Week Three: Mastery and Interactivity

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Week Three Mastery and Interactivity
FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Steven Malliet and Gust de Meyers, and Aphra
  Kerrs essays are effective origin narratives
  about the historical and economic rise of
  computer games.
• Key Ideas from Malliet and deMeyer
• Periodize certain important games and the
  innovations they brought to the gaming culture
  and business models
• Forerunners of computer games are board games,
  childrens hide and seek, cops and robbers
• 1962 a pivotal moment when the first video as we
  recognize it today emerged
• Roles of the godfathers of the computer game
  (23) Willy Higgenbotham, Steve Russell, Ralph
  Baer and Nolan Bushnell and their particular
  contributions
• Higgenbotham brought interest in scientific
  instrumentation to nonscientific audiences with
  his creation of the abstract simulation game
  Tennis for Two (23)--innovation interactivity
  and limited player control --no reward system
• In 1962 Steve Russell developed Spacewar at MIT
  --considered the first computer game

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Key Ideas from Malliet and deMeyer (continued)
• Ralph Baer developed first in-home videogame
  through cable technology-- innovation merged
  television and computer gaming (console idea)
  (24)
• Nolan Bushnell developed Computer Space game in
  1970--innovation a computer game in the pinball
  tradition, first arcade game first created to
  make money (not popular game) developed Pong
  first game hit (arcade idea)
• Videogame industry launched in 1970s standards
  for platforms and genres emerge
• Arcade and console vie for market dominance
• Bushnells Atari corporation dominates and runs a
  near monopoly over the coin-operated arcades game
  market
• Kee Games innovates the ROM chip that improves
  graphics and gameplay accuracy with Tank (which
  introduced the kill or be killed play mode--the
  father of the shoot-em-up
• Midway games innovates microprocessors, and
  introduces the early joystick and fake guns--its
  racing simulator innovates the bonus points
  system for violence--runnig over live creatures
  crossing the road (GTA elevates this gameplay
  element)

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Key Ideas from Malliet and deMeyer (continued)
• 1978 - 1984-- Games industry has first crisis and
  see Japanese games invasion
• Japans history of game machines helps it rise
  quickly in computer games industry
• Taito develops Space Invaders (1978), in
  partnership with Midway --innovations first with
  narrative structure, elevates the reward
  system--endless points, endless play--aliens keep
  coming, used functional sound
• Namecos 1981 launch of Pac-Man pefects the maze
  game genre innovations non-violent content
  appeals to girls, found in arcades and family
  friendly spaces, and becomes the first star of
  the gaming era
• Nintendo and Sega develop new genre the climbing
  or obstacle game, Donkey Kong and Frogger
  respectively
• Ataris Adventure game innovation first
  graphics-based versus text-based adventure game
  it Battlezone game innovation image processing
• Computing power and content development improve
  simultaneously in the early 1980s

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Key Ideas from Malliet and deMeyer (continued)
• Game platforms and genres
• a) Arcades simulation games
• b) Handheld maze and climbing games
  (innovation LCD screen)
• c) Home consoles adventure games
• Nintendo rises to global dominance when U.S.
  games market declines in 1983--oversaturation of
  poor games driven by console market
• Miyamoto develops Mario Brothers from Donkey Kong
• Mario Brothers Innovations (content and
  technology)
• a) Human-like characters (Japanese Manga cartoon
  tradition)
• b) Multi-player mode
• c) Level system--levels of play (analogous to
  chapters)
• d) New opponents, new obstacles, new goals or
  quests
• Super Mario Brothers
• a) Eight worlds and thirty -two levels
• b) Character movements left and right
• c) Power-ups

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Key Ideas from Malliet and deMeyer (continued)
• Although Ninendo supplanted Atari after the
  crisis of overproduction of bad games in the
  1980s, Atari remained competitive with the new
  games leader of that era
• Nintendos lead in the industry was helped by its
  Gameboy handheld gaming technology
• Gameboy revolution
• a) First true handheld game computer
• b) Featured Tetris (addictive and popular --
  psychological hook--making order from chaos
• c) Featured non-violent game
• d) Popularized the puzzle game genre
• Roberta Williams (and husband) developed first
  graphically controlled adventure game Kings
  Quest (w/type in commands)
• Lucasfilm Games developed point and click
  technology--key tech advance typed commands
  replaced with computer mouse
• Rise of strategy game genre (aka God game Sim
  City, Civilization)
• a) highly addictive play(good storytelling, user
  friendly interface--the mouse point and click)
• b) isometric perspective (37)

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Key Ideas from Malliet and deMeyer (continued)
• c) gamers now control who populations, not
  single character
• Adventure and Role-playing games helped make
  console games strong in the market
• Legend of Zelda console game, a major
  breakthrough in role-playing adventure game
  (solve puzzles, earn power-ups, but emphasis on
  character development)
• Street Fighter arcade game introduces the beat
  em ups genre --adapted from martial arts
  movies--Draws attacks from parents and civic
  groups
• Early 1990s sees technology advances and war of
  the bits
• The 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, 128 processors change
  console games forever--Sonic the Hedgehog and
  Virtua Racing games emerge
• Sony Playstation is introduced in 1994 Other
  tech advances
• a) Cartridges challenged with CD-ROM format
• b) Connecting game console to Internet
• c) Color comes to handhelds
• d) Networked consoles and PC games displace
  arcades significantly
• e) 3-D graphics introduced in 1992 ID Game
  developer

