Nieuwe media en

populaire cultuur:
computergames
(2009-2010)

College 1 (10 november 2009):

Gamestudies, een introductie
Joost Raessens
Wat gaan we doen vandaag?
1. Doelstelling en opbouw van de cursus
2. Huishoudelijke mededelingen
3. Ontstaan van een discipline (Game Studies, 2001)
4. Waarom games bestuderen? Why game studies
now? (Games and Culture, 2006)
5. Voorbeeld game-onderzoek: docu-games
1. Doelstelling
en opbouw van de
cursus

(zie overzicht)
1. Perspectieven (zie schema)
2. Vraag (probleemstelling): open of gesloten
3. Theorie: “A set of concepts used to define
and/or explain some phenomenon”
4. Methode: benadering/strategie die leidt tot het
beantwoorden van de vraag
5. Methodologische reflectie: zijn theorie en
methode in staat vraag te beantwoorden?
2. Huishoudelijke mededelingen
• Blog
• Deelnemers staan op de lijst
• Wijziging een van de werkcolleges, in pauze/na
afloop ruilen
3.Ontstaan van een discipline
(Game Studies, 2001)

• Game Studies
• Aarseth, E. “
Computer Game Studies, Year One” (2001)
• Aarseth, E. “
The Dungeon and the Ivory Tower: Vive La Difference
ou Liaison Dangereuse?” (2002)
 Computer Game Studies 2001

1. Eerste (?) tijdschrift: Game Studies

2. Eerste (?) congres over computer games:
Computer Games and Digital Textualities (Copenhagen, 1
en 2 maart 2001). Zie ook
Computer and Video Games Come of Age (MIT, 2000)
3. Eerste (?) collegereeksen over computergames
4. Academici nemen computergames voor het eerst (?)
serieus
 Aarseth (2001)

1. “…to force outdated

paradigms onto a new cultural
object…”
2. “…the very early stage we are
still in…”
3. “…colonising attempts from
both fields [cinema, literature]
…”
 Aarseth (2002)

• Onderzoek
• Bestuur/politiek
• Onderwijs CV
• Samenwerking academici en
ontwerpers: Frequency 1550
 4. Waarom games
bestuderen? Why game
studies now? (Games and
Culture, 2006)

• Playful Identities, or the Ludification

of Culture (Raessens, 2006)
• Games and Culture (SAGE)
 Why game studies now?

• Entertainment Software Association (ESA):

• Game Research
• Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau
• Kaiser Family Foundation: Zie: Generation M:
Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds, A Kaiser
Family Foundation Study (March 2005).
 Response to Innovation
(Davis, 1976)

1. Verdediging: geen kindervermaak, geen lage

kunst, niet a-politiek
2. Aanval: leiden tot agressie en verslaving
3. Op academische wijze bestudeerd
Why game studies now?
• Cultureel: identiteit
• Sociaal: educatie, geweld/verslaving
• Politiek: Games for change
• Technologisch: computerinteractie
• Mediatheoretisch, vergelijkend en
historisch
• Economisch: 20 miljard dollar
• Esthetisch: kunst, formeel
(gamespecifiek en/of verhalend)
Gamestudies is meer dan een
discussie tussen (vooral
Skandinavische) ludologen en (vooral
Amerikaanse) narratologen. Wat
gamestudies bedreigt is deze “fallacy
of false dilemma”.
Ook moeten we de al te simplistische
tweedeling doorbreken tussen Europese
gamestudies - “an intellectual top-down
perspective” waarin “definitional
arguments” centraal staan - en
Amerikaanse gamestudies die gebaseerd
zijn op “a bottom-up dialogue with game
designers, the game industry and fans.”
Ook wij in Europa doen aan kwalitatief-
empirisch onderzoek, participerende
observatie, diepte-interviews, discours-
analyse, tekstuele analyse etc.
 Why game studies now?

