PowerPoint Presentation Lecture

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computer games fdm 20c introduction to
digital media lecture 15.02.2005
warren sack / film digital media department /
university of california, santa cruz
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outline

• computer games how do they work?
• how do they work behind the screen? i.e., how
  do they work from the perspective of an engineer?
• a simple example of pong in flash
• how do they work in front of the screen? i.e.,
  how do they work for the audience or participant?
• sherry turkle on computer games and processes of
  identification
• henry jenkins on computer games, gender and space

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whats in a game engine?

• graphics
• physics
• ai
• ...and a lot more

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game mods

• example development environment epics unreal
  engine http//udn.epicgames.com/Two/WebHome

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movies with game engines

• example tum raider http//www.machinima.com/film
  s.php?id383
• utilities for creating films from a game engine
  http//www.machinima.com/utilities.php?id50

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programming an example

• pong in flash
• physics what makes the ball bounce?
• ai can an opponent be programmed to play against
  a human player?

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games research and development

• example groups and events
• the game developers conference
  http//www.gdconf.com/
• game studies academic journal
  http//gamestudies.org/
• research groups
• academic e.g., Center for Computer Games
  Research, IT University of Copenhagen
• industry and, of course, the folks at Microsoft,
  Electronic Arts, etc.
• art
• e.g., the show Bang the Machine Computer Gaming
  Art and Artifacts (Jan 17Apr 4, 2004 _at_ Yueba
  Buena Arts Center, SF)
• e.g., alternative games competition, Rhizome.org
  at the New Museum, New York City, March 2004

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what makes a good game?

• play? or,
• story?

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ludology versus narratology

• "One of the reasons I think Myst was successful
  was that people are used to being entertained
  with stories. There're lots of ways to entertain,
  but the two primary ones are storywhich is
  television and movies and books and all thatand
  the other is gameplayblackjack and football and
  Parcheesi. Therere other ones, but those are two
  we are very familiar with. I think the mass
  market audience is more familiar with story. The
  first campfire the guys on the hunt come back
  with a story to tell--that is something anybody
  can partake in.
• Rand Miller, co-creator of Myst and Riven,
  speaking about his new game Uru

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what makes a good game?

• play? or,
• story? or,
• realism? or, is it
• something else?

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history of computer games

• see http//www.videotopia.com/games.htm
• see SpaceWar! on the CD for the NMR
• see The Applet Arcade http//www.theappletarcade.
  com/
• do games get better and better every year?
• how? is it
• play? or,
• story? or,
• realism? or, is it
• something else?
• or maybe they dont get better every year? maybe
  they get worse?

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two issues to consider from film theory

• identification
• how do people relate to the characters and action
  on the screen?
• e.g., what do women do/think when the hero is a
  man versus when the hero is a woman?
• what does a designer or filmmaker do to
  facilitate the audiences/players relations with
  characters and actions on the screen?
• e.g., filmmaking techniques POV, suture, the 180
  degree rule, etc.
• space

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two issues to consider from film theory

• identification
• space
• what is the space of cinema/games? what can the
  audience/player see or do there?
• what can the designer or filmmaker do to
  increase, decrease, or change the space?
• e.g., montage and also think about the filming
  and editing techniques llisted above concerning
  identification

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two issues to consider from film theory

• identification sherry turkle on identification
• space henry jenkins on space and gender

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more than identification

• When you play a video game you enter into the
  world of the programmers who made it. You have
  to do more than identify with a character on the
  screen. You must act for it. Identification
  through action has a special kind of hold. Like
  playing a sport, it puts people into a highly
  focused, and highly charged state of mind. For
  many people, what is being pursued in the video
  game is not just a score, but an altered state.
• from Sherry Turkle, Video Games and Computer
  Holding Power

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video games as ...

