Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
Hi Davin, I agree with your analysis: outsourcing work to players is not only economically but also socially unsustainable. However, I am not sure people will opt out of this system even if they are aware of its exploitative character. If we look at social networking behemoths such as facebook, it seems evident that users are engaged in a form of affective labour, which is both narcissistically gratifying, and self-exploitative. This double bind is characteristic for the forms of free labour investigated by people like Tiziana Terranova, and seems increasingly hard to break in societies which increasingly rely on computer-mediated communication. Does that mean human culture will have to be altered in such a fundamental way that it will become unrecognizable? Not sure. First of all, we are all agents of change, be it willingly or unwillingly, so whatever results from these transformations will still be recognizable as a form of culture. I think we must recognize that everyone who participates in any kind of social discourse (including the members of this list) is also involved in the production of subjectivity. In my recent research, I have been trying to conceptualize this is in Deleuze and Guattari's terms as a form of machinic (or algorithmic) subjectivity. Alternatively, this could be seen as a way of reassembling the social (Latour) which grants non-human actors much greater agency. So what is ultimatey at stake is what David Golumbia calls the cultural logic of computation, and the way we deal with it. While quite a few people seem to simply accept it as the dominant paradigm of our time, others attempt to reject it outright, and insist on the intrinsic non-computational core of human subjectivity. However, it stands to reason that there is a different mode of subjectification, which oscillates between surrender and resistance. I like to think that it is a form of play that constitutes this mode, although not in the many impoverished forms presented to us as entertainment. I certainly see an inkling of this in (sub-cultural) scenes such as alternate reality gaming, which has at least the potential to radically challenge our preconceptions, and bring people together in new social formations. Julian. dr julian raul kuecklich http://playability.de Am 01.12.2010 18:24, schrieb davin heckman: I think Simon's concern as well as Julian's followup point to something really significant. Aside from being economically unsustainable for a company to produce such games. I suspect that it is socially unsustainable, as well. My sense (and I guess that I am simply being optimistic here) is that if such a model continues and becomes dominant, either people will abandon it wholesale OR human culture will have to be altered in such a fundamental way that it will become unrecognizable. The fact remains that in order to make money off play, such work has to successfully pass itself off as play. But work, for its own sake, always requires some motivation (self-benefit, communal benefit, fear of discomfort, fear of the lash, etc.). At the extreme fringes of coercion, people are always looking to escape such work, to subvert it, to free themselves from it, etc. And while there is a great region of slack within which people can rationalize work for a period of time as play, can play and tell themselves they are getting work done, or can be fooled into thinking they are doing one while actually doing the other in each case this requires a misrecognition in order to happen. In other words, the perception must be inaccurately cognitized (misrecognized). From here, misrecognition is either further rationalized (transformed into a different type of play) or rejected. In simpler terms, people like to play, but not to be played. Some people even like being used, provided they can conceptualize their use as something that they control, comprehend, rationalize, etc. Some people can be fooled into being used. But people, on the whole, seem unhappy as mere instruments. People strive for meaning, even if it is only of the most stripped-down, existentialist flavor. The most extreme example of such a totalizing play is money. People do get very wrapped up in the accumulation of merit by way of arbitrary tokens. But even still, these tokens, like the labor they represent, are forever being translated into real or imaginary strategies of gaming the system (winning lotteries, hitting jackpots, striking it rich, saving money, improving your salary, the all you can eat buffet, inventing the next paperclip, etc). Yet, in spite of this, most people I know seem to work with the understanding that the system itself is not the purpose of life. And the fewer strategies they have for gaining strategic benefit within the system of play and the greater the awareness they have of the various ways in which the game is rigged, the less content they are to work within the system, to
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
