The Performance of Digital Play

To date, games studies (the academic field that analyses videogames from a humanities perspective) has drawn from the fields of play theory, psychology, sociology, film studies, cyber culture, literary and media theory as well as visual anthropology to map its roots. This paper adds the field of performance theory to this family of disciplines in order to better understand the emergent and interdisciplinary field of games studies. These disciplines have hinted at the connection between the discourses surrounding play and aspects of performance and performativity. However, scholars have been less forthcoming in acknowledging the role of performance in play as a subject in its own right, worthy of study.As a starting point to frame the phenomenology of digital play it is useful to look to core elements of a play experience. On the highest level these can be understood as the game object (which consists the game world and its rules), the player subject and the play act (the unifying action that creates a particular performance)

The player character as performing object

Engagement in games is manifest through a player’s representation of action in game. The main mechanism for this engagement is through direct control of a player character. This control mechanism can be seen as a form of puppetry in which the player manipulates a game figure ranging from the abstract to the super-human. Through a focus on the player character, this paper posits that it may be productive to conceive of the player focus as one akin to that of the puppet artist, or puppeteer, and discusses one approach to unpacking the abstract sign systems of gameplay in this setting. The player character acts out the movements of the player and marks her progression in game. A doubling happens in this action, between the physical movements on the controller and the representation of agency on screen. As a player I act, then watch the results of my action on screen, always already audience to my own play practice. One ongoing challenge for games studies is the framing of the relationship between the player and her player character. From a phenomenological perspective this has been conceived of as an instrumental extension into the game world [9, 18]. Using the ‘binocular lens’ [19] of performance analysis semiotic work is necessary to balance our sense of the improvisational act of digital game-play. The player binds to the lived experience of game-play through engagement with the sign systems at play in a specific gaming experience. Puppetry has existed across world cultures, as entertainment, ritual and celebration, and broadly involves the animation of inanimate performing objects. The insertion of objects between the performer and the audience allows for different, and deeper, levels of signification than live actors alone can offer. Puppets consist a developed form of performing object, one that moves. The fascination with puppets reaches far back into history, revealing our yearning to play god, to exert domination over our human experience. Similarly, the seductive illusion of control plays a central part in the appeal inherent in digital game form. In the modern setting much work on puppetry remains relatively hidden across a broad spectrum of fields, from computer science to anthropology. However performance theorists such as Tillis [20] introduce a broad semiotics to conceive of the multitude of ways we engage with puppetry. Other theorists have engaged in embracing digital and mediated puppet form, not least in games studies in areas such as machinima and alternate-reality gaming, yet attention has been slow in broadening the application of puppet theory to player characters. Tillis [20] offers a focus on signs of design, movement and speech as core to building an aesthetic of the puppet. For the player character signifiers of affect and control require addition to any such tentative schema. This paper argues that the metaphor of the puppet offers a useful frame for the central figure of our game-play focus by allowing for a kind of ‘double-vision’ [20] that enables a player character to be seen in two ways at once, ‘as a perceived object and as an imagined life’ [20]. Using the tools of performance analysis this paper addresses the liminal relationship between player and player character in the flux of play. The intention is to offer an explication of the range of methods, whether stylistic, instrumental or kinesthetic, deployed in this relationship to engage the player in the act of play

I HEART LocoRoco – a reading of a gameplay experience

In the diverse landscape of modern gaming it is rare to find specific games that are universally described in affectionate terms. Allegiances to form and genre identify the various tribes and often the divide between gaming sub-cultures runs deep. Passionate players pride themselves both by the longevity of their status and via signifiers of skill acquired. These traits typify what has become known as the “hardcore” player; in popular gaming culture the hardcore is often positioned contra the “casual” player with hours and type of game played as the main criteria for qualification. However these terms are ludicrous at best and fall short in describing the multitude of people who play digital games. The following is focussed on one particular Sony PSP game franchise that has received widespread critical acclaim, LocoRoco. This is a 2D platform game initially released in Europe in Summer 2006 and although it has not gone platinum  this title got to No 5 in the UK Charts and has won 2 BAFTA’s for character design and children’s game in 2006. LocoRoco 2 was released in the U.K. in November 2008. Sony’s Tsutomu Kouno, the Director of LocoRoco, has stated that one of his design intentions was to make a game that appealed to those who didn’t normally play games (Kouno, 2006). This statement is key in my selection of this game. As a hugely lucrative yet nascent industry, it is of interest to study the ways in which commercial developers attempt to attract new players to part with their hard-earnt entertainment dollar. My investigation looks to explicate game design decisions that entice a player into dialogue with the ongoing game experience. I will look at issues including pleasure and seduction within the action and reward cycle inherent to gameplay

