Back on track

Like I promised yesterday, I will now try to briefly summarise what my upcoming thesis is about.

My hypothesis is that digital games are lacking the basic grammar of emotion, and this lack is hindering their evolution, their maturing up if you will, as a medium [I am aware of the issues related to games being called a medium, better suggestions are warmly welcomed].

A majority of digital games are first and foremost challenge structures, not least due to goals being seen as one of the defining elements of games. I am going to challenge this view and claim that the most important and defining element of games is player activity and that emotion should be created first and foremost through this. Giving the player the illusion that they are in control and free to do what the game implies possible at all times is crucial for upkeeping the 360° illusion* but also for creating emotion with games’ own means.

‘Hold on a minute!’, you say. ‘Games do create all sorts of emotions already! I became really distressed just a few days ago when I was playing Bioshock 2 and Big Sister attacked my character and almost got it killed!’. And I say you are absolutely right. But here’s a question for you: did it make you feel anxious because you got scared of Big Sister, or because you got scared of your character’s health getting too low? If your choice of answer is the latter, we are, again, talking about games as challenge structures. The first one, however, is the one I feel is often lacking in digital games: diegetic emotions**.

Diegetic emotions are emotions that are connected to characters, events and things only true in the game’s world but not outside of it. Diegesis in general, as well as diegetic emotions, unlike the game’s basic rules and goals, are strongly subjective and dependent on each player’s personality, past experiences etc. The good thing about digital games is that they have all the means of previous mediums, such as literacy, movies and comics, at their disposal for building a shared diegesis for all players, but also their own means for creating diegetic emotions through player activity.

‘Oh come on, why couldn’t games just use the previous medias’ means for creating emotion? Why do it the hard way?’ you ask. This is why: creating games’ basic grammar of emotions is what is required for games to rise to the next level, for until this is done, games are forced to lend the tools of previous mediums, thus being stuck as a mere leeches and not a medium by their own right.

Now, this is all pure hypothesis, so I need something to prove me right – or wrong. Since many of the now mainstream phenomenon were once underground ones, I figured I should go and consult indie game designers on what they make of my hypothesis. I will do this by executing a number of thematic interviews, using IRC and similar real-time chat environments. I believe that of all the people I could interview, the people who design games are the ones who might have the best insight on games’ potential in evoking emotion by their own means. Another reason is the fact that although game players have been studied numerous times from numerous viewpoints, the people who actually design the games being played have mostly been disregarded.

I have already started grounding work for the thesis through two test interviews and looking through previous research, but a lot more needs to be done, both interview wise and hypothesis wise. So, all suggestions and critique concerning my thesis is welcome, as well as suggestions for further reading and useful terms.

[* and ** Thanks for both the term '360° illusion' and the term 'diegetic emotions' goes to Annika Waern. I decided no to put any references into this post since wordpress doesn't have any smart way for doing it.]

Essay on the Never-ending Debate

I decided to upload the essay I wrote for our first master course in hypermedia (or interactive media). It’s basically another (more thought-out) attempt in trying to situate myself in the “games as art” -discussion. Loads of the articles and books I’ve read on games and art didn’t make it to this paper, and loads more are still waiting for my eager eyes. Nevertheless, this course and essay were a nice, soft landing to the field.

The essay is a short and easy read. Please leave a comment/send email if the essay provokes any thoughts, you have some good ideas to share, or you think a certain researcher, book or article is a must for me.

(As a sidenote: I’m actually planning on gathering up a list of publications I should read, and publishing it here.)

The Unbearable Heaviness of Defining a Research Question

Incredible but true, I’m still not feeling sleepy one bit, although it’s already 4:30am (GT +3 due to DST). This obviously a perfect time for some Intellectual Scientific Theorizing (from now on simply IST). On the other hand, I already had issues when trying to figure out the spelling for ‘theorizing’, so this might turn out to be either interesting, embarrassing, or both. Personally, I’m trying to keep up the flickering hope of something useful turning up, so here goes, for your entertainment if nothing else.