hello emypres! my name is georg russegger from lthe european reseach group udic interfaces and a friend (mathias fuchs) pointed me to your discussion. the mail from Rafael was the first dipp in - sorry if i raise some questions which might be arleady solved here: Rafael wrote: ...on an evolutionary basis. thanks for the brilliant start! is dualism helpful: playing vs. productivity. (it might be just a catchy title) wouldn't something linke prdoductive playability (i guess julian - hi from austria - runs a blog with this title) give the perspective on where play has its productive moments? high level social behaviour would this be better off being called playing or gameplay? at least how i understand it: game is a framed, rulebased and inter-re- aktive set of possibilities but not the action-dimension itself. if we talk ANT we can look hom much game fomentation there is in the game-deliniation already implied. video game for starting is a type of game - is this list about videogaming - that would be pityful - because it is a higly complex field where some observations are harder to make than in general gameplay sets. i would rather take video games as examples but to do the whole discussion based on this wiould be rather probelmatic. are videogames (now) still games? why not? - maybe the STILL is important to answer... put please make a clear statement why videogames are so special in contrary to other games. thank you greetings ge.org On Nov 30, 2010, at 5:08 PM, Rafael Trindade wrote: Hey, folks, I am Rafael Trindade, and this is my first time at -empyre-. It's an honor, and a pleasure to be invited to this month's debate. Thank you. On the functionality of playing: I do agree with Simon Biggs. Playing is not aimless - or not essentially aimless. And we can discuss it on an evolutionary basis. I'm not sure, though, if it's a good idea to formulate the problem like this: However, to sustain this argument it needs to be accepted that high level social behaviour is genetically inherited. At least, not while we are talking about videogames and videogame cultures. It seems to me that the point is not which means should we use to approach games in general; we're talking about some high level social behaviour that happens to be called games (because they really are, yes), but differentiate themselves from another kinds of gaming not only because their mechanics and materiality, but also because of the sociocultural systems which they belong to. I'm not saying that videogames are ontologically different from other games (or are they? I don't know, maybe not), but sometimes I feel that the functions they perform are not necessarily the same. Even when I can relate one experience to another (arcades/gambling houses; casual games/crosswords and such; pokémon/cockfights; level-oriented games/tabletop RPGs, collections and everything OCD), I feel that maybe it's different. But I really don't know, I have never thought seriously about that. When they are competing in arcades or tournaments, players do want to win over their colleagues, but I sense that it's not about the competition. It's not even about bragging. It's about winning, in order to stay within the experience; to keep the thing going on. Of course it is cool to be the best, of course it's pretty ok to gain some respect; but people would go to arcades even if they are emptied out, just to enjoy their games; one cannot say the same about spitting contests and the like. It's not ontologically about the competition. It's already known that plot it's not an essential element of videogaming, one of the reasons given being the impatience shown by players at dialogues in arcades. I remember now a similar fact - that no one cares about Hall of Fame status. All the arcades champions are named AAA. But I'm not sure, maybe there are similar situations outside videogaming. I just wish to highlight Gabriel Menotti's question: are videogames (now) still games? Thanks, and regards, Rafael. -- Diese E-Mail wurde auf Viren und gefährliche Anhänge durch MailScanner untersucht und ist wahrscheinlich virenfrei. MailScanner dankt transtec für die freundliche Unterstützung. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre -- Diese Nachricht wurde auf Viren und andere gefährliche Inhalte untersucht und ist - aktuelle Virenscanner vorausgesetzt - sauber. For all your IT requirements visit: http://www.transtec.co.uk ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
From: Georg Russegger georg.russeg...@ufg.ac.at Reply-To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 08:23:36 +0100 To: soft_skinned_space emp...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au Subject: Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?) is dualism helpful: playing vs. productivity. (it might be just a catchy title) wouldn't something linke prdoductive playability (i guess julian - hi from austria - runs a blog with this title) give the perspective on where play has its productive moments? I fear the issue might concern a political imperative. Playbour is that mode of play which has been rendered productive within the market economy. Our play is other's profits. Capital has managed to appropriate our down-time. Do we want our play to be productive in this context? For those who wish to critique or attack the economic hegemony we inhabit, a route to this is to ensure one's play is unproductive or, even better, anti-productive (eg: destructive). This is what I understand the Wombles and other groups are all about. Best Simon Simon Biggs s.bi...@eca.ac.uk si...@littlepig.org.uk Skype: simonbiggsuk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ Research Professor edinburgh college of art http://www.eca.ac.uk/ Creative Interdisciplinary Research in CoLlaborative Environments http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice http://www.elmcip.net/ Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
