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Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Herrigan: First Person. New Media as Story, Performance, and Game 1. Computer
Game Studies, Year
Zero |
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A lot has
happened in computer game studies since Espen Aarseth
published his influential article These
debates have left their traces in the Table of Contents of
First Person. New Media as Story Performance and
Game, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Herrigan.
There are chapters dedicated to 'Cyberdrama', 'Ludology' and
'Critical Simulation'. The list of contributors reads like a
Who's Who of game studies: Espen Aarseth, Chris
Crawford, Gonzalo Frasca, Jesper Juul, Janet Murray…
– and the list goes on. But looking
inside the book, one can hardly recognise the progress made
in the past 3 years: Janet Murray is still looking for
Hamlet on the Holodeck, while Espen Aarseth and Markku
Eskelinen are still trying to defend the field of game
studies from imaginary invaders. And Gonzalo Frasca still
advertises "Dave's Alcoholic Mother version 0.9" as the
solution to a more critical engagement with videogames.
Indeed, it seems as if we have gone backward in time, not
forward: once again, it is year zero for computer game
studies. While this
might be due to the fact that print publishing, especially
academic publishing, is not really an appropriate medium for
writing about new media, the anachronism of First Person
also seems to be the result of a certain conservatism in new
media studies in general, and digital games studies in
particular. In their zeal to legitimize their object of
study, scholars of new media often overshoot the goal, and
take a position that seems positively reactionary. Paradoxically,
it seems as if the tender age of the medium fosters the
traditionalism that is so wide-spread in game studies,
whether it manifests itself as a desire to reconcile
computer games with Aristotelian poetics or the endlessly
repeated truism that "videogames are, before anything else,
games" (Frasca, 85).
It is
possible to discern similar tendencies in new media studies
in general. Lev Manovich's study of digital media through
the lens of Dziga Vertov's kino-eye (in The
Language of New Media) is yet another attempt to bridge
the gap between old methodologies and new phenomena. But it
doesn't have to be that way. As I said earlier, much has
happened in game studies in the last three years. For
example, TL Taylor and James Newman have successfully
applied methods of new media studies to digital games. These
approaches benefit from the insights gleaned from cultural
studies, ethnography and political economy, among others. Still, Espen
Aarseth insists that "[u]nlike in music, where a
national anthem played on electric guitar takes on a whole
new meaning, the value system of a game is strictly
internal, determined unambivalently by the rules" (48). In
other words, it does not matter whether Agent 47 in
Hitman is a Russian spy during the Cold War, a CIA
agent eliminating political opponents of the ruling party,
or an eco-terrorist seeking revenge for corporate crimes
against the environment. I, for one,
beg to differ. Not just because I think the scenario of
games makes a difference in the actual gameplay experience,
but also because adopting Aarseth's stance makes it
impossible for us to criticise games from an ideological
point of view. Let us take one of the more sinister examples
of the recent years: From a
'ludological' as well as an 'Aristotelian' point of view,
there is nothing wrong with America's Army. Good
gameplay, good story, good game. Even if Aarseth and Murray
cannot agree whether there is discrepancy or synergy between
game and narrative, they can still achieve a truce over a
game like this. This allows us to see the underlying problem
of digital game studies: 'narratologists' and 'ludologists'
alike would rather be fragged to bits than make a negative
value judgement. The reason
for this is to be found in the history of game studies: once
upon a time, videogames were only taken seriously by
psychologists. They would lock up a 14-year-old to play
Street Fighter II for 48 hours straight, submit him
to a marathon of Rorschach ink blot tests, and then come out
of the lab convinced of the detrimental effects of
videogames (but without a second thought about the
