Violent Games: Rules, Realism, and Effect 9781628925623, 9781628925616, 9781501304897, 9781628925593

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Imprint
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Violence from games
Locating the line between fact and fiction
Columbine as a social drama
Genre: From violent media to user and experience-.based typologies
Performativity by genre
2 Games as violence
Supporting classification processes
Presupposing experience
Is it violence?
3 Re-.framing games
Articulating a Ludo-.focused perception
Serialistic structures of play
Looting in Bioshock 2
Quick time events in Battlefield 3
4 Indexicality and realism (in action)
Realism
Index
Indexicality of sound
Authenticity of sound
5 Player control, obligation, and orientation
6 Performativity and violence
Interactivity
System > Player > System
Performativity > Presence
7 Violence as spectacle
The polysemic nature of violence
Distance and spectatorship
Requisitioned death?
Slow motion and prolonged gaze
Carnivalesque deaths
Violence is its own premise: The represented world of the character
Destruction
Arousal
8 Compulsion, cues, and fixed outcomes
Assessing player actions against player options
Presuming player acceptance
Player failure and fixed outcome
Simulating murder
Gamifying moral dilemmas
Concluding comment
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Violent Games

Approaches to Digital Game Studies Volume 3 Series Review Board (Alphabetically) Mia Consalvo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology James Paul Gee, Arizona State University Helen Kennedy, University of the West of England Frans Mäyrä, University of Tampere Toby Miller, University of California, Riverside Torill Mortensen, IT University Copenhagen Lisa Nakamura, University of Illinois Gareth Schott, University of Waikato Mark J. P. Wolf, Concordia University Series Editors Gerald Voorhees, University of Waterloo Josh Call, Grand View University Katie Whitlock, California State University, Chico

Violent Games Rules, Realism, and Effect

GARETH SCHOTT

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 © Gareth Schott 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Schott, Gareth, author. Title: Violent games : rules, realism and effect / Gareth Schott. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. | Series: Approaches to digital game studies ; 3 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015043714| ISBN 9781628925623 (hardback) | ISBN 9781628925616 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: Violence in video games. | Video games–Social aspects. | Electronic games–Social aspects. | BISAC: GAMES / Video & Electronic. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Violence in Society. Classification: LCC GV1469.34.V56 S45 2016 | DDC 794.8–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043714 ISBN: HB: 978-1-6289-2562-3 PB: 978-1-6289-2561-6 ePub: 978-1-6289-2560-9 ePDF: 978-1-6289-2559-3 Series: Approaches to Digital Game Studies Cover image © Jon Haddock/whitelead.com Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India

To Jan and Keith

Contents Acknowledgments  viii

1 Violence from games  1 2 Games as violence  29 3 Re-​framing games 

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4 Indexicality and realism (in action)  85 5 Player control, obligation, and orientation  113 6 Performativity and violence  139 7 Violence as spectacle  167 8 Compulsion, cues, and fixed outcomes  197 Bibliography  225 Index  267

Acknowledgments T

his book reflects on findings and themes that have emerged from  three research projects conducted between 2007 and 2014. Two of the projects were funded by The Royal Society of New Zealand: Marsden Grant, and titled Videogame Violence: Understanding its Seduction and Pleasures for Young People in New  Zealand (06-UOW-042) and Videogame Classification: Assessing the Experience of Play (10-UOW-​ 024) respectively, and one study that was conducted on behalf of the New Zealand Office of Film and Literature Classification entitled Parents and Game Literacy. I would like to acknowledge Samantha Nicholson for her research assistance on the Videogame Violence project, and Raphaël Marczak and Jasper van Vught for their research ­assistance and collaboration on the Videogame Classification project, in addition to Frans Mäyrä and Lennart Nacke for their roles as associate investigators. I would like to give a special acknowledgment to my collaboration with Raphaël Marczak that has proved invaluable for the capacity it has given me to produce empirical accounts of player behavior with any game that I selected for study. While the book draws on empirical findings from these projects, it entails a much broader discussion of the issues and themes that arose from a deeper examination of the types of games at the center of debates concerning the influence of virtual violence on players. A core rationale for this book, and the projects that preceded it, is a desire to promote the value of the conceptual, theoretical and empirical work that is taking place within the discipline of game studies. This book seeks to address the derogatory perceptions of games, and apprehensions about them, by attaining greater conceptual clarity with respect to the way games are able to employ violence as a theme, a mode of challenge and/​or a means of expression that plays a vital role in how players perceive, use and experience games. In addition to the discussion of primary research the book draws heavily

