Understanding Place: Game Studies as a System of Knowing

June 9th, 2009
No comments

Below is the full text of a conference proposal I submitted to the upcoming DiGRA conference . Unfortunately, the proposal was rejected, at least in part for being confusing. Fair enough. But I am posting it here is the interest of gaining additional comments and feedback, either public or private. I think the epistemological underpinnings of game studies is something I'd like to keep exploring, confusing or not!

Games can teach, but what can we learn from game studies beyond their application to games?

Much has been said about the mimetic potential of games to represent reality. The Serious Games movement models an ontological approach that sees games as a mirror creating a reflection of real world phenomenon and constructions. The presence of a game’s sense of reality to a player borrows categorically from real world phenomenon giving it a “half-reality”, to borrow Juul’s conception. Thus, a game object or action has a being tied, to some degree, to a transferable experience between the real and the virtual and allowing for a systematic criticism and exploration of these linkages.  This critical dialog may be considered the heart of what we call, “game studies”

In this view, games can speak about the world because properties of the world are embedded inside game systems and game content. Further, games allow us to generate ideas inside the virtual space of the game system and narrative open to judgement by real world criteria.

Taken together, these perspectives may best be considered games-as-model approaches, where the virtuality of the game is constantly held in strict ontological relationship to the real world.

However, a converse proposition receives less attention—the idea that knowledge about games, rather than knowledge of games provides a framework for talking about things outside of games. The body of knowledge described as game studies has a use beyond talking about games. Following the same ontological bridge that links games to the real world, we can traverse it in the opposite direction using game studies as a method for talking about specific non-game, non-virtual reality.

This paper considers the broad notion of games as epistemic systems capable of generating knowledge and understanding of the world, or at least, cultural views of worldly phenomenon. Game studies, in this mode, turns from its internally focused critical practice, here framed as an ontological practice concerned with the nature of being in a game, into a method for understanding things outside of games. The specific goal of this paper is to illustrate the potential for using games as a system of understanding through the application of the game studies concepts of “ludology versus narratology” and Caillois’ distinction between paidea and  ludus as means for understanding real world places. The first case maps the notions of a strong a ludological notion and a narratological notion to the environment of the children’s playground. This case illustrates how strengths and weaknesses in playground design can be clarified by a discussion of the inherent contestation and productive tension found in the narratology versus ludology debate (or non-debate) inside of game studies.  The second case maps the concepts of ludus and paidea to two natural places, Carlsbad Caverns National Park  and White Sands National Monument, in the United States, arguing that the management of leisure space mirrors the division proposed by Caillois and further elaborated in game studies literature. Using these cases as an initial foray into the method, this paper demonstrates the feasibility of applying game study concepts to the understanding of non-game, real world environments.

Partial Bibliography
1. Ang, S.C. Rules, gameplay, and narratives in video games. Simulation and Gaming, 37. 306-325.
2. Bogost, I. Persuasive games : the expressive power of videogames. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007.
3. Bogost, I. Unit operations : an approach to videogame criticism. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2006.
4. Borries, F.v., Walz, S.P. and Böttger, M. (eds.). Space time play : computer games, architecture and urbanism: the next level. Birkhauser Verlag AG, Boston, MA, 2007.
5. Caillois, R. Man, play, and games. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2001.
6. Frasca, G. Ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place Level Up Conference Proceedings, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, 2003.
7. Frasca, G. Ludology Meets Narratology: Similitude and Differences Between (Video)Games and Narrative, 1999.
8. Gee, J.P. What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003.
9. Newman, J. Videogames. Routledge, London New York, 2004.
10. Nitsche, M. Video game spaces : image, play, and structure in 3D worlds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008.
11. Pearce, C. Theory Wars: An Argument Against Arguments in the so-called Ludology/Narratology Debate Changing Views: Worlds in Play, University of Vancouver, Vancouver, 2005.

Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized

The Theory of Alcoholic Architecture

April 17th, 2009
No comments

London now sports what it's owners have described as the world's first walk-in cocktail.