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FM 150 VG VIDEOGAME HISTORY AND STRATEGIES

• Key Ideas from Malliet and deMeyer (continued)
• Castle Wolfenstein first 3-D game, highly
  violent
• Doom and Quake First person shooter (FPS) 3-D
• a) Inaugurates first person perspective
• b) Required high level of skill
• c) Heightened realism
• d) Heightened violence
• e) Quake was networked online
• f) Gamers play against other gamers (not
  computer opponent only)
• g) QuakeC-computer language uploaded to Internet
  for gamers to co-create the game--birth of the
  Mod phenom
• 34. Sports, simulation, action adventure games
  also benefit from 3-D technology advances
• Electronic Arts game publisher becomes lucrative
  with NBA Basketball, NHL Hocky and FIFA Soccer
• Tomb Raider interjects gender difference
  --heroine--less violence Lara Croft become
  gamings superstar--Feminism??
• 2-D games persist strategy and RPGs/ Cut scenes
  introduced (42)

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Key Ideas from Malliet and deMeyer (continued)
• 38. Playstation 2, X-Box, and Game Cube consoles
  remain vital even with strong competition from PC
  games
• 39. Game industry leaders in the mid to late
  1990s push for networked or online gaming --
  their future vision MMORPGs
• 40. Playstation 2 Innovation--creation of
  computer console as multimedia machine

• Justin Halls Future of Games Mobile Gaming
• Considers the development of new communication
  technologies that keep us connected to machines
  during every waking moment. Thinks about how
  mobile communication technologies affects new
  modes of gaming, human interaction with machines,
  and social structures.
• Key concepts
• pervasive electronic play
• digital distraction
• cell phone games
• Bot-fighters and SMS gaming movement
• Counter Strike MMOG (anyone familiar with this
  game)
• Read page 52 on surrogate gaming --discuss

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES
Key Ideas from Aphra Kerr, Ian Bogost Kerr on
Digital Games as Text Games as textual systems
emerged in the US during the era of rock roll
music (Nintendo equates with the Beatles, Sega,
the Stones), the Space Race and the Cold
War Games developed by playful hackers embedded
in Military industrial complex--driven by
intrinsic pleasure of experimenting not search
for profit Media discourse about games in 70s-80s
tended to reflect and influence the conservative
political climate culminating with the Reagan
Administration and its subsequent negative
associations--moral panics about health risks of
playing games effects of game content on
values, attitudes and behaviors but some
positive views games provide a safe/alternative
play environment Belief that computers are good
object associated with work education games
conversely are bad object associated with waste
of time waste of human resources
Bogost on The Rhetoric of Video Games Extends
Salen and Zimmermans work, following Johan
Huizinga, on meaningful play (all play means
something--an intricate relationship among game
design, play, and meaning)
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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Bogost on The Rhetoric of Video Games
  (continued)
• Key Concepts
• Community of practice (a subculture of sorts
  organized around a particular game and its
  values, strategies, ideas and approaches to play
  itself
• Recuperating the nature of play from charges of
  unproductive , trifle and leech on normal
  childhood develolpment to useful definition of
  the term--rejoin the functions of play and
  learning
• Possibility space the free space of movement
  within a more rigid structure--rules make play
  possible in the first place (the childhood
  playground is example--children negotiate the
  rules of play)
• Procedurality process is static course of
  action--games represent things through
  procedurality (systems of behaviors based on
  rule-based models--computational algorithms)
• Rhetoric persuasive speech (Plato and
  Aristotle) one example visual rhetoric (ads,
  photos, illustrations) at work in videogames, but
  add to that process-or procedurality
• Procedural Rhetoric--new ways to make claims
  about how things work videogames make persuasive
  arguments with processes (for example filght
  simulators--model rules of how aviation works)
• a) Animal Crossing and the McDonalds advergame

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Bogost on The Rhetoric of Video Games
  (continued)
• Key Concepts
• 6. Procedural Rhetoric (cont)
• b) Americas Army Operations (military-entertain
  ment complex) claims about US military ideology
• Epistemic games (model how a profession works)
• Critical gameplay (reinforcing or challenging
  dominant ideas, social norms and values, and
  understanding gamings truth claims)

• Joost Raessens Computer Games as Participatory
  Media Culture
• Caution against buying into the rhetorics of
  gaming cultures remediation of earlier
  practices of interactivity and participatory
  culture as somehow unique in gamings medium
  specificity
• Earlier moments of participatory culture,
  Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin (373)
• Radio, film and TV had moments and expressions
  of interactivity and participation
• Three specific characteristics of computer games
  as digital media multimediality. virtuality, and
  interactivity (374)

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FM 187 VG TOPICS IN VIDEO/DIGITAL GAME STUDIES

• Joost Raessens Computer Games as Participatory
  Media Culture
• Some Key Words
• Self-organizing communities
• British Cultural Studies
• Frankfurt School
• Media-Effects Determinism
• Coercion (375)
• Hegemony
• Ideology
• Polysemic
• Negotiated /oppositional reading practices
• Turkels culture of simulation (read pg. 377)