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on the work of my research community, which I identify as members of the Digital Game Research Association (DiGRA). In 2000, my attendance at the Digital Cultures Conference in Bristol (organized by Jon Dovey and Helen Kennedy) changed the trajectory of my academic career. It was at that conference that Espen Aarseth announced the birth of Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research, and where the idea of DiGRA was fleshed out. Since that conference, I have been extremely fortunate to have research papers accepted at each international DiGRA conference from 2003 to 2014. In doing so, I have had the privilege of being part of a community of astute and original thinkers whose meaningful work I believe should be featured much more prominently in discussions of videogames and their relationship with violence. I also attribute my willingness to tackle this rather contentious topic to the support that I have received from the New Zealand Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). I would like to thank former Chief Censor Bill Hastings, current Chief Censor Dr.  Andrew Jack, Deputy Chief Censor Nicola McCully, former Information and Policy Manager Kate Ward and their team of classification officers. I have been extremely fortunate to witness first hand the professionalism and thoroughness that constitutes the process of classification in New Zealand. It would be easy to interpret the arguments forwarded in this book as criticism of the understanding of games employed within regulation (more generally), but that is not the case nor is it the intention. This book is primarily concerned with the way games have been branded and portrayed within political debate and journalistic reporting, and how this forms the basis of a subjective norm for the public. To that effect, the role of the regulator is in part determined by, and responsive to, those resulting social mores. What this book does question is the prominence and dominance of the image over the underlying rule systems of games, as it is my contention that rules fashion a different kind of logic and awareness, one focused on the competitive activity that players engage with for the challenge it offers. This book has also been inspired by my experience of public speaking and the receptiveness and willingness of the public to accept a different perspective on games when it is offered. Disseminating research beyond the academy has only served to confirm that many of the opinions and perceptions challenged by my

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Acknowledgments

research have come about from the way games are most present to the public as a negative factor in social and health issues. I would like to thank Gerald Voorhees and his fellow Approaches to Digital Games series editors Joshua Call and Katie Whitlock, as well as Katie Gallof and Mary Al-​Sayed at Bloomsbury Publishing for all their hard work and support. Additionally, I would like to thank, Bevin Yeatman, Fiona Martin and my reviewers for their helpful comments and feedback on the manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their love, understanding, and support throughout the writing process.

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onfidence in the belief that digital games exalt violence has led politicians, social scientists, and journalists to declare, with some conviction, that game playing produces a deformed outlook on life—​ making the medium the most contentious form of media violence today. As games evolve, their relationship with the violent mythos (Whitmer 1997)  that pervades Western culture—​creating a cultural system that legitimates and rationalizes certain forms of violence (as seen in the mythos of the hero and warrior)—​has become increasingly more problematic and complicated. While games tap into and reinforce an age-​old set of attitudes concerning violence as something innate, pleasurable, and desirable (particularly when perceived to be valiant), the makers of games have been heavily chastised for the excesses and intemperance that games signify and the power and freedom they accord players to act violently. By far the most prevalent cultural attitude toward games today is one of intolerance and unease, with major concerns including the increasing levels of realism in depictions of violence, gore, and bloodshed, as well as the antisocial behaviors they appear to encourage. Existing political agendas draw on these perceived traits and risks in order to argue that agents of social regulation receive greater power and control to be able to suppress the impact and influence of games in the best interest of the public. This has resulted in the games industry being placed under repeated political and media scrutiny over the role it plays in the incitement and intensification of youth violence in order to reinforce the need to prohibit or ban its content. These concerns are persistently revisited, thanks to the indelible association that has