Don the sort of coverall you see in science labs and walk into a misty room. The room is the "bar" and the mist is gin and tonic.
Presumably, chilling in this cocktail and breathing deeply long enough is equivalent to actually having a drink.
It's weird and enticing. And from an architectural design perspective, it does some funny things by materializing the genus loci of a bar as alcohol and turning the usual voids into semi-present alcoholic solids. Theorists, have stiff drink and ponder this one.

Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized

Defining the Fun House

March 30th, 2009
No comments

As a part of my, "What makes a place fun?" research, I have postulated the idea of the "fun house" as an actual home anchored in fun as much as much as some homes are designed to be beautiful.


The question always is, "What is a fun house?"

And while I am still working out a good theoretical definition to that question, here's a good practical answer:


Yes, a house built around a skateboard ramp.

Interesting (to me at least), is how people talk about this particular "fun house"

  • "The result of the client’s request is a curved form interior, which “set the whole house as well as the inhabitant’s life, into motion”. — Architectural Review 
  • "Converting your house into a 'skateable habitat' is one strangely cool move." — Gizmowatch 
  • "As a kid, I was obsessed with Pee-wee's Playhouse. As an adult (at least according to my pricey movie stubs), my refined tastes would prefer The Ramp House, a 'skateable habitat.'" – Gizmodo 
  • "Speaking of things I would have wanted as a kid, take a look at this house: it's built around a gigantic indoor skateboard ramp. I absolutely love this guy's priorities. " – Dvice 

What I notice here is a strong push and pull around the notion of fun. The Architecture Review comment, perhaps predictably, stressed some sort of formal design purpose or insight. But nowhere is fun allowed. Gizmowatch recognizes the latent playfulness of the space, but feels the need to praise it while marginalizing it as a "strangely cool move." Meanwhile, Gizmodo and Dvice make the most common move, by suggesting that while the place grabs the author's imagination, he must quickly put it into the category of childhood. The common theme, fun = foolish, naive and childish.

And, perhaps most useful, were select comments about the house from Boing Boing readers. While many readers saw the house as a gimmick, an ostentatious display of trust fund excess or simply dangerous, a few other readers rose to the defense of the space :

"Haha, I knew a bunch of boingers would be big downers on this. This just in: Boingboing readers have decided that having fun is irresponsible."

"Dude, this is totally killer!! That's a frickin dream-house right there. Closing my eyes and ears to all of the bummer comments… ignorance is bliss."

Conclusion of the moment, a fun house is a battleground around the concept of fun!

Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized

Finding a Fun House: What makes a place fun?

March 17th, 2009
No comments

(This is an excerpt from a longer argument building a description of fun and linking it to the much more explored subject of play.)

On face value the question rings true. Some places do seem more fun than others and wondering "What makes a place fun?" is equivalent to asking: "Where is a fun place we can go?"


Of course, the simplest questions can belie a complexity not obvious at casual glance. After all, fun itself is an amorphous concept that resists a universal categorization. "What is fun?"
  • Taking a nap is fun.
  • Driving fast is fun.
  • Playing football is fun.
  • Getting promoted is fun.
  • Meeting new people is fun.
  • My job is fun.
  • I had a fun time last night.
  • This weekend will be fun.

What any individual finds "fun" is ultimately contingent on a personal framework of desires, interests and intentions as well as the action of the individual themselves.  In contrast to classic concepts of aesthetics that posit the nature of beauty in and of the object itself, the aesthetic of fun balances on the relationship of the individual to the object. Disneyland is not fun, going to Disneyland is fun. A place itself is not fun or not fun. Rather, what we do in a place structures the experience of the fun. Fun is contingent on the person and the place, present in neither and dependant on both.


This notion of contingency is not new within the world of game design, a discipline focused on creating, measuring and delivering fun as an economic metric of sales success. Fun games sell.

Game designer Sid Meier is famously quoted as saying “A game is a series of interesting choices.” (For one reference to this bit of game lore, see: http://www.half-real.net/dictionary/ ) In his remark, Meier points to the contingent nature of games and fun itself. What Meier assumes in his quote is that fun relates to the concept of choice, and that this choice must be interesting. In other words, choices themselves point to the necessity not only of a contingency between the player and the game, but to a complex and solvable sort of field that makes play possible.

