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Playing Research: Methodological approaches to game analysis
Abstract
L'estudi de l'estetica dels jocs es una practica recent que abasta menys de dues decades. A diferencia de les teories de jocs en matematiques o ciencies socials, que son molt mes antigues, els jocs es van convertir en objecte d'estudi per a les humanitats nomes quan els videojocs i jocs d'ordinador es van tornar populars. Aquesta falta d'interes continuada pot semblar estranya, pero nomes si considerem que els jocs tradicionals i els jocs d'ordinador son intrinsecament similars, la qual cosa no es aixi. Podem intentar explicar aquesta manca assenyalant que les elits estetiques i teoriques que conreen l'analisi d'objectes artistics dels mitjans (literatura, arts visuals, teatre, musica) solen considerar els jocs com una cosa trivial i popular. Pero aixo no explica el fet que els estudis estetics sobre jocs siguin possibles en l'actualitat, i fins i tot en alguns entorns academics, s'estimulin i rebin suport amb beques. Que ha passat per provocar aquest canvi? Text complet (PDF) Node complet (PDF)
... As Ryan [11] argues, digital games (and table top roleplaying games before them) have enabled the combination of traditional game's ludic elements with the fictional and narrative aspects of the media that preceded them. With this in mind, this paper is mainly concerned with games that take place in spatially navigable virtual environments populated by entities and (or) objects with whom players can interact; what Aarseth has called "games in virtual environments" [18]. Examples of such games would be Oblivion, GTA IV, Call of Duty IV and Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, among many others. ...
... The contrast between the impact on the design and the power dynamic in the creation process can be provided by an outside perspective on the outcome of the process together with the perspective of an insider and participant in the process. This perspective on the outcome, taken from previous literature, will be contextualized with the help of critical play (Konzack 2002) and play experience (Aarseth 2003;Mäyrä 2008) on the side of the author. The author has been an avid player of WoW at the time in question and has the background knowledge to understand the relevance of the outcome of the participatory process. ...
Critical research into games and player labour has shown that player creators remain disempowered despite the impact of their work. On the other hand, player-creators enjoy their work, they freely and in an informed manner consent to working without pay, and they can use their unpaid labour as experience and CV-entries. This paper aims to critically discuss these arguments in the light of a specifically chosen case study. The analysis is informed by expert interviews of player creators and it uses Carpentier’s (2016) analytic framework for participatory processes. This analysis of the power relationship between player creators and game developer is elemental for the discussion around unpaid player labour. In this case the company has enough power to purposefully keep the involvement of players secret which supports the notion of exploitation of free labour. The discussion suggests possible ways forward and connects to the ongoing unionization movement in the industry.
... The question is asked to design research in different forms (Järvinen 2008;Cowley et al. 2014;William and Alexander 2017). For design research, this question is pertinent as it extends the scope of design analysis -from studying the configurations in and of the game structure (Aarseth 2007) (called design analysis of game structure) -to the relation between the rules and the created experiences (Cowley et al. 2014) (called design analysis of experiences). Given the expanded scope, design research in games faces an epistemological challenge (Howell and Stevens 2019). ...
This paper focuses on the relationship between rules and player experiences. We begin the paper by asking, "How does a game's design create fun for players?" only to reframe it to "How do players use games to create fun?" This reframing has three benefits. First, it considers players as active creators instead of passive consumers of experience (Players as Designers). Second, it views gameplay as a crafted and intentional property apart from being an emergent property. In order to approach this question, gameplays of six abstract strategy games are subjected to event analysis. The analysis results in identifying events across five layers. Through events, we can give ontological attention to gameplay and how players experience fun while creating the gameplay. We found that players create gameplay with intent. Based on our findings, we propose Intent Obfuscation Theory in Board Games. The paper contributes to the design research in games in three ways. First, it views gameplay as the ultimate particular and players as designers. This expansion, we find pertinent for design research. Second, is identification and characterising gameplay through different events. Thirdly, proposal of the Intent Obfuscation Theory in Board Games, which we believe will find a place in player experience studies in board games.
... Aarseth has considered playing the game ourselves as the best method to study games, only using observation as a supportive method. (Aarseth 2003.) As in any interdisciplinary field, it is common to combine and apply various approaches whilst developing new methodologies. ...
This paper discusses the challenge of studying play and gaming activities in situations where participants are reluctant to disclose their participation, or in which researchers face limitations that prevent direct observations. To answer this question, we have focused on the material traces and clues of play left by the participants, terming this approach 'ludological semiotics': the study and interpretation of traces, clues and remnants of game and play activities. We base our methodology on historical and archaeological studies of traces, notably drawing from Carlo Ginzburg's method of clues. We will scrutinize the traces and clues of play we have identified and documented, presenting their categorization and our interpretation model. We will contemplate what assumptions about play can be made based on these clues. Finally, our approach addresses some methodological challenges in contemporary game and play studies.
... The advantage of participant observation here is that it does grant insight into also the culture of the game and the way it is being played (Boellstorff, 2006;Lammes, 2007). This is difficult to do without participating in the game and the community oneself and without playing the game (Aarseth, 2003). Participant observation has been widely used in games research for example to study game literacy and learning in tabletop RPGs (Garcia, 2020), online communities (Boellstorff et al., 2012), and even competitive play (Taylor & Witkowski, 2010), all of which are areas that are in different ways similar to competitive 40k. ...
