So this is my first post about the course content directly. The reason I wanted to start, before, with posts about my background in gaming was that I think game aesthetics and expectations are based a great deal on what you already know. That's not just about the digital games you already know but the larger context of games and gameplay. I find very violent games quite disturbing but then I was also bullied at school so only find very physical tomboy play quite threatening. I know friends who have grown up with in boistrous families (with lots of brothers or lots of cousins or lots of sports played by the whole family) find physical games quite fun and playful so perhaps also have a different take on their digital equivelents. Anyway.... On with the more course content specific bit.

Week 1 has been all about platform games, the definition of which immediately clashed with my own idea of platform games. Although I knew that the early games with static or moving platform games fitted the label I've always seen games with a similar structure – lots of small hierarchical levels – as also being platform game. This appears to have been a little way off so it's interesting to think about how limiting/limitless classifying a game based on certain elements of screen layout and play in this way. I guess it is no better or worse from calling films “action” or “comedy” or “romance” in terms of how much it tells you about play. For me the games this week seem to be about beating the clock and perfecting simple speedy key combinations to progress. The fact that they feature platforms seems to be of lesser or equal importance to these playing features.

This week was all about game definitions and characteristics and it was an interesting starting point for looking at digital games. Whitton [1] approaches this by looking at what might be a game in general and what characteristics a game has in order to be classified as such. This sounds like an obvious thing to do but personally I think it is difficult to classify lots of forms of playful gamelike behaviour. When I attempted Whitton's activity to identify what I think of as a game all of my initial answers were sports and, specifically, games I had played with other people in the past (lacrosse, tennis, etc.) and as well as being fun, challenging, competitive and social I also thought that to work they must be easy to start, where enjoyment depends on play with well-matched competitors and where absorption in the game was crucial. Whitton's own 10 characteristics seem to capture some of the same criteria as well as some interesting additional characteristics but there are a few that I am not sure I agree with.

Whitton includes Fantasy, Safety, and Rules as being key characteristics and I think there are some problems there. Of course Whitton allows for games that have only one or several characteristics but I am not sure that Fantasy is a key game characteristic. Few games have truly fantastical possibilities - there are peripheral fantasy elements but most computer games follow conventions that are very much based on the real and traditional media world in terms of gender, aesthetics, behavioural options (there are few adventure games that are wholly non combative for instance), etc. I think Safety, in the sense of a lack of real world consequence, seems to have huge overlap with Fantasy as a characteristic since the benefit of fantastical elements is surely escapism both in terms of escaping broad constraints of reality (gravity, financial possibility etc.) as well as personal physical, social and cultural limitations and embodiments (gender, sexuality, race, physique, etc.). So I think I feel that Safety and Fantasy are really one characteristic in most game scenarios.

Rules is an odd one. I agree that it's important to the notion of a game – particularly the sports games I identified – but I'm not sure why they are important. The parts of the games I identified reading Whitton were neither the goals nor the limitations of rules but the game play itself. However much of that game play is dictated or shaped by the nature of the rules. For instance I was a keen Lacrosse player for many years and it was the social and analytical elements of the game that I found fun. I wouldn't have found the game fun if there had been aggressive tackling or if I'd been playing attacking roles in the game and those were perks of having rules to shape the game. The thing is that in digital games, especially those in which learning explicitly takes place, I find it less frustrating to be allowed to make mistakes (and learn why they are mistakes) than being restricted to completing a task one specific way and/or being able to make mistakes without any indication of why something has not worked. One of the great advantages of learning from other people rather than interactive games is that feedback can be paced to meet a learners need. Some learners are happier to try over and over again and learn the answer themselves whilst that will be incredibly demotivating for some learners who would rather be guided through after a few early attempts. The problem with any learning process based upon complex algorithms is tailoring educational elements of play to the learning style of the student. Rules, rightly or wrongly, is a phrase that brings back to my mind the inflexibility of many gaming spaces.

It was actually quite challenging for me to see de Freitas' definition of computer based learning (p. 22 in Whitton 2010) which, if I am reading it correctly, assumes that learning can only take place in environments where education is the intent. I am not sure I agree with that. Learning cane take place at any time regardless of the intent of a given space I think though knowing de Freitas' background at the Serious Gaming Institute I suspect that this may be quite a tailored perspective on a particular type of computer based learning.

I do agree, however, with Whitton's non-Game activities. I am perplexed when Second Life is defined as a game as, whilst there are game spaces within the space, it is a space and a mechanism to create new spaces and activities but not a game itself. The idea that role play is not a game is a little tricky. I largely agree but the difference between that hybrid Safety/Fantasy element and role-play seems extremely subtle to me. There is something innately playful and removed about role play and, since “fun” is not in the list of characteristics, I wonder how playful and “game” intersect as terms since in terms of learning the “play” part of both would seem to be the most crucial element.

