Category Archives: First Readers

“Rock Stars” in Video Games

Although Kline had a lot of good observations, I think what interested me the most in the reading had to do with the parallels he drew between the video game industry and the industries of music and film, and what these parallels say about the roles of the various parties involved in video games.

In 1982, Kline tells us, Trip Hawkins modeled his company’s marketing approach after that of the music industry, by “packaging its games with album-like artwork and liner notes, and promoting its developers like rock stars in game magazines” (97).

Perhaps this is merely because I haven’t really spent much time studying the video game industry, but it seems to me that there is no clear parallel to a “rock star” in a video game, or, if there is, it is not the developer but rather a character from within the game itself. While musicians make music and Hollywood stars underlie the characters in films, the primary hero, name, and face behind Pac-Man is Pac-Man. And considering that by 1982, “revenue from the game Pac-Man alone probably exceeded the box-office success of Star Wars,” and the arcade game business grossed double the international sales of the pop music industry (103-104), I am really intrigued. A yellow circle with eyes and a mouth, existing only as an animated visual in a 2-D virtual reality, somehow made a greater impression than the combined forces of George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and a bunch of ridiculous (in a good way) special effects.

I guess what I’m really trying to get at is this: What made/makes the influence of video games, particularly in their appeal to consumers, so different from that of films and music? Is that influence centralized in a name, be it a developer or a character (like Pac-Man)? Or does the interactive nature of games, the “play” we’re so fond of discussing, cause players to view themselves as the “rock stars”? Also, where do designers (such as Warren Robinett, who created the first ‘Easter Egg’ to garner individual credit outside of the corporation) fall in our perception of video games today, and how has this perception changed from what it was 30 years ago?

The Origin of “Play”

As we have been discussing “play” and what it means for something to actually be classified as “play,” I found it very interesting that video games, according to Stephen Kline, essentially started out from military research. As these “hackers” began to experiment with video games, they turned something that in no way could be considered “play” (wars, fighting, military research, etc…) into the very essence of “play.” There seems to be nothing as serious as fighting a war, and yet, this is how “play” came to be. What if the origin of video games had come from something different entirely? So many of the first video games were “war” themed (shooter games). Would these games have developed differently if the creators of some of the first board games had learned to create video games instead?

Also – as video games really began to develop, I found it interesting how the creation of these games became so competitive so quickly. It was as if the creators knew that video games were not going to die out. Kline mentions that many people thought that the video game fad would not last, but the creators seemed to know they would grow more and more popular. As the video game creators switched companies, made their own companies, re-made games, this “fad” grew more and more until it has become what it is today. My question is, why? Why did people latch onto this craze so quickly and so readily? Why have video games held the interest of people for this long? Perhaps it really is just because we all want to play. But somehow I don’t think the answer could be that simple. Perhaps it has become imbedded in our culture, but I guess I want to know how it came to be imbedded.

The Creativity Factor

When I read this week’s reading by Stephen Kline, what struck me most was the moment of transition from Military to Hacker.  I wish he had spent more probing the circumstances that caused a military study of main-frame computers and the Programmable Data Processor-1, the purpose of which was to beat the Soviets in an arms race, to produce Spacewar (Kline 84-85).

However, though I would have loved a whole chapter about just that moment, Kline did a pretty good job describing the shift: “Hacking was a way of dealing with the tedium of long hours spent in the presence of unforgiving machines and the mind-numbing programming problems of massive main frame computers (87).”  Hacking was born from putting intelligent, creative people together and telling them to solve really, really hard problems.  They solved the problems, but they also started exploring the machines.  This is where Steven Levy’s “Hand-On Imperative” was created- taking things apart and putting them back together in new ways (87).  And as this physically led to new products like video games, it was also the birth of a Hacker Culture, and they had their own code of ethics. (http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/hacker_ethics.html)

  1. Access to computers – and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works – should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On imperative!
  2. All information should be free.
  3. Mistrust authority – promote decentralization.
  4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
  5. You can create art and beauty on a computer.
  6. Computers can change your life for the better.

Kline says the most famous of these is number 2- All information should be free (86).  And a paragraph later Kline says this: “It is in fact the promotion of creativity and the ‘play ethic’ that engineering designers now celebrate when they promote ‘divergent thinking’ as a means of accelerating radical innovation through creativity (87).”

We would never have gotten Spacewar if it wasn’t for that ‘play ethic’- if the problem solvers hadn’t become intensely fascinated with their work and their materials and the possibilities therein, or if they hadn’t been allowed to play.  I think this is why Levy believed that all information should be free.  Essentially, innovation, creativity, and the free flow of ideas go hand in hand in hand.  A flow of ideas will always lead to innovation, and innovation won’t be true without a flow of ideas at its root.  Suppress any of these, and the others will suffer.

We can see the negative effects of restricting creativity at the end of the article, where it describes the period of time where the game industry was in the hands of “the suits” who didn’t fully understand the creative process and pushed for a product- any product- which they then introduced into the market before it was really good. This was the singular cause of the video game crash in 1983 and 1984.  There wasn’t time for new ideas or the “play” that leads to innovation.  The market was flooded with about 200 versions of the same four games, and consumers stopped paying money for them (105).

This leads to me throw out a couple things that I’ve been wanting to discuss in class, although perhaps they’re not as relevant as I think: SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA, and this whole idea of internet pirating, if it should really be illegal, and what the limiting of information sharing might lead to.

