From Introduction to Game Studies, Ch 2 & 3

Thanks to Frans Mäyrä & SAGE Publications

Meaning in Games &Games and Play in History

MontanaTech

Frans Mäyrä Frans Mäyrä is a professor of

digital culture and game studies in the University of Tampere, Finland. His background is in comparative literature and the arts studies, and topics he explores include fantasy, science fiction, horror fiction, video games, and digital culture. He was the founding president of DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) and heads the Games Research Lab in Tampere.

http://www.uta.fi/~tlilma/index.html

Games and MeaningGames and play carry meaning - even in their

pre-cultural form (e.g. puppies and kittens playing).

Our perceptions of reality are socially and culturally constructed through “social constructionism.”

Culture is a system that is based on communication of meaning. “Cultural Anthropology” is close to sociology in its holistic inquiry into humanity and all its dimensions.

In this sense, culture means ‘system of beliefs, values, customs, behaviours and artefacts’ that are shared by certain people and transmitted through learning.

Chapter 2

The Dialectic of Core and Shell

Image credits: Frans Mäyrä

Chapter 2

Experiential GameplayThis leads to the dual structure of games: the

‘core’ (gameplay) and ‘shell’ (symbolic representation) both need to be taken into account while analysing and understanding games.

Gameplay can be understood as non-linguistic performance (eg. dance, music). The PHENOMENOLOGICAL ‘PERFORMANCE” of gameplay. (ie the Walkthrough on page 15). Focuses on “narrative” of the experience. The CORE.

Yet, there are also signs and symbols in games, constructing meaning through semiotics and representation systems. The SHELL.

Chapter 2 – pages 14 – 15 – Your paper will focus on this approach.

Understanding the CoreCore gameplay is something that is

born directly from the rule set of game.Rules can be written down, transferred

elsewhere, and the ‘same game’ played using a different game board and playing pieces, for example.

Thus a game of chess is still chess, even if it is played using differently shaped playing pieces.

Chapter 2

Understanding the ShellRepresentation appears secondary to the core

of game: being active during in its gameplay.However, digital games can also be

approached as parts of digital media.The images, characters, storylines, sounds

and music of games all contribute to the shell, or the representational layer of games.

The shell is where games can be interpreted to “carry a message”, and many players love or hate, agree or disagree, with games on the basis of this shell.

Thus, core and shell, or gameplay and representation, should be considered as equally important parts of contemporary digital games.

Chapter 2

Internal meaningsIn musicology, intramusical (non-referential)

meanings are separated from referential meanings.

Similarly, games’ meanings can refer only to the game itself (internal meanings) or refer outside of the game (communication of some referential content).

Core gameplay is mostly internal (SZ call it closed system.)

While the shell of the game is more likely to convey referential communication (SZ call this open system.)

Comprehensive understanding of games’ meanings needs to take into account both game-internal and external, or referential signification. SZ’s “Experiential” approach of both open and closed systems.

Chapter 2

Games and Rules in CulturesLearning a game involves learning its

rules.According to Salen & Zimmerman, game

rules are multi-dimensional:operational rules (guidelines for play)constituative rules (underlying logical

structures)implicit rules (proper player behaviour).

Implicit rules about games extend far in culture, informing the basic sense of what game ‘is’, and why and how they should be played.

Chapter 2

Huizinga and the Magic CirclePhilosopher Johan Huizinga has argued

that key cultural characteristics of games include that games are: free and voluntary separate from everyday reality created and maintained by communities of

players.This separation (known as the ‘magic

circle’ of games) situates game activities within a world of their own.

Games are (or, should be) only governed by the internal logic of play.

Chapter 2

Game DynamicsDynamics means the ‘forces or motions that

characterise a system’. AKA Relationships/mechanics.

In a dynamic game, a previous move influences moves that are made after it.

