Gundolf S. Freyermuth Games/ Game Design/ Game Studies: An Introduction Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany 2015. Pp. 290. ISBN: 978-3-8376-2983-5.  Despoina Feleki Games, Game Design, Game Studies: An Introduction scrutinizes the developments in game production from analog to digital technology, Game Design theories, and, finally, the newly formed academic discipline of Game Studies. It attempts a critical assessment of the interdisciplinarity in media studies that accounts for, according ..

Feleki, Despoina

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Gundolf S. Freyermuth Games/ Game Design/ Game
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Despoina Feleki
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Gundolf S. Freyermuth Games/ Game
Design/ Game Studies: An Introduction
Despoina Feleki
1 Gundolf S. Freyermuth Games/ Game Design/ Game Studies: An Introduction
2 Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany 2015. Pp. 290. ISBN: 978-3-8376-2983-5. 
3 Despoina Feleki
4 Games, Game Design, Game Studies: An Introduction scrutinizes the developments in game
production from analog to digital  technology, Game Design theories,  and,  finally,  the
newly formed academic discipline of Game Studies. It attempts a critical assessment of
the interdisciplinarity in media studies that accounts for, according to its writer Gundolf
S.  Freyermuth,  the lack of  disciplinarity in Game Studies.  Freyermuth is  Professor of
Media and Games Studies as well as founding director of the Cologne Game Lab at TH Koln
—University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, Germany. In this study, he offers a historic
overview of the technological and aesthetic qualities of computer games, investigating
the stepping stones that led to the establishment of Game Studies, a discipline still very
much  influenced  by  approaches  generating  both  from  the  Humanities  and  Social
Sciences. He traces the origins of digital games initially in the mechanization and then in
the industrialization of human culture, proposing interesting bonds with other cultural
emanations, like storytelling in theatre, TV, and film, as well as epic, lyric, and dramatic
narrations. The important contribution of the book lies in that it seeks to clearly define
the object of Game Studies. Yet, the writer expresses the need for mapping out clearer
boundaries  and  creating  solid  ground  for  Game  Studies  to  evolve  and  mature  as  a
consequence of an ongoing academization of game design theories and game production
practices. 
5 As the book title suggests, Games, Game Design, Game Studies: An Introduction examines three
different aspects that make up the main discussion points about Games. One of the most
important problems and main reasons for the inconsistency in the discipline, Freyermuth
points out in Part I, is the inability for a clear definition of the object of study of Games.
After  his  assessment  of  previous  (pre-analog/ analog/  digital)  game  definitions,1
Freyermuth defines digital games as the “specific other of analog games” (40), on the one
Gundolf S. Freyermuth Games/ Game Design/ Game Studies: An Introduction
European journal of American studies , Reviews 2017-3
1
hand, and, on the other, as “the specific other of linear audiovisions (41), like cinema and
TV. This idea of the “double alterity of digital games” (91) in relation to older audiovisual
media is justified on account of two basic developments: the industrial transition of visual
representations  from  painting  to  photography  and  the  audiovisual  transition  from
theatre to film. This realization allows him to contribute with further categorizations
about Games, useful to those interested in Games and Game Studies.
6 The categorical taxonomy that is proposed by Freyermuth is based upon Harry Pross’s
Media Forschung: Film, Funk, Fernsehen, published in 1972. Games are classified according to
their  mediality  that  also  affects  the  changing  roles  of  the  players.  Pross’s  early
classification of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Mediality takes into account relations
to space and time as we move away from linearity and chronology towards interactivity,
while Manfred Fassler’s proposed Quaternary mediality of digitality in 1997 allows for the
element of interaction to be taken into serious account. Looking at the complex network
of production, consumption, and distribution of digital games, the writer of the present
study informs existing research with information about latest  technological  advances
(like  mobile  broadband  networking),  new  models  of  financing  and  subscription,  the
flourishing of indie markets, and a more general tendency towards gamification in social
interactions.