The performance of digital play

To date, games studies (the academic field that analyses videogames from a humanities perspective) has drawn from the fields of play theory, psychology, sociology, film studies, cyber culture, literary and media theory as well as visual anthropology to map its roots. This paper adds the field of performance theory to this family of disciplines in order to better understand the emergent and interdisciplinary field of games studies. These disciplines have hinted at the connection between the discourses surrounding play and aspects of performance and performativity. However, scholars have been less forthcoming in acknowledging the role of performance in play as a subject in its own right, worthy of study.As a starting point to frame the phenomenology of digital play it is useful to look to core elements of a play experience. On the highest level these can be understood as the game object (which consists the game world and its rules), the player subject and the play act (the unifying action that creates a particular performance)

Crafting Play: Little Big Planet

In the contemporary era of Web 2.0, high-tech consumer culture is increasingly engaged in the production of ‘user-generated content’ (UGC) for digital multicast. The tension between global homogeneity and the potential of technology to support multiple voices, histories and viewpoints is of central interest. The new DIY craft movement is successfully adopting Internet technologies to go straight to market as the digital generation increasingly engages in analogue craft practice. The swell of interest in craft values, both in objects and in hands-on feel and process exhibited in blogs such as Wonderland and distribution aggregators like Etsy, offers a productive frame that connects the digital and the analogue. Whether this reveals any anxiety about the intangibility of the digital or points to an increased creativity inspired by UGC remains open to question. The ‘feedback loop’ (to use Schechner’s (2002) term for the connection between an individual’s behavior and what they observe on street, stage and screen) between digital and real world practice, although far from literal, provides a frame for the dialogue between game form and culture at large. This paper teases out aspects of this feedback loop using examples from Sony’s PS3 series Little Big Planet (2008). The argument presented here does not deal with narratological or ludic structures and only tips its hat at the much broader field of fan culture but foregrounds context, style and characterization in its approach to analysis. The rationale for this approach is two-fold; first through the weight Media Molecule, developers of the game, give to visual communication and secondly through the prioritization of the invitation to create over and above the provision of a full triple-A title more typical of a console launch game

Independent game development as craft

This paper celebrates the rise of game making as craft in order to explicate the ways in which this activity is both empowering for those involved as well as at risk of reproducing less desirable aspects of the contemporary cultural landscape. One only has to look at independent game festivals to see how few women and other traditionally excluded groups are visible center stage in this rapidly developing sector – if we are not careful then the very same exclusionary practices that are evident in the mainstream sector will become embedded here. Craft has historically been seen as 'women's work' and the specific positioning of game making as craft in this paper is an intentional feminist act to claim this space and its potential to both play with and against ‘for profit’ game development. This paper blends feminist approaches, new craft theory and indie game culture with the intent of identifying opportunities and strategies for inclusivity for the independent games sector. It will elucidate some processes in action but also, importantly, identify routes forward for building a diverse community of independent game developers

Feminist art game praxis

This paper explores multiple approaches to building an art game project created from a feminist perspective. Funded by a research grant, this can be seen as an experimental praxis that plays with connecting metaphors invoked in feminist theory to playable media. This connection is figurative not literal and manifests throughout the development process: in conception (artistic intent), production (technical approach) and engagement with existent and emergent theory. Intentionally playing in the space between art games and game art and inspired by Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, PsXXYborg1 is an art game in development that presents a rich cyber-feminist mythos across multiple screens as an allegorical play with the eternal fascination of 'becoming-machine'. PsXXYborg blends feminist art practice, makerism and academic research in order to birth itself as a glitch for the hermetically sealed structures of game culture. When politically motivated the game glitch aims at disturbing the hegemonic structures of normative game culture questioning the evident exclusions growing over time. Questions include: How can digital play represent and reflect the human condition? What is a feminist game? Why does society position play as inconsequential? How might we play our way to an equitable future

Introduction

oai:ojs.henry.ub.uit.no:article/595

Playshops: Workshop series exploring play

Playshops was a collaborative project between OCAD University research labs, faculty, and Symon Oliver of ALSO Collective. Expanding on the conventional model of academic workshops, Playshops incorporated both theory and practice in an attempt to investigate methods of play and how they relate to research and innovation. The workshop itself was composed of practice-based exercises followed by discussion periods. The documentation, and post-workshop writing was gathered and designed into the Playshops publication. The publication can be read cover to cover as a conventional book; however, the signatures fold out into posters that relate to the individual exercises on play

In Situ: Researching corporate diversity initiatives with game developers

This paper explicates the design and development of a feminist action research pilot that studied and supported the launch of a diversity initiative within a major game development studio. Drawing on methods from design research including rapid ethnography and model making, we describe the stages our pilot study followed, including key models and high-level findings, as well as outline the ways in which we collaborated with our research partner in this initial stage. Use of these methods helped us build an integrated model that can be used as a strategic tool to direct the focus of ongoing work by our partner and other developers. By sharing our process, we hope to illustrate one way that researchers might engage design research methods in service of equity work of this nature in partnership with the game industry