Please unsubscribe me from this list Sent from my iPad On 02/12/2010, at 4:24 AM, davin heckman davinheck...@gmail.com wrote: I think Simon's concern as well as Julian's followup point to something really significant. Aside from being economically unsustainable for a company to produce such games. I suspect that it is socially unsustainable, as well. My sense (and I guess that I am simply being optimistic here) is that if such a model continues and becomes dominant, either people will abandon it wholesale OR human culture will have to be altered in such a fundamental way that it will become unrecognizable. The fact remains that in order to make money off play, such work has to successfully pass itself off as play. But work, for its own sake, always requires some motivation (self-benefit, communal benefit, fear of discomfort, fear of the lash, etc.). At the extreme fringes of coercion, people are always looking to escape such work, to subvert it, to free themselves from it, etc. And while there is a great region of slack within which people can rationalize work for a period of time as play, can play and tell themselves they are getting work done, or can be fooled into thinking they are doing one while actually doing the other in each case this requires a misrecognition in order to happen. In other words, the perception must be inaccurately cognitized (misrecognized). From here, misrecognition is either further rationalized (transformed into a different type of play) or rejected. In simpler terms, people like to play, but not to be played. Some people even like being used, provided they can conceptualize their use as something that they control, comprehend, rationalize, etc. Some people can be fooled into being used. But people, on the whole, seem unhappy as mere instruments. People strive for meaning, even if it is only of the most stripped-down, existentialist flavor. The most extreme example of such a totalizing play is money. People do get very wrapped up in the accumulation of merit by way of arbitrary tokens. But even still, these tokens, like the labor they represent, are forever being translated into real or imaginary strategies of gaming the system (winning lotteries, hitting jackpots, striking it rich, saving money, improving your salary, the all you can eat buffet, inventing the next paperclip, etc). Yet, in spite of this, most people I know seem to work with the understanding that the system itself is not the purpose of life. And the fewer strategies they have for gaining strategic benefit within the system of play and the greater the awareness they have of the various ways in which the game is rigged, the less content they are to work within the system, to ascribe meaning to it, to take pleasure in the sort of games that exploit the player. I don't want to pretend that people don't get routinely taken advantage of and that our backdrop of change and innovation is the source of a great siphoning away of capital. But I also want to guard against fatalism. All these imaginary credits and tokens and wins and losses are only relative injustices. The place where they become immediately urgent are at the fringes of need, where people starve and thirst, shiver and bleed. The number of imaginary tokens generated by the manipulation of imaginary tokens is most significant when the energy devoted to honoring these tokens conceals or obscures more basic needs. And, here, I think, might be the real urgent question about the various games we play: Where do we place our attention? How do we form our notions of what's real and imaginary? As an aside you might get a kick out of Susan Willis' Playing the Penny Slots Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination, Vol 2, No 2 (2007): http://ojs.gc.cuny.edu/index.php/situations/article/viewFile/299/292 Davin 2010/12/1 Julian Raul Kücklich jul...@kuecklich.de: I fear the issue might concern a political imperative. Playbour is that mode of play which has been rendered productive within the market economy. Our play is other's profits. Capital has managed to appropriate our down-time. Do we want our play to be productive in this context? Simon, you summed it up concisely. This is precisely what I was trying to get at in my writings about playbour --- be it in the context of modding, massively multiplayer games, or FarmVille. David P. Marshal wrote about games being the perfect intertextual commodity --- a closed loop of gameplay, movie tie-ins, hardware, and advertising that seems increasingly hard to escape. What FarmVille does explicitly --- i.e. make players spokespersons for the game and spamming their facebook friends --- has been implicit in gaming culture for a long time. The always-on(line) mantra of contemporary PC and console games is another example of this worrying trend: you sign on, you are visible to your friends,
[-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
[Simon Biggs] All interesting. No mention though of Huizinga's work, or that of numerous related theorists, on the role of play in the formation, practice and value of cultural activities. Thanks, Simon! Huizinga is a very good reference, which had completely escaped me – probably because I was not really taking into account how the dynamics of play drive general cultural activities and structures. Moving away from the ludologistic perspective, I wondered instead how these other activities are in fact enmeshed within what we call “playing.” Although generally suspicious of cultural analytics, I admit it does a good job demonstrating that the interaction with some modern videogames is mostly constituted by watching CGs and making otherwise dull system management and navigation. [1] On the other hand, it is true that the all-pervasiveness of play is one door through which videogames are being re-functionalized and incorporated into larger productive systems – in that sense, one might recall “games” such as EpicWin [2] and the somewhat controversial Google Image Labeler [3]. I’m sure Daniel Cook can give much better examples. However, doesn’t that defeats the idea that “play” should be a gratuitous and aimless activity, an end-in-itself? Given the complexities at hand and the way playing can be easily appropriated as labour, where should we trace the line that defines this concept? Do videogames have essentially anything to do with “playing” anymore? And with “videos”? And with “games”? Best! Menotti [1] http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/06/videogameplayviz-analyzing-temporal.html [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmKwF_Si734 [3] http://images.google.com/imagelabeler ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
