Abstracts / Videos
Dominic Arsenault
The Magic Circle(s) of Gameplay
Huizinga’s metaphor of games as taking place inside a “magic circle” has been questioned by many recently, for instance with a whole game studies seminar in Tampere, Finland being dedicated to this question. But while everyone seems interested in “breaking the magic circle”, we will argue here that the spatial metaphor used to represent a game’s space of possibility unduly focuses the researcher’s gaze on a single side of the coin, for a game is as much a finite object than an ongoing process. Therefore, the figure of the circle should make us think about an ongoing process more than an enclosed space. It is much more relevant to conceptualize the cognitive frame of gameplay as a cycle: the magic cycle.
To cast off the implications of redundancy or stagnation contained in the circle, we resort instead to the spiral, which accounts for the gamer’s progression through the game. As we will show, our model of gameplay features three interconnected spirals which represent the cycles the gamer will have to go through in order to answer gameplay, narrative and interpretative questions, in both heuristic and hermeneutic fashion. We also take into account the question of the reception, and integrate Jauss’ well-known notion of the horizon of expectations. Finally, this gamer- and gameplay-centric model draws attention to an important issue: the gamer’s understanding of the underlying game mechanics is more akin to a work of reverse engineering than of decryption. A gamer can never access the game’s algorithms, but must instead construct an image of the game system, whose degree of fidelity towards the actual rules of the game may greatly vary.
Dominic Arsenault is a Ph. D. student at the University of Montreal’s department of Film studies and Art history, and holds a scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is currently working on the notions of genre, continuity, and innovation in video games for his thesis, and developing a live multiplayer game/music show/art performance prototype. http://www.le-ludophile.com
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Richard A. Bartle
Key Note: Open Worlds Panel
When designers talk about an “open” virtual world, they don’t mean the same thing as players do by the term. In both cases, the more open the world then the more the designer is trusting the players to make their own fun. However, to designers “open” concerns actions undertaken within the fiction of the virtual world, whereas for players it’s the ability to break the fiction that marks a virtual world as “open” or not. In this talk, I give an overview of both points of view and discuss whether or not they are compatible. As a result of this, interesting questions are raised as to where the boundaries are between designers and players of virtual worlds.
Dr. Richard A. Bartle co-wrote the first virtual world, MUD, in 1978. He is both a consultant to the virtual world industry and Professor of Computer Game Design at the University of Essex, UK. He is an influential writer on all aspects of virtual world design and development.
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Ian Bogost
The Phenomenology of Video Games
Dr. Ian Bogost is a videogame designer, critic, and researcher. He is Associate Professor in the school of Literature, Communication and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. His research and writing considers videogames as an expressive medium, and his creative practice focuses on games about social and political issues.
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Gordon Calleja
The Binary Myth
In striving to establish a theoretical framework for the academic study of games it is crucial that we, as game researchers, employ a critical lens to the core concepts that pervade our work. Certain metaphors provide the very foundations upon which future work is to be built. If we are to move forward, we have to, as is the case with any developing field of study, take certain concepts as given. These are the tools of our trade. They allow us to progress without having to constantly try to re-invent the proverbial wheel. A great deal of work has recently gone into defining our object of study. Efforts at synthesising and refining previous game definitions undertaken by Juul (2005) and Salen and Zimmerman (2003) have been of great use in this respect. But the conceptual awareness I am advocating here delves deeper than definitions. It strikes at the assumptions that these definitions, and a considerable portion of game scholarship seem to take for granted.
Let us take the very basic term “digital game”. Each of its constituent parts is too often characterised in either/or binaries. The first misleading binary conceives of the virtual in opposition to the real. It characterizes virtual environments as lying across a boundary from reality. The first myth affirms: if it’s generated by a computer, it isn’t real. The second problematic binary is represented by the notion of the “magic circle”. Here games are seen as being inherently separate from the everyday reality. The second binary has become a core element in the more popular definitions of games formulated by Juul (2005) and Salen and Zimmerman (2003). This paper follows theorists like Copier (2007), Lammes (2006), Malaby (2007) and Taylor (2006) and argues that these binary relationship are detrimental to furthering our understanding of digital games. It will further consider the implications of these binaries as foundational concepts that pervade any theoretical consideration of digital games.
