Developing a New Major

ch3 – What is a Game? (p. 22-44)

- how we define games affects how we study them, definitions should help us understand how games are different from other types of entertainment

- notice all the different fields look at games differently – anthropologists media theorists game theorists, philosophers, social psychologists

formal definitions – consistent and precise as possible, not looking at how we create new games, more looking at langauge and philosophy

• wittgenstein (philosopher) – no common features between all games might just have “family resemblances” between some games he didn’t really try to find any common features, didn’t distinguish between games and toys
• huizinga – play important in culture, as important as work, came up with the magic circle (game separated from real world, people playing game are separate too so they have no effect on the world, rules of a game make sense only within the game, problems with the idea in that games aren’t totally different from real life, they’re not an aberration to be preserved, they’re just part of life, huizinga says games don’t have consequences but they do – they affect our moods, they take time we might use to different activities, and things from the game can be sold in the real world
• Caillois – defined play in terms of 4 characteristics – must be voluntary, be uncertain, by unproductive, consist of make-believe, had 4 (non-exclusive) categories of games – agon (competitive games – skill determines success, hide and seek, action genre videogames), alea (chance – chance determines who wins, random dice games), mimicry (imitation – be s/o else, winning/losing isn’t big part of these games, big in RPGs and adventure games) and ilinx (vertigo – pleasurable sensation s/t thru physical activities), games on a continuum between paidia (no rigid rules, play) and ludus (formal rules that must be adhered to in order to win, games) — can’t use them to distinguish between specific games, assumes that play has no rules but it does even if it’s just the simple rule of playing nice with hte other children, games (ludus) have play (paidia) elements video game rules are enforced by the computer – computer doesn’t make allowances for player being a kid or inexperienced like parents (or other human) might and modern videogames let ya roam around without rules too if ya want so they combine paidia and ludus, part of play is negotiating rules
• McLuhan – says games represent a culture’s core values, games are popular art and they release tension and we most like games that mimic things in our lives he says – but games can also cause tension, little research support for idea of catharsis from playing games and many popular games have no relationship to real life at all
• bateson – meta-communication, we know enough to separate games and real life, won’t treat them the same, ARGs however cross over into real life using real world communication and facilities and being played with real people — one problem is most players not interested in playing with the boundaries of what’s a game so ARGs haven’t caught up
• Sutton-Smith – games reflect culture – complex cultures give us complex games, definitions not important so games will be what we decide they should be gamesin lots of cultures not because they’re inevitable but because they develop as cultures develop, he defines games as an exercise of voluntary control systems in which there is an opposition between forces confined by a procedure and rules in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome
• Mead – kids need to play to develop into adults he’s mostly interested in make believe games and play, children experiment with social organizations in their games, games as mirrors of how people organize themselves
• Jenkins – games are an art form (not reflecting culture) and game desiners are artists, provide a new kind of aesthetic experience, many games are bad & formulaic without innovation but so is a lot of other media/art (lots of formulaic music and movies), games still in infancy, games can evoke strong emotions and they’ve developed strong memorable characters like Sonic and Mario, he focuses on the player control in games and the fact that htey give players a chance to do stuff they couldn’t normally do/weren’t possible to do, play as a performance, a person’s interaction with a game bring a deeper kind of immersion than possible thru other media, expressive amplification – increased pleasure from teh exagerated actions
• parlett – ends and means where ends says game is a contest and only one player can win and there has to be a winner; means refer to the equipment and rules – except not all games ahve winners
• suits – game = activity where we try to bring about a specific state of affairs by following the rules and doing only what’s permitted, rules make for less then efficient play and to make things interesting, games have a combo of rules and chance
• crawford – looked specifically at videogames – all videogames ahve representation (make believe, not necessarily faithful simulations but subjective representations, a subset of reality), interaction (crucial to games’ appeal, player gets to influence the world fo the game and get meaningful responses), conflict (game has a goal blocked by obstacles), safety (kind of like the magic circle, games don’t affect the real world)
• salen & zimmerman – game is a system in which players engage in an artifical conflict defined by rules that results in a quantifiable outcome
• juul – game = rule-based formal system with variable and quantifiable outcome where different outcomes are assigned different values, player exerts efforts to influence the outcome, player feels attached to hte outcome, consequences of activity are optional and negotiable, he has the classic model on p. 35 , he’s one of the first to include the player in the definition, but not everybody is attached to the outcome and not every player exerts much effort in their game, he wants to do what definitions are supposed to do – separate games from non games – has 3 layers: games (fixed rules, variableoutcome value to the outcome, player effort, player attachment to outcome, negotiable consequences), border cases (skill based gambling, chance based gambling pen & paper role-playing), not games (free form play, traffic, ring-around the rosie, storytelling)
• so no one absolutely correct definition, there’s overlap between the like rules and not totally representative of reality, events and actions are evaluated like when games give points