detrimental effects of their testing methods). When game
studies emerged from the primordial digital ooze in the
mid-1990s, this kind of research was still prevalent. It is
therefore understandable that 'serious' game researchers are
loath to utter a bad word about their object of study. If
they would proclaim a certain videogame 'bad', this might be
taken to mean that all videogames are bad. So, to be
on the safe side, game studies has reverted to a
particularly bland variant of formalism and stuck to it. The reader
of the first two sections of First Person is
therefore likely not to experience the 'shock of the new'
but rather a shock of recognition as she trawls through page
after page of rewrites of old articles by the same old
theorists. What is so shocking about this is not the fact
that some of these articles have been reprinted, almost
verbatim, from other sources, but rather the fact that the
authors have been given the opportunity to update their
writings, but elected to squander it. This is not
only true for established authors such as Murray and
Aarseth, but also for young academics like Gonzalo Frasca
and Michael Mateas. Mateas, whose essay responds to Janet
Murray's, chose to contribute a stripped-down version of the
mid-project report (originally published in 2002) of
Façade,
an interactive drama created collaboratively with his
colleague Andrew Stern. Two years
might not seem like a long time, but since a beta version of
Façade has been demonstrated on numerous
occasions, it would have been more illuminating to hear
about the lessons learned from observing users interacting
with the software than to read a design document that is
already obsolete in some points. In a similar
fashion, Frasca's contribution consists of a condensed
version of his MA thesis, However,
instead of lamenting the shortcomings of the articles in the
book's first two sections, I would rather draw the reader's
attention to the one truly outstanding article in the midst
of this swamp of mediocrity. This is Stuart Moulthroup's
essay 'From Work to Play: Molecular Culture in the Time of
Deadly Games'. It begins
with an account of the author's difficulties of taking games
seriously in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. But he is
quick to point out that "[y]et games and play demand
serious attention even in such times as these, and perhaps
especially now" (56). In trying to reconcile the ludologist
Markku Eskelinen and the 'Aristotelian' Janet Murray,
Moulthroup points out that while catharsis might be an
outmoded concept in the age of 'information filtering',
Murray must be credited with pointing out that losing a game
is often much more interesting than winning. Taking up
Eskelinen's concept of a paradigmatic shift from
interpretation to configuration, Moulthroup offers a brief
analysis of the promotional game for the film A.I.,
pointing out that by integrating communication media into
the gameplay, the game draws attention to emaill, blogs and
newsgroups as configurative practices. Importantly, he
points out that although "[i]t might be absurd to
suggest that all interactive media are species of game, but
games do seem to offer a useful way of thinking about such
media" (64). Thus,
Moulthroup locates the rising interest in digital games
within a larger ludic turn that affects all areas of society
and culture to a certain degree. He stresses the political
implications of this shift from interpretation to
configuration and asserts that "the immersiveness of games
differs crucially from that of narratives" (65). “If
narrative forms play any role in the process by which
‘we lose consciousness of the medium’,” he
argues, “there may be good reason to turn away from
storytelling as the prime agenda of art” (66). This draws
attention to the question whether immersion should be the
ideal game designers strive for. Realizing that
immersiveness depends on the transparency of the interface
allows us to question the politics of immersion:
"Transparent media may not bear much scrutiny, but happily
for business elites, they do not present themselves for
inspection" (66). In other words, a certain degree of
Verfremdung might not only be desirable in digital
games, but might be of crucial importance in the maturation
of the medium. Before
turning to the next section of the book, I would like to
lose a few words about the format of First Person.