Gordon Calleja is a Postdoctoral researcher at IT University of Copenhagen’s Center for Computer Games Research. He lectures in Game Theory and other Humanities oriented perspectives on games. His research focuses on game experience with a particular focus on involvement and immersion in computer games.
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Eduardo H. Calvillo G.
Pulling the Strings: A Theory of Puppetry for the Gaming Experience
In this paper we introduce the theory of puppetry to understand the gaming experience. The paper concentrates on discussing the importance of operationalising the user experience, and how puppetry can be used to do so within the videogame domain. The paper aims to bringing the experience of playing videogames closer to objective knowledge, where the experience can be assessed and falsified. Experience is defined as a two fold phenomenon: process and outcome. The theory focuses on explaining the basic elements that form the core of the process of the experience. It argues that puppetry is formed by control and ownership. The name of puppetry is introduced after discussing the similarities in the importance of experience between videogames and theatrical puppetry. Then, puppetry operationalises the gaming experience into a concept that can be assessed.
Eduardo H. Calvillo Gámez is a research student at University College London Interaction Centre. His PhD thesis is about assessing user experience while playing videogames. His research interests are user experience, videogames and new interaction techniques. Eduardo is a faculty member, on leave, of Universidad Politécnica de San Luis Potosi, México and his PhD studies are sponsored by SEP-PROMEP.
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Frank Campbell
Discussion: Open Worlds Panel
Frank Campbell is Chief Business Officer at MindArk PE AB, Swedish creators of the Entropia Universe, the first virtual universe to utilize a Real Cash Economy. As virtual worlds reach beyond gamers and into corporate and public spheres, he is now focused on business development and the introduction of Entropia into new international markets and the presentation of the virtual universe to new strategic partners.
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Mirko Caspar
Discussion: Open Worlds Panel
Dr. Mirko Caspar is Chief Marketing Officer at Metaversum. He is co-founder and CMO of Metaversum is in charge of marketing, sales and strategic partnerships. Founded in 2006 in Berlin, Metaversum develops and operates the 3D online world Twinity (www.twinity.com). The virtual world which is closely linked to the real world is currently in private beta.
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Patrick Coppock
Opening
Patrick Coppock is tenured researcher in theory and philosophy of languages at the Department of Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Sciences at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. He is currently member of a national research program on mental simulation processes, fiction and reality, where he is investigating the relationship between experiences of computer game possible worlds and our conceptions of reality.
Robert Glashüttner
The Perception of Videogames: From Visual Power to Trancendental Interaction
The paper highlights the different ways of perceiving videogames and videogame content, incorporating interactive and non-interactive ways. It examines varying cognitive and emotive reactions by different persons and analyses them in relation with the philosophical principle of constructivism. A small case-study with two exemplarily games („Geometry Wars“, „StarCraft“) has been made to emphasize the numerous possible ways of perceiving videogames. The primary focus (topic) of this paper is „Action|Space“.
Robert Glashüttner works for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF within Radio FM4 (a quality media outlet for youth and pop culture) as a presenter, editor and web host. His thesis is about the history and state of games journalism in German speaking countries. http://fm4.orf.at/glashuettner/main
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Stephan Günzel
Interaction and Space in Computer Games
The presentation deals with a paradigmatic shift observable in recent computer game research; games today are first and foremost conceived as a new medium characterized by their status as an interactive image. The shift in attention towards this aspect becomes apparent in a new approach that is, first and foremost, aware of the spatiality of games or their spatial structures. This rejects traditional approaches on the basis that the medial specificity of games can no longer be reduced to textual or ludic properties, but have to be seen in medial constituted spatiality. The lecture will therefore resume seminal studies on the spatiality of computer games and discuss their advantages and disadvantages, suggesting three essential steps in describing computer games against the backdrop of an eminent philosophical method, namely phenomenology: with this method it is possible to describe games with respect to the possible appearance of spatiality in a pictorial medium. Though already sometimes implicitly practiced in computer game studies, this method has yet to be made explicit.
