Eskelinen,+Markku+The+Gaming+Situation

= = =Eskelinen, Markku. "The Gaming Situation"= The International Journal of Computer Research. []

=Abstract=

The first point of departure for this article is a kind of paradox or contradiction. Outside academic theory people are usually excellent at making distinctions between narrative, drama and games. If I throw a ball at you I don't expect you to drop it and wait until it starts telling stories. On the other hand, if and when games and especially computer games are studied and theorized they are almost without exception colonised from the fields of literary, theatre, drama and film studies. Games are seen as interactive narratives, procedural stories or remediated cinema. On top of everything else, such definitions, despite being successful in terms of influence or funding, are conceptually weak and ill-grounded, as they are usually derived from a very limited knowledge of mere mainstream drama or outdated literary theory, or both.

Consequently, the seriously and hilariously obsolete presuppositions of Aristotelian drama, commedia dell'arte, Victorian novels, and Proppian folklore continue to dominate the scene. To put it less nicely, it's an attempt to skip the 20th century altogether and avoid any intellectual contact with it, a consumerist double assassination of both the avant-garde and advanced theory. The final irony is of course that in the long run such a practice may turn out to be even commercially incorrect.

In any case, in what follows I'll try to make some sense of what I call the gaming situation by trying to pinpoint or at least locate the most crucial and elementary qualities that set it apart from dramatic and narrative situations, both of the latter being rather well-studied constellations by now, and existing slightly beyond the necessary formalistic phase that computer game studies have to enter in order to gain independence, or at least relative independence.

=Argument=

This particular essay is not in favor of video games being considered a concrete source of storytelling or narratives, nor does the author feel that they can be seen in the same light as cinema. Overall the essay was an interesting read, although at times a tough one, as the author breaks down video games scientifically; their "story lines" and experiences into various subgroups, focusing heavily on such things as elements, situation and activities. He suggests that depending upon the situation of certain games, it affects whether or not video games can be considered narrative. Unlike literature and cinema, which are presented as a whole to the reader/viewer, video games are not. There are certain factors which either lend to its "story" or detracts, such as whether one is playing alone or with another person, or whether or not the player can manipulate certain aspects of the game or are stuck in a static frame (his Civilization example). I do not know whether or not I necessarily agree or disagree with the author as there are many games out now which do present good story lines and could easily be made into a book or movie or the opposite.

=Key Passages=

In literature, theatre and film everything matters or is conventionally supposed to matter equally - if you've seen 90% of the presentation that's not enough, you have to see or read it all (or everything you can). This is characteristic of dominantly interpretative practices in general. In contrast, in computer games you either can't or don't have to encounter every possible combinatory event and existent the game contains, as these differ in their ergodic importance. Some actions and reactions in relation to certain events will bring the player quicker to a solution or help her reach the winning situation sooner or more effectively than others. There are events and existents the player has to manipulate or configure in order to progress in the game or just to be able to continue it. Events, existents and the relations between them can be described at least in spatial, temporal, causal and functional terms. It's equally self-evident that the importance of these dimensions varies from game to game and sometimes also within the phases and levels of an individual game.

The fundamental constituents of the story are usually divided into events and existents. It should already be obvious that it is possible to combine existents and events in ways that do not form or become stories. In abstract games like //Tetris// there are settings, objects and events but definitely no characters. In addition there are events in games that change situations but do not convey or carry or communicate stories. A goal in a soccer game is an event that changes the situation, but there's no story in it; a goal is a goal is a goal. The same can be said for most actions and happenings in performance or circus art. The main thing is of course that any element can be turned into a game element, and only one element is enough to constitute a game if it allows manipulation, and this fact alone allows combinations not witnessed in narratives or drama. Consequently, both the number of game elements and the relations between them can be different in specific ways that are typical of (computer) games and only of them, and don't have to respect any conventions and traditional boundaries inherited from oral or written narratives, drama, theatre or films.

Let's take the player-to-player dimension first, as it helps to describe the player's position and positioning in the game. In this register static relations are those guaranteed to be and remain equal (or unchanging) between players in and during the game. Static temporal relations indicate turn-based arrangements whereas dynamic temporal relations refer to action taken in real time without fixed turns - here time is a resource not shared or distributed equally among players. Static and dynamic causalities are somewhat similar to intratextonic and textonic dynamics in cybertext theory (Aarseth 1997, 62), dynamic causality referring to the player's possibilities to add new elements triggering novel chains of causality into the game (e.g. by building characters, objects and rooms in a MUD). Spatial relations are static if the players can't change the spatiality of the game world in which case it's only a ready-made playground however complex it might be in other respects. In contrast, spatial relations among players are dynamic if the game space can be built or expanded by the players as in //Civilization// [|(7)]. The static and dynamic functional relations among players refer to the functional capabilities of their representations (characters) in and during the game: they can either acquire new qualities and capabilities in the course of the game, or not. One should also make a distinction between functional similarity and dissimilarity of available roles in a game, as whenever there's a team there is usually also a division of labour.

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