The book is arranged as an 'imagined panel discussion'
between the contributors. In practice, this means that
alongside each essay the reader will find a response by one
of the other contributors, an excerpt from a further
response from the While in
theory this sounds like a good way to foster discussion
among contributors, in reality it only adds to the reader's
confusion as she frantically tries to discern the common
thread in this tangle of arguments and fragmentary
counter-arguments. In fact, the format of the book looks
suspiciously like a re-invention of the peer-reviewed
article – only that the task of reconciling different
views is transferred from the author to the reader. While
this might be seen as a 'liberation' of the reader by some,
I see it as a symptom of the sloppy editing that also
manifests itself in other aspects of First Person,
such as the careless proofreading and the occasionally
chaotic layout. On a related
note, I am appalled by the prospect of an 'imagined panel
discussion' in which none of the speakers is introduced. As
the list of contributors ranges from the illustrious to the
obscure, it would have been a service to the reader to give
some indication who on earth these people are. In all
fairness, it must be said that there are some cases in which
the responses genuinely add to the argument brought forth in
the original article, such as Will Wright's response to Ken
Perlin's essay, "Can There Be a Form between a Game and a
Story?", in which Wright reflects on the role of the
designer as the creator of "a landscape of possibilities"
(13). However, the
reader is likely to miss these rare glimpses of a possible
dialogue across disciplines, as the compression of the
online responses into mere soundbites will discourage her
from reading the responses at all. In general, the responses
range from the irrelevant to the polemical, and in many
cases they are a distraction rather than a contribution.
Moulthroup's
question regarding the reconciliation of immersion and
ideological critique is taken up in the third section of
First Person, "Critical Simulation". In many
respects, this section and the one following it are the best
parts of the book. Compared to the other sections, "Critical
Simulation" and "Game Theories" are more coherent and the
quality of the arguments brought forward is generally higher
than in the other chapters. Although
Simon Penny's argument in "Representation, Enaction, and the
Ethics of Simulation," is weakened by references to
anti-videogame activist David Grossman
(http://www.killology.com/), he raises some interesting
points that game researchers would be well advised to take
into consideration. It is simply unreasonable, after all, to
advertise games as educational tools, while at the same time
steadfastly denying a possible link between virtual and
real-world violence (see the discussion of violence in
computergames by In the "Game
Theories" section, Henry Jenkins' essay "Game Design as
Narrative Architecture" particularly deserves the reader's
attention. Jenkins sets out to find "a middle ground
position between the ludologists and the narratologists"
(119), and although Jon McKenzie's observation that this
middle ground "remains slanted toward the narratological end
of things" is accurate, Jenkins should be lauded for his
attempt to mediate between the two schools. He helpfully
points out points of agreement between ludologists and
narratologists, but he also identifies ludology's
"conceptual blind spots" in regard to narrative. Chief among
these is ludology's failure to understand that narratives
can operate across different media and do not have to be
self-contained. As Jenkins usefully points out in response
to Jesper Juul: "The Star Wars game may not simply
retell the story of Star Wars, but it doesn’t
have to in order to enrich or expand our experience of the
Star Wars saga" (124). Unfortunately,
the other articles in this part of the book appear to be
re-formulations of earlier writings. Such is the case with
Gonzalo Frasca's as well as Jesper Juul's, Celia Pearce's
and Eric Zimmerman's contributions. In Zimmerman's case,
this seems to be due to a delayed publication schedule, as
his article has been preceded and superseded by his and
Katie Salen's book Rules of Play. The section
that follows, "Hypertexts & Interactives", suffers from
a lack of definition that has been the hallmark of hypertext
theory for almost 15 years. Hypertext is, after all, a
generic term for all kinds of texts that allow the embedding
of links, and thus applies to dictionary entries as well as
news websites, text-based adventure games and database
entries. Hypertext fiction, on the other hand, comprises
only a tiny fraction of the hypertexts an average user
encounters. Trying to define ‘hypertext’ in a
fashion that includes all its myriad forms while remaining
specific enough to be useful is akin to the Sisyphos task of
defining the term ‘computer game’. Both phenomena
can be said to possess a certain family likeness, but a
definition based on these features is bound to exclude some
specimens. Therefore, it might be time to get rid of the
term ‘hypertext’ and use more specific terms. The same can
be said about the seemingly irradicable terminological
ragweed 'interactive', which occurs here in its less
widespread, but equally odious nominal form. Disregarding
the fact that face-to-face communication and
telecommunication are by far the most widespread forms of
interaction, 'interactivity' keeps getting flaunted as
characteristic of new media. Regrettably,
the contributors to this section do nothing to remedy this
sorry state of affairs, and in some cases even exacerbate
it. While Mark Bernstein's and Diane Greco's article on
'exotic' hypertext tools steers clear of technological
determinism so commonly found in hypertext theory, Stephanie
Strickland's as well as J. Yellowlees Douglas' and Andrew
Hargadon's articles implicitly present hypertext as a step
'beyond' printed text. In statements such as "An
oscillating, or flickering, pattern has often been invoked
with regard to electronic art" (184), Strickland seems to
superfluously re-invent post-structuralism, while Douglas
and Hargadon brush aside decades of reader-response
criticism and audience research by claiming, "we know
relatively little about the affective pleasures of reading"
(192). Refusing to
learn lessons learnt the hard way in other disciplines,
Douglas and Hargadon tackle the thorny problem of pleasure
in digital media with a purely formalist approach. This
would hardly be worth mentioning if this disregard for more
appropriate methodology was not so typical of the approach
to new media presented in First Person in general.