It is easy to consider play as essentially gratuitous and aimless. However, is it? From a Darwinian point of view play would seem to offer advantages to those who do it. For young animals play is often the means by which they learn how to fight, hunt, mate and survive. It is a rehearsal. Well rehearsed animals will have a better chance of surviving and reproducing. When people play the same dynamics could be at work. In this sense play is not gratuitous but fulfils an important function. However, to sustain this argument it needs to be accepted that high level social behaviour is genetically inherited. Darwinian theory can't be applied without this being the case. It is debatable whether such behaviour can be inherited. Best Simon Simon Biggs s.bi...@eca.ac.uk si...@littlepig.org.uk Skype: simonbiggsuk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ Research Professor edinburgh college of art http://www.eca.ac.uk/ Creative Interdisciplinary Research in CoLlaborative Environments http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice http://www.elmcip.net/ Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts From: Gabriel Menotti gabriel.meno...@gmail.com Reply-To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:46:46 + To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au Subject: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?) [Simon Biggs] All interesting. No mention though of Huizinga's work, or that of numerous related theorists, on the role of play in the formation, practice and value of cultural activities. Thanks, Simon! Huizinga is a very good reference, which had completely escaped me probably because I was not really taking into account how the dynamics of play drive general cultural activities and structures. Moving away from the ludologistic perspective, I wondered instead how these other activities are in fact enmeshed within what we call ³playing.² Although generally suspicious of cultural analytics, I admit it does a good job demonstrating that the interaction with some modern videogames is mostly constituted by watching CGs and making otherwise dull system management and navigation. [1] On the other hand, it is true that the all-pervasiveness of play is one door through which videogames are being re-functionalized and incorporated into larger productive systems in that sense, one might recall ³games² such as EpicWin [2] and the somewhat controversial Google Image Labeler [3]. I¹m sure Daniel Cook can give much better examples. However, doesn¹t that defeats the idea that ³play² should be a gratuitous and aimless activity, an end-in-itself? Given the complexities at hand and the way playing can be easily appropriated as labour, where should we trace the line that defines this concept? Do videogames have essentially anything to do with ³playing² anymore? And with ³videos²? And with ³games²? Best! Menotti [1] http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/06/videogameplayviz-analyzing-temporal.htm l [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmKwF_Si734 [3] http://images.google.com/imagelabeler ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
I will also suggest that in some cases leisure is something that we don't relate with games...and in some specific cases, we do not know exactly when are we working or just having fun. Some projects that support the idea of serious games, developed and researched by people at UCSC are a kind of approach to this issue...if someone decide to say that he is playing serious games means that he is not having fun? Another project that I think that is radical on this is Ge Jin, aka Jingle (from UCSD) “Chinese Gold Farmers: a feature length documentary on real money traders in MMORPGs”. On youtube you can see these farmers playing for 18 hours a day to sell all the gold that they collect in games to put on sale on Ebay etc...and in their leisure time guess what are they doing? Best Cicero On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Gabriel Menotti gabriel.meno...@gmail.com wrote: [Simon Biggs] All interesting. No mention though of Huizinga's work, or that of numerous related theorists, on the role of play in the formation, practice and value of cultural activities. Thanks, Simon! Huizinga is a very good reference, which had completely escaped me – probably because I was not really taking into account how the dynamics of play drive general cultural activities and structures. Moving away from the ludologistic perspective, I wondered instead how these other activities are in fact enmeshed within what we call “playing.” Although generally suspicious of cultural analytics, I admit it does a good job demonstrating that the interaction with some modern videogames is mostly constituted by watching CGs and making otherwise dull system management and navigation. [1] On the other hand, it is true that the all-pervasiveness of play is one door through which videogames are being re-functionalized and incorporated into larger productive systems – in that sense, one might recall “games” such as EpicWin [2] and the somewhat controversial Google Image Labeler [3]. I’m sure Daniel Cook can give much better examples. However, doesn’t that defeats the idea that “play” should be a gratuitous and aimless activity, an end-in-itself? Given the complexities at hand and the way playing can be easily appropriated as labour, where should we trace the line that defines this concept? Do videogames have essentially anything to do with “playing” anymore? And with “videos”? And with “games”? Best! Menotti [1] http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/06/videogameplayviz-analyzing-temporal.html [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmKwF_Si734 [3] http://images.google.com/imagelabeler ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre -- www.cicero.st www.cicerosilva.com www.softwarestudies.com.br www.ufjf.br/sws ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