The heading is unusually long and heavy of me (I tend to do the long and heavy -part in the actual text), but I could not imagine affiliating anything lighter with this topic. Judging from what I’ve done and learned this far, defining the research question is the Ultimate Trial. Once one has overcome the Challenge of Challenges, coming up with a new, well-defined, shiny and bright Research Question, everything else falls into place by itself. Yes, yes, of course I’m exaggerating. Nevertheless, once figuring out a good research question, the rest of the work gets a heck of a lot easier, starting from source-hunting and ending up all the way in the actual thesis writing.

Although the almost-mythical Research Question seems elusive as ever (not only judged on the hearsay of graduate students, but also on my personal experiences), certain general ideas, topics and words keep catching my eye and ear time and time again. First and foremost, game studies. Mostly from a humanistic or a sociological point of view, although I’m also trying to understand the technological side of it. Narrowing down, I used to end up with game cultures, but recently the words have changed places or even form, and I’m sitting there with topics like “Games as Culture”, “Games and Culture”, “Games as Art” and “Games as High Culture”. Why? Let me open it up for you a bit.

Art as a whole is a phenomenon that has always intrigued me. Especially visual arts, like painting, sculpting and architecture never seem to lose their grip on me, and once I realized digital games is the area I want to specialize in, this art-fixation of mine started to hunt me more than ever. After my realization, some other topics have of course come up, some of them forgotten immediately, some still lurking in the back of my mind. Take Japan, for example. Some heavy lurking going on with this topic, since it even made me travel all the way to the other side of the globe for a year. While spending most of my time studying the language, I did also manage to wade some room in my schedule for getting to know the thing I went to Japan for: games. Especially people who play games, or even better, make them. Getting to know a number of people who work in the business was the final factor convincing me on the essentialness of including their views in my thesis, maybe even making it the focus of the research.

This brought up another thing that had been circling in my mind: finding out what people think about games. Game developers’, indie or commercial, but also gamers’ opinions. Very soon after coming up with this, I realized I also want and need the views of Average Joe and those of people who don’t work in development, but could otherwise be considered experts in the fields of digital games, art, Japanese gaming culture, and all these combined. The last group of people is quite a mixed bag of course. So, I’ve got both the question and the people to pose the question to, why am I still saying it’s heavy business?

First of all, I’m doing a master thesis, not a doctoral one. There is no way on earth I could even dream of including all that in a hundred-or-so -pages and ending up with a good thesis. An easy problem, granted, and solved, for example, by simply narrowing down and focusing on one group of people. That’s what I did, and ended up with this: “Are games art?”. This is the oldest version, and very, very intimidating. Defining the research question like that, I’d be forced to define not only what digital games are, but also take part in the dreaded What Is True Art -conversation.

Most of my antipathy for this debate actually results from something quite different from fear: it seems to me a very pointless and endless fight, sometimes inducing eerie similarities with that of different religious groups, and at others sinking to the level that makes a fight over which are tastier, strawberries or blueberries, seem sound. Come on people, face it: there is no absolute definition for art! I know it’s hard for a human mind to accept some things can’t be defined the same way as the tectonic structure of our planet, but that’s just how it is, so live with it. Art is something that has a different meaning and manifestation to each and every individual on this planet, and that’s the closest we’ll ever get of having an absolute definition for art. Take it or leave it, get all emotional or don’t give a shit, it doesn’t change the fact one bit.

Not wanting to take part in this Holy War of Art and Non-Art, I tried my best to find a more eloquent research question, and maybe did. Unfortunately that has to wait for another time (maybe tomorrow?), since I’ve stayed up ridiculously long and should go to bed. Stay put for another episode of some hard ISTing and exemplary Holy War -avoidance, it might be coming up sooner than you expect!

As a side-note: Damn I wish this thing had a footnoting-system. Another side-note: No laughing at typos and aberrations, it’s frigging 6:43 am here.