• video games as metaphysical machines
• ...as perfect mirrors
• ...as drugs
• ...as contests
• from Sherry Turkle, Video Games and Computer
  Holding Power

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identification

• Identification is known to psycho-analysis as the
  earliest expression of an emotional tie with
  another person. It plays a part in the early
  history of the Oedipus complex. A little boy will
  exhibit a special interest in his father he
  would like to grow like him and be like him, and
  take his place everywhere. We may say simply that
  he takes his father as his ideal.
• from Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the
  Analysis of the Ego
• Cf., Jacques Lacan on The Mirror Stage, and
  writings about identification in film theory by
  Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, Christian Metz,
  Stephen Heath, and others

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evocative objects

• What is Sherry Turkle referring to when she
  writes about evocative objects?
• Melanie Klein, along with Sigmund Freud and
  W.R.D. Fairbairn, contributed ideas to make up
  what we now know as object relations. First Freud
  introduced the idea of object choice, which
  referred to a child's earliest relationships with
  his caretakers. Such people were objects of his
  needs and desires. The relationship with them
  became internalized mental representations.
  Subsequently Melanie Klein coined the term part
  objects, for example the mother's breast, which
  played an important role in early development and
  later in psychic disturbances, such as excessive
  preoccupation with certain body parts or aspects
  of a person as opposed to the whole person.
  Finally, Fairbairn and others developed the
  so-called object relations theory. According to
  it, the child who did not receive good enough
  mothering increasingly retreated into an inner
  world of fantasy objects with whom he tried to
  satisfy his need for real objects, that was for
  relationships.
• Linda M. Woolf, http//www.webster.edu/woolflm/kl
  ein.html

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video games discussed by turkle

• space war
• pong
• asteroids
• pac man
• joust
• adventure
• working versions web.utanet.at/nkehrer/jae.html
• history of video games high score the
  illustrated history of electronic games by rusel
  demaria johnny wilson (mcgraw-hill, 2002)

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how did we get from here...
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...to here?
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space

• In the 19th century, children living along the
  frontier or on Americas farms enjoyed free range
  over a space which was ten square miles or more.
  Elliot West (1992) describes boys of 9 or 10
  going camping alone for days on end, returning
  when they were needed to do chores around the
  house. The early 20th century saw the development
  of urban playgrounds in the midst of city
  streets, responding to a growing sense of
  childrens diminishing access to space and an
  increased awareness of issues of child welfare
  (Cavallo, 1991), but autobiographies of the
  period stress the availability of vacant lots and
  back allies which children could claim as their
  own play environments. Sociologists writing about
  the suburban America of my boyhood found that
  children enjoyed a play terrain of one to five
  blocks of spacious backyards and relatively safe
  subdivision streets (Hart, 1979). Today, at the
  end of the 20th century, many of our children
  have access to the one to five rooms inside their
  apartments. Video game technologies expand the
  space of their imagination. -- Henry Jenkins

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space whats a boys space?

• is it a place where boys can...
• enjoy lurid images?
• prove themselves with stunts?
• gain mastery?
• (re)produce hierarchies?
• vent aggressive feelings?
• engage in scatological humor?
• competitively role-play?
• and bond together
• these criteria are from Henry Jenkins article

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space whats a girls space?

• Brenda Laurel says Girl space is a space of
  secrets and romance, a space of ones own in a
  world which offers you far too little room to
  explore. (quoted in the Jenkins article)
• Is Laurel correct?

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games and gender

• whats a girls game? The Sims?
• whats a boys game? Counter-Strike?
• what about Asteroids? Space Invaders? Joust?
  Tetris?
• remember the thirteen-year-old girl in a small
  family café in New York Citys Little Italy who
  is playering Asteroids at the beginning of
  Turkles article.

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hot and cool media

• Telephone is a cool medium, or one of low
  definition, because the ear is given a meager
  amount of information. And speech is a cool
  medium of low definition, because so little is
  given and so much has to be filled in by the
  listener. On the other hand, hot media do not
  leave so much to be filled in or completed by the
  audience. Hot media are, therefore, low in
  participation, and cool media are high in
  participation or completion by the audience. 
  Naturally, therefore, a hot medium ... has very
  different effects on the user from a cool
  medium...
• Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, pp. 22-23

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hot or cool?

• so, are video games hot or cool media?

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next time

• medium as prosthesis
• marshall mcluhan
• norbert wiener