A notable
exception to this rule is Warren Sack's essay, "What Does A
Very Large-Scale Conversation Look Like?", in section VII,
"Beyond Chat". Here, Sack describes Conversation Map, a tool
for the analysis of discussion groups on the internet.
Combining approaches from computational linguistics, social
network analysis and graphical interface design, he sets out
to describe the distinct patterns created by different forms
of 'reciprocation' (a much more appropriate term than
'interaction') and how they can be analysed. Importantly,
Sack regards this primarily as a navigation device, rather
than a research tool, and his concept of navigation is
informed by the concept of self-governance. In her response,
Phoebe Sengers justly identifies Conversation Map as a
critical technical practice (CTP), pointing to the huge
potential of this tool in all kinds of internet-related
research. In stark contrast to other contributions in
First Person, Sack's approach appears moderate at
first sight, but is revolutionary in its potential
implications. If this tool lives up to its promise it should
make it easier to make sense of the world wide web for
researchers and users alike. The last
section, "New Readings", attempts to map new forms of
reading by bringing together three subjective accounts of
interactions with new media. Of these, only Jill Walker's
essay "How I Was Played by Online Caroline" is worth
mentioning, as N. Katherine Hayles' contribution is a
reprint of her SIGGRAPH 2001 paper, and Nick Montfort's
article merely sums up his book Twisty Little
Passages. Walker recounts her interaction with
As in
Metal Gear Solid, however, the 'personalization' of
the interaction between Jill and Caroline is merely an
effect, similar to the effet de réel described
by Roland Barthes. What is interesting about this
interaction is the effect this effect has on the human
participant: Walker creates a second persona to interact
with Caroline and puts her to the test, thus becoming, as it
were, an 'unreliable narratee'. Nevertheless the author
claims not to be a player herself, but to be played by the
simulation. This raises
several questions that would have warranted further
reflection. Chief among these is the question how the bond
between narrator and narratee in Online Caroline differs
from the identification experienced in other forms of
narrative. In Italo Calvino's and Vladimir Nabokov's fiction
– aptly named playtexts by Warren Motte – the
reader is very much a collaborator, and the devices used by
these authors to 'read the reader' are, in a way, much more
sophisticated than those employed by Online Caroline. But, alas,
this is where the story, and First Person, ends. The
reader is left in a quagmire of questions, but of course
this is not necessarily a bad thing. The best thing that can
be said about the book, then, is that it fails in an
interesting way. It fails because it tries to do too many
things at once. The editors' attempt to bring together
voices ranging across different disciplines, from art,
academia and elsewhere, deserves respect, but it will hardly
convince a critical reader who sets out to learn about new
media as story, performance and game. Ultimately,
First Person doesn't hold the promise made in the
title: it doesn't teach us about new media, it teaches us
about the people who use (and abuse) them. Some of them are
academics and some of them are practitioners, but they all
have one thing in common: they have no clue what they are
dealing with. But, then, neither do we, the users of new
media. It is reassuring to know that we are all in the same
boat. |