Video Games and Play

Galloway introduces its readers with the idea that video games are actions.  In order to play the video game, users must cooperate with a machine in order to achieve a goal that exists in a world of its own.  Although users may not always be ‘playing’ the game according to authors Huizinga and Caillois, Galloway suggests that video games are different and that they must be interpreted differently from traditional games.  There is this separate factor, the machine, who introduces the idea that a game can be played even when users are not actively interacting with the game.  The machine can create gaming elements, such as those creatively pointed out in Upgrade Complete, that immerse intrinsically motivated players into a virtual world of gamic actions (p. 38).

It is interesting to see how Galloway attempts to interpret several definitions of ‘play’ into video game culture.  “To arrive at a definition of video games, then, one must take Huizinga and Caillois’s concept of play and view it as it is actually embedded inside algorithmic game machines” (p. 21).  Does Galloway mean to say that ‘play’ is programmed into video games and that any video game user is implied to be a player?  The definition of play has evolved concurrently with culture (in my opinion), so would this just be the next step in our (the world’s?) definition of play?

And what gets me the most is Galloway’s idea of diegetic machine.  Even when a user is not there, the game continues to ‘play’.  Although no operator actions are occurring, do machine actions constitute play?  Galloway doesn’t answer the question when he brings up the idea of cut scenes and only suggests a different interpretation, but I’m curious as to what he would say if he were to give a direct answer.

A Biological Insight to Video Games

As a biology major, I have serious doubts whether there are any sort of connection between video games and the study of life. However while reading the beginning of the first chapter, I develop a different view of the machinistic portion of the video game medium. As described by Alexander Galloway, the medium is created by “organic and nonorganic actors” (p. 5). These two adjectives immediately catch my attention because life also involves organic and inorganic substances. What fascinates me is that nonliving objects, such as, the atom, oxygen, nitrogen and other necessary elements can come together to form a living organism. This idea coincides with the creation of the gaming medium. Parts from a computer that cannot function by itself (motherboard, video card, cooling fan, etc), become usable when it is brought together in the right combination.

The algorithmic codes is another important aspect in developing a video game. These codes are necessary for the game to function as DNA is necessary to carry out the instruction for life. Galloway describes the codes as messages that pass throughout the software (p.4), which reminds me of how the cells in the body send and receive messages via hormones and receptors. The relationship of the machine and operator can also be thought as a symbiotic, mutualistic or even parasitic relationship. For example, a parasitic relationship exists when the player tries to defeat the game while the software obstructs the player by using traps. As I am making these estrange biological connections, I begin to question whether these connections are random and coincidental. I soon discover the term “deep play” and realize that my observation of biology to video games are completely relevant (p.16). If Geertz can connect the Balinese cockfights to the caste system, I certainly can say that the study of life is of great significance to the gaming world.

Something to think about:
Galloway mentions that culture affects the development and evolution of video games. However is the reverse true? Do video games affect culture and if so to what extent or in what ways?

Comparing Machine control to Operator control

Galloway attempts to focus the broad concept of video games by separating the concepts of machine action and operator action. Using examples from a variety of game types, Galloway describes an operator action as an action or decision made solely by the player, such as finding a power up in a game. In contrast, a machine action is routed in the basic programming of the software, such as the increase in health that the power up supplies the character. He also defines video games within diegetic and nondiegetic terms. Diegetic play elements are the onscreen and off-screen elements of the game. Nondiegetic play elements are external to the narrative action. Using these four parameters, Galloway is able to categorize various video games.

It is interesting to note how these parameters have evolved as the complexity of video games have increased. The gamer-machine interface was much more direct in a game like Asteroids, where the player had to rotate and shoot. More modern games, such as Halo, expand into more diverse range of motion and controls as well as the broad spectrum of online play. As these games have changed over time, I wonder whether it is the operator or the machine that is gaining more control over the game environment. Surely the machine has increased in power and capability, but the operator’s control over his environment has grown exponentially. The machine is, of course, still in control over the operator by restraining the operator’s movements to within the constrains of the game. However, the operator has more choice in his actions within these constrains.

Blurring the lines of Galloway’s “Four Moment” Schema

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.

Comparing Video Games to Financial Markets

While thinking about Galloway’s special treatment of video games as a special kind of game, I initially thought “Aren’t they basically just really complex board games with a ton more pieces (i.e. millions of lines of code)?” Then, I realized there was more that separated video- and board-games than scale, in much the same way that there was something unique about the first financial institutions.

Before banks, lenders and borrowers had to find each other and trade directly. This worked for small economies, but limited the amount of money an entrepreneur could get to fund a new or growing business. Similarly, many games (board games included) require the direct action of the players to make it work. Every piece in Monopoly is moved by a human, with the exception of gravity and inertia working on the dice. This allows for great diversity in games, but there is a limit to their complexity (Anyone who has ever played the game Squad Leader by Avalon Hill understands this all too well). However, when financial intermediaries (banks) came around, they provided a valuable middle-man with larger networks of lenders and borrowers than any individual. This opened up a new world of financing for businesses, and the result has been a tremendous increase in prosperity. Again, in a similar way, the game console is that middle-man for games. No group of players could possibly keep track of everything necessary to play a game like Civilization or World of Warcraft without the help of a computer. Much like banks opened up many new financial possibilities, computers have, to an even greater extent, opened up a new world of games that were previously unimaginable.