Gaming - Essays on Algorithmic Culture Song, Junho Digital Contents Convergence, GSCST, SNU 16 April 2010
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Gaming- Essays on Algorithmic Culture
Song, JunhoDigital Contents Convergence, GSCST,
SNU16 April 2010
Gamic Action, Four Moments Origins of the First-Person
Shooter Social Realism Allegories of Control Countergaming
Flow
Gamic Action, Four Moments
Photographs imagesFilms moving imagesVideo game actions(ARG experience)
Camera vs joystic (vs media )Image vs action (vs experi-ence)Watching vs doing (vs surprising )Interactivity- Player act <-> Machine act
Operator, machine and diegetic, nondiegetic
Gamic Action, Four Moments
Diegetic
Nondiegetic
Operator Machine
Pure Process-ambience act-‘Shenmue’
Subjective Algorithm-pause, cheats, setup ac-tion-‘Warcraft3’, ‘Final Fantasy X’
Code-game over, gauge
Play-move act, fire
(knowing – unknowing)
Subjective Shot
Origins of the First-Person Shooter
Subjective Shot
Origins of the First-Person Shooter
Mental Affect- to show the optical perspective of a drugged, drowsy, drunk… intoxi-cated character
Detachment or Distancing- the feeling of disembodiment
Criminals and Monsters- criminals, monsters or characters deemed inhuman
Computers- computerized, cybernetic or machinic vision (Terminator, Robocop, Predator)
cinema, subjective shot game, FPS
Gamic Vision
Origins of the First-Person Shooter
film gameangle director has complete control over player controlspace build only the portion of the set all framestime & space director control & discontinuous player control & con-tinuousfirst-person use it for special occasions use it effectively
Social Realism
- realistic narrative and realistic representation SOCOM VS. The Sims, Unreal Tournament VS. Grand Theft Auto 3※ representation-- chasm --empirical reality
- realism in the cinema “phenomenological qualities” (dirty details, hopeful desires…) social critique Neo-Realism : nonprofessional actors, real life scenery, long takes …. social political practice
“Realisticness” vs Social Realism
- new generation of cyber-warriors ready to fight real foes realistic training tools- representation correspondence watch play, action meaning creation Plato Mimesis Aristotle
Issues
Social Realism
- realism in game not just realistic representation, but reflect critically personal drama, everyday.. ‘reality game’ kumawar.com
“Realisticness” vs Social Realism
- ‘play will become more and more linked to broad social structures of con-trol’
- protorealism
- riot game : State of Emergency rife with absurdities, brutal realities of urban violence marginalized communities(disenfranchised youth, ethnic minorities) unbridled anticorporate rebellion
- Etoy vs eToys
social reality of the gamer game environment
The Congruence Requirement
Social Realism
- ‘America’s Army’ designed and published by the US Army vs realism (direct criticism of current society) fun, well designed but not realist
- ‘Special Force’ released by the Lebanese organization Hizbullah- ‘Under Ash’ released by the Syrian publisher Dar Al-Fikr
social ideology
Are Military Games Realist?
The Affect of the Gamer- realism in gaming requires a special congruence between the social reality depicted in the game and lived by the player
- Hollywood filmmaker : representation realist filmmaker : social realities realist game designer : social realities and correct social milieu
fidelity of context is key for realism in gaming
Allegories of Control
- ‘Allegorical interpretation is a type of scanning that, moving back and forth across the text…
- ‘They are structuring absences.’ - ‘digitization’ of allegorical interpretation text video machine + PC
- ‘intermedia network’ called by Gene Youngblood
- Deleuze ‘disciplinary societies’ ‘societies of control’were characterized by physical semiotic immaterial ones signature, document password, computer(networks) confinement, enclosure extension of controlled mobility
- social transformation MS call center : from Redmond to Bangalore SARS : global medical surveillance system military : computer networks weapons system
Playing the Algorithm
Allegories of Control
- film : informatic control is the most important thing (CONTROL) representation of political control is eclipsed The Wrong Man - Hitchcock, The Killer – John Woo, Bad Boys, Heat…. conspiracy film
- video game play play the code of the game win know the system interpret interpret its algorithm (to discover its parallel ‘allegorithm’) ex. Sid Meier’s Civilization 3
- player can execute an algorithm in order to win hidden login – its algorithm
- not sublimating, but making it coterminous with the entire game
Playing the Algorithm
Allegories of Control
- definition of allegory extended metaphor enacted metaphor- parallelism : actual playing of the game AND the playing of informatics
A Theory of Pretending
Deep allegory Control allegory
Emblematic medium
Cinema Video games
Political expres-sion
Class struggle Informatic control
Hermeneutic Reading Processing
Parallelism Other-speak Other-act
- allegory consists of NOT a text and another text, BUT an enacted text and another en-acted text
Countergaming
- video game is modified by visual design, rules of the game, software technology- spaces to be seen and watched , rather than played
Artist-Made Game Mods
Brody Condon
- countercinema against the formalist and ideological domination of Hollywood cinema
Countergaming
- fiction vs. reality : not a useful classification scheme for gaming
Radical Action
Transparency Foregrounding
Gameplay Aestheticism
Representational model-ing
Visual artifact
Natural physics Invented physics
Interactivity Noncorrespondence
Gamic action Radical action
Conventional video game Countergam-ing
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