Chris Crawford, likewise has argued for the dependency of games on a noun/verb dichotomy that favors the action of the verb (For a good discussion on this idea, see: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2005/01/nouns_and_verbs.html ). In other words, the nouns, the subject of play and its place, matter less than the contingency, the actions adhered to the people, places and things by the player.  In a simple sense, it’s not where you are or what you have, but what you do that defines the fun. Again, the contingency of the player frames the question of fun. No amount of “fun” things will replace any amount of fun action. Or even more strictly, things are not fun, playing with things is fun.

The question, then, “What makes a place fun?” appears to ponder the imponderable. The fun does not come from the objects or the place, but exists in the space and interaction between the player and place. Beauty may be in objects, but fun is in the moment of object interaction. To extend Crawford, nouns contain beauty, fun occurs in verbs.

Looking at Meier and Crawford side-by-side, we see a dilemma, though. If fun is only the moment of action, then the idea of fun itself dissolves. Fun in this sense is a flash of light, a transient phenomenon, a luminal experience that resists its own definition. Creating a fun game, or a fun place, would be like taking a snapshot of motion. Once the picture is taken, the subject, the motion, is gone. What remains is only a sign for the thing, the thing disappearing even as you attempt to capture it.
Of course, game developers make fun games and game players routinely describe games that they have played as fun and games that they expect to play as fun. 

The trouble comes with trying to reconcile the nature of fun with ease at which we use the term.  Because what we mean by fun is not reduced to the indivisible moment of action, rather points to the tangible contingency or interaction between the player and the played. Fun includes the memory of the past and the expectations of the future. The central contingency of fun is the conceptual connecting point of the past and the present.

So how does fun relate to places or games?

These observations, thankfully, do not reduce the question, “What makes a place fun?” to absurdity. Instead, they point to a central contradiction: Fun may operate as a contingency in the moment of experience. Fun may not be in the place or in the objects of the place, a property to be experienced universally.  But like a ghost, fun lingers in the place, haunting with a memory and an echo of a feeling and an active experience that once was and might be once again. In this way, the fun house is the twin to the haunted house—a place imbibed with a perceivable sprit, an active history linked to a past action and an ongoing manifestation, an imbibed future.

The question “What makes a place fun?” then, may be read as contingent itself. The question both poses a plea to remember the past—what made this place fun?—along with a hope for the future—what will make this place fun again? Fun is never present, but only lingers as a memory and shimmers as promise, a context in the present moment.

As result of this fundamental contingency, fun becomes a portable concept, referring to a matrix of hopes and memories, recollections and expectations, ambiguous in its nature. 
(Next up: Finding a Play House: What makes a place playful?)
Questions waiting answers:

* What is play?
* What is the relationship of play to fun?
* What, exactly, is an "interesting choice"?
* How do the concepts described here relate to other notions of fun, such as Koster's A Theory of Fun?

Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized

Fun and Games with Architecture

February 20th, 2009
No comments

Some recent links sifted from the great shifting data mass of the Interwebs:

Electronic Playgrounds
http://www.physorg.com/news109517949.html 

What happens when an international playground equipment maker decides to go digital? i.play is supposed to blend together the fun of videogames with the physical activity of a playground. To my mind, what this really does is drastically misunderstand both videogames and playgrounds. Why so? As a game, the scenarios seem pretty routine, a virtual version of tag. As a playground, it's pretty sterlie–not a lot of use participation besides running around (and you don't need a playground for that) and not a lot of narrative content (Why are we running around?).
On my list of things to read, a masters thesis on the relationship between architecture and videogame development. What seems most promising is the suggestion that architectural design and game design share enough connecting tissues to use one to talk about the other. At the very least, the idea of player-centric game design as a way to rethink the ossified method of designing an architectural program is a great idea!

Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11754

What does architecture have to do with games? For Michael Nitsche the answer is 3D. Plenty of writers have noticed the inherent spatiality of games. But Michael tackles the subject in a manner more useful to thinking about the connection of architecture to games by honing in on 3D games. Sure, there are all kinds of non-3D games. But the market has definitely favored 3D virtual spaces. So, this book is particularly relevant in its analysis of those games spaces. I've read through the introduction (available on the MIT link above) and am looking forward to reading the rest of the book. My big question as I aborb Michae's ideas is this: OK, we can borrow certain forms of architectural theory to talk about game space. But what can we borrow from game space to talk about architectural spaces? See the post above for possible answer!

