Presentacin de PowerPoint

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Computerspil II Game Ideology (15/04/02)
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ideology
- Powerful classes control society through false
consciousness classic Marxism - A conceptual
framework for people to interpret and make sense
of the world (specially material
conditions).Althusser - Hegemony is the
socialization process by which our cognitive and
interpretive capacities are shapedGramsci -
Ideology produces culture and is embedded in
symbols and cultural practices and
objectscultural studies
assumptions about what is natural
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Leslie Haddon

• In is 1988 'Electronic and Computer Games
  The History of an Interactive Medium'. He notes
  that as soon as games became sophisticated enough
  to have "at least some narrative content", they
  could immediately be discussed and analysed as
  'media'
• "The storyline of the games allowed
  commentators to see the new form as a medium, and
  thus comparable to other media texts. Indeed, it
  was this feature which enabled the transfer of
  concerns about 'violence' from areas like TV and
  film to the new entertainment machines" (Haddon,
  1988, p.62)

matthew southern
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games as objects of study

• Effects (psychology, education, social,
  ethnography, regulations...)
• Aesthetics(narrative, interactivity, visual
  aspects, art, language, themes/genres...)
• Cultural issues(gender, identity, violence,
  ideology, communities, nationality...)
• Gameplay(definitions of games, structure, time,
  multiplayer, platforms, case studies...)

ideology
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ideological analysis?
Would it be possible to attempt a socio-political
interpretation of Jetpac, as we might for the
film Star Wars or the comic Judge Dredd? We could
draw attention to the fact that Jetman is not
Jetwoman, a point that is not always taken for
granted in videogames in terms of Spectrum
science fiction alone, Snowball and Shadowfire
have strong female characters. We could identify
a colonialist project in his diachronic
storyline, which as noted above involves
travelling from planet to planet stealing the
natural bounties and destroying the inhabitants.
We could, I think, link the character of Jetman
as established by the Ultimate inlay with a
specifically British cultural type that would
have been very familiar to both the Stampers and
their audience in 1983 he is a cosmic Arthur
Daley from the TV show Minder or Del-boy Trotter
from the sit-com Only Fools and Horses, a
loveable con-man who attempts to make a million
by skiving off his paid job and relieving other
people of their valuables. On the whole, though,
there is not enough meat to Jetmans character
and narrative to make a more thorough analysis
particularly useful. The comic strip aside,
Jetman is what he does collects, builds and
shoots, and there are limits to what we can say
about his cultural meaning.
will brooker
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the evil force
Almost since their inception, videogames have
been met with rampant prejudice, legislation and
stigma. Indeed, they are often 'beneath popular
culture'. This is usually related to violence,
children and education, or diminished social
skills. For example, in 1991 Eugene Provenzo
claimed, "Games are pointless to most
educational, social and cultural
needs" Highlighting - as we will - the
relationship between games and defence
industries, he also says "The use of video games
to recruit people into the military in our own
nation is already under way"(Provenzo, 1991, p.
132). "What are we teaching our children?" he
demands to know (Provenzo, 1991, p. 124, his
emphasis). And of course in 1982 the US Surgeon
General famously stated - without any evidence,
that children are so desensitised that"When
they see another child being molested by a third
child, they just sit back"
matthew southern
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gaming regulations europe

• Mandatory Eire, Finland, Portugal, UK.
• Voluntary Denmark, France, Germany, Spain.
• None Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg,
  Netherlands, Norway, Sweden.
• Questions human sexual activity, violence
  towards humans or animals, death/injury, blood or
  gore, nudity or excretory functions, techiques to
  stimulate or inspire criminal offences.

Content!
source michael rawlinson
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what about gameplay?

• structural characteristics of video games prevent
  them from dealing with serious content, namely,
  its ergodic nature (it is not only
  representation)
• not having to face consequences of actions, all
  actions are reversible
• OSGON proposal (to discuss in seminar)

gonzalo frasca
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a case for the humanities?

• Not what they mean (hermeneutics/representation
  only)
• How do they work (poetics/gameplay)

Ideology works in both levels...
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Ideological analysis some questions to ask

• What are the assumptions about what is natural,
  just and right?
• What (and who) do these assumptions distort or
  obscure?
• What are the power relations? How are they made
  to appear as if they are normal or good? What
  negative aspects are excluded?
• Look for binaries, oppositions (good/evil,
  natural/unnatural, tame/wild, young/old). Which
  term of the binary is privileged, what is
  repressed or devalued by this privileging of one
  term over the other?
• What people, classes, areas of life, experiences,
  are 'left out', silenced?
• What cultural assumptions and what 'myths' shape
  experience and evaluation?
• How does the style of presentation contribute to
  the meaning of the text? Style always contains
  meaning.
• What 'utopic kernel', that is, vision of human
  possibility, appears to lie at the heart of the
  understanding of the ideology? The assumption is
  that there will be some vision of the good that
  drives that ideological perspective's imagination
  of the world.

John Lye