”I'm afraid currency is the currency of the realm!”

This week’s readings revolved around the topics of co-creative culture and labour within computer games, which resulted in a number of different discussions on for instance gold farming, player modding, avatar re-skinning, gamification in the workplace as well as machinima. Furthermore, the presenting team went on to highlight some interesting case examples of co-creative culture and labour in computer games, of which I have chosen to elaborate furthermore upon the much debated auction house for the upcoming Diablo 3 game from Blizzard Entertainment.

Within the article Interactive Audiences? The Collective Intelligence of Media Fans Henry Jenkins elaborated upon the co-creative audience culture that throughout the last decade has sprung up around different new media artefacts such as television series as well as computer games, since “[…] we should document the interactions that occur amongst media consumers, between media consumers and media texts, and between media consumers and media producers […] audiences are gaining greater power and autonomy as they enter into the new knowledge culture. The interactive audience is more than a marketing concept and less than "semiotic democracy." However, Jenkins’ arguments about the co-creative audience culture must be understood in relation to the broader academic developments within media studies, since different researchers throughout the last decades have attempted to substitute the so-called passive audience model with a more active or participatory audience model. For instance, the media studies faculties on the universities have started educating the students in qualitative reception analysis, and different researchers in the game studies discipline likewise began to point out that the more dedicated players could be understood as a co-creative as well as immaterial labour force for the game developers. In the book Games of Empire Nick-Dyer Witheford and Greig De Peuter have for instance pointed out that “Immaterial labor is less about the production of things and more about the production of subjectivity, or better, about the way the production of subjectivity and things are in contemporary capitalism deeply intertwined”, and the authors furthermore tried to situate this phenomenon within the broader historical developments behind the computer game medium.

Chinese gold farming has for instance been accentuated as the most obvious example for immaterial labour in computer games, since the economical differences in wages between the west and the east have encouraged people to sell virtual items for real-world currencies on different online auctions houses. In the book Play Money Julian Dibbel has described the fascinating meta-game surrounding online auctions for virtual items, and he furthermore emphasised that the gold farmers often could choose to utilise different glitches as well as exploits inside the computer game in order to earn a huge amount of real-world currencies. However, the Chinese gold farmers have become a much-chastened demographic group inside the virtual communities, which is why both the game developers as well as the more player-driven cultures have attempted to prevent this phenomenon from happening through different legal and emergent methods. Constance Steinkuehler has for instance described the emergent manner, in which the different player-driven communities within the computer game Lineage began to hunt down the Chinese gold farmers that harvested the in-game items as well as resources. Furthermore, the persons that decide to purchase virtual gold or items from the Chinese gold farmers could likewise be looked down upon by the other players in the online communities, since the in-game achievements for the computer game are supposed to reflect the player’s personal skills.   

One could therefore argue that Blizzard Entertainment’s controversial decision to include an auction house in Diablo 3 that encourages the players to sell virtual items for real-world currencies might seem outright provocative to the dedicated people, who for years have been attempting to prevent the Chinese gold farming from happening inside for instance World of Warcraft. The players have therefore begun to spam the different online forums surrounding Diablo 3 with negative comments about the planned auction house, since the intermixture between the virtual currencies and the real-world currencies could break the balanced ludic experience inside the computer game. Furthermore, Blizzard Entertainment is planning to earn a certain percentage from the virtual sales on the action house, and one player has therefore emphasised the unethical paradox that “So real money goes in and none comes out. They charge you to auction, they skim the top of that auction sale, and then whatever money you get ultimately can only be handed back over to Blizz in some way.” And other players have even correlated the planned auction house for Diablo 3 with the micro-transactions in Facebook games, since the more inexperienced player easily could purchase a powerful avatar using his real-world money. However, in order to understand the reasons for the strong outcries surrounding the planned auction house for Diablo 3 one should bring Johan Huizinga’s influential idea about the so-called magic circle into the discussion, which he used to describe how play […] proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and spaces according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner.” The auction house for Diablo 3 will therefore transgress the magic circle that should delimit the computer game from its surrounding sociocultural context, and Roger Caillois likewise argued that real-world money unavoidably turned the ludic experience into a professional sport. One could therefore argue that the controversial auction house for Diablo 3 should be understood as the most recent example for a more general discussion within the game studies discipline about the relationship between ludic experiences and real-world currencies.