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been created in peoples’ minds between mass shootings and game violence. Before giving consideration to the nature and function of games, it is important to acknowledge the considerable impact that unprovoked attacks on innocent victims have upon the collective consciousness. Suddenly, with no cushion or filter, everyday lives are disrupted by images that understandably give rise to national trauma. Occurrences such as US-​located school shootings have served to momentarily destabilize perceptions of individual safety and security as they expose the ineffectiveness of ordinary systems of control and protection. The most infamous incident, which gave rise to the popular impression of a correspondence between game playing and acts of violence, occurred in 1999 when two heavily armed male students walked into Columbine High School near the Denver Colorado suburb of Littleton and set about killing the school’s custodians of knowledge and its students. For some, this event sparked genuine reflection while for others it signaled a political opportunity. Regardless, both sets of reactions converged upon the same idea—​that violent entertainment played a significant role in aiding and influencing the shooters. While Columbine was not the first (or indeed the last) instance of violence in which staff and students at a school were targeted by one of their own, both the involvement of two perpetrators working in partnership and the scale of the devastation (compared to the three killed and five wounded at Heath High School, West Paducah in Kentucky, just two years previously), in terms of both what the attackers planned and what materialized, has meant that no other mass shooting of a similar nature has received the same level of news coverage or political response (Muschert 2007). Although many causative factors were considered, the one that gained most traction was the assailants’ “affinity for playing video splatter games, such as Doom, Quake, or Mortal Kombat” (Frantz and Moser 2000, 6). This argument went on to become one of the most conspicuous and espoused explanations, eclipsing gun control, bullying, and the domestic terrorist agenda set out by the killers. In 2004, a report by Vossekuil et  al. on behalf of the United States Secret Service and the Department of Education found little to connect the perpetrators of school shootings in terms of family background, academic



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achievement, social relationships, or school disciplinary records. Among the 59  percent whom it claimed had shown an interest in media violence, there was no identifiable common form of violence or medium that typified their interest. Instead, the report’s most central explanation concentrated on personal factors, such as difficulties coping with loss or failure. Becoming the object of persecution, and being bullied, threatened, attacked, or injured by others was also cited in the report, but accompanied by a footnote disclaimer stating that there was no conclusive evidence to fully support such claims. Yet such accounts have done little to quell the popularity and recurrence of discourses relating to the action hero myth, the revenge tragedy myth, the myth of male aggression, and how these are ignited and encouraged by video games. The symbolic value of games serves to grip the public imagination and provide those seeking to assign culpability for shocking incidents with a perceptible and convenient culprit. By placing the blame on games, detractors are able to exploit the mutable nature of violence and its diverse application and use within society and culture. As different subsections of society sought to process Columbine as a “seemingly” sudden flash of severe wrongdoing, the nature of humanity and the enduring mythos of the innately violent human (Whitmer 1997) remained buried as explanatory deliberations sought to focus on the effectiveness of social control mechanisms. Out of this thinking emerged a viewpoint that restricting access to games—​ thereby minimizing exposure of youth to visual depictions and simulations of violence—​would constitute a valid and considered response to the deaths of thirteen and the injuries of twenty-​one people as a result of gun violence. Additionally, games constituted an easier target than the more politically perilous topic of gun control. Fear of ramifications from the gun lobby in the United States produced a political disinclination to address the flow that guns permit between fiction and reality by virtue of the pervasiveness and availability of firearms. Instead, violent videogames, narrowed to first-​ person shooters (FPSs) for convenience, became “the subject of lengthy, soul-​searching articles and the target of political saber-​rattling. The press, scrambling to impose a narrative line on a senseless crime, found its villain in Doom, a game favored by the gunmen” (Boal 2001, 138). As Christopher Ferguson (2012) has stated, after the Columbine

