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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)