Galloway categorizes anything to do with acts of configuration without actually interacting with the game world as nondiegetic operator acts. He specifically places Real Time Strategy (RTS) games in this category as the entirety of playing an RTS is interacting with the menus around the screen. In a game like Starcraft, the mere act of placing unit production buildings in reasonable positions, or technological buildings in places that they will not be easily found or destroyed is perhaps, even, a majority of the gameplay. This video is a beginner’s guide to Starcraft II in which the importance of building placement is emphasized and demonstrated. Building placement is literally choosing where to build each building and is an act of configuration accomplished through the menu constantly on-screen.
Tag Archives: Operator
Using your eyes to control your avatar
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/eyes-instead-mouse-151319314.html
When reading another seeker’s post about the HUD contact lenses, it reminded me of a video I saw a little while ago about being able to use your eyes to control something on the computer screen instead of using a mouse or controller. The brief part of the video I focus on is the use of this technology for video games of course. This type of control system in the video game realm is described as a diegetic operator act. The operator’s gaze makes his/her avatar move in whatever direction you look, and basically takes away the need for you to use your thumbs to move in whatever direction you want. What would be interesting to me is how they would be able to incorporate more actions through just your eye movements, such as firing weapons, selecting, jumping, etc. I know that some of these actions can be seen through a few gaming consoles, such as the XBox Kinect or Wii. But, just using your eyes brings it to a whole other level of gaming, and hopefully this idea will expand into a lot more.
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.