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massacre the United States “uselessly diverted itself into a decade’s worth of video game violence laws that were struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.” In 2004 a Canadian report by the Ontario Office for Victims of Crime, concerning the effects of media violence, responded to a number of alleged “copycat” crimes by making a recommendation that survivors of violent crimes caused by entertainment products should file civil lawsuits against the entertainment companies responsible for creating and distributing violent content (Smith 2004). The detachment of responsibility from the attackers in these particular violent crimes stands in contrast to the typical focus of law enforcement that seeks to identify and attribute responsibility to aggressors who cause a victim’s death by their actions—​understood as unlawful killing. The attribution of blame to games instead appears more aligned to processes that are typically reserved for the legitimated use of coercion, whereby individual responsibility is “transferred systematically to a collective that depersonalizes the actor” (Whitmer 1997, 55). Additionally, societal insistence on preserving the social construction of nonage also leaves society dedicated to the need to protect, guide, and nurture, thus creating a demand for corrupting influences in order to explain any extreme loss of innocence. Depauw and Biltereyst (2011) have applied recognized and influential sociological theorization (Cohen 1972; Goode and Ben-​Yehuda 1994; Starker 1989) to account for the way in which the moral panics surrounding games actually resonate wider societal fears, but also highlight how gaming has simply been assimilated into the existing legacy of the harmful effects of media. They argue that this can be schematized in a processual model in which “media violence” serves as a category for grouping a wide range of disparate works. As a stigmatized form of popular culture, gaming permits moral entrepreneurs to implement an established rhetorical framework to argue for a safer moral environment and greater social regulation. In doing so, Depauw and Biltereyst (2011) provide a compelling account for the way that the massacre at Columbine was converted into an argument that isolated the culpability of games. Despite successfully framing public debates that have exploited the pervasiveness of game culture in order to attach games to perpetrators of crimes, this still leaves the substance of what people identify as harmful in games not fully accounted for. As game scholar Ian Bogost (2011) has argued, within



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media accounts the “actual use, function, or content of games never has a place in political discussions about games. Instead, games are cogs in someone’s favorite discourse machine.” Assertions concerning games are interrogated for their foundation throughout the course of this book by exploring what constitutes games and the way they operate. Kocurek (2012) is one of the few authors to publish in game s­ tudies who has taken a perspective on why games generate such strong objections. In her examination of the controversy and public outrage caused in the 1970s by the game Death Race (Exidy 1976) she notes that the game was released in a “games market already replete with depictions of militarized violence.” The key difference in the case of Death Race, she argues, was not the violence per se, but the manner in which its depiction “clearly questioned the state’s monopoly on legitimized violence and did not exist in other culturally accepted narratives of violence, such as the cinematic western.” This argument suggests that there is a need to address the nature and attributes of the “violence” in question, something rarely picked up in wider debates. Emphasis given to the constitution, function, appearance, or performance of virtual “violence” is a rarity, particularly as it is counterproductive to the agendas of those who condemn games as an easy fix to complex societal problems. As suggested already, the videogame industry had the misfortune of being vulnerable and defenseless (Kutner and Olson 2008), given its status as low culture, trivial, and lacking the humanizing influence of the arts (Bazalgette 2014). Indeed, games represent an easier target than “family environment, genetics, poverty, and inequality . . . difficult, controversial and intractable problems” (Ferguson 2008, 30). The political safety of impugning games was also pretty much assured. Indeed, there was little opposition expected in response to attempts to ban or curb the circulation of games, as games were considered children’s culture and “the child as a subject who might participate in these discourses remains largely silent” (Bignell 2002, 127). Furthermore, as Ferguson (2008) has argued, in the United States it is a political topic that has the unusual capacity to appeal to voters on both the left and the right, on the grounds of pacifism and religion respectively. The regulation and control of games thus provided a focus: they unified people and they helped to assuage wider fears

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stirred by news media that criminals are becoming “more violent, animalistic, irrational, and predatory,” and their crimes as “increasingly senseless, more violent, and random” (Killingbeck 2001, 190). Berres (2005) observes that it was “the goal of many of the interpreters of Columbine to extend the crisis feeling generated by Columbine as long as possible” (21). Herein lies the rhetorical power of the crisis. As symbols, guns used in mimesis “catch on and have important focusing effect because they capture in a nutshell some sort of reality that people already sense in a vaguer, more diffuse way” (Kingdon 1995, 97). As a “focusing event,” Columbine served to place games on political and personal agendas (Váneˇ and Kalvas 2012), re-​awakening the suspected sense of threat they pose. Indeed, Kingdon (1995) discusses how, in marked contrast to, say, problem-​ solving, “in which people become aware of a problem and consider alternative solutions” (172), solutions such as curbing media violence float in and near government, searching for problems to which they can become attached or until events increase the likelihood of them being adopted. Part of what empowers the moral entrepreneur is what Przybylski (2013) has identified as an experience divide, which he discerned from poll findings showing that Americans who had no experience of watching or playing violent games were almost six times more likely to believe that games contributed to mass-​shootings and nearly four times more likely to favor legislation intended to curb game access. Such findings reinforce the need for more research of the kind completed by Schott (OFLC 2010) on behalf of the New Zealand’s classification office. His research addressed the degree of game literacy possessed by parents in order to assess the basis of their attitudes and beliefs toward games and classification. The research also addressed the tendency of legislative-​oriented research—​ from large-​ scale surveys or smaller-​ scale research projects—​to possess no requirement for its participants to have any direct experience with the very games that its research is seeking to evaluate. In New Zealand, the classification office has shown continued commitment to ascertaining public understanding and perceptions of its classification system. Yet, in doing so, the office has also acknowledged that public attitudes and beliefs are seldom play-​derived or textually evaluative. In a report titled Public



