Game studies
Encyclopedia
Game studies or the new modern term "gaming theory" is the discipline of studying games, their design, players, and their role in society and culture more broadly. Game studies is largely a multi- and inter-disciplinary field with researchers and academics from a multitude of other areas such as computer science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, arts & literature, media studies, communication, theology, and more.
and anthropology
. For example, in the early 1900s Stewart Culin wrote a comprehensive catalog of gaming implements and games from Native American
tribes north of Mexico
while Johan Huizinga
and Roger Caillois
explored the importance of games and play as a basic human activity that helps define culture
. As the videogame revolution took off in the early 1980s, so did academic interest in games. To date, the field of games studies can be characterized not only as multi-disciplinary but also as inter-disciplinary. Over the years, different fields and disciplines have demonstrated an interest in videogames and their study. The approaches taken thus far can be broadly characterized in three ways:
In addition to asking different kinds of questions, each approach tends to use different methods and tools. A large body of social scientists prefer quantitative
tools and methods while a smaller group makes use of qualitative research
. Academics from the humanities tend to prefer tools and methods that are qualitative. The industry approach is practice-driven and usually less concerned with theory than the other two. Of course, these approaches are not mutually exclusive, and a significant part of game studies research blends them together. Tracy Fullerton and Kenji Ito’s work are examples of interdisciplinary work being done in games studies.
The youth of the field of game studies is also another reason for blurred boundaries between approaches. Williams, in a call for greater inter-disciplinary work in communications-oriented games scholarship, noted how the “study of videogames is poised to repeat the mistakes of past academic inquiry”. He argues that the youth of the field means that it is not bound to follow the traditional divisions of scholarly work and that there is an opportunity to rediscover the strengths and contributions that different scholarly traditions can offer.
and controlled laboratory experiment
s, researchers have investigated both the positive and negative impact that playing games could have on people.
Among the possible negative effects of gameplay, perhaps the one most commonly raised by media and the general public has to do with violence in games. What are the possible effects that playing videogames, in particular those that feature aggressive or violent elements, might have on children and youth? Social learning theory
(e.g., Bandura, 1986) suggests that playing aggressive videogames would stimulate aggressive behavior in players in particular because the player is an active participant (as opposed to a passive observer as the case of aggression
in film and television). On the other hand, catharsis
theory (e.g., Feshbach and Singer, 1971) implies that playing aggressive videogames would have the opposite effect by channeling latent aggression resulting in a positive effect on players. Numerous reviews of existing literature have been written and there isn’t a clear picture of the effects of playing violent videogames might have (Griffiths, 1999; Sherry, 2001).
As for positive effects, educators and learning scientists have also debated how to leverage the motivation
students had for playing games as well as exploring the medium of videogames for educational and pedagogical purposes. Malone explored the intrinsically motivating qualities that games have and how they might be useful in designing educational games (Malone, 1980; Malone, 1981).Malone and Lepper (1987) recommended four main heuristics namely challenge, fantasy, curiosity and control for game designers and researchers to improve the user interaction interface. Kafai utilized the design of games by schoolchildren as the context for them to learn computer programming
concepts and mathematics
(Kafai, 1995; Kafai, 1996). Similarly, Squire has explored the use of commercial games as a means for engaging disenfranchised students in school (Squire, 2005), while Gerber has explored how video games shape students' peripheral literacy activities; mainly reading and writing in both online and offline spaces(Gerber, 2009; Gerber & Price, 2011). In addition to their motivational factors, Gee and Shaffer have argued that certain qualities present in the medium of videogames provide valuable opportunities for learning (Gee, 2003; Shaffer, 2006).
In her book Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle
explored how people that participated in online multiplayer games such as MUD
s used their experiences with the game to explore personal issues of identity (Turkle, 1995). In her book Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor recounts her experience playing the massively multiplayer online game Everquest
. In doing so, she seeks to understand “the nuanced border relationship that exists between MMOG players and the (game) worlds they inhabit”.