Dr. Stephan Günzel is assistant professor in the DFG-research project “Mediality of Computer Games at the Department for Media and Arts at the University of Potsdam. His research interests are Picture Theory, Spatial Theory and Media Theory. He held teaching and research positions at the Universities of Berlin, Jena, Lüneburg, Magdeburg and Weimar. www.stephan-guenzel.de
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Christian Hoffstadt
The Concept of War in the World of Warcraft
MMORPGs as “World of Warcraft” can be understood as interactive representations of war. Within the frame provided by the program the players experience martial conflicts and thus a “virtual war” (e. g. MacCallum-Stewart 2007). The game world however requires a technical and as far as possible invisible infrastructure which has itself to be protected against attacks: Among this infrastructure are counted e. g. the servers on which the data of the player characters and the game’s world are saved, as well as the user accounts, which have to be protected, among other things, against “identity theft” (e. g. Bardzell et al. 2007). Besides the war on the virtual surface of the program we will therefore describe the invisible war about the infrastructure, whose outbreak is always feared by the developers and operators of online-worlds and at least requires adequate precautions.
Furthermore we would like to pick out „virtual game worlds“ as a central theme as places of complete observation. Since action in these worlds is always associated with the production of data, complete observation is at least possible and given in reality by the so-called „game master“. Observation of different communication channels (inclusive user forums) as well serves for channeling the sojourn in the virtual battlefield properly, without the player feeling apparently limited in his freedom. Finally we would like to compare the fictional theater of war of “World of Warcraft” with the vision of “Network-Centric Warfare”, since already many a time it was affirmed that the analysis of MMORPGs could be useful for the real trade of war (cf. e. g. Sarasin 2004, p. 24). However, we will point out what an unrealistic theater of war “World of Warcraft” is.
Christian Hoffstadt (born 1972) is a PH. D. student at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. His key research areas include epistemology, meta-theory, media philosophy (film, game studies), Philosophy and contemporary culture, philosophy of medicine. www.christian-hoffstadt.de
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Charlene I. Jennett
Being in the Game
When people describe themselves as being “in the game” this is often thought to mean they have a sense of presence, i.e. they feel like they are in the virtual environment (Brown & Cairns, 2004). Presence is currently being emphasised in modern gaming technologies (e.g. Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii) and it is thought that games which engender presence will be more enjoyable (Ravaja et al. 2006). However such views may be misguided. Presence research traditionally focuses on user experiences in virtual reality systems (e.g. head mounted displays, CAVE-like systems). In contrast, the experience of gaming is very different. Gamers willingly submit to the rules of the game, learn arbitrary relationships between the controls and the screen output, and take on the persona of their game character. Also whereas presence in VR systems is immediate, presence in gaming is gradual. Due to these differences, one can question the extent to which people feel present during gaming. A qualitative study was conducted to explore what gamers actually mean when they describe themselves as being “in the game”. Thirteen gamers were interviewed and the resulting grounded theory suggests being “in the game” does not necessarily mean presence (i.e. feeling like you are the character). Some people use this phrase just to emphasise their high involvement in the game. These findings differ with Brown and Cairns (2004) as they suggest at the highest state of immersion not everybody experiences presence. Future research should investigate why some people experience presence and others do not. Possible explanations include: use of language, perception of presence, personality traits, types of immersion.
Charlene I Jennett is a post graduate student with an interest in the cognitive psychology of immersion in computer games; she is currently carrying out her PhD research at the UCL Interaction Centre of University College London.
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Jesper Juul
Who Made the Magic Circle? Seeking the Solvable Part of the Game-Player Problem
If the early days of game studies concerned the issue of games and stories, recent discussions appear to be focused on the issue of games and players. This is a discussion of methods and of the object of study: Should we discuss players or should we discuss games? There are two possible perspectives on this: The common “segregationist” perspective implies that games are structures separate from players, structures that players can subsequently subvert. In this talk, I will make the case for an alternative “integrationist” perspective wherein games are chosen and upheld by players, and where players will happily create formal rule systems and boundaries around the playing activity.
I will argue that the question of games and players must therefore be decomposed into a set of smaller problems, each of which must be answered with different methods.
