I’ve found the Galloway reading to be relatively straight-forward so far, which could be due to the experiences I’ve had with video games in my past and what little I remember from taking a programming class in high school; but there was one section that befuddled me to no end. On pages 25-26, where Galloway is quoting Jacques Derrida’s concept of the term “play”, I was very confused as to what point Galloway is trying to raise. I suppose it could be the fact that I don’t see much of a connection between video game theory and the “very nature of language” (pg. 26), or it could be that I am confused at how in the same paragraph the author could say “After citing Levi-Strauss on the practical impossibility of arriving at a total understanding of language…”

In general, I am not so much confused about what Galloway/Derrida is trying to say in this passage as much as I am confused as to how this relates to the points that Galloway is making in this essay. Literally in the passage before he was describing how Half Life had a keyboard set up that directly represented move and expressive acts in clusters of keys, and then all of a sudden we are subjected to an almost nihilist discourse on the nature of language, which is quite exhausting. I am almost left wondering if this section is entirely relevant, as Galloway’s earlier handling of the subject of the definition of play seemed very adequate to me, even though admittedly we did spend a great deal of time reading Huizinga (kind of) and Caillois (no doubt about it).

In totality, talking about diegetic acts of video games, like the reaction of characters in NHL 10 to the impressive hits of Mike “Game Over” Green or the nondiegetic actions of choosing whether to wear the current sweaters of the Caps versus one of the classic eagle jerseys seems to make a lot of sense, but going on a discourse of the nature of language doesn’t. But although I was able to “pause” my reading of Galloway to write this blog in confusion, I know that when it comes time to unpause the game, Mike Green will be on the ice. And as we have all learned, knowing is half the battle.