Seriously…

 

This week’s articles approached the topics of rationalization and instrumentality in computer games from a social science perspective, which resulted in a number of discussions about achievement systems, playbour, the role of play within the broader cultural sphere as well as Facebook games. During the lecture the case team furthermore presented some interesting examples of rationalization and instrumentality in play such as the badge system in Foursquare, the Volkswagen commercial with the piano stairs as well as the Panopticonic surveillance in Farmville.

In the article The Achievement Machine Mikael Jakobson presented an ethnographic examination of the achievement system on the Xbox360 gaming console, and he furthermore pointed out that “[…] the achievement system is […] a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) where separate achievements are the functional equivalent of quests.” Furthermore, Jakobson decided to subdivide the players on Xbox LIVE into three different categories called the achievement casuals, the achievement hunters as well as the achievement completist, since he discovered that some people actually enjoyed spending an enormous amount of time on unlocking the most difficult achievements within the computer games. Mark Silverman and Bart Simon likewise highlighted the somewhat invisible border between play and labour within modern computer game in the article Discipline and Dragon Kill Points in the Online Power Game, which is why “[…] good work can no longer be understood as such in relation to play. Now, good work is play […] many power gamers do not describe their game experiences in terms of fun or joy […]” And one could therefore argue that both the achievement hunter as well as the power gamer have attempted to rationalization or instrumentalize the more ludic experiences inside the computer game in order to become more effective players, since […] power gamers approach gameplay as a problem soluble through collective hard work as they ‘‘grind’’ away to collect the levels, reputations, and resources they need to engage in the primary goal […].”

The achievement system for the Xbox360 gaming console could therefore be understood as postmodern playbour, which often encourages the achievement hunter to perform a mundane or repetitive task inside the virtual game spaces one thousand times in order to acquire a small badge on his Xbox LIVE profile. For instance, in the computer game Gears of War the so-called ‘Seriously…’ achievement will instruct the achievement hunter to ‘Kill 10.000 people in versus ranked match total’, which could take the more inexperienced player several weeks worth of playing time to acquire. At some point the repetitive grind surrounding the ‘Seriously…’ achievement will therefore cease being fun and instead turn into postmodern playbour, which is why the achievement hunter often must attempt to locate different exploits or grinds that could help him acquire the required kills much faster. Different online forums such as xbox360achievements.org and achievementhunters.org will also help the achievement hunter devise effective strategies for the most difficult or time-consuming achievements in a specific computer game, since the “Achievement hunters typically care more about the accumulated gamerscore than getting all the achievements in any given game. Their approach is to deplete a game of all its time efficient achievements as quickly as possible and then move on.”

The philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamar has in the book Truth and Method highlighted the paradoxical that “[…] the game masters the players. [...] The real subject of the game [...] is not the players but the game itself.”, and one could likewise ask whether the achievement hunters in fact are played by the ergodic state-machine rather than the other way around. Furthermore, the achievement system for the Xbox360 has resulted in a number of discussions inside the game design communities about the ludic values behind intrinsic rewards versus extrinsic rewards, which Roger Caillois’ classic distinction between ludus and paidia could help elaborate further upon. According to Caillois, paidia should be understood as the more improvisational or unstructured play-forms that “[…] effects an immediate and disordered agitation, an impulsive and easy recreation, but readily carried to excess, whose impromptu and unruly character remains its essential if not unique reason for being”. On the other hand, ludus should instead encapsulate the more rule-bound or structured play-forms that is “[…] complementary to and a refinement of paidia, which it disciplines and enriches. It provides an occasion for […] a particular mastery of the operation of one or another contraption or the discovery of a satisfactory solution to problems […]”, which resonates with Jakobson’s descriptions of the so-called achievement hunter. Some game designers have therefore argued that the achievement system on the Xbox360 gaming console in fact affords for a much more narrow as well as disciplined ludic experience, where the state-machine often could play the achievement hunter rather than the other way around. Furthermore, the achievement hunter must interact with the computer game in according to the preferred player model that the game designers have chosen to inscribe into the achievement badges, which in the end could leave little room for the more emergent or paidiac experiences.