Finally, economist
s have also begun studying games, in particular massively multiplayer online games (MMO
's), to better understand human behavior
. The economic activity in these games is being studied as one would study the economy of a nation such as Russia
or Bulgaria
(Castronova, 2001). Different theories, such as coordination game theory
, can be put to the test because games can produce contexts for natural experiments: a high number of participants as well as tightly controlled experimental conditions (Castronova, 2006). From this perspective, games provide a unique context in which human activity can be explored and better understood. For example, it has been suggested that the very popular MMO World of Warcraft
could be used to study the dissemination of infectious diseases because of the accidental spread
of a plague
-like disease in the gameworld.
” is a very complex phenomenon whose meaning is continually negotiated by players, the game industry, and various gaming sub-cultures that revolve around specific games.
Other researchers have focused on understanding videogames as cultural artifacts with embedded meaning, exploring what the medium of the videogame is, and situating it in context to other forms of human expression. Brenda Laurel
’s book Computers as Theatre, while principally focused on applying tenets of theatre criticism
to the design of human-computer interface design, describes how videogames are the natural result of computers “capacity to represent action in which the humans could participate”. (Laurel, 1991). Rather than considering the computer as a highly efficient tool for calculating or computing, she proposed understanding the computer as a medium. The thesis of her book attempts to draw parallels between drama and the computer, with computers allowing their users to play equivalent roles to both the drama performer as well as the audience member. Throughout her book, Laurel uses different videogames as exemplars of many of the ideas and principles she tries to communicate. Henry Jenkins
, on the other hand, explores the role that videogames play in a broader context he refers to as transmedia storytelling
. In Jenkins' view, content moves between different media, and videogames are a part of the general ecology of storytelling media that include movies, novels, and comic books (Jenkins, 2003). Similarly, Janet Murray
’s Hamlet on the Holodeck, describes the computer as a new medium for the practice of storytelling (Murray, 1997). By analyzing videogames along with other digital artifacts such as hypertext and interactive chat characters, Murray explores the new expressive possibilities allowed by computers. In particular, she views videogames as part of an expanded concept of storytelling she calls cyberdrama. Espen Aarseth, in his book Cybertext, disagrees with Murray’s idea and holds, “to claim there is no difference between games and narrative
s is to ignore essential qualities of both categories” (Aarseth, 1997).
This disagreement has been called the ludology vs. narratology
debates. The narratological view is that games should be understood as novel forms of narrative and can thus be studied using theories of narrative (Murray, 1997; Atkins, 2003). The ludological position is that games should be understood on their own terms. Ludologists have proposed that the study of games should concern the analysis of the abstract and formal system
s they describe. In other words, the focus of game studies should be on the rules of a game, not on the representational elements which are only incidental (Aarseth, 2001; Eskelinen, 2001; Eskelinen, 2004). The idea that a videogame is “radically different to narratives as a cognitive and communicative
structure
” has led the development of new approaches to criticism that are focused on videogames as well adapting, repurposing and proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about videogames. A recent approach towards game studies starts with an analysis of interface structures and challenges the keyboard-mouse paradigm with what is called "ludic interfaces
".
Jesper Juul’s Half-Real explores how videogames blend formal rules with the imaginative experiences provided by fictional worlds. He describes the tensions faced by games studies scholars when choosing to focus on the game or the player of the game. “We can examine the rules as they are found mechanically in the game program or in the manual of a board game, or we can examine the rules as something that players negotiate and learn. We can also treat the fictional world as a set of signs that the game presents, and we can treat the fictional world as something that the game cues the player into imagining and that players then imagine in their own ways (Juul, 2005).” Bogost’s comparative approach to videogame criticism also stands out as one of the more recent steps in the direction of proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about games. In Unit Operations, Bogost argues for explicating videogames through a new form of criticism that encompasses the programmatic and algorithm
ic underpinnings of games together with the cultural and ideological units (2006).