Jesper Juul is a video game researcher at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT game lab in Cambridge. Originally trained in literature, his work has included early discussions of games as non-narrative, game structure, game definitions, the interplay of rules and fiction, player perceptions of failure in games, and video game history. Prior to working at MIT, he worked at the Centre for Computer Game Research Copenhagen. A collection of his writings can be found at http://www.jesperjuul.net/text. His blog, The Ludologist, can be found at http://www.jesperjuul.net/ludologist
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Olli Leino
A Sketch for a Model of Four Epistemological Positions Toward Computer Game Play
The paper attempts to sketch out four distinct epistemological positions toward the player, who is understood as derived from play and game. To map out the problem field, two equally challenged positions toward computer game play are observed, emerging from inadequate treatment of the differences between play and game. The analysis starts out by postulating two parallel but fundamentally different views regarding play; the subjectivist viewpoint, from which the essence of playing a game depends on the mental state of the playing subject, and, the non-subjectivist viewpoint, from which the essence of playing a game is seen as independent of what goes on in the player’s mind (actually, the player might not even be the true subject of the game). Similar polarities are postulated regarding a game; from an exclusive viewpoint .game. is a signifying shorthand for objects, which, when observed from an external viewpoint, appear as fulfilling a set criteria, while from an inclusive viewpoint, every object which affords being played is counted as a game. These polarities are combined on a two-dimensional plane in order to arrive at a four epistemological positions toward computer game play, which are then discussed in terms of what kind of insights they offer onto the player’s experience.
Olli Leino is Ph.D. student at the Center for Computer Games Research, ITU Copenhagen, Denmark. He is interested in player’s experience, emotions, existential phenomenology. http://www.itu.dk/~leino/
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Bjarke Liboriussen
Landscape and Avatar
The paper examines the relevance of landscape aesthetics for the experience of avatar-navigated, 3-D worlds. The examination is structured along the lines of two, diverging views regarding the landscape as image:
1. We experience landscape as environment or image, according to our mode of experience, and
2. We always experience landscape simultaneously as environment and image.
Both views are grounded in psychology: in Vygotsky and Piaget, respectively. The Vygotsky grounding is done by Steven C. Bourassa as a paradigm for landscape aesthetics. The Piaget grounding is performed tentatively by myself. Besides psychology and landscape aesthetics, ludology, philosophy, and geography are drawn into the paper’s multi-disciplinary discussion.
The first approach (landscape as environment or image; a modal approach) is congruent with current ludology, and reveals two different modes of play. Firstly, the beginner mode, where you use the image as a tool to understand the environment. Secondly, an expert player mode, from where you can develop landscape connoisseurship; a non-mainstream play mode such as the latter is important for obtaining a full picture of how people engage with 3-D, avatar-navigated worlds. Landscape aesthetics can be helpful in this regard.
As for the second approach (landscape as environment and image), it highlights the pleasure of mapping the avatar-navigated, 3-D world, and the constructive role of the landscape image in that process.
Bjarke Liboriussen is Ph.D. student, Media Studies, University of Southern Denmark. Used to play the oboe. Then took a master’s degree in Film Studies. Now trying to understand online worlds from an architectural perspective, using a mix of philosophy, psychology, and ethnography.
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Michael Liebe
There is no Magic Circle: On the Difference Between Computer Games and Traditional Games
This paper discusses the special relationship of the game space in computer generated environments in contrast to non-computerized playing fields. Doing so, the concept of the so-called magic circle as artificially upheld border between the game space and the space outside the game will be challenged – particularly its adoption to single player computer games. Due to its digital and interactive core, computer games can provide the player with a virtual environment which is free to explore and configure. The rules in computer games moreover, are integrated into the program code and hence only allow exactly as much as is necessary to play the specific game. Without hacking the code, it is impossible to break the rules in a computer game. On the other hand, without the program code no actions at all are possible. So the software and hardware actually enable the player actions rather than constraining them.
Consequently, computer games are more than an extension of traditional games. They are a medium with unique characteristics and have to be interpreted accordingly. The computer generated environment establishes its own rules and simulated physics and makes the fictional space virtually explorable without having to rely on the awareness of the player upholding the rules of the game. There is no magic circle in computer games.
Michael Liebe is research assistant at the University of Potsdam, department of European Media Studies (www.emw.eu). He is co-founder of the Digital Games Research Network (www.digarec.net) and active member of the AG-Games (www.ag-games.de). Moreover he founded A MAZE. in 2007 and since then organizes events focussing on the convergence of computer games and art (www.amaze-festival.de). More to read and see at www.michael-liebe.de.