Throughout the last decade both the game designers and the game reviewers have furthermore praised the more emergent or paidiac computer game titles such as Minecraft as well as Little Big Planet, and the achievement systems have therefore been understood as these much more behaviouristic or conservative elements that do not leverage the player’s creative imagination in any way. For instance, imagine that Marcus ‘Notch’ Persson had chosen to implement an achievement system into Minecraft, which instructed the player to construct specific buildings or structures such as the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the Eiffel Tower in order to acquire the achievement badges. Such an achievement system would probably have ruined the emergent as well as paidiac appeal behind the Minecraft universe, and the indie computer games for the personal computer could therefore become an important counter-example for the different achievements badges or trophies on the modern generation of gaming consoles. However, the game designers have to a certain extend always dictated the player’s ludic experiences inside the game world through the different affordances as well as constraints within the gameplay mechanics, but the modern achievement systems made this paradoxical power relationship between the achievement hunter and the underlying state-machine much more obvious and apparent. 

Emergent Play in Minecraft

The assigned articles for today’s class in Game Culture elaborated upon the somewhat controversial topic of emergent play and control within computer games such as World of Warcraft, Lineage as well as Super Smash Bros. Melee. In the article Games of Emergence and Games of Progression Jesper Juul has for instance defined emergent play as computer games that “[…] feature huge amounts of variation even though they are based on simple rules, and how this variation is not just random or supplied by the user, but is a non-obvious consequence of the rules of a game.” Emergent play will therefore arise somewhere inside the negotiating spaces between the designer’s original intention and the player’s subsequent interpretation, and in the article The Mangle of Play Constance Steinkuehler has for instance pointed out that computer games often can become so-called mangles of production and consumption. Steinkuehler demonstrated that the different player communities within the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Lineage 2 often chose to subvert or renegotiate the designer’s original mechanics on a number of areas such as playing killing as well as gold farming, which is why the academic researchers not just must understand the “[…] formal rule systems designed into them but also the full range of human practices through which players actively inhabit their worlds and render them meaningful.” In the article Communication, Coordination, and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft Mark Chen likewise tried to emphasize the sociocultural importance of emergent play, since he went on to argue that the different ad-hoc rules as well as norms in his personal raid-group had enhanced the collaborative coordination in World of Warcraft.  

One could therefore argue that the game studies discipline has started to recognise the importance of emergent play in computer games, since researchers such as Chen and Steinkuehler attempted to frame the player as a more active human being that utilised his creative imagination in order to enhance the designer’s original intentions in different ways. In his PHD-dissertation from 2006 Jonas Heidi Smith argued that the game studies discipline has tried to encapsulate the role of player inside one of the four meta-categories called the susceptible player model, the selective player model, the active player model as well as the rational player model. Furthermore, the game studies discipline has for the last decade been favouring the so-called active player model, in which the player is regarded “[…] as actively engaged with the game or gamespace in ways often not prescribed or predicted by the game designers”, and the recent focus on emergent play must therefore be understood as a counter reaction to the outdated susceptible player model that dominated the discussion surrounding computer games and violence in the eighties. And the recent focus on emergent play has also spread to the game design communities, where the reviewers often praise the more emergent computer game titles that encourage the player to utilise his creative imagination in order to build different objects or buildings.

The emergent indie-phenomenon Minecraft has for instance encouraged the player to use the building materials or resources from the procedurally generated environments in order to construct different buildings, tools and objects. One can therefore argue that Minecraft personifies Juul’s ideas about emergent play in computer games, since the dedicated player communities have managed to use the simple building mechanics in order to construct impressive objects such the Enterprise as well as the Reichtag. For instance, I once talked to some players from a private Minecraft community, which had decided to turn the emergent building mechanics into performative utterances. The players inside the community therefore took turns in creating a monumental building, which either could be based upon their own imagination or a pre-existing building out in the real world. While creating the building the player furthermore needed to conform to both the predetermined temporal cycle within the Minecraft universe as well as the player-imposed or emergent challenge of completing the architectural project within less than week.

Emergent Play in Minecraft.

More Emergent Play in Minecraft.

Can the Subaltern Speak about Zombies?

