w4 critical game design print - researching media audiencesstc.uws.edu.au/crproj/rossiter.pdf ·...
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Communica)on Research Project Spring 2014
Week 4
Serious Games and Cri)cal Game Design [no images] Professor Ned Rossiter
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Readings Dyer-‐Witheford, Nick and de Peuter, Greig (2010) ‘Game of Empire’, Fibreculture Journal 16, hCp://sixteen.fibreculturejournal.org/games-‐of-‐mulMtude/ Kücklich, Julian (2005) ‘Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital Games Industry’, Fibreculture Journal 5, hCp://five.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-‐025-‐precarious-‐playbour-‐modders-‐and-‐the-‐digital-‐games-‐industry/ Siapera, Eugenia (2012) ‘Games and Gaming’, in Understanding New Media Los Angeles and London: Sage, 209-‐226. Woods, Stewart (2004) ‘Loading the Dice: The Challenge of Serious Videogames’, Game Studies: The Interna=onal Journal of Computer Game Research 4.1, hCp://www.gamestudies.org/0401/woods/ Further Readings Chesher, Chris (2012) ‘NavigaMng Sociotechnical Spaces: Comparing Computer Games and Sat Navs as Digital SpaMal Media’, Convergence: The Interna=onal Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 18.3: 315-‐330. Dyer-‐Witheford, Nick and de Peuter, Greig (2009) ‘IntroducMon: Games in the Age of Empire’, Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, xi-‐xxxv. Kabatoff, Mathew (2004) ‘Virtual, AcMvist or Managerial: Games Culture in the Balance’, Metamute, 30 June, hCp://www.metamute.org/editorial/arMcles/virtual-‐acMvist-‐or-‐managerial-‐games-‐culture-‐balance Kücklich, Julian (2010) ‘Seki: Ruledness and the Logical Structure of Game Space’, in Stephan Günzel, Michael Liebe, and Dieter Mersch (eds) Logic and Structure of the Computer Game, DIGAREC Series 4, Potsdam: Potsdam University Press, 36-‐56. Lugo, Jairo; Sampson, Lugo; Lossada, Merlyn (2002) ‘LaMn America’s New Cultural Industries sMll Play Old Games: From the Banana Republic to Donkey Kong’, Game Studies: The Interna=onal Journal of Computer Game Research 2.2, hCp://www.gamestudies.org/0202/lugo/ Taffel, Sy (2013) ‘Scalar Entanglement in Digital Media Ecologies’, NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies 3 (Spring), hCp://www.necsus-‐ejms.org/scalar-‐entanglement-‐in-‐digital-‐media-‐ecologies/
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Games Data Dealer (2013), hCp://datadealer.com/ Escape from Woomera (2002), hCp://www.ljudmila.org/~selectparks/archive/escapefromwoomera/ Phone Story (2011), hCp://www.phonestory.org Sites Digital Games Research AssociaMon, hCp://www.digra.org/ Game Studies: The Interna=onal Journal of Computer Game Research, hCp://www.gamestudies.org Molleindustria, hCp://www.molleindustria.org
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The genre of serious games are variously known as educaMonal, criMcal, tacMcal and acMvist games. With their interest in social and poliMcal criMque of government policy on migrant detenMon, the experience and condiMon of precarious labour, electronic waste, media concentraMon and globalized fast-‐food producMon and consumpMon chains, such games can broadly be grouped within the culture of the counter-‐globaliza)on movement. How might we begin designing a serious video game and how might such a prac)ce feed into broader research methods?
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‘Radical games against the dictatorship of entertainment’ (Molleindustria)
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‘potenMal of the videogame as a new medium for criMcal creaMve expression’ (Woods, 2004)
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Siapera, Eugenia (2012) ‘Games and Gaming’, in Understanding New Media Los Angeles and London: Sage, 209-‐226. Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens (1938) -‐ Play precedes culture -‐ Games define the logic of culture [what does this mean
for our era?] -‐ Games parallel ‘real life’ (as simulaMons & models) -‐ ‘games have their own rules …. If the rules are broken,
the game is over’ (p. 210)
What might it mean to deliberately set out to break the rules (Kücklich 2005)? What new game is created?
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PART 1 Cri)cal Games -‐ Also referred to as ‘serious games’, ‘tacMcal games’, ‘persuasive games’, ‘games for change’, ‘polity simulators’
-‐ Open have educaMonal, policy/poliMcal, acMvist, social intenMons
-‐ e.g. social and poliMcal criMque of government policy on migrant detenMon, the experience and condiMon of precarious labour, electronic waste, media concentraMon and globalized fast-‐food producMon and consumpMon chains
-‐ Many are grouped within the culture of the counter-‐globalizaMon movement (e.g. Escape from Woomera, Darfur is Dying, McDonald’s: The Video Game)
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Escape from Woomera (2002), hCp://www.ljudmila.org/~selectparks/archive/escapefromwoomera/
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Dyer-‐Witheford, Nick and de Peuter, Greig (2010) ‘Game of Empire’, Fibreculture Journal 16, hCp://sixteen.fibreculturejournal.org/games-‐of-‐mulMtude/ Our hypothesis is that videogames are a paradigmaMc media of Empire – planetary, militarized hyper-‐capitalism – and of some of the forces presently challenging it. Built as a Half-‐Life mod, Escape from Woomera is an acMvist-‐made game that set out to recreate the camp’s “architecture of intensity and fear” from the point of view of asylum-‐seeking inmates “ever-‐alert for what sources of danger lie around the corner” and trying to find a way out (Wilson 2005, 114). The game involved an alliance of digital designers, invesMgaMve journalists, and migrant rights acMvists. Escape from Woomera didn’t progress past prototype. But even as an unfinished demo, it contributed to the wider current of Australian anMdetenMon acMvism that shut down the center in 2003.
