JEFF WATSON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND GAMES USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS

@REMOTEDEVICE

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This talk won’t be about Canadian national identity.

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These people aren’t all here just to watch the pretty patterns the players make as they move around the ice.

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Heroes and legends.

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Iconic moments.

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News.

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Broadcasting.

COMPLETELY UNSCIENTIFIC CHARTS COMPARING GOOGLE SEARCHES FOR THE KEYWORD

“HOCKEY” WITH OTHER KEYWORD SEARCHES

0

5

10

15

20

hockey(18M)

"videogame"(69k)

videogame(20k)

# of news search results

# of news searchresults (inmillions)

Google.com. 28 July 2014.

02468

1012

hockey(109M)

"videogame"(70M)

videogame(12M)

# of web search results

# of web searchresults (in tens ofmillions)

Google.com. 28 July 2014.

0100200300400500

# of web search results

# of web search results(in tens of millions)

Google.com. 28 July 2014.

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Movies.

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Books. Soundtracks for books.

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But even on a lonely neighborhood rink, there is plenty of narrative. As I’ll discuss later, it’s essential to how the game works.

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Narrative is also key to the individual identity constructions of players.

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And finally, the rules of the game can be thought of as a kind of distillation of narratives about the game.

GAMES AND NARRATIVE

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Usually when we think of narrative and games, we think of stuff like this.

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RPGs…

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Twine games…

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Interactive fiction…

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Experiments in AI…

NARRATIVE IS JUST AS CENTRAL TO HOCKEY AS IT IS TO THESE

GAMES.

SPORTS LIKE HOCKEY SET THE HIGH WATERMARK FOR PROCEDURAL CONTENT

GENERATION.

SPORTS MAKE NARRATIVE – AND THEY ARE MADE OF

NARRATIVE.

DEFINITIONS: SPORT

SITUATION DRAMA

DEFINITIONS: SPORT

SITUATION DRAMA

SPORT

A SPORT IS A COMPETITIVE ACTIVITY, USUALLY BUT NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVING SOME KIND OF ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE, WHEREIN THE SKILL OF ONE PLAYER OR TEAM OF PLAYERS IS TESTED, THROUGH INDIVIDUAL CONTESTS OR SETS OF LINKED CONTESTS, AGAINST THE SKILL OF ONE OR MORE OTHER PLAYERS OR TEAMS OF PLAYERS*

A SPORT IS A COMPETITIVE ACTIVITY, USUALLY BUT NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVING SOME KIND OF ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE, WHEREIN THE SKILL OF ONE PLAYER OR TEAM OF PLAYERS IS TESTED, THROUGH INDIVIDUAL CONTESTS OR SETS OF LINKED CONTESTS, AGAINST THE SKILL OF ONE OR MORE OTHER PLAYERS OR TEAMS OF PLAYERS*

A SPORT IS A COMPETITIVE ACTIVITY, USUALLY BUT NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVING SOME KIND OF ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE, WHEREIN THE SKILL OF ONE PLAYER OR TEAM OF PLAYERS IS TESTED, THROUGH INDIVIDUAL CONTESTS OR SETS OF LINKED CONTESTS, AGAINST THE SKILL OF ONE OR MORE OTHER PLAYERS OR TEAMS OF PLAYERS* *except when it isn’t

A SET OF RULES, PROCEDURES, LIMITS, AND TRADITIONS THAT GIVES RISE TO DRAMATIC SITUATIONS

A SET OF RULES, PROCEDURES, LIMITS, AND TRADITIONS THAT GIVES RISE TO DRAMATIC SITUATIONS

DEFINITIONS: SPORT

SITUATION DRAMA

SITUATION

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Tie-ins here to Goffman, Debord, and Jerome Bruner. Bruner we’ll return to again.

AN OPPORTUNITY TO ACT

The writer is in a situation in their epoch.

Jean-Paul Sartre Editorial in Les Temps Modernes, Issue 1 (1945)

AN OPPORTUNITY TO AFFIRM OR BREAK WITH EXPECTATIONS (or

“SCRIPTS”)

“We’ve got ourselves a situation…”

“CHARACTER IS DESTINY” Heraclitus

“[There] is freedom only in a situation, and there is a situation only through freedom . . . There can be a free for-itself only as engaged in a resisting world. Outside

of this engagement the notions of freedom, of determination, of necessity lose all meaning.”

Sartre 1956, 621

DEFINITIONS: SPORT

SITUATION DRAMA

DRAMA

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Western dramatic narrative is about the disruption and restoration of balance.

an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or

set of circumstances.

DRAMA

“TROUBLE PROVIDES THE ENGINE OF DRAMA.”