In digital games, dynamics involve e.g.:dynamics of conflict (between players, between the

player and the environment, or a challenge)spatial dynamics (space affects player actions)temporal dynamics (time affects player actions)social dynamics (social relationships affect the game

system)economical dynamics (money or some exchangeable

game resources affect the game system).

Chapter 2

Conventional Forms of Game and Play

Roger Caillois identified four main types of games, and two different attitudes of play:competition games (agôn)games of chance (alea)simulation games (mimicry)physical, ‘vertigo’ games (ilinx).

Two styles of play:paidia (improvised free play, playful behaviour)ludus (more convention based, rule-bound play).

Chapter 2 – Also refer to page 207 in Salen Zimmerman

Two Senses of Culture‘Culture’ is something that humans have

and do.Loaded with significance and value.Traditionally means ‘high culture’: “contact

with the best which has been thought and said in the world” (Matthew Arnold).

Current academic use is based on anthropology.

In this sense, culture means ‘system of beliefs, values, customs, behaviours and artefacts’ that are shared by certain people and transmitted through learning.

Chapter 2

Cultural Roles of GamesGames of chance and skill have a long

history.There are also sport and outdoor games,

card and board games, as well as building and simulation activities, such as the use of dolls and toys that have influenced contemporary digital games.

These popular forms of entertainment have not traditionally been considered ‘high culture’.

In modern society, digital games are mostly understood as part of ‘popular culture’, alongside popular movies, genre literature or pop music etc.

Chapter 2

SubculturesSubcultures are groups of people who have

some practices, values and interests in common, and who form a distinct group within contemporary culture and society.

Digital game players sometimes develop distinctive subcultures of their own.

e.g. some shooter game fans can develop:shared rituals (regular LAN parties)shared language (slang of ‘fragging’ their enemies)interest in artefacts and memorabilia (game boxes

etc.)shared space (physical and virtual meeting spaces).

Chapter 2

Games and IdentityOnly a small number of people who

sometimes play digital games identify themselves as ‘gamers’ or game hobbyists.

So-called ‘casual gamers’ do not display such clear signs of their association with games as do ‘hardcore gamers’.

The issue of identity is further complicated by the fact that some people intensely play ‘casual games’ (e.g. solitaire) - often without considering themselves ‘gamers’.

Identity is produced in multiple ways, in talk and action, explicitly and by more implicit means.

Chapter 2

HegemonyCultural hegemony means the

unquestioned domination by certain consensus views and values (orig. Antonio Gramsci’s concept).

In game cultures and media, certain kinds of games appear to receive most of the attention.

A critic of game cultures should pay attention to this and try to uncover, for instance, the roots of why violent games receive most mainstream media attention.

Chapter 2

Chapter 3Perspectives for Digital Game HistoryDigital game history not yet academically

established as a domain of study.Multiple perspectives available:

art historical perspectivesoftware industry perspectivetechnology history perspectivesocial historical perspectivehistory of mentalities perspectivegames historiography, or meta-history.

Chapter 3

Art Historical PerspectiveAims to describe in formal and aesthetical

terms the development of digital games.Gives grounds for what the artistic and

aesthetic criteria are for games’ audiovisual and interaction design in different decades.

Provides perspective on how the concept of a ‘good’ or original game has changed over the years.

Chapter 3Software Industry PerspectiveFocusing on the industry’s historical

events and developments in the market place.

Some alternatives:a case study approach; e.g. David Sheff, Game

Over (1999), a book about Nintendopositioning games industry within the larger

historical context of the software industry; e.g. Martin Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog (2003)

industry critique; e.g. Kline, Dyer-Witheford and Du Peyter, Digital Play (2003)

biographical studies of industry luminaries.

Chapter 3Technology History PerspectiveFans are already engaged in cataloguing

the various gaming devices of the past.Academic history of gaming technology

would attempt to understand the wider social and cultural dynamics behind the changing hardware.

c.f. published work in journals such as Technology and Culture, from the Society for the History of Technology.