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Dyer-‐Witheford, Nick and de Peuter, Greig (2010) ‘Game of Empire’, Fibreculture Journal 16, hCp://sixteen.fibreculturejournal.org/games-‐of-‐mulMtude/ OperaMng out of a social center self-‐managed by and for acMvists, Molleindustria has developed a catalog of smart but simple online games addressing precarious labor, media concentraMon, queer poliMcs, and street protest—themes that reflect the group’s immersion in the social movements of contemporary Italy. AcMve since 2004, these self-‐described “videogame detractors” emerged from a milieu crosscut by two opposing tendencies (Molleindustria, n.d.): from one side, their country’s communicaMon system was overwhelmingly controlled by the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi; and on the other side, the nascent counterglobalizaMon movement demonstrated the acMvist potenMal of digital media.
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Dyer-‐Witheford, Nick and de Peuter, Greig (2010) ‘Game of Empire’, Fibreculture Journal 16, hCp://sixteen.fibreculturejournal.org/games-‐of-‐mulMtude/ McDonald’s: The Video Game turns upside down the “tycoon” game genre. Restaurant, head quarters, slaughterhouse, farmland—these four sites must be carefully managed in fluctuaMng market condiMons. MoMvated by research on the poliMcal economy of meat and markeMng, this game puts into playable form the processes of the globalized fast-‐food producMon and consumpMon chain. McDonald’s doesn’t give the gamer room for maneuver: accept the growth imperaMve (and the dodgy dealings it demands) or bankrupt your big business.
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Data Dealer (2013), hCp://datadealer.com/
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‘SimulaMons are representaMons of real or hypotheMcal processes, mechanisms or systems. SimulaMon-‐based learning, which open mimics real situaMons, has been used extensively in field such as sales, contact centres, interviewing skills, project management, health and military where the benefit can be that lives are saved due to the results of such training. The possibility of winning or losing, randomness of potenMal situaMons and embedded prizes are some of the differenMaMon points between games and pure simulaMons’. hCp://www.serious-‐gaming.info/ hCp://www.serious-‐gaming.info/@api/deki/files/57/=Chapter_1.pdf
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‘SimulaMons offer the player the opportunity to engage with a dynamic system from an experien=al perspecMve and a significant amount of this direct involvement is provided by the freedom to interact with, and have control over, the simulated system’. (Woods, 2004)
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‘If … videogames and their ability to simulate so effecMvely offer an alternate method of communicaMng noMons of reality, where are we to turn for examples of games that offer insight into the nature of society and human relaMons without the representa)onal constraints of other media forms?’. (Woods, 2004)
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PART 2 Logis)cal Worlds -‐ Game currently under development as part of a UWS
Australian Research Council project, ‘LogisMcs as Global Governance: Labour, Sopware and Infrastructure along the New Silk Road’ (2013-‐2016)
-‐ Interested in how algorithmic architectures shape the experience and condiMon of labour situated within supply-‐chain capitalism
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Phone Story (2011), hCp://www.phonestory.org
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PART 3 Game design and research methods -‐ How might we begin designing a serious video game and how might such a pracMce feed into broader research methods?
-‐ How to avoid being overly didacMc?
-‐ How to design sufficient fun, pleasure, etc. combined with criMque?
-‐ How might the very design of a game shape or inform your methods of research? (Game as method)
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‘The mediaMon offered by a computer with a graphical interface opens up any number of possibiliMes for construcMng an “unfair” game’. (Woods, 2004)
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‘The mediaMon offered by a computer with a graphical interface opens up any number of possibiliMes for construcMng an “unfair” game’. (Woods, 2004)
Is this an invitaMon to break the rules? What might that mean for the invenMon of new methods?
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Workshop Ac)vity (small groups) 1. IdenMfy a poliMcal or social issue that means something to you.
2. How might you communicate this issue in a playful way?
3. Start with collecMvely wriMng a narraMve / storyboard that sets out the logic of play (i.e. what does the game do, and what do users/players do?).
4. What are the different levels of play?
5. Consider how the game might be played differently across different media sopware pla{orms (try hCp://www.compilgames.net/ ) and technological devices (tablet, mobile phone, desktop/laptop computer).
6. How might game development open up new or different lines of invesMgaMon into your object of research? (i.e. How might your research project benefit from a gamificaMon approach?) Write down a few ideas here and discuss.
Sites hCp://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/
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Some further reading
Bogost, Ian (2014) ‘The Squalid Grace of Flappy Bird: Why Playing Stupid Games Staves off ExistenMal Despair’, The Atlan=c, 3 February, hCp://www.theatlanMc.com/technology/archive/2014/02/the-‐squalid-‐grace-‐of-‐flappy-‐bird/283526/ Wark, McKenzie (2007) Gamer Theory, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
See also: hCp://futureophebook.org/gamertheory2.0/