self-fashion and self-create”(Turkle, 1997, p. 180)

“the exciting, daunting task of looking at how the online body (typically conceived of as a decidedly non-digital thing) is produced, constructed, and experienced.”

(T. L. Taylor, 1999, p. 438) “The virtual identity thus becomes one of many ‘selves’

included in the user’s identity” (Filiciak, 2003, p. 92) and “people play games eagerly to be able to shift their identities” (Filiciak, 2003, p. 98).

Field 9: Gameplayers as members

“Ultimately, if the gamers I played with

wanted to succeed in their endgame or stage two endeavors, the importance of social networks and social capital far outweighed game-content knowledge.” (Chen, 2009, unpaged)

“Expertise development within WoW, then, is tied inextricably to a player’s ability to learn social skills.” (Chen, 2009, unpaged).

Field 9: Gameplayers as members

Field 10: Gameplayers as

avatars

Field 10: Gameplayers as

avatars “When I play I am more my own avatar than the

person sitting by the console/computer.” (Filiciak, 2003, p. 92)

“Since our actions are visible on a television or computer screen, it is here we actually act” (Filiciak, 2003, p. 100).

“The player undergoes a process of identification, with the avatar becoming a projection or imagination of the self” (Hutchinson, 2007, p. 288)

“We create avatars to leave our bodies behind” (Rehak, 2003, p. 123).

Field 11: Gameplayers as

craftsmen

2. Game-subjects

The farm of game

research on gameplayers

Gameplayers as

voyeurs

Gameplayers as

thinkers

Gameplayers as

situated selves

Gameplayers as social or cultural

selves

Gameplayers as

avatars

The phenomenology of games

What is a gameplay activity/experience?

The interaction-oriented side of the area

Game-activities

Flash Mario Bros

http://www.mariogames.zuhu.com/playgame/1914/Flash_Mario_Bros/

Being in gameplay

Field 12: Gameplay as digital

transportation

Field 13: Gameplay as dramaturgic performance

Field 14: Gameplay as cognitive transmission

and transference

Field 15: Gameplay as perceptual differentiation

Field 16: Gameplay as corporeal locomotion

3. Game-activities

The farm of game research

on gameplay

Gameplay as digital

transportation

Gameplay as dramaturgic performance

Gameplay as cognitive

transmission and

transference

Gameplay as perceptual

differentiation

Research areas and fields

Game research Gameplayer research

Gameplay research

Games as textual media Gameplayers as voyeurs Gameplay as digital transportation

Games as systems / simulational media

Gameplayers as thinkers Gameplay as dramaturgic performance

Games as narrative media Gameplayers as communicators

Gameplay as cognitive transmission/transference

Games as visual media Gameplayers as situated selves

Gameplay as cyborgian extension

Games as representational media

Gameplayers as members Gameplay as perceptual differentation

Gameplayers as avatars

Games as presentation of

corporeal-locomotive designs?

Gameplayers as corporeal-locomotive craftsmen?

Gameplay as corporeal-

locomotive activity and experience?

New concepts

Homework for Monday 11th

Read the literature+

Please write down your first ideas for your final project.Even if you have not decided yet, you have probably an idea about the subject, the approach and, quite important, the people you wish to work with. All these element can still change, you are not committing yourself (yet).But I would like to have a look at your drafts before the evening of Friday 8th, 22.00.

Next time we will devote some of the time on discussion on projects.

Please ask questions on G+ or send an email if you are in doubt.(I am at a conference, I might not answer quickly)