Hey, folks, I am Rafael Trindade, and this is my first time at -empyre-. It's an honor, and a pleasure to be invited to this month's debate. Thank you. On the functionality of playing: I do agree with Simon Biggs. Playing is not aimless - or not essentially aimless. And we can discuss it on an evolutionary basis. I'm not sure, though, if it's a good idea to formulate the problem like this: However, to sustain this argument it needs to be accepted that high level social behaviour is genetically inherited. At least, not while we are talking about videogames and videogame cultures. It seems to me that the point is not which means should we use to approach games in general; we're talking about some* high level social behaviour*that happens to be called games (because they really are, yes), but differentiate themselves from another kinds of gaming not only because their mechanics and materiality, but also because of the sociocultural systems which they belong to. I'm not saying that videogames are ontologically different from other games (or are they? I don't know, maybe not), but sometimes I feel that the functions they perform are not necessarily the same. Even when I can relate one experience to another (arcades/gambling houses; casual games/crosswords and such; pokémon/cockfights; level-oriented games/tabletop RPGs, collections and everything OCD), I feel that maybe it's different. But I really don't know, I have never thought seriously about that. When they are competing in arcades or tournaments, players do want to win over their colleagues, but I sense that it's not about the competition. It's not even about bragging. It's about winning, in order to stay *within* the experience; to keep the thing going on. Of course it is cool to be the best, of course it's pretty ok to gain some respect; but people would go to arcades even if they are emptied out, just to enjoy their games; one cannot say the same about spitting contests and the like. It's not ontologically about the competition. It's already known that plot it's not an essential element of videogaming, one of the reasons given being the impatience shown by players at dialogues in arcades. I remember now a similar fact - that no one cares about Hall of Fame status. All the arcades champions are named AAA. But I'm not sure, maybe there are similar situations outside videogaming. I just wish to highlight Gabriel Menotti's question: are videogames (now) still games? Thanks, and regards, Rafael. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
[-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
Rafael and all: Thanks for the observation that the ultimate drive is to stay within the experience. This points to a connection between video games and other immersive experiences. Think of Char Davies' early immersive VR work Osmose http://www.immersence.com/osmose, in which you had to learn the rules (special breathing techniques) in order to move through the space and have the full experience. There was no competition - nothing to brag about (although some users found ways to brag). This work is all about the experience itself being so alluring, so absorbing, that they wanted to move among the many non-heirarchical levels of the work just to be in the experience. A great example using a video gaming engine is Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli' s Swan Quake http://www.swanquake.com. As in Char's work, we move through levels, with the experience itself as the goal, not competition. Simon's observation that play is rehearsal is helpful for clarifying that games are not useless. Rehearsal for young learners, but perhaps we crave new experience and challenge at every stage? In this age of so much cultural production being tied to a supposed market analysis, it is no wonder that mass produced games would be modeled after competitive activities, such as war and football. After all, war (I have been told) is the ultimate challenge to be fully aware and alert - a challenge that we may need (crave) to stay fully alert as humans. Therefore the challenge may be to produce inter-active activities that stimulate our need to be on edge and fully alert -- with competition as just one way to do this. Cynthia Cynthia B Rubin http://CBRubin.net On Nov 30, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Rafael Trindade wrote: It's about winning, in order to stay within the experience; to keep the thing going on. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
I really enjoy certain tabletop games (Settlers of Catan, Caracassonne, and Illuminati) and rarely play video games (I would, I suppose, if I owned some). But a large part of the gaming experience is intensely social. There is a circle of people that get together, students and faculty, that play these kinds of games. I also play Carcassonne a few evenings a week with my wife. At times the play can be competitive, even vengeful, trying to make up for previous humiliations. At other times it is very peaceful and collaborative. It all depends on who is playing and how you are feeling. My thought with these games is not that they are utilitarian or frivolous, but that they simply offer another dimension of social experience which can be estranged from the purely subjective. The game offers opportunities to play with aggression and cooperation via a contractual buffer. In some sense, it is not all that different from the more obvious forms of play-acting that people engage in through other estrangement strategies: Larping, inebriation, costume parties, etc. I think that we all have this artistic faculty that wants to abstract, detach, examine, modify, and reincorporate our various experiences into our being. Having said all that, I don't think that all games are neutral. I think, for instance, we need to notice which games are social and solitary, and pay close attention to both the overt content, but also the deeper significance of these activities. We also need to look at the form of the games, do they operate on a visceral or cognitive level, to what extent, how do they operate on both, etc. Geertz's Notes on Balinese Cockfight comes to mind, here. Davin On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 12:18 PM, Cynthia Beth Rubin c...