Both the group presentation as well as the subsequent discussion revolved around the somewhat sensitive issue of racial representations within computer games such as Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2 as well as Resident Evil 5. Different researchers in the game studies discipline have throughout the last decades attempted to approach the racial representations within computer games from a media studies perspective, which Stuart Hall’s ideas about the persuasive ideologies behind the modern mass media could be able to illustrate for the reader. In the article The Whites of Their Eyes Hall goes on to argue that the modern mass media still attempts to remediate a number of the classic racist tropes such as the slave, the native as well as the entertainer, since “[…] the media construct for us a definition of what race is, what meaning the imagery of race carries, and what “problem of race” is understood to be. They help to classify out the world in terms of the categories of race.” Hall furthermore points out that the racial presentations within the mass media either could revolve around a so-called overt approach, which is “[…] when open and favourable coverage is given to […] spokespersons who are […] elaborating an openly racist argument […]”, or around a more inferential approach that “[…] enable racist statements to be formulated without bringing into awareness the racist predicates on which the statements are grounded […]”. One can therefore argue that the black gangster persona could be understood as a more modern incarnation for Hall’s ideas about the racial tropes within mass media such as films, music videos as well as computer games, since he often has been depicted as a trigger-happy criminal from the suburban ghetto. In the article Virtual Gangstas David Leonard has for instance argue that the computer game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas attempts to equate the common black man with the criminal gangster, which is why “[…] the values and morals offered through playing GTA: SA […] pose a treat to the national fabric, just as those who inhabit those real-life communities pose an equal danger.”

The classic racist trope of the native could furthermore be found behind the computer game Resident Evil 5 from Capcom Studios Japan, in which a muscular causation male wearing militaristic clothing throughout the narrative must eliminate several hundred black zombies within the poor African environments. One can therefore argue that Resident Evil 5 in fact remediates the narrative discourse or trope from famous colonial novels such as Heart of Darkness, since the white man’s burden should become to civilize the primitive natives inside the dark continents by means of both cunning as well as industrial power. Several computer game critics therefore went on to criticise Resident Evil 5 for being overtly racist in the stereotypical depictions behind the bestial black natives with machetes, and the game journalist N’Gai Croal even pointed out that “[…] clearly no one black worked on this game.” The postcolonial theorist Edward Said has introduced the concept of orientalism in order to encapsulate the historical process, by which western painters, authors as well as filmmakers throughout the decades have managed to create a stereotypical as well as twisted depiction of the so-called orient. One can therefore argue that Resident Evil 5 becomes another example of modern orientalism within the mass media, since the Japanese computer game developer Capcom has tried to construct a credible depiction of Africa from the stereotypical tropes or discourses found within western movies, pictures as well as novels. Furthermore, some people in Japan could in fact be unaware of the sensitive history between the imperial nations within Europe and the colonized countries in Africa, which is why the game designers from Capcom probably didn’t intent to produce a racist computer game in the first place. Hall wanted to point out that the inferential ideologies within the mass media could become so pervasive or natural that the cultural producers remained unaware of their influences on the media artefact, and racism must therefore be understood from within the specific sociocultural context that birthed it in the first place.

The literary theoretician Gayatri Spivak has within the essay Can the Subaltern Speak? attempted to build upon Said’s ideas about orientalism, since she pointed out that the cultural differences between the East and the West hindered the so-called subaltern cultures from speaking for themselves inside the mass media. The cultural producers of mass media in the Western countries have therefore tried to speak on behalf of these subaltern cultures, which is why the excessive racist misconceptions behind for instance Resident Evil 5 could come into existence in the first place. One can argue that the subaltern cultures therefore should learn to speak for themselves inside the mass media in the future, and the African author Chinua Achebe has for instance begun to enrich the western readers with a more realistic as well as varied picture of the African continent within his novels. However, the commercial computer games still constitute one of the most expensive media forms to produce, which is why the subaltern cultures in for instance Africa still could have a difficult time speaking through them in the future. The indie game communities have in the last decade however made it much easier for subaltern cultures to produce computer games in small independent teams, and the African computer game developer QCF Design has for instance won the award for Excellence In Design at the 2011 Independent Games Festival. 

Simon Mikkelsen

Gender and Gaming II

What the Colour of Your Nintendo 3DS Says About You!