This study compares analog Warhammer 40k to the way the game is being played on Tabletop Simulator. It focuses on properties of analog and digital gaming as well as player participation in creating both the game and its community. The study uses participant observation and an interface analysis and is based on more than a year of weekly games and participation in analog and digital tournaments. It concludes that the digital version of the game de-emphasizes crafting and making which leads to a reduced barrier of entry. Social interaction is not the same online, but there are moments of collective narrative building. The interface of the game is leveraging the possibilities of digital media and goes in the same direction as design research for table-top games. The biggest difference of that the digital version is networked player creativity that makes it possible to play this game online and improves it.
Computer games can be described as assemblages which, to use a term from Science and Technology Studies, provide different scripts that set the scene for user practices. These scripts include the game world’s possibilities and restrictions and the degree of freedom provided to the users by the overall gameplay. Lately, a new genre of games challenges these specifics. So-called editor games like Minecraft or LittleBigPlanet, which entered the market with sweeping success, are not games in the traditional sense in which players follow certain rules guided by narrative elements framing the gameplay. Instead, these sandbox games – often labeled as ‘digital LEGO’ or ‘co-creative open worlds’ – afford the construction of a game world rather than playing within one. Following a praxeological approach, this essay will try to make co-creative processes in editor games accessible as a research object, by performing a critical evaluation of established methods within Game Studies complemented by an experimental focus group analysis.
In this paper we want to argue for a more inclusive understanding of the notion of gameplay which implies practices that are normally considered non-default, marginal, transgressive, subversive, or other forms of gameplay. Instead of considering these practices of gameplay as non-standard forms which exist at the margins of whatever could be considered gameplay, we argue that these practices should very much be considered as standard forms of gameplay or simply as “normal” gameplay. We believe that these practices are essential for a comprehensive understanding of the medium. While this idea seems not to be controversial in game culture or in the realm of game praxis it seems that especially computer game theory and the computer game industry are driving this form of “othering”. In both cases the distinction which comes with this provides certain discursive agents (such as theorists and industry representatives) with power over other agents (practitioners and players). To show these mechanisms we will first re-read common notions of gameplay and show how non-standard practices of gameplay are either given different, at times derogatory names, or they are completely omitted in order to mark them as “other” forms of gameplay. We will then look at notions of non-standard forms of gameplay such as spoil sporting, cheating, innovative gameplay, transgressive, subversive play, authentic gameplay and show how this othering is here perpetuated on the theoretical level while although most of the authors of these analyses paradoxically intend to rehabilitate these practices as belonging to a wider notion of gameplay. Eventually we will suggest an inclusive perspective on gameplay which is based on a wide notion of gameplay and which not only includes practices that are commonly considered marginal but puts them in the center of gameplay.
This paper deals with play as an important methodological issue when studying games as texts and is intended as a practical methodological guide. After considering text as both the structuring object as well as its plural processual activations, we argue that different methodological considerations can turn the focus towards one of the two. After outlining and synthesizing a broad range of existing research we move beyond the more general advice to be reflective about the type of players that we are, and explore two methodological considerations more concretely. First of all, we discuss the various considerations to have with regards to the different choices to make when playing a game. Here we show how different instrumental and free strategies lay bare different parts of the game as object or process. Secondly, we consider how different contexts in which the game and the player exist, can function as different reference points for meaning construction and the way they can put limitations on the claims we can make about our object of analysis.
The rules we play by carry a structural role in our gameplay experiences as they shape the context and the agency we play through. While rules have long been part of scholarship around play and games, an overwhelming majority of these works carry an implicitly formalist approach, framing the rules as an unchanging part of the artifact. In this article, we highlight works that contribute to a diverse notion of rules and argue that a conscious and reflective understanding of rules can be a tool to shape and experiment with our agencies in games. We also introduce a novel game research method, Introspective Rulebook Method, a living document where the researcher-player reflects on and transforms the rules they play by, as a tool to invent alternative play-practices and metagames. Overall, our work here contributes to a broad understanding of game rules, and the capacity we carry in shaping the games we play.
In this paper, we describe a method to analyse computer games. The analysis method is based on computer games in particular and not some kind of transfer from other fi eld or studies - even though of course it is inspired from other kinds of analysis methods from varying fi elds of studies. The method is based on seven different layers of the computer game: hardware, program code, functionality, game play, meaning, referentiality, and socio-culture. Each of these layers may be analysed individually, but an entire analysis of any computer game must be analysed from every angle. Thereby we are analysing both technical, aesthetic and socio-cultural perspectives.
Computer games are undoubtedly the most diverse and fast-changing cultural genre that ever existed. And perhaps most importantly, computer games represent a new mode of aesthetic as well as social discourse, an alternative to the narrative, which has been the leading paradigm until now: the primary means to convey knowledge and experience. Now, however, the mode of simulation is sued as an effective pedagogical tool that privileges active experimentation with its subject material rather than observation. Simulation is also a way to explore the partly unknown, to test models and hypotheses, and thus to construct and acquire new knowledge in a way narrative never could. The article at hand defends the claim that spatiality is a central theme in computer games. It starts by expanding this claim: Spatiality is the defining element in computer games. They are essentially concerned with spatial representation and negotiation, and therefore a classification of computer games can be based on how they represent space.
For a longer discussion of " games in virtual environments
For a longer discussion of " games in virtual
environments, " see Aarseth 2003.
Children and Hyperreality The Loss of the Real in Contemporary Childhood and Adolescence
- Eugene Provenzo
Provenzo, Eugene, Jr. (2001): "Children
and Hyperreality The Loss of the Real in
Contemporary Childhood and Adolescence" http:
//culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/
provenzo.html