Goals and Life Itself (DiGRA Column)

I have a new “hardcore” column up at the DiGRA website today. Called Goals and Life Itself, it tries to point at some of the problems and fault lines I see in video game studies today, and does so by discussing goals, vitalism, and genre theory (in a marginally provocative way, was my intention):

A short theory of goals: You are playing a card game with some friends. A few rounds into the game the group begins arguing. One player claims that the goal of the game is to gain as many tricks as possible; another claims that the goal is to avoid getting any tricks.
…
One of the recurrent events the past few years has been the researcher who questions “formalist” theories of games in favor of “in-context” or “situated” methods. This is a special position, where the speaker argues that other researchers are forcing rigid theories upon a complex world, while the speaker asserts that he or she is studying actual game playing.
…
This type of assertion is constantly repeated in video game studies: Most obviously in an occasional skepticism towards general theories of games in favor of localized studies, but it is also present when the game developer claims to have a perfect understanding of actual games, as opposed to the researchers locked in their ivory towers, away from the real world. The outlines of the stance can be seen when researchers reject theories from other fields in favor of their own brand new theories of games, or when yet other researchers claim to emphasize the warmth of the story compared to the coldness of the rules. The problem is that this never ends – anybody can reject other theories as cold, stale, and rigid, while declaring their own to be the real thing, a true reflection of what games are really like, of actual game playing.

The whole article is here.

I loathe any attempt to teach game design as an academic discipline.

The New York Times has a reasonably good article on academic programs teaching video games.

The headline of this post comes from Jack Emmert of Cryptic studios (City of Heroes).

“This whole idea of teaching game design is a fabrication,” Mr. Emmert said. “I’m a serious academic, and what is the actual skill that they’re teaching? If you’re not teaching a quantifiable skill, then you are teaching an opinion. Making games is an art form. You need to understand the technical side, but I loathe any attempt to teach game design as an academic discipline.”

As someone who teaches game design, I find this to be complete … fabrication. How exactly did Emmert reach the conclusion that we are not teaching the students any (quantifiable) skills. I’d like to know.

In the article, Tracy Fullerton sets the record straight:

“It reminds me that there was a moment when film studies really took off and the guys at the studios were like, ‘Who are these Spielbergs and Lucases and Coppolas coming out of these film schools with these crazy ideas?’ They’ll come around.”

“The Game, the Player, the World” translated into Japanese

For Japanese readers, I am happy to present a translation of my article on The Game, the Player, the World.

ゲーム, プレイヤ, ワールド : ゲームたらしめるものの核心を探る

This article is my take on the question of what a game is, whether there is anything in common between the things we call “games”, and why some games can be considered borderlines cases.

http://www.jesperjuul.net/text/gameplayerworld_jp/

A big thank you to Haruhisa Tanaka for the translation!

How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days

Good reading at Gamasutra: Kyle Gabler, Kyle Gray, Matt Kucic, and Shalin Shodhan write up on their experiences prototyping games using the following rules:

1. Each game must be made in less than seven days,
2. Each game must be made by exactly one person,
3. Each game must be based around a common theme i.e. “gravity”, “vegetation”, “swarms”, etc.

You can see the resulting games at the Experimental Gameplay website.

I find most of the experiments quite fabulous, but I think they also show that it is easier to prototype the basic mechanics and controls in such a short time, but that it’s harder to get to the “game”.

So here is a proposal for some other rules which might make more game-like games:

1. Each game must be made in two weeks, with the first week spent on basic mechanics and controls, and the second week spent on tweaking gameplay and making game progression.
2. Each game must be made by exactly two people.
3. Each game must be based around a common theme or experience i.e. “gravity”, “vegetation”, “swarms”, “fear”, “chaos”.

(This is not to say “you should have done it like I would have done it”, just a quick thought on what results follow from different rulesets.)

The New Game Studies Issue is Out!

I am happy to announce that we have launched the new issue of Game Studies today.

http://www.gamestudies.org/0501/

The new issue was edited by your truly and is a theme issue on game design research, originating from a symposium on the same topic in Copenhagen last May.