Newman [2] baffled me at first by insisting on the term “videogame” which I'd long ago associated only with the earliest days of Pong type games so I think I am going to stick with “computer game” or “digital game” in my post here as that, to me, sums up a wider array of gaming options.

I also found Newman's discussion of why players engage in games quite interesting especially given the current trend for extremely performative forms of game play. Singstar, GuitarBand, RockBand, etc. are all games based around a Kareoke style mixture of participation and voyerism in a way few previous games have been focused. Whilst there was always an element of watch-ability to games that allowed them to be played in social settings these new music-focused games are about, to an extent, recreating both traditional notions of community and performance and modern concepts of reality television. With a microphone, console and a series of classic hits you too can be a legend in your own living room and even friends or family members who are not physically participating in game play are invested and participating as a real audience to augment the on-screen fans. Their passive role is, nonetheless, an active part of the game whilst game play is all about practice and performance and not (only) goals related to control (Livingstone 2002 quoted in Newman 2004), progress and completion of the game.

Indeed games that make use of internet capable consoles add a further aspect to the player/viewer balance in that saved games are not only shared with those physically near a console but also those further afield whilst additional game material is acquired through free or paid online shops directly form the gaming environment. This is quite a disruptive idea to the notion of what a game can be. If you play Singstar and upload your video to the Singstar community are you a player of the game or an internet performer? If you create a level on Little Big Planet and share it with other gamers is that act of level creation part of game play or something else?

Fig 1. Screenshot of the Singstar performance gallery

How can competitive notions of being a winner or a loser properly defined in networked expandable and viewable games? Frasca's (1999 quotes in Newman 2004) modifications Caillois' (2001) “paidea” and “ludus” only seem to go part of the way to addressing this. Paidea, a term to define enjoyable but not goal or rule orientated games does not, as Newman suggests, seem to adequately describe the activity in playing The Sims since that game, whilst not exhibiting hierarchical goals, is structured around a defined narrative and can be (easily) lost. You can not be defeated, perhaps, but you can certainly win or lose. The goals are even stated, albeit in fuzzy terms, by the desires of the created character at a given time and by their needs to be fed, cleaned, etc. in order to live. If it were just about pleasure and no achievement (as Paidea would seem to suggest) then surely game play would not include such sophisticated levels of skills or achievement.

Whilst Church (2000 quoted in Newman 2004) identifies that players exert their own Ludus rules on The Sims I dispute that these are the only goals or achievements that are set. What is more complex in The Sims is the fact that many of the goals which are both implicitly and explicitly stated are based on traditional social constructs that are subtley introduced into game play. It is a mundane goal to eat, sleep and shower each day but it is an explicit feature of playing The Sims and is as crucial to your avatar's survival as mission achievement may be in more adventure-based titles. I don't want to dwell too much on The Sims (though I note it's repeated mention as one of the very few games played by women across various readings) but I am merely wanting to highlight that to split gameplay into enjoyment (Peidea) and achievement (Ludus) is, to my mind a rather bizarre way to split up types of game. Surely achievement and goal orientated play is not enough to motivate players through a game they are not enjoying? And surely enjoyment without progression is not enough to keep a player entertained? One of the curious features of this week's Platform games was a version of Donkey Kong that restarted rather than progresing at the end of a successfully completed level. This led to confusion and frustration because even something playful and simple needs to move on and exhibit some sort of change to hold attention. Thus I am not sure Ludus and Peidea, as I understand them (through the lens of Newman) can ever actually be separated as mutually exclusive terms. Any good game should, surely, include both elements?

On another classification note it was interesting, especially after reading Whitton, to see the fantastically restrictive set of elements of a videogame from Howland (1998a in Newman 2004 [2]) to add a little perspective on just how tricky it is to identify, categorise and classify a computer game. I think, in some ways, this is a good sign of how culturally assimilated gaming is since I think many people could be presented with a game and know it as such but defining why it is a game seems, like the definition of “Life” used by biologists [3], to collect only symptomatic information not the character or essence of what is being examined. This is perhaps why both Whitton and Newman both refer back to definitions of what a game is not as part of their definition of what a game may be.

I think this week we have come to the course with our own expectations and ideas of what constitutes a game from our own past experience (or relative lack of experience) so it is a very challenging notion to start by reflecting on the meaning of what we are yet to more fully explore. But then for Whitton and Newman even a long period of study and reflection cannot prepare any characteristics or definition of a game that they might make automatically stand up to the future technological and societal changes that will follow. I think one of the reasons that both give a flexible range of characteristics and qualities is precisely to allow a little space for gaming to adapt and change as it will, inevitably do. Whether my own sense of what a game is moves a little faster I think we shall see over the next few weeks...