From an industry perspective, a lot of game studies research can be seen as the academic response to the videogame industry’s questions regarding the products it creates and sells. The main question this approach deals with can be summarized as “How can we create better games?” with the accompanying “What makes a game good?” “Good” can be taken to mean many different things. Does the game provide an entertaining and engaging experience to the player? Is the game easy to learn and easy to play? Is the game innovative or does it provide the player with an opportunity to have novel experiences? Different approaches to studying this problem have looked at describing how to design games (Crawford, 1984; Rollings and Morris, 2000; Rouse III, 2001), extracting guidelines and rules of thumb for making better games (Fabricatore et al., 2002; Falstein, 2004), abstracting commonalities from games and understanding how they relate to each other (Björk and Holopainen, 2005; Zagal et al., 2005), and studying the gameplaying experience from the point of view of the player (Pagulayan et al., 2003; Sykes and Brown, 2003; Koster, 2004). Much of this research is also dedicated to defining and constructing a vocabulary for describing games and thinking through the design of new ones (Church, 1999; Kreimeier, 2002).
The industrial approach can be characterized as “design” or “product” driven. Methodologically, a wide variety of approaches have been taken. Most often, they are attempts to re-imagine existing practices in other fields and industries to the videogame industry. Pagulayan and colleagues, for example, have worked on developing tools and practices for evaluating usability in games (Pagulayan et al., 2003) while Bjork and Holopainen, borrowing from the literature on software patterns in software engineering have worked towards creating patterns for gameplay (Björk and Holopainen, 2005). Also, Bateman and Boon, using Myer-Briggs typology, have conducted research to create tools to help guide the design of games for certain demographic groups by incorporating elements specifically designed to meet their needs.
ground attractions and sideshow
s such as shooting games; early "Coney Island
"-style pleasure parks with elements such as large roller-coasters and "haunted house
" simulations; nineteenth century landscape simulations such as diorama
s, panorama
s, planetarium
s, and stereographs; and amusement arcade
s that had mechanical game machines and also peep-show film machines.
History
Prior to the late-20th century, the academic study of games was rare and limited to fields such as historyHistory
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
. For example, in the early 1900s Stewart Culin wrote a comprehensive catalog of gaming implements and games from Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
tribes north of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
while Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga , was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.-Life:Born in Groningen as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two years after his birth, he started out as a student of Indo-Germanic languages, earning his...
and Roger Caillois
Roger Caillois
Roger Caillois was a French intellectual whose idiosyncratic work brought together literary criticism, sociology, and philosophy by focusing on subjects as diverse as games, play and the sacred...
explored the importance of games and play as a basic human activity that helps define culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
. As the videogame revolution took off in the early 1980s, so did academic interest in games. To date, the field of games studies can be characterized not only as multi-disciplinary but also as inter-disciplinary. Over the years, different fields and disciplines have demonstrated an interest in videogames and their study. The approaches taken thus far can be broadly characterized in three ways:
- Social science approach
- Studying the effects of games on people
- What do games do to people?
- E.g.: LearningLearningLearning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...
, effects of violenceViolenceViolence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
in games
- E.g.: Learning
- How do people create and negotiate a game?
- What do games do to people?
- Studying the effects of games on people
- HumanitiesHumanitiesThe humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
approach- Studying the meaning and contextContextContext may refer to:* Context , the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary...
of games- What meanings are made through game use?
- Studying games as artifacts in and of themselves
- E.g.: Affordances of the medium, critical analysis, rhetoric
- Studying the meaning and context
- IndustryIndustryIndustry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
and engineeringEngineeringEngineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
approach- Understanding the design and development of games
- E.g.: How to make better games
- Games as drivers of technological innovations
- E.g.: Graphics, AI, networking, etc.
- Understanding the design and development of games
In addition to asking different kinds of questions, each approach tends to use different methods and tools. A large body of social scientists prefer quantitative
Quantitative research
In the social sciences, quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to...
tools and methods while a smaller group makes use of qualitative research
Qualitative research
Qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such...