Both the discussion as well as the presentation during the class revolved around the differentiated gender expectations that exist around the medium of the computer game. During the nineties a number of game researchers such as Brenda Laurel as well as Henry Jenkins attempted to design so-called pink computer games that should inhabit special female values and norms, which hopefully could make the girls more interested in the technical aspects behind the computer. In the article Complete Freedom of Movement from 1998 Jenkins would for instance argue that the pink computer game movement should be “[…] prioritizing character relations and “friendship adventures” […]” rather than “[…] rapid response time […]”. However, more recent scholars within game studies have throughout the last years tried to problematize the separation between the clear-cut male and female norms as well as values in computer games. And in the article Maps of Digital Desire from 2008 Nick Yee for instance argued that “In talking about gender and gaming, we often hear assumptions that men and women […] prefer different kinds of games […] Talking about game play simply as a function of desire ignores the fact that legitimate social access to video gaming differs for men and women.” Instead of looking at girls and boys as distinct biological creatures, whom the designers could attempt to accommodate for in different ways through the gameplay mechanics, Yee demonstrated that the gender division surrounding computer games in fact should be understood as a result from broader social issues such as access points and computer game cultures. In the article Body, Space, and Gendered Gaming Experiences Holin Lin likewise managed to demonstrate that the female players often would be limited by various cultural expectations as well as social actors such the restrictions within the home, the cybercafés as well as the dormitories, which in the end made it impossible for them to create an actual female game culture. But even though the scholars within the game studies discipline have attempted to utilise the sociological concepts of female masculinity as well as hegemonic masculinity to problematize the biological distinction between male and female gamers, the commercial computer game industry is nevertheless still stuck within the outdated idea about the pink computer game movement.

For instance, the commercial computer game developer Nintendo still upholds the clear gender distinctions between pink computer games for girls and blue computer games for boys, which the launch titles for the Nintendo 3DS portable game console could manage to illustrate for the reader. The different handheld game consoles from Nintendo such as the Game Boy as well as the Nintendo DS have been marketed both for girls as well as for boys, and the Nintendo 3DS was for instance released with the following launch titles back in February 2011: Steel Diver, Super Street Fighter IV, Madden NFL Football, Pro Evolution Soccer, Super Monkey Ball 3D, The Sims 3 as well as three different variations of Nintendo Cats and Dogs. While the first couple of titles from the launch line-up constitute typical blue computer games for boys, both The Sims 3 as well as Nintendo Cats and Dogs should instead be understood as clear examples of Jenkins’ ideas about the pink computer game movement for girls with female values and norms. In the real-time pet simulation game Nintendo Cats and Dogs the player must for instance utilise the touch-screen on the Nintendo 3DS in order to stroke her dog, play frisbee or football with her dog as well as feed her dog with different titbits, and not one single title from the launch line-up can manage to challenge the typical gender distinctions between blue computer games for boys and pink computer games for girls. Furthermore, Nintendo decided to produce the actual Nintendo 3DS game console in a female red colour, a masculine blue colour as well as a more neutral block colour, which likewise should reinforce the normal gender division between male and female computer gamers for both the parents as well as the children themselves.   

The cover for the Nintendogs game on the Nintendo DS

 

The three different colours for the Nintendo 3DS

One could therefore argue that the commercial computer game developers such as Nintendo, Electronic Arts as well as Activision often attempt to oppose or ignore the more nuanced gender research within for instance game studies, since the computer game titles will be much easier to market for an oversimplified or homogeneous implied player model. While the great variety of play activities or modes within massively multiplayer online roleplaying games such as World of Warcraft as well as Rift sometimes could be able to afford for both the male and the female gamers, the designers behind the games have nevertheless still constructed the ludic experiences around an oversimplified masculine implied player model. So even though the research communities within game studies for a long time have been demonstrating that the undiscriminating distinction between blue computer games for boys and pink computer games for girl might be somewhat inconsistent with the actual social realities, the commercial computer game developers still make good money from these oversimplified masculine implied player models. In order to make them challenge the undiscriminating distinction between male and female players in the future the commercial computer game developers must somehow need to understand that more gender neutral or challenging computer games actually can become a profitable business in the long run. However, one could argue that computer games such as Angry Birds as well as Plants Versus Zombies for the modern generation of smartphones already have managed to challenge both the social as well as the cultural distinctions between the male and the female players. These computer games for the smartphones have somehow both made it more socially acceptable for the female players to identify themselves as gamers within public spaces as well as diminished the cultural restrictions for the access points such as the homes, the dormitories as well as the cybercafés.