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Mattias Ljungström
Remarks on Digital Play Spaces
Most play spaces support completely different actions than we normally would think of when moving through real space, out of play. This paper will therefore discuss the relationship between selected game rules and game spaces in connection to the behaviors, or possible behaviors, of the player. Space will be seen as a modifier or catalyst of player behavior.
Furthermore it introduces a method of reducing 3D spaces into 2D constructions. This simplifies analysis of game spaces, and enables the comparison of complex game spaces. It is argued that while a change of view from 3D to 2D does change the experience of the player; it does not change the fundamental function of spatial constructions in games.
The paper will cover six categories of game space; Joy of Movement, Exploration, Tactical, Social, Performative, and Creative spaces. It provides a detailed discussion of Joy of Movement in particular, with a more brief explanation of the other categories.
Joy of Movement is the action of moving through a space for the thrill of movement in itself. Several sub-categories of this game space are identified. Examples are shown from in particular vertical space and reduced horizontal space. Vertical space relates to the game property of gravity, which introduces orientation in game space. On the other hand, horizontal space is tightly coupled to game locations where movement takes place mainly in one dimension, such as racing games. Finally, it is shown how simple elements from these basic categories can be combined to construct complex game spaces with rhythm, dramaturgy and melody.
In conclusion, this paper aspires to be useful both as a process for further analysis of game space elements, and serve as a tool for creating new game spaces.
Mattias Ljungström is assistant professor in Game Design & Advanced Media at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. After graduating from the University of Linköping and from Université Paris-Dauphine in Paris he has worked in the professional game industry with mobile phone games, PlayStation 2 projects, and computer games in Stockholm and Berlin.
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Anders Sundnes Løvlie (Oslo)
The Rhetoric of Persuasive Games: Freedom and Discipline in America’s Army
Anders Sundnes Løvlie is Research fellow at the Department of Media and Communication at University of Oslo. He is currently working on a Ph.D. project on locative media. The working title for the project is “Locatext: Cultural exchange through locative media in public spaces”.
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Betty Li Meldgaard
Perception, Action and Game Space
The paper examines the use of the ecological approach to visual perception in relation to action in game spaces.
The ecological approach to perception, as formulated by J.J. Gibson, is an action oriented theory that studies the relation between perceiver and environment in tandem. In this paper the main idea is that computer games can be viewed as an action system, where the information for action arises as an activity that involves the exploration of the game space in ways that are similar to the investigation and picking up of information in our everyday lives. The computer game system is capable of simulating vital properties of the perceptual system, in ways that can be studied if the ecological approach is applied in the continuing articulation and understanding of game experience. By applying the ecological approach an insight into the functional mechanisms of the games layout is made ready at hand and the micro levels of action can be described with greater specificity.
The paper is an outline of my ongoing Ph.D. project, where the main purpose is to develop a theoretical framework that makes the ecological approach operational on the levels of analysis and construction.
Betty Li Meldgaard is Ph.D. Student at the University of Aalborg. She has worked as a freelance graphic designer and is working as a freelance artist. Her overall interests lie within art, psychology and interactive technology. Her main focus in these areas is visual perception, visual construction and the experience of media from the point of visual perception.
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Dieter Mersch
Opening
Prof. Dr. Dieter Mersch studied mathematics and philosophy in Cologne and Bochum. His thesis and habilitation he did at the Technical University Darmstadt. From 2000 he had the professorship for Philosophy of Arts and Aesthetics at the School of Arts in Kiel. 2004 he was appointed Director of the Department for ‘Media and Arts’ and fills the professorship for Media Studies at the University of Potsdam. Since 2006 he also holds the Max-Kade-professorship at University of Chicago.
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Yara Mitsuishi
Différance at Play: A Derridean Analysis of the Constitution of Identities in Videogame Play
My presentation consists in an exploratory analysis of the constitution of identities/differences in gameplay through Derrida’s différance. In this approach, play refers to the differentiation between elements in an open-ended un/ordered temporal arrangement. In other words, play is the process of signification in which any element is conceived in relation to something else, differing from something else, and consequently always in the process of forming its own identity.
Taking this notion of play (through différance), I analyze the notion of magic circle and emergence of play in the gamestudies debate, in terms of interpretation of relationships at stake between elements. I suggest how it is possible to explain multiple conceptions and perceptions of what is at play, thus understanding the borders of the “magic circle” as relative or flexible.
