What is it about Tetris?

Readings: Excerpts from “First Person, New Media as Story, Performance, and Game”.

Towards Computer Game Studies, Markku Eskelinen
Genre Trouble, Espen Aarseth

Re: Gaming Literacy, Eric Zimmerman (Video Game Theory Reader 2); this will be the last week focused on the older literature.

In this week’s readings, both Eskelinen and Aarseth manage some pretty powerful and potent words (that are not always exactly the most kind) that attack narratology as an acceptable manner to critically analyze and study computer games (etc.). Eskelinen focuses on “aspects of time,” whereas Aarseth explores the story against the game (or game-play), while also discussing the apparent hybrids (IE: Adventure Games). Both make some irritatingly broad statements, though both posit some very interesting points, none of which I feel furthers their particular arguments, but are poignant nonetheless. However, I’m less immediately concerned with their methodologies, which while interesting, might be rendered unhelpful by some problematic assumptions amidst their reiterations that narratology is Not The Way To Go.

There seems to have been a moment in time for many ludologists where the study of the game-play came to override critical analysis of the game artifact, which can complicate game-play as a whole. IE: Yes, Lara Croft’s wiggling butt was a coded, aesthetic choice; the ludic possibility of jumping up on walls (if she jumps, her butt will wiggle), etc. to enjoy the “salacious anatomy” Stuart Molthrop described in his response to Aarseth’s article, made the game memorable for many a player. Aarseth’s response to Moulthrop that Croft’s “polygonal significance… goes beyond gameplay” and doesn’t tell us “much, if anything, about the gameplay,” is frankly dubious. While I can certainly agree that cultural artifacts may have some other agenda besides explaining game-play specifically, when half (if not all) the point of the Tomb Raider experience (the tomb-raiding was arguably superfluous to the ogling) was to manipulate the Croft avatar to perform certain objectives that placed her in tantalizing positions, it seems rather irresponsible to forego or ignore this element as an active agent in participant input… which is, after all, of major importance to an ergodic piece. Unless we’re discussing the machine and only the machine, participant input can be colorful and varied; if we’re to ignore this, I find questionable the commercial or pragmatic significance of any such humanities-oriented (rather than engineering) analysis.

Similarly, there seems to have been a moment in narratology where all games opened up to the possibility of storytelling regardless of their apparent lack of narrative momentum and participant “play”. If I could count on one hand how many times “Tetris” has been unhelpfully cited as an example to empower the questionably extreme viewpoint of either argument, I’d be a mutant with thirty fingers. The idea that “Tetris” has a narrative – even a player-constructed one – seems dubious and even grasping for straws. However, citing “Tetris” as the quintessential answer to narratology is incredibly unhelpful where there are many other games out there (Squaresoft, anyone?) that do, in fact, maintain strong narrative cohesion. Whatever happened to lifting up the best example an argumentative strain and breaking that down rather than lightly gesturing towards a game that does little in the way of explaining how the opposing argument Could work, but doesn’t? And where are examples of international games a la JRPGs (Squaresoft, again, which even has an American branch) which do not necessarily fit Western-produced patterns, but are just as important to the field? I at least appreciate Eskelinen’s conclusion that “there’s no guarantee whatsoever that the aesthetic traditions of the West are relevant to game studies in general and computer games studies in particular”, but no one seems to have gone anywhere with this (as of what I’ve read).

Aarseth seems to move in a more constructive direction with regards to storytelling and narrative when he discusses Warren Spector’s “Deus Ex”, but seems to entirely miss the point when he states that it “contains a clichéd storyline that would make a B-movie writer blush,” after insisting that “Adventure games seldom, if at all, contain good stories”. No one said that a game had to maintain a good narrative to maintain a firm narrative, and why even insinuate that there could be some “good” adventure games out there, when that would imply stand-up storytelling (and thus possibly narrative) is a very real possibility? “The Longest Journey” (of Norwegian development, 1999) already draws this into question. So is it really all about “play”?

On “Play”…

From Aarseth, concerning narrative and stories, “You don’t see cats or dogs tell each other stories, but they will play. And games are interspecies communications: you can’t tell your dog a story, but the two of you can play together.” Am I really playing a game with my dog? Does my dog understand the rules of this game, or are there even rules (and hence, is it even a game)? Here I find an interesting semantic problem. Do games equal play, or vice-versa? Or better: Are all games played, or are they gamed (or some other verb)? Is play really the most appropriate word to apply to game, or is just the easiest, most convenient, or most traditional compatriot of “game” and thus taken for granted in much the same way as the ludologists declare of narratologists and narrative/drama? Is a “play-act” something different from a formal game or “game-participation”, with which Game Studies is mostly concerned? I grant that “game” and “play” are notoriously difficult to define, which seems even more a reason to specify their use.