Simon Mikkelsen

 

The Potential For Deep Play In DotA

The assigned literature for the lecture on Performance and Audience elaborated upon the manner, in which the player can use the cybernetic feedback loop between the state machine and the ergodic agent in order to establish an embodied aesthetic expression. In the article The Role of Onlookers in Arcade Gaming Holin Lin and Chuen-Tsai Sun would for instance conduct an ethnographic examination around the embodied or mimetic player performance surrounding a number of dance games within the Taiwanese arcades such as Dance Dance Revolution and Para Para Paradise. However, both Henry Lowood’s article It’s not easy been green as well as Christian McCrea’s article Watching Starcraft, Strategy and South Korea were on the other hand more concerned with the strategic interface performance surrounding real-time strategy games at major e-sports tournaments. During the presentation the group therefore decided to present two different case studies in the form of Defence of the Ancients (DotA) and Guitar Hero, which allowed us to highlight as well as somewhat problematize the ontological division between the embodied and the strategic performance within game studies. Building upon the discussions as well as the observations from the lecture the group will within the following blog-post then attempt to utilise Clifford Geertz’s influential concept of deep play in order to understand the cultural implications as well as spectacles surrounding the contemporary computer game phenomenon known as DotA.

The DotA franchise originated from a player-created custom-map made for the popular real-time strategy game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos from Blizzard Entertainment. In DotA the overarching objective for the player revolves around the destruction of the opponents’ so-called Ancients, which should be understood as a group of heavily guarded structures located somewhere in the opposite corner of the map. The members from each team must both utilise a number of powerful heroes, who gain additional experience points, skills and as abilities throughout the course of the game, as well as a variety of computer generated units, or creeps, in order to annihilate the opponents’ structures. Before entering the actual battleground the player must however choose between the 102 different heroes inside the game, with each possessing a number of unique abilities that can be leveraged in different strategic ways during the hectic battle scenarios. One could argue that the DotA computer game affords an enormous space of possibilities for strategic performance, since the members from each team can combine the unique strengths as well as weaknesses of the 102 heroes to conduct powerful meta-strategies. Furthermore, the balanced gameplay mechanics and the enormous space of possibilities have spawned a dedicated player community around the influential custom-map for Warcraft III, and the game was likewise played at both local LAN-parties as well as major e-sports tournaments around the world.  

In 2009, one of the designers behind the DotA mod decided to release a commercial computer game for Microsoft Game Studios called League of Legends, which attempted to perfect the successful competitive playing formula found within the original game. Furthermore, the influential computer game publisher Valve decided to hire the other designer from the original DotA game back in 2006, and he has, during the last five years, been working together with a small programming team in order to create DotA 2, which will be released on the Steam service later this year. In order to promote the upcoming game, Valve decided to host an enormous e-sport tournament called The International at the Gamescom conference 2011, in which sixteen of the most skilled DotA teams from all over the world competed against each other for a cash-price of one million dollars. While the original DotA map mainly was driven by the dedicated player community, where the different users for instance could post ideas for new heroes or items on the surrounding online forums, the successful formula behind the game has today evolved into a major commercialized product and spectacle with titles such as League of Legends and DotA 2.

The DotA phenomenon is a relevant case study in the light of the readings discussed in class, both by its scale, as mentioned above, and by its peculiarities that differentiate it from the StarCraft example discussed by McCrea and Lowood. The concept of deep play, as coined by Clifford Geertz and used by McCrea, seems to be a good starting point for the analysis of DotA as an e-sport, in which performance and audience assume extreme dimensions. The high stakes involved, both in highly commercialized professional matches as in amateur competitions, are not only a consequence of the meta-structure designed to organize competition, but actively serve as the enhancing “means and devices” to the exchanges of meaning in the play of the game. A match involving teams from distant countries in a launch event of the new game (DotA 2) after a decade of waiting and with one million dollars at stake lends itself easily to chronicling and a certain notion of epic, of larger-than-life events. As in the StarCraft example, as described by McCrea, the game certainly stands in the intersection between spectacle, fan culture, narratives of class and cultural values.