At last, my focus shifts toward the implications of the interplay of identities and differences, by asking: how do games differ and from what they differ as gameplay processes? This question takes as premise that a game has to relate to something outside the game “boundaries” in order to constitute something playable.
Yara Mitsuishi is currently developing her PhD research in the interdisciplinary Humanities Doctoral Program within Communications, Philosophy and Sociology at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She is a member of the Montreal GameCODE Project, working on the relations between videogames and everyday life from a semiotic/phenomenological perspective.
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Souvik Mukherjee
Gameplay in the Zone of Becoming: Locating Action in the Computer Game
A key contributory factor in the developments in understanding computer games has been the recognition of the importance of ludic action. Recent commentators like Alexander Galloway stress this very clearly. . However, it can be argued, that ludic action itself has not yet been adequately studied. Perhaps, this is because of the very unconventional nature of this action and the space within which it occurs; a more complex and nuanced analysis is therefore necessary.
Extending Galloway’s analysis of the action-image in computer games, this paper explores the concept in relation to some key ideas of the French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze from which Galloway derives his ideas. This paper will show that developing Galloway’s analysis in a fuller Deleuzian context will be helpful in analysing the complexity of action in computer games and therefore gaining a better understanding of the process of gameplay itself.
In the present analysis, these concepts, many of which were originally formulated in the context of cinema, will be considered in terms of their applicability to digital gameplay and finally analysed through a comparison between the first-person shooter called S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl (GSC Gameworld, 2007) and Andrey Tarkovsky’s similarly named film (Stalker, 1979). Through such an analysis, this paper aims to explore the nature of the action in digital games, its relation to player-perceptions and ist location within the machinic and ludic schema.
Souvik Mukherjee is currently pursuing a PhD at Nottingham Trent University on computer games as newly emerging storytelling media. His research examines their relationship to canonical ideas of narrative and also how these games inform and challenge our conceptions of technicity, identity and culture, in general. http://www.freewebs.com/readingamesandplayinbooks
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Michael Nagenborg
The Concept of War in the World of Warcraft
MMORPGs as “World of Warcraft” can be understood as interactive representations of war. Within the frame provided by the program the players experience martial conflicts and thus a “virtual war” (e. g. MacCallum-Stewart 2007). The game world however requires a technical and as far as possible invisible infrastructure which has itself to be protected against attacks: Among this infrastructure are counted e. g. the servers on which the data of the player characters and the game’s world are saved, as well as the user accounts, which have to be protected, among other things, against “identity theft” (e. g. Bardzell et al. 2007). Besides the war on the virtual surface of the program we will therefore describe the invisible war about the infrastructure, whose outbreak is always feared by the developers and operators of online-worlds and at least requires adequate precautions.
Furthermore we would like to pick out „virtual game worlds“ as a central theme as places of complete observation. Since action in these worlds is always associated with the production of data, complete observation is at least possible and given in reality by the so-called „game master“. Observation of different communication channels (inclusive user forums) as well serves for channeling the sojourn in the virtual battlefield properly, without the player feeling apparently limited in his freedom. Finally we would like to compare the fictional theater of war of “World of Warcraft” with the vision of “Network-Centric Warfare”, since already many a time it was affirmed that the analysis of MMORPGs could be useful for the real trade of war (cf. e. g. Sarasin 2004, p. 24). However, we will point out what an unrealistic theater of war “World of Warcraft” is.
Dr. phil. Michael Nagenborg (born 1968) works at the Interdepartmental Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW) at the University of Tübingen, where he participates in the project “Terahertz-Detektionssysteme: Ethische Begleitung, Evaluation und Normenfindung (THEBEN)”. His key research areas include privacy, surveillance, (sub-)culture and information ethics. www.michaelnagenborg.com
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Britta Neitzel
Metacommunication and Metalepsis in Play and in Computer Games
The paper uses Gregory Bateson’s concept of metacommunication to explore the boundaries of the ‘magic circle’ in play, games, and computer games. It argues that the idea of a self-contained “magic circle” ignores the constant negotiations among players, which establish the realm of play. The “magic circle” is no fixed ontological entity but is set up by metacommunicative play.
