Is it In the Game? reconsidering game spaces, definitions, theming & sports video games

Is it in the Game? reconsidering game spaces, definitions and sports videogamesGarry CrawfordProfessor of SociologyTwitter: @CultSociologist

Leisure Studies Association Annual Conference 7-9 July 2014 Keynote Address

• Paper presents a ‘located’ approach to understanding sports ‘themed’ videogames

• Johan Huizinga (1949 [1938]): play in temporary spaces, where the usual norms and rules of wider society do not necessarily apply

• Henri Lefebvre (1994 [1974]: 383): play and leisure as a continuation of ‘the control of the established order’

• Fraser (2012: 101): ‘the need and importance of a more thorough reconciliation of video game studies with Lefebvrian spatial analysis’

Introduction

The Manchester Storm

Virtual Hockey?

• Video Gamers (2012)• Online Gaming in Context (2011) (Crawford,

Gosling & Light eds)

Videogames and Video Gamers

• videogame worth globally over $74 billion (Hinkle 2011)• the Entertainment Software Association suggests that

over half (58%) of Americans ‘play videogames’ (ESA 2013)

• videogames have for many years outsold books in the UK (Bryce and Rutter 2006)

• in 2012 videogames sales outstripped video sales (in all formats) for the first time (BBC 2012)

Videogames Matter

• William Higinbotham’s Tennis for Two (1958)

• Pong • ‘sport games’ are the third

best selling genre of videogames (ESA 2013)

Sports Videogames Matter

• David Leonard (2006: 393): ‘the field of sports games studies represents a barren wasteland of knowledge’

• ‘little ink has been spilled on the topic of sports videogames’ (Consalvo et al. 2013:2)

• M. Consalvo, K. Mitgutsch and A. Stein (eds) (2013) Sports Videogames

• ‘Garry Crawford deserves much credit for being one of the first scholars to study sports videogames’ (Consalvo et al. 2013: 3)

• Leisure Studies (2005)

Sports Videogames Matter

• Perron and Wolf (2009) agreed-upon terms have been slow to develop

• Videogames as ‘media’ or ‘play’• ‘Games Studies’ or ‘ludology’

The Importance of Terminology

• Ian Bogost (2013) ‘What Are Sports Videogames?’

• ‘simulations’ — Caillois (1962) games based upon ‘mimicry’

Defining Sports Videogames

• EA Sports: ‘if it’s in the game, it’s in the game’• Leonard (2006: 394): ‘sports [video] games

attempt to blur the lines between the ballpark and the virtual stadium, the athlete and the virtual athlete’

Defining Sports Videogames

• Bogost (2013: 52, citing Adams 2006: 484): ‘sports [video] games simulate some aspect of a sport’ (emphasis added)

• Bogost: sports videogame as sports• ‘sports are weird and hard to pin down’ (Bogost

2013: 52)• ‘just about anything can be taken seriously as…

a sport’ (Bogost 2013: 53)

Defining Sports Videogames

• eSports• FPS, such as Doom and

Counter-Strike • strategy video wargames,

such as StarCraft

Defining Sports Videogames

• Games Studies scholars fixate upon the videogame, or their play

• Chris Rojek’s (1995) Decentring Leisure • videogames as located within a wider social

context

Decentring Videogames

• Henri Lefebvre in The Production of Space (1994 [1974]: 383): though certain play and leisure spaces might ‘appear on first inspection to have escaped the control of the established order…This is a complete illusion…leisure is as alienated and alienating as labour’

Theming

• Huizinga (1949 [1938]): ‘magic circle’• ‘the arena, card-table, magic circle, the temple,

the stage and the screen’ (Huizinga 1949: 10)

Theming

• Mark Gottdiener (2000, 2001)• theming involves the use of ‘advertising,

branding and other corporate efforts to stimulate consumer demand’ (Gotham 2005: 227)

• ‘non-place’ (Augé 1995)• ‘veneer’ of individuality (Adorno 1991)

Theming

Top 20 best-selling games in 20121. Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Activision

2. FIFA 13 - Electronic Arts

3. Assassin's Creed III – Ubisoft

4. Halo 4 – Microsoft

5. Hitman Absolution - Square Enix

6. Just Dance 4 – Ubisoft

7. Far Cry 3 – Ubisoft

8. FIFA 12 - Electronic Arts

9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Bethesda

10. Borderlands 2 - 2K Games

11. Mass Effect 3 - Electronic Arts

12. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes - Warner Bros

13. Need for Speed: Most Wanted - Electronic Arts

14. FIFA Street - Electronic Arts

15. Mario & Sonic: London 2012 Olympic Games

16. Skylanders Giants – Activision

17. Battlefield 3 - Electronic Arts

18. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Activision

19. Max Payne 3 – Rockstar

20. Sleeping Dogs - Square Enix

• theming is very evident in sport more generally

• sports venues have become increasingly themed ‘non-places’

• Sandvoss (2003: 178) a ‘increasingly standardized and pasteurized’

Sports Theming

• videogames as geographical spaces: such as Fuller and Jenkins (1995), Neilsen et al. (2008) and Nitsche (2008) (to name but a few)

• ‘…the attractiveness of these games lies in the ability to play at Pebble Beach or battle at Wimbledon. The tourist [is]…at the centre of this genre of sports game’ (Leonard 2006: 396)

Sports-Theming in Videogames

• videogames have simple and repetitive mechanisms, often built around an already pre-existing game-engine

• Many of the most popular sports-themed mobile games, such as I AM PLAYR, Perfect Kick, Flick Kick Football, Real Basketball, and Rugby Kicks (to name but a few), all employ similar gameplay

• but so does…Paper Toss

Sports-Theming in Videogames

• Baudrillardian ‘hyperreality’?• Leonard (2004):

exaggerated physics and caricatured appearances in the EA Sports Streets series

• Flick Kick Football Legends• Adams (2006) games only

usually seek to copy certain aspects of a sport

Playing with a hyper-/un-reality?

• Maxine Feifer’s (1985) ‘post-tourist’

• Compression of time and waiting: Farmville and Flick Kick Football

• Fastpass at Disneyland • ‘dedifferentiation’ between

leisure and retail

Playing with a hyper-/un-reality?

• ‘Is it In the Game?’• We need to be considering not what is in the

game, but rather what the game is in

Some concluding thoughts

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Thank you for listening…

Prof. Garry Crawford, University of SalfordEmail: [email protected]: @CultSociologist