Backtracking a bit…

In his discussion of “Gaming Literacy” I found Eric Zimmerman’s use of “game” as a verb to be an interesting “play” on with what seems most often understood as a noun. Here, Zimmerman seems to accidentally confound things by using “game” in the same sense as “play”: “Gaming Literacy, in other words, “games” literacy, bending and breaking rules, playing (emphasis mine) with our notions of what literacy has been and can be,” where “play” in this sense also seems to be “bending and breaking” what Zimmerman claims are our “notions” of literacy. With so many authors discussing the ludic necessity of games, it does seem odd to find the word used in a way that insinuates gaming as a rule-traversing endeavor, especially when Zimmerman himself (along with Katie Salen) define a game as “a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome”. So which is it? Is a game a formal, rule-based system, or is it about emergent experience, in which case the game is certainly manipulated, but as something more than a strictly inputting, experiential process (thus questioning essential, ergodic involvement)?

We could describe the gaming process as below, removing “play” and its baggage entirely…

Games are bounded, cybernetic (machine-human) devices inspired by Espen Aarseth’s Ergodic Literature that require both machine (the rule process; the boundaries; the uninvested actuator) and human input (fuel) in order to create a feedback loop between both. This process does not necessarily dismiss outside knowledge, influence (such as attraction to salacious polygons), and societal norms (and rules), but since the machine can only handle certain kinds of input (that which is defined by a contract between the involved or to oneself, the game’s instructions, and/or the game’s programming) to produce meaningful output within the defined parameters (thus continuing the loop, should the human partner(s) provide more input), the “magic circle,” or boundaries of the game are a certainty because a feedback loop must be maintained in order for the game to continue, and thus the “players” both use (inputting) and participate with (utilizing the output) the game as user-participants. In a game that does not suffer from interactive limitations (the user-participant contract included a clause for rule change mid-game, for example: ie. Calvinball) the rules can maintain sudden transformation without undermining meaningful feedback, but there are still rules (and thus boundaries).

A problem arises when the rules are not well-defined or communicated explicitly enough so that each user-participant maintains a complete understanding that they are still bound by the game rules. In the situation where such a user-participant fails to abide by their contract by performing an action outside of the game rules (and thus inputting something undefined by the system), the feedback loop falters, the magic circle momentarily disintegrates, and the game grinds to a sudden halt (for that user-participant, if not all user-participants) until the rules are amended, clarified, or that user-participant is expulsed (though many games include penalties or other judicial actions to keep players within the game even if they do perform some kind of infraction against the game contract). In the case of Calvinball, where the rules are fluid, the game would demand quick adaptation on the part of the user-participants, though the ensuing arguments between Calvin and Hobbes humorously illustrates how the machine stalls when user parameters go unclarified…

This could define “Tetris” fairly well. It could also define more narrative-inspired games, and makes some allowances for other cultural factors. It also assumes any story-mechanic is included in the contractual ruleset (participate in the story, or at least a version of the presented story), if the story is integral to game-play, as it can be in Adventure games and RPGs (if you don’t follow story branch X, the game will not allow you to move forward). For me, this draws into question such statements as:

Aarseth, “When you put a story on top of a simulation, the simulation (or the player) will always have the last word.” Problem: Where the player can not move forward until certain (story-dependent) conditions are met, as understood in the rule-contract.

Aarseth, “Compared to replayable games such as Warcraft and Counter-Strike, the story-games do not pose a very interesting theoretical challenge for game studies, once we have identified their dual heritage.” Problem: Where story-dependant games offer a variety of outcomes based on user-input, and the amount of possible user input and story variation is immense, but not dynamic in the same sense as simulation (though these games can include elements of simulation, ie: combat; see Neverwinter Nights, 2002).

Eskelinen, “It should be self-evident that we can’t apply print narratology, hypertext theory, flim or theater and drama studies directly to computer games, but it isn’t.” Problem: While all games may not be able to be studied with the tools of literary criticism, and I grant that, those games that do maintain story and narrative cohesion are not self-evidently exclusive to ludological theory.

Eskelinen, “I think we can safely say we can’t find narrative situations within games. (Or if we sometimes do, most probably in “Myst” or “The Last Express”, the narrative components are then at the service of an ergodic dominant).” Problem: In many RPGs and Adventure Games (The Longest Journey), narrative can be a very potent game mechanic (In Star Ocean 2/Chrono Cross, one is bound to choose certain characters based on the story and who else is in the adventuring party, and will miss out on certain others, which can change emotional impact dramatically).

Forgive me if these have been taken somewhat out of context, but my aim is to at least invite questions towards such bold statements, though I essentially agree with both Aarseth and Eskelinen that narratology simply doesn't have the tools to effectively analyze every game out there (though it does have the tools to helpfully analyze some).