“A game is a rule-based system with a variable and

quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned
different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence
the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the
outcome, and the consequences of the activity is negotiable”
(Juul, Half-Real, p. 36).
.
“We might call it a free activity, standing quite consciously outside
'ordinary' life as being 'not serious', but at the same time absorbing
the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no
material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds
within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to
fixed rules and in an orderly manner.” Johan Huizinga, Homo
Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, 1955 [1938], p. 13.
Een computergame is “any forms of computer-based
entertainment software, either textual or image-based,
using any electronic platform such as personal
computers or consoles and involving one or multiple
players in a physical or networked environment”
(Frasca geciteerd in Newman’s Videogames, 2004, p.
27).
pacman…pacmanhattan

http://www.pacmanhattan.com
Wat is de invloed van het game platform
op de spelervaring? En wie speelt waar?

Game platform:
• Arcade (speelhal)
• Console (spelcomputer) (PS II,
GameCube, Xbox)
• PC
• Handheld (gameboy, ds, psp, mobiele
telefoon)
 arcade
• Plaats: arcade hal

Kenmerken:
• Betalen per spel
• Korte speelduur
• Fysieke interface
• Publiek
 console
Plaats: woonkamer of
slaapkamer

Kenmerken:
• Eigendom
• Samen spelen
• Publiek
• Langere speelduur
 PC
Plaats: werkplek of
hobbykamer

Kenmerken:
• Eigendom PC
• Solitair spel of online
• Gratis online games of
abonnement
• Langere speelduur
 handheld
Plaats: overal

Kenmerken:
• Grafisch eenvoudige
games
• Integratie met
telefoon
 Why game studies now?
• Jenkins: “Ifthey are smart, they change the tool to
fit what they are looking at, if they are bad, it is a
cookie cutter that only sees those things that their
tool allows them to look at to begin with.”
• Aarseth benadrukt het empirische bewijs dat
narratologie is ”not really a good model for
studying and understanding” computer games.
We zijn, aldus Aarseth, getuige van een
“transitional phase, a paradigm shift.”
• Plaatsen wij ons in de traditie van de
geesteswetenschappen waarin het gelijktijdig
bestaan van meerdere interpretatiekaders wordt
bevestigd? OF
• Thomas Kuhn is most famous for his book The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) in which
he presented the idea that science does not progress
via a linear accumulation of new knowledge, but
instead undergoes periodic revolutions which he
calls "paradigm shifts", in which the nature of
scientific inquiry within a particular field is
abruptly transformed.
5. Voorbeeld game-
onderzoek: docu-games

Reality Play
Documentar y computer
games beyond fact and
fiction
 Documentar y
computer games !?
Docu-games between fact
and fiction

• JFK Reloaded
• Docu-games
• Three examples
• Docu-games: fiction or
documentation?
• Plea in favor of docu-games
JFK Reloaded (2004)
9-11 Sur vivor (2003)
Endgames: Waco Resur rection
(2003)
Escape from Woomera
(2003)
FICTION OR
DOCUMENTATION?

Fiction:
1. A docu-game creates its own
object and by doing so, its own
‘truth’
2. Since docu-games are
simulations of reality, they
would lack every kind of
legitimization to a documentary
status
3. In a docu-game historical ‘fact’
and ‘fixity’ give way to the
Documentation:

1. The docu-game must be seen

as a “creative treatment of
actuality” (Grierson)
2. Games that we call
‘documentary’ do not only
contain textual but also
contextual information that
indicates that we must switch
to a “documentarizing lecture”
(Odin)
Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
3. Docu-games challenge the
notions of ‘objectivity’ and
‘authority’
PLEA IN FAVOR OF THE
DOCUMENTARY GAME

1. There seems to be no reason to

exclude games a priori from
the category of the
documentary form
2. The four fundamental
tendencies attributable to
documentary practice:
* To record, reveal, or
preserve ( 9-11 Survivor )
* To persuade or promote
( Escape from Woomera )
* To analyze or interrogate
( JFK Reloaded )
* To express ( Waco
Resurrection )
3. Docu-games are capable of
opening the area of the
historical documentary to a
large audience and may
become very popular

4. One of the biggest challenges

of game design is precisely
this difficult task: how to make
maximum use of the
opportunity to communicate
with the audience?
• To describe these docu-games
based on real historical figures
and actual events (FACT), woven
together with fictional game
play (FICTION), one could use
the neologism FACTION

• I can't get no SATIS-FACTION

'Cause I try and I try and I try
and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no

• How can we give the player the

SATIS-FACTION