. Academics from the humanities tend to prefer tools and methods that are qualitative. The industry approach is practice-driven and usually less concerned with theory than the other two. Of course, these approaches are not mutually exclusive, and a significant part of game studies research blends them together. Tracy Fullerton and Kenji Ito’s work are examples of interdisciplinary work being done in games studies.
The youth of the field of game studies is also another reason for blurred boundaries between approaches. Williams, in a call for greater inter-disciplinary work in communications-oriented games scholarship, noted how the “study of videogames is poised to repeat the mistakes of past academic inquiry”. He argues that the youth of the field means that it is not bound to follow the traditional divisions of scholarly work and that there is an opportunity to rediscover the strengths and contributions that different scholarly traditions can offer.
Social sciences
Broadly speaking, the social scientific approach has concerned itself with the question of “What do games do to people?” Using tools and methods such as surveysStatistical survey
Survey methodology is the field that studies surveys, that is, the sample of individuals from a population with a view towards making statistical inferences about the population using the sample. Polls about public opinion, such as political beliefs, are reported in the news media in democracies....
and controlled laboratory experiment
Experiment
An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
s, researchers have investigated both the positive and negative impact that playing games could have on people.
Among the possible negative effects of gameplay, perhaps the one most commonly raised by media and the general public has to do with violence in games. What are the possible effects that playing videogames, in particular those that feature aggressive or violent elements, might have on children and youth? Social learning theory
Social learning theory
-Theory:Social learning theory is derived from the work of Albert Bandura which proposed that social learning occurred through four main stages of imitation:* close contact* imitation of superiors* understanding of concepts* role model behavior...
(e.g., Bandura, 1986) suggests that playing aggressive videogames would stimulate aggressive behavior in players in particular because the player is an active participant (as opposed to a passive observer as the case of aggression
Aggression
In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...
in film and television). On the other hand, catharsis
Catharsis
Catharsis or katharsis is a Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging". It is derived from the verb καθαίρειν, kathairein, "to purify, purge," and it is related to the adjective καθαρός, katharos, "pure or clean."-Dramatic uses:...
theory (e.g., Feshbach and Singer, 1971) implies that playing aggressive videogames would have the opposite effect by channeling latent aggression resulting in a positive effect on players. Numerous reviews of existing literature have been written and there isn’t a clear picture of the effects of playing violent videogames might have (Griffiths, 1999; Sherry, 2001).
As for positive effects, educators and learning scientists have also debated how to leverage the motivation
Motivation
Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used for humans but it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation...
students had for playing games as well as exploring the medium of videogames for educational and pedagogical purposes. Malone explored the intrinsically motivating qualities that games have and how they might be useful in designing educational games (Malone, 1980; Malone, 1981).Malone and Lepper (1987) recommended four main heuristics namely challenge, fantasy, curiosity and control for game designers and researchers to improve the user interaction interface. Kafai utilized the design of games by schoolchildren as the context for them to learn computer programming
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
concepts and mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
(Kafai, 1995; Kafai, 1996). Similarly, Squire has explored the use of commercial games as a means for engaging disenfranchised students in school (Squire, 2005), while Gerber has explored how video games shape students' peripheral literacy activities; mainly reading and writing in both online and offline spaces(Gerber, 2009; Gerber & Price, 2011). In addition to their motivational factors, Gee and Shaffer have argued that certain qualities present in the medium of videogames provide valuable opportunities for learning (Gee, 2003; Shaffer, 2006).
In her book Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a sociologist...
explored how people that participated in online multiplayer games such as MUD
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
s used their experiences with the game to explore personal issues of identity (Turkle, 1995). In her book Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor recounts her experience playing the massively multiplayer online game Everquest
EverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...
. In doing so, she seeks to understand “the nuanced border relationship that exists between MMOG players and the (game) worlds they inhabit”.
Finally, economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
s have also begun studying games, in particular massively multiplayer online games (MMO
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
's), to better understand human behavior
Human behavior
Human behavior refers to the range of behaviors exhibited by humans and which are influenced by culture, attitudes, emotions, values, ethics, authority, rapport, hypnosis, persuasion, coercion and/or genetics....