@cbrubin.net wrote: Rafael and all: Thanks for the observation that the ultimate drive is to stay within the experience. This points to a connection between video games and other immersive experiences. Think of Char Davies' early immersive VR work Osmose http://www.immersence.com/osmose, in which you had to learn the rules (special breathing techniques) in order to move through the space and have the full experience. There was no competition - nothing to brag about (although some users found ways to brag). This work is all about the experience itself being so alluring, so absorbing, that they wanted to move among the many non-heirarchical levels of the work just to be in the experience. A great example using a video gaming engine is Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli' s Swan Quake http://www.swanquake.com. As in Char's work, we move through levels, with the experience itself as the goal, not competition. Simon's observation that play is rehearsal is helpful for clarifying that games are not useless. Rehearsal for young learners, but perhaps we crave new experience and challenge at every stage? In this age of so much cultural production being tied to a supposed market analysis, it is no wonder that mass produced games would be modeled after competitive activities, such as war and football. After all, war (I have been told) is the ultimate challenge to be fully aware and alert - a challenge that we may need (crave) to stay fully alert as humans. Therefore the challenge may be to produce inter-active activities that stimulate our need to be on edge and fully alert -- with competition as just one way to do this. Cynthia Cynthia B Rubin http://CBRubin.net On Nov 30, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Rafael Trindade wrote: It's about winning, in order to stay within the experience; to keep the thing going on. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
Hi Everyone, My name is Brock Dubbels, and I am new to this list. I appreciate being included in the conversation! I did a paper on this topic trying to explore what sustains engagement in games with a heavy emphasis on applying social learning theories on motivation and identity. http://vgalt.com/2009/10/11/dance-dance-education/ The point of the paper was to design an after school game club for DDR and get the students to play regularly enough so that when we measured them for bone density growth, we would have a reliable measure through a good sample of commitment to the intervention. In order to structure this DDR club, I looked at why a young person would play this game, and develop expertise acknowledged by their community, without a true reward -- grades, money, etc. Playing games and getting good at them is hard work. The young woman I used in this phenomenological interview practiced everyday even with varsity soccer, traveling orchestra, and being an IB student. For her, the purpose of gaming changed as she played, and so did her views on her community and her views on the reinforcement (rewards) for the activity. The idea of why is difficult to pin down, because it seems to be all attribution and purpose. The issue I am trying to explore is what was mentioned by Simon, Cynthia, Cicero, and Menotti. The idea of the immersion, and what leads to it. My informant played initially to belong to a group. Later she played for herself and found other groups after her initial play group moved to a new game. Although we may enter the game for leisure, and there is an interesting essay on this by Joseph Pieper, we may find ourselves contradicting Pieper and working harder at play than we would at work. This hard work, I have found, is rewarding in that I have set a goal and learned how to accomplish that goal,but it can represents having a cognitive-affective game hangover--and I have to attribute that the suffering was fun. The real question is whether folks take the next step: Now that can I do it, can I play through the puzzles in a way that is unique and satisfying to my own aesthetic? The idea of Sutton Smith's ethos of an activity -- work/play can have an ambiguous aspect, because play as often defined by theorists as an aimless behavior for exploration. But, as Sutton-Smith points out, there are many types of play. And play for Sutton-Smith is an evolutionary adaptation as defined by Stephen Jay Gould, because of the variation of ways play can be expressed and used. In my opinion, it is an acceptable cultural notion of practice, or as Gee called it,a social moratorium. Or as van Gennep looked at it in the 60's, it is the basis for our rites and rituals. Also, Mumford equated society as a big example of a game, where we absorb the real consequence of death and deprivation through fashioning a huge system of dramatic play and production. So is play aimless if you gain relations and social status? The difficulty is that play often turns into work-like activities, where a game is difficult and un-fun, but the learning is gratifying. The activity becomes dependent upon attribution, often a determination by the player that the hard work was fun, and worth it. This can come about because of the social aspects--the later sharing, the status, and building expertise to be used for the next experience. A study by Csikszentmihalyi, Talented Teens, looked at performance, engagement, and content in schools and found that students prefer to perform where they can display expertise rather than their novice