However, DotA is not as localized as StarCraft is. The association of StarCraft with the place where it found most widespread adoption, South Korea, does not bind DotA to any specific country. In McCrea’s discussion of StarCraft, the scale and boundaries of framing StarCraft in the Korean context is useful in making connections with the situated historical and socio-cultural values at play in the game. How can a game with a global but not concentrated presence be analysed through this deep play concept? The scale and spread of DotA show that the game is successful in engaging large and diverse player communities, but how to understand the reasons behind this similar meta-structure? These questions probably could only be answered by further research, but they are important points of consideration.

Another aspect of DotA that differentiates it from StarCraft and might be relevant is the player organization involved in its gameplay. The dominant player organization in StarCraft has an individual focus, while DotA is mostly played as a team game in which collaboration and proper communication are required to function well in a competitive level and famous performances are remembered by the teams that made them, not individual players. The creation and maintenance of these micro-social structures is a demanding and usually long process, through which bonds and relationships are created around the game and through it. Training and competing in a team necessarily adds a whole range of intra- and inter-group dynamics which are at play in the performance of the game, in which the transitions between strategy and tactics and the fluidity of their hierarchy has to be negotiated and coordinated in a group. Going back to the deep play concept, these dynamics add to the migration of status onto the game and help to raise the stakes involved higher, catalysing more meaning into the performance of the game.

Immediacy Versus Hypermediacy

Immediacy Versus Hypermediacy

Some theoretical nonsense about embodied and material play

 

The three articles for the second class in Game Culture revolved around the topics of embodied and material play within computer games. The traditional discipline of object-focused game studies has often overlooked the material or embodied dimensions surrounding the interacting agent. However, in the article Bodies and Machines Jonathan Dovey and Helen Kennedy argue that an analysis of the cybernetic feedback loop between the computer and the interacting agent instead should be approached from a twofold perspective, since “[…] we are embodied subjects whilst engaged in our experiences of ‘virtual reality’. But we are also re-embodied […] in these virtual spaces through the interface and the avatar.” According to Dovey and Kennedy, the understanding of embodied or material play must therefore revolve around both the so-called ‘cyborg at the machine’ as well as the ‘cyborg in the machine’, which is why the player never will be able to loose the connection to his physical body while being immersed within the digital world. While the concept of the ‘cyborg at the machine’ is build around the physical layer outside in the sociocultural environment surrounding the computer game, the idea behind the ‘cyborg in the machine’ is instead centred on the virtual re-embodiment inside the game world. Therefore, Dovey and Kennedy argue that both the physical dimensions as well as the virtual dimensions are equally important to understand, and the cyborg is throughout the article used as a metaphor for the constant exchange of information between the ‘cyborg at the machine’ as well as the ‘cyborg in the machine’. Furthermore, looking more at the ‘cyborg at the machine’ suddenly opens up a number of interesting research areas such as virtuoso play, performative play as well as e-sports, since “Gameplay cannot be understood by recourse solely to the game itself, but has to be understood through careful attention to it as a materially, temporally and spatially determined process […]”.

In the article Geek Chick Bart Simon likewise argues in favour of understanding the more material dimension surrounding the ‘cyborg at the machine’, since physical case modding can result in a unique aesthetic experience for the player. First, Simon depicts the long historical tradition behind the two opposing traditions within the discipline of computer or interface design, which Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin have encapsulated within the concepts of immediacy and hypermediacy. While immediacy refers to the transparent interface that “[…] erases itself, so that the user is no longer aware of confronting a medium, but instead stands in an immediate relationship to the contents of that medium.”, the idea behind the concept of hypermediacy will instead “[…] makes us aware of the medium and reminds us of our desire for immediacy.” Simon then argues that the designers throughout the last thirty years have been trying to enhance the more immediate dimensions behind the computer, by for instance building invisible cases as well as bigger monitors, since this approach could afford a more immersive experience for the interacting agent. The focus on the more immediate or immersive aspects have however diminished the critical reflection towards these technologies, which is why some artists have created a number of hypermedial software applications that should animate a more Brechtian awareness within the interacting agent. However, Simon highlights that the more material or physical dimension behind the computer still is present during LAN-parties, since the players often modify their computer cases with blinking lights as well as transparent plexiglas in order to establish a more hypermedial awareness around the actual medium. Furthermore, the hypermedial awareness that is created around the modded computer cases can afford a different aesthetic experience for the player, since “[…] the case mod turns the machine and the body into a source of pleasure that may be coexisting with the game itself.”