pragmatic definitions – tools for actions

• sid meier – game is a series of interesting choices (more accurately a good game is interesting choices, bad game is boring not interesting choices), means that there aren’t one right choices or only one choice that will win but a range of choices that depending on chance might work or not
• MDA model – developed by game developers at GDC – more for designers than how gameplay actually works, leaves out the game context and the culture that frames the game – mechanics (game code, all the info needed to construct the game world), dynamics (the way the game actually plays based on teh mechanics, things that can occur during the game), aesthetics (emotional responses from the player as they interact with the game – sensation, fantasy, narrative/drama, challenge, social discovery, expression/self-discovery pastime)

ideas of genre – they’re arbitrary (we make them up by saying what characteristics we want to look at over a body of games), important to think about because genres bring conventions/expectations – players expect games in a particular genre to have things in common

• wolf says focus on types of goals when coming up with genres – then he came up with 43 genres and they aren’t always focused on goals and interaction (he strays from his own definition)
• aarseth – can’t define genre based on just one variable (no matter what that one variable is) – need many variables, decideon a genre by rating a game in relation to each of the selected variables, not very practical because no one can decide on what variables to include
• consumer game magazines like gamespot have their own list of genres – arbitrary, overlapping, some genres look at goal others at actions player can take or at how character is defined
• the textbook’s definition of genre (wonder why they didn’t have a definition of game – I’ll have to look in some of their published writings to see if any one of hte authors has a definition they like) – system based on game’s criteria for success – on what it takes to succeed in the game, focus on goals and how to achieve them and they come up with 4 genres – action (intense, fighting, pac man, half life 2 motor storm, need motor skills and hand-eye coordination to win (that’s what htey have in common)), adventure (require deep thinking and patience to participate in the story, not much fighting, must be logical and use deduction), strategy (player is the general in the war – could be town mayor or a god, real time and turn based strategy games, examples are dune 2, warcraft, Balance of power, warlords), and process oriented (which might really not be games but more like toys because they give the player a process to play with like watching fish in an aquarium, like Sim City and Zoo Tycoon) —– their system has troubles with rpg’s both single and multi-player, single player rpgs need strategic skills and puzzle solving and multi-layer rpg’s require social skills and not so much puzzle solving and aren’t necessarily goal oriented – they put single player rpg’s with strategy games and multiplayer with process oriented

resources for this chapter

???

questions for them to answer

how can both statements be true? Games do have real world consequences. Games do not have real world consequences.

What’s a magic circle? What are the weaknesses of the idea

be able to define paidia and ludus and agon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx

what’s the relationship between these 4 things: paidia and ludus, games and play

what definitions look at games as a reflection of culture and which as games as separate from culture

what’s wrong with sid mieier’s definnition – games as a series of interesting choices?

what’s different between the book’s definition of genre and gamespot’s definition

what’s the MDA model and what are its shortcomings?

Trackback URL