In the first chapter of Gaming, Galloway introduces a schema for loosely categorizing games using four contexts; diegetic, nondiegetic, machine, and operator. Depending on which constitutes a majority of the involvement, that of the console (machine) or that of the player (operator), and upon the amount of graphic on screen to be considered a part of the gaming world (diegetic) and that which is not (nondiegetic), Galloway is able to create a means of identifying the essence of a game and its experience. What is most intriguing about this concept is the means for which it provides a way to not only draw the lines to distinguish say, diegetic machine acts from nondiegetic operator acts, but also to identify those which distort the lines completely. Galloway rightfully acknowledges that these categories cannot be held as concrete, but I think what is so beneficial to these quadrants is their existence in relation to those games which blur the lines. As technology is evolving with each passing year, I believe that these lines will be further distorted. For example, what would Galloway have to say about the infringement of nondiegetic space by the diegetic world in a 3-D video game? The same could be said about virtual reality games, or motion-sensor games in which the body becomes the controller. As the operator becomes more and more crucial to the processes of the machine (with the elimination of a controller with the XBOX Kinect for example) how do we as an audience demarcate the space that the game acknowledges and that which it does not? I think these are interesting points to discuss is moving forward with the analysis of these “four moments in gamic action,” as discussed by Galloway.
Your question about how Galloway’s (not Holloway’s) ideas would play out with the newest generation of games is really interesting. Technologies like the Kinect or the Wii Balance Board would seem to foreground the nondiegetic operator act even more, and not in the typical “acts of configuration” way.
Sorry, went back and fixed all of the mentions of Holloway to Galloway, just one of those Freudian slips from another book I am reading. Thanks!
The future implications of this model in relation to the increasingly realistic nature of video games is quite intriguing. If we consider the possibility of a three dimensional game in which the operator is fully immersed through the context of Galloway’s classification of gamic action, diegetic and nondiegetic operator acts become increasingly connected and, as such, increasingly indistinguishable. Consider a video game in the future that operates in a space not unlike that in the movie, “The Matrix.” When the operator is truly inside in the game space of the machine, his physical movement and interaction with that world are simultaneously diegetic and nondiegetic. Whether or not this degree of immersion is ever realizable, it is quite plausible that there will be games where the operator acts within a 3-D space of some kind, and that is why these hypotheticals might be worth considering. Perhaps, at that level of technological advancement, such a game may not be considered a video game, but must itself be re-contextualized.
While on the subject of nondiegetic operator acts, it is worth addressing the concept of “acts of configuration” in relation to the quote we discussed at the end of today’s class. “[T]o live today is to know how to use menus,” Galloway writes. As modern daily life becomes ever more intertwined with technology, our normal, everyday functions begin to necessitate the exact same kind of interaction between operator and machine that Galloway associates with video games. Shopping online, using an ATM, and asking Siri for directions may very well be only the first signs of a move towards complete technological dependance. Some might say we are already close to that. In any case, our understanding of video games with respect to these axes of actions is beginning to and will continue to apply to parts of our lives that we do not consider “games.” If one doesn’t know how to properly configure and use the technological society relies on, they will be utterly incapable of functioning in the modern world.
Sorry for all the big words. Galloway is getting to me.