So, finally to comment on this week's games a little. I was astonished to find that all three games were games I had, at some point, encountered before. Donkey Kong was, when I was a child, my least favourite of this week's three and I was surprised to find that it was still tremendously frustrating and irritating for me. In part this was because I wasn't very good at the game – I (Mario) died quickly and repeatedly. However there were several aspects that I found interesting after several attempts. Firstly I was surprised by how quick gameplay was. In around 45 minutes of attempts to complete the level I had probably played 40 times. This is astonishingly fast though not massively out of step with the other platform games this week. In part I think this reflects the fact that I only really completed a level or two of any of the games but I think it also reflects some of the access and social constructs in which this games were expected to work. Arcades, as noted in one of the week 2 readings on addiction (see later blog post for reference) actually taxes inexperienced players most disproportionately since your coins buy you only a few seconds or minutes of play. Similarly early games consoles were expected to sell to families and be used as social devices with friends, siblings etc. Games could not usually be saved and you were, in all likelihood, playing in a group and each taking turns. Short and simple game play is a perk to both platform game scenerios.

Pattern matching was discussed during the week across coursemates and Donkey Kong was the game where I found predictable patterns most quickly as I became aware that certain moves would trigger specific barrel movements. This was quite exciting – it rewarded my observation and skill – but also irritating as it made waiting as crucial a move as running and jumping. In fact I came late to the jumping part of the game. My most recent gaming experiences have all relied on either mice or console controllers so the idea of keyboard controls had rather passed me by and, instinctively, I had failed to read the instructions to discover that the space bar had a crucial role in the game. It was only when I was failing to get anywhere in the level that I realised I must be missing something important and went back to check. I also found the (unstated) rules about where Mario could jump quite perplexing as there was no audio or visual cue to make sense of why jumping only worked at certain platform distances. Again my game playing style was conditioned by games with complex audio signals and I was rather missing this clues as I played. Finally the one thing I really found odd about Donkey Kong was the infantalised hysterical girl I was supposed to be rescuing. For a start I could not work out why she needed rescuing rather than being able to make progress herself (certainly she seemed to be in the very prime running away position) but secondly her screaming seemed, to me, highly counterintuitive. Were she really in danger of an angry violent mammal she would, surely, be looking to lie low rather than rocking back and forth screaming at the world. Honestly I felt she was just too unwilling to get her hands dirty. And I also felt like the particular gender stereotype that sees a plucky plumber David fend off a giant gorilla Goliath in order to save a hysterical infant woman just too clichéd. I was really not feeling any sort of interest in contining any further with the game.

Frogger was a much more enticing prospect. I liked the basic premise as it was simple but infuriatingly reliant on quick button taps and very very good timing. I found the movements very intuitive to control but was particularly impressed by the simple but highly disorientating effect of having a game road function almost but not quite like reality – the changes in direction were tremendously unsettling and the variant speeds of cars quite challenging. Once you knew the general rules of what happened where it was fairly easy to play but one of the interesting conceptual elements was the fact that the screen was the universe. Should your frog float on a log off screen he was a gonner. Which is in stark contrast to the conceptual space in most games that, as in most television and film constructs, encourages you to believe there is a whole world beyond that which can be seen.

Pacman, our final game this week, had an alternative but again novel approach to structuring it's 2D game play with a layout that provides a tunnel from one side of the screen to the other suggesting that the screen is your universe but that it is, at least, a fairly smart space with it's own peculiar rules of time and space. Pacman proved to be the most addictive game of the week for me. It was intensely fast, baffling, but fun. Audio clues were minimal but helpful and it was aesthetically the best game because it was built around clear engaging highly abstract visuals that worked in a low resolution context whereas Donkey Kong and Frogger both required big leaps of faith to believe that the pixellated detail on screen were worth becoming engaged with. I did not, sadly, find all the clever little patterns and twists (more on this next week) but I did feel, of all three games, that there was a noticable difference between playing at initial skill level and, after a few hours, playing at a more developed level. I completed level 1 of Pacman and found it a really compelling game to return to to see if I could again reach (and this time conquer) level 2. I think part of what made it so playable was the option to play vertically or horizontally. Working bottom to top in Frogger and Donkey Kong seemed peculiar especially as email, blogging and most internet sites order content to avoid scrolling making top to bottom as key a default reading style as left to right. Which makes me wonder how much the structuring of these games depends on other conventions of players. For instance are some games (particularly those with complex status information shown on screen) easier to play with those used to scripts that write from right to left rather than left to right? Is the vertical game play in puzzle and platform games easier for those used to vertical kanji rather than western scripts? I'm not sure but I have a feeling those expectations do definitely influence enjoyability and the success of the first few plays of a game.

References

• [1] Whitton, N. (2010). Chapter 2, “Recognising the characteristics of digital games”. In Learning with Digital Games: A practical guide to engaging students in higher education, London: Routledge.

• [2] Newman, J. (2004). Chapter 2, “What is a video game? Rules, Puzzles and Simulation”. In Videogames, London: Routledge.

• [3] Wikipedia. (2010). Section 2.1, “Biology”. In Life. Accessed 31^st January 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology