Game studies: Difference between revisions

Video game studies is the still-young field of analyzing video games from a multi- and inter-disciplinary perspective.

Prior to the late-20th century, the academic study of games was rare and limited to fields such as history and anthropology. For example, in the early 1900’s Stewart Culin wrote a comprehensive catalog of gaming implements and games from Native American tribes north of Mexico (Culin, 1907) while Johan Huizinga explored the importance of games and play as a basic human activity that helps define culture (Huizinga, 1954). As the videogame revolution took off in the early 1980’s, 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:

1. Social Scientific Approach
   • Studying the effects of games on people
     • What do games do to people?
       • Ex: Learning, Effects of violence in games
     • How do people create and negotiate a game?
2. Humanities Approach
   • Studying the meaning and context of games
     • What meanings are made through game use?
     • Studying games as artifacts in and of themselves
       • Ex: Affordances of the medium, critical analysis, rhetoric
3. Industry and Engineering Approach
   • Understanding the design and development of games
     • Ex: How to make better games
   • Games as drivers of technological innovations
     • Ex: Graphics, AI, networking, etc.

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 ones. 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. Interested readers can refer to Fullerton and Ito’s work as examples of interdisciplinary work being done in games studies (Fullerton, 2005; Ito, 2005).

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” (Williams, 2005). 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.

Like most academic fields, those who study video games often have differing approaches. While scholars use many different theoretical and research frameworks, the two most visible approaches are ludology and narratology.

The term ludology arose within the context of non-electronic games and board games in particular, but gained popularity after it was featured in an article by Gonzalo Frasca in 1999.^[1] The name, however, has not yet caught on fully. Major issues being grappled with in the field are questions of narrative and of simulation, and whether or not video games are either, neither, or both.

The narrativists approach video games in the context of what Janet Murray calls "Cyberdrama." That is to say, their major concern is with video games as a storytelling medium, one that arises out of interactive fiction. Murray puts video games in the context of the Holodeck, a fictional piece of technology from Star Trek, arguing for the video game as a medium in which we get to become another person, and to act out in another world.^[2] This image of video games certainly received early widespread popular support, and forms the basis of films such as Tron, eXistenZ, and The Last Starfighter. But it is also criticized by many academics (such as Espen J. Aarseth) for being better suited to some linear science fiction movies than to analysis of interactive video games with multiple narratives.

The narrativist approach can also be found in the works of Lev Manovich, as well as in the works of Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, which deal more with the concept of new media in general, and its historical roots than with video games as such. But these authors still fundamentally approach video games as 'a text that can be read' - much like a book, poem, or film, and as a media form that has many of the same elements.

The ludologists break sharply and radically from this. Their perspective is that a video game is first and foremost just that, a game, and that it needs to be understood in terms of its rules, interface, and in terms of the concept of play. Ludologists such as Espen J. Aarseth argue that, although games certainly have plots, characters, and aspects of traditional narratives, these aspects are incidental to gameplay. In one essay, he memorably claims that "the dimensions of Lara Croft's body, already analyzed to death by film theorists, are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently... When I play, I don't even see her body, but see through it and past it."^[3] Stuart Moulthrop, another ludologist, takes a slightly more moderate perspective, arguing that one cannot completely divorce games from their social context, but still fundamentally arguing that games are not narratives in any meaningful sense.

In another opinion, the dualism of a strict division between ludology-narratology is quite artificial. Ludology does not exclude the so-called "narratology" approach.^[4]

One can say that some narrativist approaches were useful when examining early strongly narrative-like games such as Zork, Return to Zork, and Myst - but video games have now developed far beyond those early models. One can also point to the way that narrativist approaches may have something to say about where "big world" games have come from historically; immense game-worlds do seem to have roots in narrative pulp and popular fiction (Lord of the Rings, etc) and fantasy film epics (Star Wars trilogy, etc).

The intersection of emerging film and videogame forms is explored further by Matt Hanson in the book, The End of Celluloid (2004) with chapters dealing with First Person Documentaries (derived from the first-person shooter gaming genre), avatars, synthespians, capsule narratives, and machinima. As large multi-user virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft become more common and popular, and as their economies develop, a sound academic understanding of them will be increasingly useful. There is also some interest in the area of social stratification within the gaming community as exhibited by the research projects of Shawn Hoskins, a student at Eureka College.

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: fairground attractions and sideshows 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 dioramas, panoramas, planetariums, and stereographs; and amusement arcades that had mechanical game machines and also peep-show film machines.^[5]

• Center for Computer Games Research
• List of books on computer and video games
• Ludography
• Simulated reality

• Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA)
• Canadian Games Studies Association

• Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research
• Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media
• Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture
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• DiGRA 2007: Situated Play
  • Conference Proceedings
• DiGRA 2005: Worlds in Play
  • Conference Proceedings
• DiGRA 2003: Level Up
  • Conference Proceedings

• Learning Games Initiative: an international, transdisciplinary, multi-institutional research collective and archive.
• Ludology.org: online discussion of ludology.
• Gameology.org: commentary and resources for the game studies community.
• Buzzcut.com: critical videogame theory.
• EternalGamer.com: exploring games through philosophy, theory, and criticism.
• Joystick101.org: online gaming and education site sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Grand Text Auto: about machine narrative, games, poetry, and art.
• Terra Nova: online discussion about virtual worlds.
• Games * Design * Art * Culture
• The Ludologist: Blog on computer game studies.
• Ludonauts: exploring ludic media
• .brain Critical videogame theory and ludology.
• Sirlin.net Videogame theory site focusing on competitive gaming.
• Ludologica: blog on game studies]
• GamesSound.com - site with studies and resources for educators all dealing with game audio.
• Gamecultura: GameCulture: The Videogame as Culture. (in brazilian portuguese language, with auto-translation)
• Ludic Dreams Blog Chronicling a student's attempts to Bring Ludology to his campus as a Major.

• Aarseth, Espen J. (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-5579-9.
• Balkin, Jack M. (2006). The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds. New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-9971-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Bogost, Ian (2006). Unit Operations: an Approach to Videogame Criticism. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-02599-7.
• Bolter, Jay David (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-52279-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Galloway, Alexander R. (2006). Gaming:Essays on Algorithmic Culture. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816648504.
• Grau, Oliver (2004). Virtual Art. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-57223-1.
• Grau, Oliver (ed.) (2007). MediaArtHistories. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-07279-3. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
• Hanson, Matt (2004). The End of Celluloid: Film futures in the digital age. Rotovision,. ISBN 2-88046-783-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
• Harrigan, Pat and (2007). Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-08356-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Juul, Jesper (July 2001). "Games Telling Stories: A brief note on games & Narratives". Games Studies. 1 (1).
• Juul, Jesper (2006). Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-10110-3.
• King, Brad (2003). Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-222888-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Manovich, Lev (2001). The Language of New Media. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-63255-3.
• McAllister, Ken S. (2004). Gamework: Language, Power, and Computer Game Culture. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-5420-4.
• Newman, James (2004). Videogames. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28192-X.
• Ryan, Marie-Laure (2001). Narrative as Virtual Reality. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6487-9.
• Salen, Katie (2003). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-24045-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Salen, Katie (2005). The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-19536-2. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Wardrip-Fruin, Noah (2004). First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-73175-1. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Wolf, Mark J.P. (2003). The Video Game Theory Reader. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-96579-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Wolf, Mark J.P. (2001). The Medium of the Video Game. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-79150-X.