More on representation in gaming.

Two posts this week! (To make up for last week).

This Week:

Re: Simulation versus Narrative, Gonzalo Frasca
Re: Gaming Literacy, Eric Zimmerman
Re: The Video Game Aesthetic: Play as Form, David Myers

With a lot of question and not many answers, I decided to revisit Frasca while glancing over some other articles from last week. So, placing narrative aside for the moment, I think Frasca makes it pretty clear that simulation seems to have a lot of potential for useful (and fun!) application, be it Military or practice-oriented, explorative, or something else. But even these sorts of simulations, I argue, depend not only on a theme or some other immersive undercurrent to retain player interest, but also representation (like narrative, says Frasca). Why are people acting a certain way? What’s the stimulus? What’s reasonable? What’s compelling and believable? These are questions that both a narrauthor and simauthor of games must consider, though the latter should allow for manipulation of these elements (if I shoot the civilian, he will cry out) versus the former, which does not (the protagonist, who is a good person, will choose to not shoot the civilian (regardless of player input), who therefore will not cry out (but probably would have)). Some newer games do blur these lines.

Still, representation plays an important role in both. Regardless, a player’s participation is still necessary in either situation, though more or less is arguable. However, it seems conceivable to me that certain things remain (inarguably) true of a simulation, too. Flying into a mountain during a flight simulation will likely always result in a crash. Sure this may have been player error (or choice), but the point remains that a) despite the player’s interaction, something is still bound to happen, and b) this wasn’t a real experience in flight; it was a representation. The fact that narration allows for less active choice than simulation seems, to me, to be avoiding the issue that either sorts of games are strictly bound in some way, and neither act as the “Real Deal.”

To further this point, David Myers seems to state that simulation utilizes representation as it attempts to replicate human experience. In the Video Game Aesthetic (chapter 1 of the Video Game Theory Reader II), games are an antiform, or a form that “embodies a reference to what is not – or to something other than what it is… When we ride a stick horse, it is not a horse, it is something else – something like a horse, but not a horse: an anti-horse which requires but does not fulfill its reference to a horse. Thus, all forms of play transmit a self-referential message: “this is play,” or alternatively, “this is not real.” If it is not “real,” then simulation may be best described as a “representational” experience. Of course, I will grant the important aspect of simulation in that it can adapt, change, and create to a certain degree, but this is not to say that all narrative-heavy games are incapable of this.

In a tentative conclusion, it doesn't seem to me like the ability to manipulate suddenly precludes something from being “representative.” Is it not, perhaps, the whole point that video games are representational devices, regardless of narrative, simulation, or general rule set? Consider for a moment, Pac-Man. Frans Mäyrä (see my other article today) helpfully states, “It is possible to look at a session of Pac-Man gameplay recorded in video, and proceed to analyze the game on that basis – a storyline focused on a theme of eating and survival would emerge, and a rather stereotypical narrative or cultural analysis would continue from that to discuss this game as a metaphor for consumer society or predatory qualities of capitalism.” However, Mäyrä continues that “when actually played by a researcher personally, the game as an object suddenly gains a different kind of character. The “drama” taking place at the representational level of the maze, ghosts, and hunt does not necessarily vanish, but is displaced or suspended by the dominance of gameplay – all those feelings, considerations, and actions that come along when accepting the challenge of trying to navigate a maze while eating dots and avoiding ghosts.” I agree with Mäyrä that gamers have the ability and often do critique games from a perspective outside the magic circle or the play experience (discussing graphics, audio, theme, story-world, etc.), and still have the capability to do this while they are playing, but they can also become very focused on the game-play itself, and temporarily push that representational layer to the side.

Quoting Mäyrä one last time, who sums up fairly my well general feelings on the matter: “I have named this totality the dual structure of games; as ludic simulations coupled with a digital audiovisual medium, digital games provide players access to both a “shell” (representational layers) as well as the “core” (gamplay)… neither can be ignored.”