A survey method for assessing perceptions of a game: The consumer playtest in game design

by John P. Davis, Keith Steury, and Randy Pagulayan
The computer and video game industry has only relatively recently burgeoned into one that rivals the film industry in terms of consumer spending. In the United States alone, the games industry reported about $6.9 billion in sales in 2002, and sales increased to $7 billion in 2003 and $7.3 billion in 2004 [1]. Increased sales have also led to increased competition among games developers, as they vie for a share of the growing wealth. Because higher-quality games tend to sell better, game developers are increasingly looking for ways to improve their games …

The Hunt for Collaborative War Gaming – CASE: Battlefield 1942

by Tony Manninen and Tomi Kujanp??
This paper analyses the interaction forms of a contemporary multiplayer game in order to offer implications for multiplayer game design. The motivation for the research originates from the fact that the lack of intuitive and perceivable interaction cues is one of the distinctive features separating networked game settings from face-to-face encounters. The analysis of the interaction forms in multiplayer game sessions indicates that the players can use various forms of non-verbal communication and perceivable actions to reduce communication difficulties …

Player-Centred Game Design: Experiences in Using Scenario Study to Inform Mobile Game Design

by Laura Ermi and Frans M?yr?
There is need for systematic, research-based and tested game design methodologies that would take the needs and preferences of different players into better consideration than the current industry practises. In order to investigate the future of pervasive game playing on mobile devices the University of Tampere Hypermedia Laboratory?s research project Wireless Gaming Solutions for the Future (MOGAME) has developed a prototype …

Formal Models and Game Design

by Stefan M. Gr?nvogel
In this article results from mathematics are used to create a formalism for games. Games are considered as systems and the design of games as the creation of models for games. By abstract control systems, a formalism for describing models of games is introduced. Methods to create new models from given ones are described. To handle complexity problems in game design, simulations of models by other models are explained …

The Semiotics of Time Structure in Ludic Space As a Foundation for Analysis and Design

by Craig A. Lindley
The concept of a ludic systems encompasses a family of media forms and experiences involving elements of simulation, game play and narrative or story construction. These three elements can be regarded as different classes of semiotic systems, or systems of meaning, having their own structuring principles and methods of informing experience. For any particular ludic system, such as a computer game, time structure can be considered in terms of a number of distinct layers …

What Wario Ware can teach us about Game Design

Chaim Gingold reviews Wario Ware
The story: Wario, realizing there is lots of money to be made in video games, decides to found his own game company. The resulting game: Play through a rapid-fire series of bizarre micro games. Each WarioWare level consists of 24 micro games, each about 5 seconds in length.
Wario Ware is a game about games …

A Conversation with Raph Koster

Celia Pearce interviews Raph Koster
Celia Pearce: You?ve been on quite an an adventure the last few years between Ultima Online into Star Wars Galaxies. What?s that been like to go from Ultima to Star Wars? It?s almost like an evolutionary leap from one to the other.
Raph Koster: I think the first thing that strikes me is some similarities, and then there are some differences. The big similarity is both are well-beloved universes, and working within the boundaries of that …

Can A Table Stand On One Leg? Critical and Ludological Thoughts on Star Wars: Galaxies

Timothy Burke reviews Star Wars: Galaxies
In 2002, looking ahead at the next generation of massively-multiplayer online games (MMOG), some observers of the computer game industry placed their hopes for new innovations in the upcoming game Shadowbane (Wolfpack Studios 2003) with its strong emphasis on unregulated player-vs-player (PvP) combat. However, many more looked to Star Wars: Galaxies and The Sims Online (Maxis 2002)…

Another Take on Video Game History

Ars Technica has a new article up on The evolution of gaming: computers, consoles, and arcade.

This one’s slightly different in that it takes individual genres and trace their history, screenshots and all.

The genres here are the slightly idiosyncratic Sports / Space Combat / MMORPG / Adventure / Driving / Turn-based strategy / Simulation / RPG / Platform / FPS / Real-time strategy.

As a European, the focus on Apple II and TRS-80 is weird as they hardly existed in these quarters – gaming history was Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and later Amiga / Atari ST (the latter especially in the UK I think).

Somebody needs to write the big global history at some point.