7 The historic overview that Freyermuth provides, which takes up a great part of the book,
constitutes a great information bank about the basic technical intricacies that have led to
digitization.  In  systematizing  the  different  turns  in  game  development  he  bases  his
portrayal of the history of digital games on works by Tristan Donovan, Steve L. Kent,
Mark J. P. Wolf, and Frans Mӓyrӓ. In the “procedural turn,” “procedurability” is a special
quality  of  digital  narration  that  “capture[s]  experience  as  systems  of  interrelated
actions.”2 It is “this ability to execute a series of rules [that] fundamentally separates
computers  from  other  media,”3 a  markedly  distinct  way  of  representing  realities,
different  from  analog  or  linear  representations  (66).  Freyermuth  provides  actual
examples of the first instances of Artificial Intelligence appearing in competitive games
against human players, such as the games of CHESS and NOUGHTS AND CROSSES in the
1950s. Developments in game production are later used in military training in the 1960s,
and in the 1970s in business, in management, and at universities while in the 1980s, they
are “in fact remediated, or ‘disguised’ versions of non-digital ones.”4
8 The end of procedural narration marks the beginning of new unplanned storylines. With
this realization Freyermuth begins a thread for new discussions about the potentialities
of  evolving  narrative  forms  to  begin.  He  continues  with  the  “hyperepic  turn,”
characterized  by  more  complex  story  structures,  in  accord  with  industrialization
pressures and convergences with Hollywood practices that began in the 1980s and 1990s.
Devotees  to  the  discipline  will  enjoy  reading  about  a  gradual  audiovisual  turn  to
storytelling, the immergence of interactivity in MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons), the first
instance  of  role-playing  gaming,  the  first  networked  online  game  in  1981,  or  the
introduction of characters with Pac-Man as the predecessor of  characters like Mario,
Sonic, and Lara Croft. Through this “hyperepic turn,” the new narrative possibilities of
digital games are emphasized as he witnesses their break from text-based origins. 
9 The next stage in the technical and aesthetic development of games is the “hyperrealistic
turn,” which stresses the fusion of game and film aesthetics through the example of
George Lucas’ emblematic film Star Wars: Rebel Assault (1993).  “Hyperrealism” found its
realization in the new digital software and gaming practices that are characterized by
Gundolf S. Freyermuth Games/ Game Design/ Game Studies: An Introduction
European journal of American studies , Reviews 2017-3
2
distinct  “operativity”  (87).  While  sketching  out  the  transition  from  live  action
performances to active participation in games, he proposes the final “hyperimmersive
turn,” which networked gaming and latest mobile hardware make possible.
10 In  the  Intermezzo  that  follows,  Freyermuth  underscores  the  growing  aesthetic  and
economic interdependences between movies and games. There the reader can appreciate
reading  about  valuable  connections  between  non-linear  games  and  linear  films,
adaptations of games into films and vice versa, aesthetic adaptations and useful technical
elements that they both share.
11 In Part I, Freyermuth brings in knowledge from many disciplines and bridges works by
the most  important  scholars  and critics  in  media  and literary studies,  such as  Janet
Murray, Lev Manovic, and Marie-Laure Ryan (to name only a few), inviting readers from
Media Studies and the Humanities. By contrast, in the much shorter Part II, he begins a
quest for a break from other disciplines. He focuses on new divisions of labor as a result of
digitality, with the example of the game designer posing as any director in audiovisual
media. Emphasis is placed on game designers’ different roles as they do not work towards
the representation of a storyline but facilitate storytelling procedures with the aim of
gameplay. In a similar fashion to Part I, he provides an informative historic overview of
Game Design that again builds bridges with other disciplines.  He traces its origins in
theories of art, communication, and media since the 19th century while it has grown to
encompass  not  only  the  design  of  pattern  but  also  the  attribution  of  meaning  and
problem solving. According to Freyermuth, great importance lies in the contribution of
game  designers  towards  the  establishment  of  a  separate  academic  Game  Studies
discipline. Still, he makes connections with the writings of film practitioners and film
theoreticians in the early 20th century. He sees the establishment of Game Studies as an
academic discipline taking shape through the processes of “[s]edimentation, exaptation, and
adaptation” of the film studies (189, italics in original). He also establishes connections
with Game theories that take us back to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Friedrich Schiller, and
Friedrich Nietzsche (192). 