In the final article called Controller, Hand, Screen Graeme Kirkpatrick attempts to highlight the historical importance behind the physical controller, since “[…] controllers and our use of them are repressed in gameplay and […] this repression facilitates a diversion of the player’s energy that helps explain the compulsive nature of good games.” The physical controller acts as a transparent mediator between the ‘cyborg at the machine’ as well as the ‘cyborg in the machine, and the player must therefore learn to master the required interaction patterns in order to meet the preferred performance for the computer game. Therefore, Kirkpatrick is likewise emphasising the importance behind the more embodied or physical dimensions of computer games, since the controller often becomes a cybernetic link between the material world and the digital dimension. Furthermore, the game designers can choose to use the physical dimensions of the controller in order to instigate more hypermedial or Brechtian experiences, which could force the player to reflect upon his individual role as a cybernetic agent within the sociocultural context.

The two case studies from the lecture likewise managed to illustrate this somewhat two-fold relationship between user and technological artefact, since The Sixth Sense project attempted to enhance the immediate potential behind the computer while the 3D-tattoos for The Nintendo 3DS instead revolved around a more hypermedial approach. Throughout the eighties as well as the nineties a number of researchers attempted to create the perfect virtual reality simulation, which should allow the user to become immersed within a parallel dimension. However, the virtual reality technologies, which had attempted to materialize William Gibson’s futuristic ideas about cyberspace, never became a commercial success outside the research laboratories. And in the book Understanding New Media Lev Manovich correlated the ontological failure behind virtual reality with the required material dimension surrounding the technologies, since “[…] VR imprisons the body to an unprecedented extent […] Like today’s computer mouse, the body was tied to the machine.” Even though the virtual reality technologies had promised to immerse the user within a parallel dimension or multi-verse by means of an Albertian window, the required material equipment such the enormous headsets as well as the uncomfortable chairs constantly reminded him of the material body outside in the surrounding sociocultural context. Instead of immersing the user within the virtual environments by means of the virtual reality technologies, various researchers therefore began to augment the physical or material world with additional digital layers, which The Sixth Sense project should be understood as another example of. Both augmented realities as well as ubiquitous computing technologies have throughout the last decade attempted to enhance the everyday lives of the user by means of additional digital layers and invisible computers. Therefore, The Sixth Sense project could be understood as an augmented reality interface that tries to establish a more intuitive as well as transparent interaction paradigm compared to the standard WIMP-interfaces, since the user should be able to navigate the different menus as well as folders by means of his fingertips. While the virtual reality technologies tried to mimic William Gibson’s original ideas about Cyberspace, The Sixth Sense project is instead inspired by Steven Spielberg’s vision about the interface of the future that can be found within the movie Minority Report. And the historical developments behind digital interface design has on the whole been driven by a strong sense of technological determinism, which assumes that the ultimate interactive paradigm inevitability will be discovered at some point in the future. 

The second case study about the augmented reality tattoos for the Nintendo 3DS console is on the other hand an example of a more hypermedial approach to technological design, since the computer here is emphasized as an artefact that the user has been able to master as well as domesticate through his material body. Furthermore, the hypermedial approach to technological design has often been employed by software artists in order to establish a more critical awareness or reflection within the mind of the user, since the emphasis on transparent or immediate technologies, according to theorists such as Anthony Dunne and Bill Gaver, will create unreflective individuals in the long run. Within his book Truth and Method Hans-Georg Gadamer calls attention to the paradoxical fact that “[…] the game masters the players. [...] The real subject of the game [...] is not the players but the game itself.”, and the critics behind the immediate design paradigms are likewise afraid that the cybernetic feedback loop between the user and the machine will become a one-sided monologue rather than an actual dialog. However, one could argue that the ontological contradiction between immediacy and hypermediacy is untenable in relation to computer games, which is why the designers instead should blend the important characteristics from both these traditions within their game worlds. The failure of the virtual reality technologies has proven that the user never will be able to forget about his material or physical body while being immersed within the digital dimension, and the designers should therefore remember to accommodate for both the ‘cyborg in the machine’ as well as the ‘cyborg at the machine’.    

Simon