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Perceptions of a Violent Videogame (2009) the New Zealand classification office reported on audience research it commissioned on the game X-​Men Origins: Wolverine (Raven Software 2009). In this study, a perception-​analysis method was employed to record participants’ comfort levels when viewing audiovisual clips comprising (1)  player-​activated game play and (2)  noninteractive cut-​scenes. The study therefore focused on the perspective of the nonparticipant viewer, rather than the experience of the player.1 Given that games are designed to provoke action responses from the player (Drake and Myers 2006, 608–​22), viewing footage solely as a moving-​image excerpt meant that no such response was possible, preventing participants from reaching a full understanding of the material they were being asked to evaluate. As Grodal (2003) states, in play “[e]ye and ear will not only be linked to an activation of the premotor cortex but also to a full motor cortex and muscle activation”  (139). As a result, public evaluation of X-​Men Origins: Wolverine in this study inevitably led participants to articulate views that mirrored existing critical frameworks for evaluating games, which averted discussion from the specific conditions and experiences offered by the game under consideration. While it is useful to survey general perceptions of, and attitudes toward games, large-​ scale self-​ report surveys also work on the assumption that research participants already possess a preformed set of ideas, thoughts, and beliefs (Gubrium and Holstein 2003), which researchers can simply extract by asking questions and recording the answers (Cicourel 1964). This has the effect of limiting the interpretive activity of participants solely to the substance of what they report. To counter these issues, Schott (2010) sought to assess general viewpoints on, and preconceptions of, games and then compare those views with observations of participants’ direct engagement with, and reactions to, playing games. In using play in this way, the intention was to counteract the prevailing research culture that has led members of society to learn to “become ‘researchable subjects’ and to ‘perform’ being a [good] citizen by expressing what they see as appropriate opinions” (Buckingham and Bragg 2004). As  A valid perspective given that games enter homes to be played by some, and seen and heard by others.

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parents who were experientially unfamiliar with contemporary gaming platforms and game titles, their experience of playing Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar 2008)  in Schott’s study produced revelations as to the demands and the levels of literacy required to engage with interactive games. This was posited as a positive outcome from participating in the study for many participants, who discovered that the experience of playing games was vastly different from the expectations and beliefs they held prior to their participation in the study. The findings of this study are relevant early on in this discussion of games as violence or violent media, as they revealed first how, during meaningful engagement with Grand Theft Auto IV, participants learned that “violence” is contextualized and that players are presented with choices in which both avoidance of, and resistance to, violence can constitute real possibilities. Secondly, participants’ experience of the game was adjudged to be a much more tempered and reasonable experience than they had anticipated after reading media accounts of the Grand Theft Auto series. Finally, participants gained an understanding of the game as a rule-​based system (containing mechanics) that “connects players’ actions with the purpose of the game and its main challenges” (Sicart 2008), a viewpoint that will be revisited throughout this book.