. The economic activity in these games is being studied as one would study the economy of a nation such as Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
or Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
(Castronova, 2001). Different theories, such as coordination game theory
Coordination game
In game theory, coordination games are a class of games with multiple pure strategy Nash equilibria in which players choose the same or corresponding strategies...
, can be put to the test because games can produce contexts for natural experiments: a high number of participants as well as tightly controlled experimental conditions (Castronova, 2006). From this perspective, games provide a unique context in which human activity can be explored and better understood. For example, it has been suggested that the very popular MMO World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
could be used to study the dissemination of infectious diseases because of the accidental spread
Corrupted Blood
The Corrupted Blood incident is a video game glitch and virtual plague that occurred on September 13, 2005 in the MMORPG World of Warcraft...
of a plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
-like disease in the gameworld.
Humanities
In general terms, the humanities approach has concerned itself with the question of “What meanings are made through games?” Using tools and methods such as interviews, ethnographies and participant observation, researchers have investigated the various roles that videogames play in people’s lives and activities together with the meaning they assign to their experiences. For example, Consalvo explores how players choose to play the games they buy and negotiate how, when, and for what reasons to subvert a game’s rules (Consalvo, 2007). It turns out that “cheatingCheating
Cheating refers to the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation. The rules infringed may be explicit, or they may be from an unwritten code of conduct based on morality, ethics or custom, making the identification of cheating a subjective process. Cheating can refer...
” is a very complex phenomenon whose meaning is continually negotiated by players, the game industry, and various gaming sub-cultures that revolve around specific games.
Other researchers have focused on understanding videogames as cultural artifacts with embedded meaning, exploring what the medium of the videogame is, and situating it in context to other forms of human expression. Brenda Laurel
Brenda Laurel
Brenda Laurel is a pioneering writer, researcher, designer and entrepreneur in the fields of human-computer interaction, interactive narrative and cultural aspects of technology ....
’s book Computers as Theatre, while principally focused on applying tenets of theatre criticism
Theatre criticism
Theatre criticism is a genre of art criticism, and the act of writing or speaking about the performing arts such as a play or opera.Most major national newspapers of first world countries cover the arts in some form and theatre criticism may be included as a part of this arts coverage.Specialist...
to the design of human-computer interface design, describes how videogames are the natural result of computers “capacity to represent action in which the humans could participate”. (Laurel, 1991). Rather than considering the computer as a highly efficient tool for calculating or computing, she proposed understanding the computer as a medium. The thesis of her book attempts to draw parallels between drama and the computer, with computers allowing their users to play equivalent roles to both the drama performer as well as the audience member. Throughout her book, Laurel uses different videogames as exemplars of many of the ideas and principles she tries to communicate. Henry Jenkins
Henry Jenkins
Henry Jenkins III is an American media scholar and currently a Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the USC School of Cinematic Arts...
, on the other hand, explores the role that videogames play in a broader context he refers to as transmedia storytelling
Transmedia storytelling
Transmedia storytelling, also known as multi-platform storytelling, cross-platform storytelling, or transmedia narrative, is the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies...
. In Jenkins' view, content moves between different media, and videogames are a part of the general ecology of storytelling media that include movies, novels, and comic books (Jenkins, 2003). Similarly, Janet Murray
Janet Murray
Janet Murray is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she is the director of graduate studies in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture. Before coming to Georgia Tech in 1999, she was a Senior Research Scientist in the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives...
’s Hamlet on the Holodeck, describes the computer as a new medium for the practice of storytelling (Murray, 1997). By analyzing videogames along with other digital artifacts such as hypertext and interactive chat characters, Murray explores the new expressive possibilities allowed by computers. In particular, she views videogames as part of an expanded concept of storytelling she calls cyberdrama. Espen Aarseth, in his book Cybertext, disagrees with Murray’s idea and holds, “to claim there is no difference between games and narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
s is to ignore essential qualities of both categories” (Aarseth, 1997).
