Gameness and Negotiable Consequences

1
Gameness and Negotiable Consequences
2
Introduction

• Games often rely on combination of rule-governed
  action and representation.
• The role computing in computer games is to
  facilitate or stand in for rules for action.
• What makes rule-governed action to gaming as
  opposed to serious action?
• To understand the nature of gameness is to
  understand the nature of the acceptance by the
  player exhibits in being governed by the rules.
• Traditionally, gameness is thought to consist in
  the existence of optional or negotiable
  consequences rule-governed actions.
• I will, as an alternative, propose that the heart
  of gameness rather is found in how rules
  ontologically constitute agential properties for
  attitudes with intentionally determined but
  arbitrary valorization.
• Indicate what this view implies about the nature
  of computer games.

3
Outline

• The classic game model.
• Problems with the classic game model.
• The ontological approach.
• The IDAV proposal.
• What the IDAV proposal says about being a game.
• How IDAV invites the notion of a
  deconditionalization machine.

4
The Classic Game Model

• (Juul 2005), drawing on (Huizinga 1950),
  (Caillois 1961), (Avedon Sutton-Smith 1971),
  (Crawford 1982), (Kelley 1988), (Salen
  Zimmerman 2004)
• 1. Games are rule based
• 2. Games have variable, quantifiable outcome..
• 3. The different potential outcomes of the game
  are assigned different values.
• 4. The player exerts effort in order to influence
  the outcome.
• 5. The player is emotionally attached to the
  outcome of the game.
• 6. The same game can be played without real-life
  consequences.
• Rules determine State 1.. State n ? Outcome
• One must distinguish between game as an object,
  game as an activity as a type versus individual
  play session.

5
Definition

• Use of definiendum in definiens player,
  game. real-life
• A physical system used to facilitate acts of type
  A by S qualifies as a game if and only if
• 1. The acts are governed by a set of rules R
• 2. The outcome of the acts have a variable,
  quantifiable value
• 3.  The acts are according to R, ranked as better
  or worse for S.
• 4.  S performs the acts with an effort.
• 5.  It matters to S whether the acts are
  performed or not.
• 6.  The outcome of the acts is negotiable by S

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Problems with the Classic Game Model

• Too narrow The Sims and Microsoft Flight
  Simulator
• Negotiable consequences Russian Roulette,
  Pervasive Games, Serious Games. Why should not
  game session types involve non-negotiable
  consequences?
• The consequences of many rule governed social
  happenings are negotiable or optional. Does
  the model implicitly depend on the application of
  the concept of winning?
• In the contrasting cases (like traffic rules),
  non-negotiability is due to the fact that the
  rules are still in effect!

7
Ontological Approach

• The classic model attempts to locate gameness in
  the acceptance of the prescriptions of the rules.
• The constitutive view is that some rules impose
  new properties specially made for deliberation
  and acceptance (e.g. whether a move is mate,
  and that a particular piece is a rook)
• These rule-based agential properties also
  determine in-game valorization of strategies,
  preferability ranking of available acts etc.
• Could it be that the gameness is found in the
  role rules have in the constitution of agential
  properties of the physical systems in question?

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Searles Theory of Status Functions

• Social ontology (money, marriages, waiters,
  contracts etc) are features of the world that
  are not intrinsic to the phenomena, but rather
  imposed by their role in social practice (Searle
  1995).
• Unlike natural features of the world they exist
  simply in virtue of being believed in.
• Example money
• Trade of goods.
• Privileged goods for standardized trade.
• Issued guarantees for standardized trade (gold
  standard).
• Bank notes with an accepted status function.

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Status Functions

• Status functions exist in virtue of constitutive
  rules of the form
• X counts as Y in C
• We accept (S has power (S does A)).
• We accept (S, the bearer of X, is enabled (S buys
  with X up to the value of five dollars).

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Games and Status Functions

• Very similar
• The rules determine ontic features (money, rooks,
  mates)
• The physical systems are endowed with properties
  with in-game functions, purposes, valorizations
  relative to the game.
• The valorization is not intrinsic but imposed
• However, they
• Do not depend directly on social acceptance
  (single player games, solitary games).
• Do not rely on social sanctions to uphold the
  reality status.
• There is a difference in power and enablement
  in that they rely on special gaming contexts.
• Conjecture game rules are cousins to our
  natural abilities and inclinations to impose
  social ontologies via constitutive rules?

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Acceptance and Constitution

• (1) S believes (X occurs in context C)
• (2) S accepts (X counts as Y in C)
• (3) S believes (Y implies S ought to f)
• (4) S believes (S ought to f)
• What is happening in (2)?

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Deconditionalization

• If S had accepted  (X counts as Y in C),  then S
  would have believed (S ought to f)
• To
• S believes (S ought to f) 
• Objective properties are created that are made to
  fit demands of the sort S does A (rationally)
  because of Y
• They Y properties must satisfy cognitive and
  conative demands The satisfaction condition of
  the pro-attitudes ( to f) are made to match the
  truth-conditions of Ys.
• The acceptance in (2) is not epistemic, but
  practical credence. The rule determined conative
  and cognitive attitudes exist only in so far as
  the point of the activity is satisfied for S.

13
The Source of Credence

• The notion of accept in a social setting is to
  facilitate prestablished pro-attitudes. Social
  ontologies exist in so far as you already have
  such attitudes towards their functional role.
  They are merely proxies for such attitudes. 
• Games Intentionally determined but arbitrarily
  valorized pro-attitudes (IDAV-attitudes).
• You cannot be credent to just any conceivable
  social function, but you can be credent to just
  any game-rule.

14
IDAV and Gameness

• What matters for gameness is the existence of
  IDAV-based agential properties, not post game
  consequences.
• It thus fits well with pervasive games and
  serious games.
• Gameness does not depend on a specific outcome.
  Winning is merely one way to structure arbitrary
  valorization.
• Game simulations are hence easily included. Real
  simulations are excluded because they rely on
  utility. 
• Furthermore, it disconnects gameness from such
  notions as "fun", and allows other purposes to be
  indirectly facilitated, such as political
  persuasion and art.

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Definition of Computer Games

• Non-essential connection between game and
  computer. Like box game, there may be no common
  characteristic to games played on computers
  relevant to gameness.
• However, only a computer can stand in for
  constitutive rules.
• Computers can be special purpose systems that
  impose the point of the agentive properties, as
  opposed to enforcing prescriptions.
• Neither laws of nature nor rules. As like an
  environment as the laws of nature and as
  interest-dependent as constitutive rules.
• Technical notion deconditionalization machine
  includes pinball machines and excludes Solitaire.

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Conclusion

• The outlined proposal locates gameness in the
  constitution of agential properties rather than
  in optional acceptance of outcome.
• If offers a more general picture of what counts
  as a game, and allows simulations, serious games
  and pervasive games to qualify as games.
• It allows us to conceive of a special intentional
  function derived from the constitution process
  that computer games are especially well suited
  for.