Locating the line between fact and fiction As a focal point for the motivations of bloodshed and carnage, it is difficult to argue that media violence is completely detached or distinct from the values and norms that have made guns permissive as symbols of respect, power, and identity within American society (Gibbs and Merighi 1994; Fagan and Wilkinson 1998). Indeed, cultural transmissions of violence indicate a certain infatuation with guns as existent material objects. One such example of where a “shared heritage of historical memories and customs” (Frye 1990, 2) overlaps with, and becomes defined by, cultural expression can be found in accounts of the American frontier and the foundational myth that is played out in the fiction of the Western. Indeed, Dickinson et al. (2005) describe how the history of the West is “highly selective, dramatized, and romanticized” (86), making “fact” and “fiction”



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indistinguishable (Slotkin 1992). It has been argued that the gun both constitutes and re-​constitutes the modernist story of the US nation-​ state, with the cowboy mythos combining the larger abstract values of self-​determination, rugged individualism, and heroism, “carnivalizing the violence of colonization in a dreamscape of the Wild West” (Dickinson, Ott and Aoki 2005, 104). In a similar manner, Kopel (1995) has attempted to explain the relationship Americans have with firearms, by describing the way “guns effectuate and symbolize individualism and self-​reliance—​two traits in which Americans outpace the rest of the industrial world” (2). With reference to the first trait, Kopel also characterizes the cowboy as an everyday man who sported a mass-​produced handgun such as the Colt .45, a gun that could be bought at a hardware store for ten dollars (Rosa 1969). It has been argued that in the hands of the everyday man, the ideals of classlessness were realized, with the gun representing a “Great Equalizer” (Billington 1981). This, Kopel (1995) argues, is matched by American gun laws, which recognize the right of individuals to use force in self-​ protection. Counter to the “moral barricades” (Cohen 1972, 9) that have been constructed by “right-​thinking” people to restrict media articulation of violence, Kopel believes that gun laws are consistent with the “pervasive theme of American legal culture of leaving extensive power in the hands of the people, and of distrusting the state to administer justice by itself” (6). Such arguments serve to reinforce the symbolic structures at play when gun violence is re-​evaluated. As Whitmer (1997) points out, these structures can stretch from “the remote world of the ‘once was’ through to the imperatives of the ‘now,’ to the imaginative possibilities of the ‘might be’ ” (23). There is a body of research, conducted pre-​ Columbine, that focused on adolescent possession, access, and use of firearms more generally that did not require the explanatory power of media violence to explicate levels of gun possession and gun carrying among adolescents. Estimates for gun carrying in schools, ranging between 5 (Vaughan et  al. 1996)  and 15  percent (LH Research 1993)  were accounted for by the social and symbolic function of firearms and the enhanced feelings of safety and personal efficacy gained by those who carried them (LH Research 1993; Sheley and Wright 1995). Such studies chronicle actions that did not necessarily lead to use, injury, or fatalities, with further research required to understand how the

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presence of guns affects conflicts or disputes to transform them into lethal aggression. Within ecologies of fear and violent cultures, processual explanations have been offered for dispute-​related violent events as social interactions with identifiable rules and contingencies (Felson 1982; Felson and Steadman 1983; Campbell 1986; Luckenbill and Doyle 1989; Oliver 1998). Indeed, Cornish (1993) has argued for the processual nature of violent interpersonal transactions in such contexts. For example, he claims that violence for inner city street gangs is often script-​like, rule-​oriented, and normative. Violent behavior can be viewed as a method of communicating social meanings within contexts where such actions are either expected or at least tolerated. Prior to Columbine-​inflamed rationalization of the role of games in provoking immoral acts, situational approaches were more likely to view violent events as interactions involving the “confluence of motivations, perceptions, technology in this case, weapons, the social control attributes of the immediate setting, and the ascribed meaning and status attached to the violent act” (Fagan and Wilkinson 1998, 128). The following discussion is an attempt to offer a more situational account of the factors associated with Columbine, before proceeding to delineate how games may not perform media violence in the same way or to the same extent as other modes of image-​ based representations. Among the many weapons that the killers took to Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 was the TEC-​DC9 9mm semiautomatic handgun. This gun had already attracted much attention and concern regarding its acceptability prior to the Columbine massacre. Its continued availability, which enabled it to play a part in this tragic story, serves as a sober counterpoint to the subjectivity of the arguments for, and tolerance of, legitimized violence. This weapon had consistently pushed the boundaries of what was permissible under legal gun ownership in the United States for many years prior to Columbine. Prompted, in part, by the Cleveland Elementary School (Stockton) shooting in 1989, in which 25-​year-​old Patrick Edward Purdy shot and killed five school children and wounded thirty others, California enacted the Roberti-​ Roos Assault Weapons Control Act (AWCA) that banned the sale and advertising of semiautomatic assault rifles—​listing the TEC-​9 (a predecessor of the TEC-​DC9) among the weapons it banned. The AWCA stated that: “The proliferation and use of assault weapons poses a