This disagreement has been called the ludology vs. narratology
Narratology
Narratology denotes both the theory and the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect our perception. While in principle the word may refer to any systematic study of narrative, in practice its usage is rather more restricted. It is an anglicisation of French...
debates. The narratological view is that games should be understood as novel forms of narrative and can thus be studied using theories of narrative (Murray, 1997; Atkins, 2003). The ludological position is that games should be understood on their own terms. Ludologists have proposed that the study of games should concern the analysis of the abstract and formal system
Formal system
In formal logic, a formal system consists of a formal language and a set of inference rules, used to derive an expression from one or more other premises that are antecedently supposed or derived . The axioms and rules may be called a deductive apparatus...
s they describe. In other words, the focus of game studies should be on the rules of a game, not on the representational elements which are only incidental (Aarseth, 2001; Eskelinen, 2001; Eskelinen, 2004). The idea that a videogame is “radically different to narratives as a cognitive and communicative
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
structure
Structure
Structure is a fundamental, tangible or intangible notion referring to the recognition, observation, nature, and permanence of patterns and relationships of entities. This notion may itself be an object, such as a built structure, or an attribute, such as the structure of society...
” has led the development of new approaches to criticism that are focused on videogames as well adapting, repurposing and proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about videogames. A recent approach towards game studies starts with an analysis of interface structures and challenges the keyboard-mouse paradigm with what is called "ludic interfaces
Ludic Interfaces
Ludic Interfaces is the name for a new discipline and for an innovative type of interfaces.Ludic interfaces are playful interfaces. The notion of "homo ludens", introduced by Dutch anthropologist Johan Huizinga, is the conceptual backbone of the tools the discipline is looking at...
".
Jesper Juul’s Half-Real explores how videogames blend formal rules with the imaginative experiences provided by fictional worlds. He describes the tensions faced by games studies scholars when choosing to focus on the game or the player of the game. “We can examine the rules as they are found mechanically in the game program or in the manual of a board game, or we can examine the rules as something that players negotiate and learn. We can also treat the fictional world as a set of signs that the game presents, and we can treat the fictional world as something that the game cues the player into imagining and that players then imagine in their own ways (Juul, 2005).” Bogost’s comparative approach to videogame criticism also stands out as one of the more recent steps in the direction of proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about games. In Unit Operations, Bogost argues for explicating videogames through a new form of criticism that encompasses the programmatic and algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
ic underpinnings of games together with the cultural and ideological units (2006).
Industry and engineering approach
The industry and engineering approach is perhaps the hardest of the three approaches to present. From an engineering perspective, videogames have been the context for a wide variety of technological innovations and advancements in areas such as computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and networking, among others. While the research pursued in these areas is mostly not about games, it is quite common for videogames to be used as a context in which to demonstrate the solutions and problems solved. A counter-example to the above is Mateas and Stern’s interactive drama Façade, a novel videogame whose design and development resulted in contributions to the field of artificial intelligence (Mateas, 2002; Mateas and Stern, 2004).From an industry perspective, a lot of game studies research can be seen as the academic response to the videogame industry’s questions regarding the products it creates and sells. The main question this approach deals with can be summarized as “How can we create better games?” with the accompanying “What makes a game good?” “Good” can be taken to mean many different things. Does the game provide an entertaining and engaging experience to the player? Is the game easy to learn and easy to play? Is the game innovative or does it provide the player with an opportunity to have novel experiences? Different approaches to studying this problem have looked at describing how to design games (Crawford, 1984; Rollings and Morris, 2000; Rouse III, 2001), extracting guidelines and rules of thumb for making better games (Fabricatore et al., 2002; Falstein, 2004), abstracting commonalities from games and understanding how they relate to each other (Björk and Holopainen, 2005; Zagal et al., 2005), and studying the gameplaying experience from the point of view of the player (Pagulayan et al., 2003; Sykes and Brown, 2003; Koster, 2004). Much of this research is also dedicated to defining and constructing a vocabulary for describing games and thinking through the design of new ones (Church, 1999; Kreimeier, 2002).