Also, check out Michael's interview with Henry Jenkins:

http://henryjenkins.org/urban_pl.html



Cluclu Land

There's a lot of great blogs and a lot of smart people. One of my favorite places to find both is Versus Cluclu Land. The topics vary, but the blog never ever worries about coming off too smart. As a result, it always seems to have something that gets you thinking. Recently, a conversation about Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk and aesthetics has sucked me in!

Unusual Life

In a world of endless weirdism, here's a blog that helps track some of those weird places.

Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized

Architects and Game Designers: Articulate Builders

February 17th, 2009
No comments

“Architects are builders who theorize – articulate builders.”

– Mark Wigley, Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University. (From an interview in BLDBLOG)

Not only do I think this is a tasty quote about the nature of architecture, I think it would serve equally well for a game designer.

Uncategorized

Architecture, stories and the importance of characters

January 15th, 2009
No comments
The idea of a narrative environment isn't new. For as long as designers have considered the symbolic potential of landscape and architectural designs, the foundation for seeing space as story were in place.
So, it's pretty common to for architects to discuss the program of a building, for instance, in terms of its dramatic pacing or a facade in terms of its literary possibilities. What you don't hear much about are the characters which make literary storytelling work. Stories have characters. So don't narrative environments need them too?
I suppose the assumption is that the building's viewer is the character and the design of a place seeks to embody the viewer into a specific, designed role–shopper, tourist, voyeur, adventurer, explorer, etc.
Then you encounter the well-known, but less-scrutinized character mechanics of the Disney parks. Sure, Disney is about as narrative as any designed place can be. And part of the reason why just might have to do with the odd use of characters.
A site that collects the various character appearances and rates them according to frequency provides a glimpse into the attraction and power of costumed characters wandering in a heavily themed storybook world:

http://home.att.net/~disneysue/characters/wdw/disneyrare.html

Some key things to consider about the Disney park characters:
  • They all anchor specific stories, or story arcs in the Disney world.
  • Most of the costumes are so elaborate and sculpural that they qualify as a sort of architecture in their own right
  • The locations and frequencies of the character appearances are tightly managed, or maybe more percisely scripted, So, for example, don't expect to see Captain Jack Sparrow wandering in Tomorrowland (unless as a part of the time-space rupturing parades that allow the entire Disney subconscious to flow, temporarily, throughout all lands).
  • All of the characters will sign autographs. So, while most Disney attractions stand mute, providing only pictures, the characters give a script, a symbol of materiality more personal and seemingly more rare than any other Disney souvenir. In this way, the character autograph is the most perfect tourist memento–something intimate but ultimately fake and removed–a pretend signature of a pretend person written by an employ temporarily inhabiting a portable structure.
In terms of videogames, that most environmental form of storytelling, you can see a similar reflection in the use of character, and some opportunities:
  • Game characters are as much a part of the gameplay as the game story. Interactive characters that only exist to forward the plot have fallen out of favor in terms of characters that both advance the plot and provide interactive possibility. Fallout 3 stands a perfect example here, where you talk to characters to forward the plot, and the game.
  • As a result, the characters in a game work much as the architecture does, limiting action, providing focus and allowing opportunity. In every game that asks the player, "Go find person X" could easily be replaced with "Go find place Y".
  • When characters are done well, they are placed and paced as carefully has the locations they inhabit. Finding the hermit on the hill or being sent to look for the princess in another castle.recognizes the inherent spatiality of character in an environmental story.
  • Game characters may not sign autographs, but they typically grant players information or items key to a quest.
Where does this lead? Well, Disneyland and videogames both integrate character into place by way of making the narrative ahere to the place. Is this something other narrative environments could model? At the very least, it does seem that it would make architecture more fun if they did!

Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized

Tilt-Shift for Dummies

January 8th, 2009
No comments

OK, the tilt-shift technique–the one that makes real photos look like shots of miniature models by way of manipulating the depth of field–may be the fad of the moment. But it also points a finger at just how delicate our grasp of media is in a much more profound way. Without much effort, we can fool the eye that an image of a real place is actually an image of a fake place. The point is, of course, that media can very well be the message. It also happens to support the argument that mediation of any type is a step toward fantasy. Why else do we see the tilt-shift universe as a cute, wonderful and magical doll house world?

Which only makes http://tiltshiftmaker.com/ all  that much cooler. The  Web site is dedicated to the technique and provides a very simple, but quite effective tool for turning your images into tilt-shift fantasylands, 
Here's my view of Aspen, from the gondola courtesy of tiltshiftmaker (and yes, I know, Aspen wasn't real in the first place!):

Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized

Architecture and Planning: It’s All Fun and Games

December 29th, 2008
No comments

As I work on wrapping up my end-of-the year, I have a handful of links that deserve commentary, but get a structured dump in the interest of making things neat:

Cities as as systems/games and systems literacy 
Thinking in systems can help us make better games, of course. But can thinking about cities as games help us make better games?


Cities are systems, or rather, many systems that interconnect. Like buildings, they can be thought of as having layers, each changing at its own pace. If those layers are loosely coupled, the city — like the building — can adapt.

Recently, new urban layers/systems have started to emerge. They are made up of rapidly proliferating computing power, carried by people and embedded in the environment, used to access vast amounts of data.

At the same time, games have given rise to a new form of literacy —systemic literacy. However, to date, players have mostly inhabited the systems that make up games. They can read them. Writing, on the other hand, is another matter. True systemic literacy means being able tochange the systems you inhabit.

True read/write systemic literacy can be used to craft games, yes. But it can also be used to see that many other problems and challenges in daily life are systemic ones.


Here the author asks a very good question about our need for authenticity in hobby models. His solution is proposed as a project:


A few things collided in my head a while ago:

* How much I like model railway lay-outs (a lot)

* A wondering about why model railway lay-outs always evoke the past - rarely the future

Be sure to follow the blog to keep up to date on the project status, dubbed Lyddle End 2050, or check the tag lyddleend2050 on Delicious  or Flickr .

Reflexive Architecture in Second Life 

Second Life might be getting a little long in the tooth. Still, productive prototypers continue to find uses for the world. In this case, mocking up smart materials that provide a responsive program give a glimpse into the potential beauty, and visual clutter, of the new modern building of tomorrow.

Original Sin  
The New York Times, a little late to the party perhaps, recaps how architects use SL to prototype play and peddle their wares.

Dubai 
When it comes to architecture and fun, you have to keep tabs on Dubai. A review of a recent book on the city state underlines the book's subtitle–"The vulnerability of success".

Gamespace  
A collection of papers and the outline of a dissertation in development, all situated in the intersection of games and architecture and focused on spatiality.

And, as always, take a look at the Delicious blog roll. I keep that up to date with promising links of relevant interest.

Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized

Architects Just Wanna Have Fun

December 19th, 2008
No comments

I can only imagine what kind of wild parties star architects throw. At least, they give the impression of having a really good time with their amusing structures designed to mask their obvious playfulness with somber theorizing and mannered justifications.

Still, I figure the vast rank and file of environmental designers dream about weird, wild and kooky structures. They just don't get as many obvious chances to express them.
This is the conclusion I come to when thinking about things like the Google SketchUp Gingerbread House Design Competition. On first glance, this is just a bit of seasonal good cheer and some sly marketing fun put on by Google to get its SketchUp community to try some new things. Likewise, this little competition with no prizes touches the exact point I want to make, namely that inside every architect is a child that wants to play with design and make something unabashedly fun.

And Google is not alone in mashing up the architectural competition with holiday food models. Offbeathomes.com (a very eclectic and cool architectural blog I recently stumbled across), has its own portfolio of notable gingerbread homes and points to Bake for a Change , eco-friendly gingerbread house builds .

Now if we could only get the housing industry to put so much creative effort and joy into the production of actual fun domiciles!


Posted via email from buzzcut blog

Uncategorized