Chapter 3

Social Historical PerspectiveStudying technology in relation to the

social history.e.g. how changes in the family or working

life, the amount of leisure time and money available to people from different social backgrounds, are related to the rise of a phenomenon like digital games.

In more detail: social history of science and technology, the social-technological developments in different countries, the alternative or subversive histories of technologies as socially-constructed reality.

Chapter 3History of Mentalities Perspective‘Mentality’: loosely means ‘collective

consciousness’ of a time.Histories of mentalities try to make sense

of how certain kind of ideas or practices become prevalent in some contexts.

Often done as ‘micro-histories’: studies that focus on small scale.

A small group of people who at some point played or designed computer games might be a focus of such a micro-history.

Chapter 3

Games HistoriographyGames historiography is creating meta-

history.Making sense of how we write about the

history of games: what kind of activity it actually is, and what are the narratives, interpretations or other ‘discursive rules’ that govern this kind of writing.

Chapter 3

Multiple Layers in GamesJuul: “video games are real in that they

consist of real rules with which players actually interact”; yet the digital game worlds are fictional - thus games are ‘half-real’.

Salen & Zimmerman: “A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that result in quantifiable outcome.”

This ‘core’ game becomes realised during meaningful play at the multiple levels or schemas of rules, play and culture.

RULES

PLAY

CULTURE

Primary Schemas. Image credits: Katie Salen, Eric Zimmerman & The MIT Press.

Chapter 3 –

Earliest Digital GamesImpulse to ‘hack’, or play around with

computers’ possibilities.Even in 1945, Alan Turing used chess

playing as an example of what computer could do.

The first functional chess program was written in 1950.

UNIVAC, the first commercial computer, had construction costs close to one million dollars in 1951 - its use was extremely expensive and controlled.

Chapter 3Tic-Tac-Toe (A. S. Douglas, 1952)

Early demonstration of computer game with graphical user interface: ‘OXO’, a version of tic-tac-toe for the British EDSAC computer.

See: http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~edsac/

Tic-Tac-Toe, created by A. S. Douglas, 1952. Image credit: Martin Campbell-Kelly, Department of Computer Science,

University of Warwick.

Chapter 3

Other Early DemonstrationsIn January 1947, a patent application for a

‘cathode-ray amusement device’ was recorded.

The patent was granted to an electronic missile firing game, designed by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann.

In 1958, Willy Higginbotham, working for Brookhaven National Laboratory, implemented a two-player tennis game using analogue computer and an oscilloscope for display.

See ‘Tennis for Two’ video youtube.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v

=d0K9WwmpFSk

Early Commercial Video Games

Engineer Ralph Baer developed a commercial television game system in 1966-1969.

The system became known as Magnavox Odyssey - it came packed with twelve games.

Games of Magnavox Odyssey

Source: http://www.pong-story.com/odyssey.htm Magnavox Odyssey Game Overlays.

Image credit: David Winter, PONG-Story.

And thenAlong came Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari and…

PONG!!

Chapter 3From Spacewar! (1962) to Atari

Stephen ‘Slug’ Russell, with fellow students, implemented an early ‘space shooter’ game for DEC Digital PDP-1 computer.

Nolan Bushnell, with Ted Dabney, developed coin-operated arcade game Computer Space, released by Nutting Associates in 1971.

Bushnell and Dabney founded Atari, Inc. in 1972, and released their tennis game, PONG, developed by engineer Al Alcorn.

Sanders/Magnavox sued Atari, which settled out of court and paid licence fees to produce electronic ping-pong games – the video game industry had been born.

Chapter 3 – see diagram on page 46

Play as PerformanceAccording to sociologist Erving

Goffman (1959), performance is “all of the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants”.

Richard Schechner (2002) has provided a continuum of performance-related phenomena:play – games – sports – pop entertainments –

performing arts – daily life – ritual.Games take place as play, and this can

mean very different things depending on how the game is performed.