The industrial approach can be characterized as “design” or “product” driven. Methodologically, a wide variety of approaches have been taken. Most often, they are attempts to re-imagine existing practices in other fields and industries to the videogame industry. Pagulayan and colleagues, for example, have worked on developing tools and practices for evaluating usability in games (Pagulayan et al., 2003) while Bjork and Holopainen, borrowing from the literature on software patterns in software engineering have worked towards creating patterns for gameplay (Björk and Holopainen, 2005). Also, Bateman and Boon, using Myer-Briggs typology, have conducted research to create tools to help guide the design of games for certain demographic groups by incorporating elements specifically designed to meet their needs.
Other areas of research
As is common with most academic disciplines, there are a number of more specialized areas or sub-domains of study.Videogame pre-history
There is now also an emerging field of study (Oliver Grau, 2004, and others) that looks at the "pre-history" of video games, and at the branch of their roots that lie in: fairFair
A fair or fayre is a gathering of people to display or trade produce or other goods, to parade or display animals and often to enjoy associated carnival or funfair entertainment. It is normally of the essence of a fair that it is temporary; some last only an afternoon while others may ten weeks. ...
ground attractions and sideshow
Sideshow
In America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair or other such attraction.- Types of attractions :There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions:...
s such as shooting games; early "Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
"-style pleasure parks with elements such as large roller-coasters and "haunted house
Haunted house
A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...
" simulations; nineteenth century landscape simulations such as diorama
Diorama
The word diorama can either refer to a nineteenth century mobile theatre device, or, in modern usage, a three-dimensional full-size or miniature model, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum...
s, panorama
Panorama
A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model....
s, planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
s, and stereographs; and amusement arcade
Amusement arcade
An amusement arcade or video arcade is a venue where people play arcade games such as video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers , or coin-operated billiards or air hockey tables...
s that had mechanical game machines and also peep-show film machines.
Further reading
(Table of contents and contributing authors), (Introduction to collection)- Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivation for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.), Aptitude learning and instruction III: Conactive and affective process analyses. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
External links
- DiGRA' digital library of game studies conference papers
- The Game Studies Network - A project of the University of Wyoming Game Studies Lab
- Gameology.org: commentary and resources for the game studies community
- Game Research: The art, business, and science of video games
- Jesper Juul's blog: The Ludologist
- Frans Mäyrä's blog
- Gonzalo Frasca's Ludology blog
- Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins
- Digiplay Games Research Bibliography Bibliography containing over 2800 references to papers, books, theses and conference papers on computer, video and digital games research.
- Notes on referencing games in scholarly publications
Professional associations
- Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA)
- Canadian Games Studies Association
- Spilforskning - The Danish network of game researchers
- JoinGame Nasjonalt ressursnettverk for dataspill (Norwegian)
- IEEE Game Engineering SIG and IEEE PSM Task Force
- IGDA Game Education SIG
- Polskie Towarzystwo Badania Gier (Games Research Association of Poland)
Academic journal publications
- Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research
- Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media
- Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture
- Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds
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- ACM Computers in Entertainment
- SAGE Simulation and Gaming
- Elsevier Entertainment Computing
- Hindawi International Journal of Computer Games Technology
- International Journal of Roleplaying
- Journal of Virtual Worlds Research
- Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting
- Homo Ludens
Conferences
- International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology ACE 2009
- 8th International Conference on Entertainment Computing (ICEC 2009)
- Future Play
- SIGGRAPH Games Focus
- SIGGRAPH Sandbox 2008
- DiGRA 2009: Breaking new ground
- Fourth Philosophy of Computer Games Conference
- Culture-Generative Function of Games (Kulturotwórcza funkcja gier)
- DIstributed SImulation and Online gaming (DISIO 2010)