12 Although Freyermuth spends  the  first  two parts  of  his  book  examining  the  “double
alterity” (91) of games and the connections of game theories with the Humanities and
Social Studies, in the last part of his book, he is overwhelmed by his desire to stress the
schisms of Game Design theories and Game Studies from related disciplines. As the main
reasons for the absence of theoretical analyses in Game Studies, an obvious theoretical
“backwardness” (203) as he calls it, he correctly recognizes the lack in theorizing and
theoriticization due to emphasis on production practices and reflections on Games. As a
solution, he proposes “[t]he mechanics of a digital game [that can] demarcate its inherent
borders” (217, italics in original). Yet, he also proposes categorization of games in terms
of  their  “story,”  “aesthetics,”  “technology,”  and their  “transmedia”  qualities  “in  the
context of serious games” (226), which somehow brings to mind the older debate between
Narratologists and Ludologists about the narrative and aesthetic value of games, which,
at this point, gives to the reader a sense of going back in circles. 
13 Cultural acceptance of Games has been gradual as was the case with film and television
when  they  first  entered  human  consciousness  and  everyday  practice.  In  Part  III,
according  to  Freyermuth,  the  establishment  of  degree  programs  at  universities  and
technical schools affirms the acceptance of Games and Game Studies in the academic
canon. In his effort to demarcate the clear boundaries in academic studies, he insists on
overemphasizing the divide from analog and digital games and other audiovisual media
Gundolf S. Freyermuth Games/ Game Design/ Game Studies: An Introduction
European journal of American studies , Reviews 2017-3
3
starting from theatre to film to TV to videogames. Which makes one wonder why not
accept Games’ nature as “the specific other” of analog games, of cinema, and TV that he
initially proposed in the very beginning of the book (40)? His insistence on a deliberate
schism inevitably makes him fall back into the same loops that he is so desperately trying
to break from. 
14 Despite this emphasis on marking off the boundaries of Game Studies, no one can dispute
that industrial tendencies are suggesting new ways of recombining diverse media on the
basis of their audiovisual qualities with renewed emphasis on transmediation practices.
Developments in medial qualities and technological complexities of games are certain
proof that games, like all cultural emanations, affect and are affected by the changing
ways of perceiving the world around us. Similarly, our perception of games and Game
Studies is changing and will eventually come of age. Undoubtedly, this work offers a lot in
systematizing information about the nature and origins of the discipline. As Game Studies
are still moving towards their maturity, it has contributed a lot in this direction. Bearing
in mind that scholarship is like a game as Mӓyrӓ suggests (213), or very much like a game
of constant negotiation and power relations, scholars and students of the discipline can
appreciate gameplay while experiencing academic power politics.
NOTES
1. According to Chris Crawford in “The Phylogeny of Play” (2010), games are older than mankind.
The  online  contribution  is  available  at  http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/science/the-
phylogeny-of-play.html.
2. See  in  Janet  Murray’s  1997  monumental  Hamlet  on  the  Holodeck:  The  Future  of  Narrative  in
Cyberspace, p. 274.
3. See in Ian Bogost’s 2007 Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, (Kindle edition)
loc. 125. 
4. See in Frans Mӓyrӓ An Introduction to Game Studies, (Kindle edition) loc. 811.
Gundolf S. Freyermuth Games/ Game Design/ Game Studies: An Introduction
European journal of American studies , Reviews 2017-3
4


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