state. If we look at the work of Bentham and Geertz, as was mentioned by Davin, Deep Play has consequences. And though there are consequences, the games provide the structure needed for interaction without having to spill our guts for empathy and understanding--freudian melt downs. When these happen, according to Corsaro, the play groups break up. Too real. The games, as a structured form of play, provide a spontaneous authentic shared experience that allow for relationship building. But, this analysis is awkward for games that are single player. I am 40, with work and family, and play by myself. I like a good story, but I also like a good puzzle. The idea of staying in the game is very useful for some contexts, but people play for different reasons, and they play differently. When I play Civilization, I have to admit that having all of the world's religion and monuments is my goal, and I often forego other avenues to higher scores to achieve this. The observation I am trying to make is that my not staying within the game goal (high score) is probably not common, but maybe not uncommon either. In this instance, I have changed the win-state for myself, and have begun to play for an aesthetic of my own. There many examples of bending a game to one's will, as in tool use described in activity theory. In this instance, I don't play with others, and i do not participate in any regular groups
Re: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)
Hello everyone, My name is Ian Cofino, this is also my first time on -empyre-, thank you for including me in this conversation, I'm excited to be involved! I think that this discussion about competition and the competitive experience in association to video games directly relates to one of Gabriel's original questions: There are people that go to arcades to just hang around and button-mash their way through Tekken. Is it also possible to be a virtuoso, hardcore Farmville player as well? Simply put, I believe the answer is yes. Each subculture of gaming has a hierarchical tier based upon player skill level. Anyone, can play any game casually or hardcore (at the games highest level). A players execution and experience level grows as they spend more time with a game. Not only do the players begin to break down the inner-workings of the game, but they start to immerse themselves with the community or subculture that surrounds it. As this happens, winning in the game becomes tied, as Rafael stated, with extending the experience. Players at tournaments enjoy the experience of competition, the social atmosphere that surrounds the game, and as Cynthia alluded to, the most difficult challenges when continuing further can only be found in the highest level of play. The difference between Tekken and Farmville is the interactive, player on player challenge. Mastery of both games can be achieved by the user. Winning draws the experience of play out for both games, yet, when playing, Farmville is single player in nature; competition is only (well mostly) found with oneself. I say mostly because, through the social interaction of Facebook, Farmville is a twist on most purely single-player simulation games, as it brings in friends and fosters competition between them. Between single and multi-player games though, is there more incentive to excel when pushed by a partner? Is there an overall higher level of skill within the subculture of a gaming community that is inherently competitive in nature (as Cynthia stated, war or sports games), or can solo gamers find enough self-motivation to master games? Brock's experience with DDR is a case study that answers this in part, as his candidate initially found motivation through a group of like-minded peers who also enjoyed the shared experience. - Ian From: c...@cbrubin.net Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:18:16 -0500 To: emp...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au Subject: [-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?) Rafael and all: Thanks for the observation that the ultimate drive is to stay within the experience. This points to a connection between video games and other immersive experiences. Think of Char Davies' early immersive VR work Osmose http://www.immersence.com/osmose, in which you had to learn the rules (special breathing techniques) in order to move through the space and have the full experience. There was no competition - nothing to brag about (although some users found ways to brag). This work is all about the experience itself being so alluring, so absorbing, that they wanted to move among the many non-heirarchical levels of the work just to be in the experience. A great example using a video gaming engine is Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli' s Swan Quake http://www.swanquake.com. As in Char's work, we move through levels, with the experience itself as the goal, not competition. Simon's observation that play is rehearsal is helpful for clarifying that games are not useless. Rehearsal for young learners, but perhaps we crave new experience and challenge at every stage? In this age of so much cultural production being tied to a supposed market analysis, it is no wonder that mass produced games would be modeled after competitive activities, such as war and football. After all, war (I have been told) is the ultimate challenge to be fully aware and alert - a challenge that we may need (crave) to stay fully alert as humans. Therefore the challenge may be to produce inter-active activities that stimulate our need to be on edge and fully alert -- with competition as just one way to do this. Cynthia Cynthia B Rubinhttp://CBRubin.net On Nov 30, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Rafael Trindade wrote: It's about winning, in order to stay within the experience; to keep the thing going on. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