In a second step, the paper pursues the question if metacommunication could also be found in single-player computer games. The analytic part of the paper leads to the conclusion that metacommunication is implemented in single-player games by the means of metalepsis.
Britta Neitzel, PhD. is assistant professor for Media History/Visual Culture at the University of Siegen, Germany. She has studied Theatre, Film, and Television Studies, German Linguistics and Philosophy in Erlangen, Munich, and Cologne. Teaching and research positions at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, the Technical University of Chemnitz, the Hypermedia Laboratory, Universtiy of Tampere. http://britta-neitzel.de
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Bernard Perron
The Magic Circle(s) of Gameplay
Huizinga’s metaphor of games as taking place inside a “magic circle” has been questioned by many recently, for instance with a whole game studies seminar in Tampere, Finland being dedicated to this question. But while everyone seems interested in “breaking the magic circle”, we will argue here that the spatial metaphor used to represent a game’s space of possibility unduly focuses the researcher’s gaze on a single side of the coin, for a game is as much a finite object than an ongoing process. Therefore, the figure of the circle should make us think about an ongoing process more than an enclosed space. It is much more relevant to conceptualize the cognitive frame of gameplay as a cycle: the magic cycle.
To cast off the implications of redundancy or stagnation contained in the circle, we resort instead to the spiral, which accounts for the gamer’s progression through the game. As we will show, our model of gameplay features three interconnected spirals which represent the cycles the gamer will have to go through in order to answer gameplay, narrative and interpretative questions, in both heuristic and hermeneutic fashion. We also take into account the question of the reception, and integrate Jauss’ well-known notion of the horizon of expectations. Finally, this gamer- and gameplay-centric model draws attention to an important issue: the gamer’s understanding of the underlying game mechanics is more akin to a work of reverse engineering than of decryption. A gamer can never access the game’s algorithms, but must instead construct an image of the game system, whose degree of fidelity towards the actual rules of the game may greatly vary.
Bernard Perron is an Associate Professor of Cinema at the University of Montreal. He has co-edited The Video Game Theory Reader 1 (New York, Routledge, 2003) and The Video Game Theory Reader 2 (New York, Routledge, to be published in 2008). His research and writings concentrate on editing in early cinema; on narration, cognition, and the ludic dimension of narrative cinema; and on interactive cinema and video game. http://www.ludicine.ca/
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Dan Pinchbeck
Trigens Can’t Swim. Intelligence and Intentionality in First Person Game Worlds
Intelligence in games is largely the product of players adopting the Intentional Stance, rather than the functional capabilities of underlying state systems. This paper demonstrates how Dennett’s concept of the Intentional Stance is a great asset in understanding the creation and function of believably intelligent agents in games. Particular focus is paid to the use of cheap and simple tricks, often existing outside the AI system, to bootstrap projected intelligence beyond the constraints of the system; specifically the importance of factional and social networks, ecological validity, imported schema and the co-option of the natural tendency to project closure onto networks of potential. Examples are drawn from across the FPS genre to demonstrate that intelligence in games is largely a product of the management of expectations and assumptions on the part of the player.
Dan Pinchbeck is a senior lecturer in games and interactive media at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He specialises in first person gaming, with particular focus on content and player behaviour, and is currently completing a PhD in this subject. He is also finishing an AHRC funded development project creating game mods to explore new narrative and affective experiences in first person gaming (www.thechineseroom.co.uk).
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Kirsten Pohl
Ethical Reflection and Emotional Involvement in Computer Games
Considering the distinction between ‘games’ and ‘serious games’, it seems that computer games are divided into two categories: on the one hand, there are games for pure entertainment and fun while on the other hand, there are those that meet the additional demands of seriousness and appear with an obvious didactic claim. According to Huizinga, playing games transports the player from the lived reality to a fictional game world where the rules of real life are not effective and where he may act as someone else without consequences. Does this mean, though, that games will never gain the status of artifacts commenting on their cultural context and the Zeitgeist, since they distract the player from real life? What is needed to consider games not only as entertainment, but also as stimulating and inspiring for insights into our understanding of the world? Do computer games have the potential to entertain us and make us think, for example, about moral and ethical issues at the same time? And if so, by which means do they achieve this?
In my speech I will elaborate on some ideas concerning the use of moral issues and ethics in computer games by showing what strategies are used to engage the player morally and emotionally and, hence, to bridge the gap between game world and real world. Drawing on concepts of the ethical criticism in literary studies as proposed by Wayne C. Booth and Martha Nussbaum I will argue in favor of an ethical criticism for computer games. This ethical criticism will not focus exclusively on the content of computer games, but will also evaluate the interaction of content and game structure (i.e. narrative and ludic level) in order to give an adequate insight into the way computer games function and affect us.
Kirsten Pohl studied Comparative Literature, French and Spanish Philology in Münster, Granada and Berlin. In 2006 she started her PhD at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) in Gießen. In her dissertation, she will draft a communication model for video- and computer games to analyze how narrative games involve the player on a ludic as well as on a narrative level and thereby negotiate moral issues.
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John Richard Sageng (Oslo)
Can Avatars Act?
The aim of this paper is to clarify the nature of agency inside a gaming environment. The problem with understanding in-game agency is that reports of in-game actions are unclear both with regard to the literal content of the actions performed as well who is the proper owner. While we refer to cases of ”walking”, ”shooting”, “breaking” and the like inside the game, they are clearly none of those things, and nor is it clear that they are supposed to attributed to a fictional in-game character or to the player at his controls. I suggest that they main problem in spelling out the literal content of these actions is due to the fact that the computer game medium involve a collision between the requirements of representation on the one hand and agency on the other. The intentional object conveyed by a representation will typically not exist, while the action descriptions will typically imply that the individual is capable of exerting causal control over it.
I discuss ways of spelling out the content of the player’s actions in terms of interaction with representations and find that they fail to account for evaluations that are due to the players control over the outcome of his actions.
Taking a page from externalism in the philosophy of mind, I finally offer an account of in-game action based on the diagnosis that the element of control forces a shift from the represented fictional object to a real graphical environment. Utilizing the proposal that the basic actions of the player are directed at non-representational graphical happenings, I spell out the typical actions performed inside the game environment and indicate how they should be evaluated.
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Niklas Schrape
Playing with Information: How Political Games Can Encourage the Player to Cross the Magic Circle
Most Players do not confuse games with reality. However, political games need to encourage the player to link his virtual experience to his subjective construction of reality, in order to have an persuasive effect. They can achieve this by the interplay between their rules and their representations. To be able to experience meaningful play, the player has to interpret the game’s representations in order to perform strategically planed actions. Games can implement ideological positions within their rules, but rules need some form of representation to be perceptible. In addition, many games have a layer of narrative or thematic framing, consisting of non-interactive textual elements, which provide the player with information. These layers cue the player in his meaning making, and shape his application of schemata and mental concepts. He uses them in order to choose the best options for successful and meaningful play. Political games, like “Zottel rettet die Schweiz”, “Global Conflict: Palestine” or “Peacemaker” gain their possible meanings by their specific representational skins. Games like these encourage the player to move back and forth between the magic circle and his subjective construction of reality. The player can test his knowledge in games, but in revers, it is shaped by this experience.
Niklas Schrape is a Ph.D. student at the University of Film and Television Studies “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam, Germany. Since summer 2007, he works on his dissertation on video games as a medium of political communication. Before that, he studied “Social and Economic Communication” at the University of the Arts in Berlin and the International Filmschool of Wales.
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Ulrich Weinberg
Moderation: Open Worlds Panel
Prof. Ulrich Weinberg studied fine arts and design at the Academies of Fine Arts in Munich and Berlin. He is founder of the companies TERRATOOLS and CYPARADE, specializing on 3D animation, simulation and interactive 3D projects such as computer games and cross media projects. Since 2005 he is programme director of EU symposium INSIGHT OUT and since 2007 head of “School of Design Thinking” at HPI Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam.
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Dirk Weyel
Discussion: Open Worlds Panel
Dirk Weyel started his career in the music industry before switching to the gaming sector as Product Manager at Psygnosis Germany in 1998. He subsequently established specialist games marketing and localisation agency 4-Real Intermedia along with three partners. In early 2004, he became European Marketing Director for a French publisher of computer games. At Frogster Interactive, Dirk Weyel is Chief Operating Officer and responsible for Marketing, Sales und Business Development.