Bruner 1991, 16

HOCKEY IS A POWERFUL FORMULA FOR TROUBLE

HOCKEY IS A POWERFUL FORMULA FOR DRAMA

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People at a roller rink skate in the same direction to avoid injury.

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Hockey players are heavily equipped. They wear sharpened blades on their feet.

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Danger is inherent to stick-and-ball games like hockey, hurling, and shinty.

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Some of the earliest Celtic legends, such as the tales of Cu Cuchulainn, involve killing giant beasts with a slap shot.

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When a game involves swinging sticks in close proximity, drama is inevitable. Mistakes will be made. There will be anger and recrimination.

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Anishinaabe, Mohawk, and Choctaw stickball games (precursors of Lacrosse) functioned as war surrogates in certain contexts.

“[If] one were not told beforehand that they were playing, one would certainly believe that they were fighting.” (Conover 1997)

DANGER -> DRAMA

TROUBLE -> DRAMA

UNCERTAINTY -> DRAMA

Evan Torner

THE DRAMATIC SITUATIONS PRODUCED BY HOCKEY RESOLVE INTO VARIOUS FORMS OF PUBLIC

AND PRIVATE NARRATIVE.

POWER PLAY

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A power play occurs when a penalty is assessed.

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The attacking team on the power play can “set up” in the defending team’s zone and pepper them with shots.

TROUBLE

UNCERTAINTY

SCRIPTS

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Trouble created this situation: the penalty that left the Bruins short-handed put them in a dangerous situation.

“[when] you see a guy go down like that and the way he went down and what he did . . . the guys are going to want to rally around that.” Bruins Coach Claude Julien, following the incident

EACH SUCCESSIVE LAYER OF NARRATIVE MODULATES THE

SITUATIONAL COMPLEXITY AND HERMENEUTIC RICHNESS OF

GAMEPLAY.

“MOMENTUM”

“CHOKE”

“CLUTCH”

NARRATIVE FROM “OUTSIDE” THE GAME CAN ALSO IMPACT

SITUATIONS OF PLAY

“. . . IN ADDITION TO, IN COMPETITION WITH, OTHER RULES AND IN RELATION TO MULTIPLE CONTEXTS, ACROSS VARYING CULTURES, AND INTO DIFFERENT GROUPS.” (Consalvo 2009, 416)

IN SPORTS, THERE IS A VERY TIGHT FEEDBACK RELATIONSHIP

BETWEEN SITUATION AND NARRATIVE

SITUATION

SITUATION NARRATIVE

SITUATION NARRATIVE

THIS FEEDBACK LOOP FUNCTIONS IN MULTIPLE CONTEXTS,

REGISTERS, AND TIME-SCALES

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From an individual player in an individual game…

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To a player over the length of a playing career…

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All this narrative adds up.

NARRATIVE ACCRUAL

Even our own homely accounts of happenings in our own lives are eventually converted into more

or less coherent autobiographies.

Bruner 1991, 18

[The] principles of jurisprudence . . . guarantee a tradition by assuring that once a "case" has been

interpreted in one way, future cases that are "similar" shall be interpreted and decided

equivalently. Insofar as the law insists on such accrual of cases as "precedents," and insofar as "cases" are narratives, the legal system imposes

an orderly process of narrative accrual.

Bruner 1991, 18

NARRATIVE IS THE MEANS BY WHICH A SPORT ITERATES, EVOLVES, AND SPREADS.

SPORTS ARE NOT STATIC SYSTEMS

THE RULES OF THE GAME CAN BE SEEN AS A KIND OF “LOSSY” NARRATIVE…

…A DISTILLATION OF SUCCESSIVE ACTS OF

NARRATION…

…A KIND OF ENCODING OR “ENCRYPTION”.

RULES

SITUATION

RULES

SITUATION NARRATIVE

RULES

SITUATION NARRATIVE

RULES

SITUATION NARRATIVE

RULES

EMERGENT EMBEDDED

ENCRYPTED

EMERGENT EMBEDDED

ENCRYPTED

Ludonarrative Dynamo

THE MORE NARRATIVE A SPORT GENERATES, THE MORE

WELL-PLAYED IT WILL BE.

IF WE THINK OF A SPORT AS A SPECIES OF LIFE THAT “WANTS” TO REPRODUCE AND SURVIVE, THEN MAYBE WE CAN SAY…

NARRATIVE IS HOW HOCKEY GETS WHAT HOCKEY WANTS

WHAT HOCKEY WANTS

JEFF WATSON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND GAMES USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS

@REMOTEDEVICE

Thank you.

WHAT HOCKEY WANTS

JEFF WATSON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND GAMES USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS

@REMOTEDEVICE