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threat to the health, safety, and security of all citizens of [California] state” (Cal. Penal Code § 30505a). Furthermore, it was described as having “such a high rate of fire and capacity for firepower that its function as a legitimate sports or recreational firearm is outweighed by the danger that it can be used to kill and injure human beings.” Evolution from the KG-​9 through to the KG-​99, and the TEC-​9 up to the TEC-​DC9, was in part to keep the weapon on the market. For example, in 1982, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms ruled that the KG-​9 was an illegal machine gun, due to the ease with which it could be converted to fully automatic fire, requiring a re-​design in order to make such a modification more difficult (Pitre 1996). The manual for the KG-​9 also draws on the axiom of the “semi-​automatic” by openly flaunting its capacity to deliver the “high capacity and controlled firepower of the military sub-​machinegun with the legal status and lightweight of a handgun.” It emphasizes its “paramilitary” appeal, “military blowback design,” and “combat-​type” sights. These features, together with its relatively compact size—​which allows it to be easily concealed—​has led critics to argue that such features exceed the requirements of “legitimate use” within sporting, law enforcement, and self-​ protection contexts. The primary function of these guns is to allow their users to expend multiple rounds of ammunition rapidly (if not automatically). However, despite the suggestion that the weapon can achieve something close to “spray fire,” or be fired as it is swept from side to side (Lennett 1995)—​producing visions of the nouveau-​eastern “flesh ripping, bullet spraying ballet” films of John Woo (Vincent 2002)—​it is highly contested by gun rights advocates who argue that only fully automatic weapons spray fire. Indeed, the speed of bullet discharge with the TEC-​DC9 is dependent on how quickly the shooter could repeatedly pull a trigger in order to fire another round. Nevertheless, legal challenges maintain that semiautomatic weapons have little, if any, practical value for the average self-​defense scenario, as they are not designed to take precisely aimed shots (Pitre 1996). Tapper (1999), in an article for Salon, is unwavering in his insistence that semiautomatic weapons only increased the devastation at Columbine. He describes how a single shotgun blast may have indeed killed or wounded one of the three friends who had sneaked out of Columbine High School for a smoke that day, but states, “only a gun with real firepower could mangle

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three young bodies from head to toe in a matter of just seconds—​ killing one of them, injuring another, and piercing Lance Kirklin with bullets in his face, chest, groin, leg and foot.” While debate rages on in the United States over whether the second amendment translates to an entitlement to own or carry twenty-​first-​century guns, of interest for this discussion is the extent to which the semiautomatic weapons deployed at Columbine were selected because they were considered representative of authentic military weaponry, aligned with fictional portrayals of the action hero (as evident in The Matrix, released just a month prior to the massacre), or constituted the most appropriate option for predetermined acts of indiscriminate mass killing? These possibilities are offered here because of the blurring of fiction and reality that appears to manifest itself within justifications for the commonplace presence of semiautomatic weapons in American society. Indeed, lawmakers have argued that the “spray and pray” method of shooting constituted a major draw card for the use of semiautomatic weapons at Columbine. The Violence Policy Center (VPC) (2003) also notes the way “civilian” weapons incorporate and promote what they term “specific military design features” for laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone (also termed “hosing down”)—​concepts that one would assume should have no place or value in the life of an ordinary citizen. Senior policy analyst Tom Diaz stated that: “Bullet Hoses demolishes the National Rifle Association’s phony argument that AK-​47 and UZI civilian assault weapons are just like grandpa’s semiautomatic hunting rifle.” Comments by the VPC constitute an attempt to combat the exploitation of the deadly design features possessed by assault weapons that allow them to be promoted as “killing machines.” The term “spray and pray” has also been applied to games that simulate automatic weapon fire. While it does indeed refer to the way players may fire blindly, hoping to hit a target (in games such as Counter Strike, F.E.A.R., or Team Fortress 2), the term is synonymous with “spamming” and derided by many players as a largely ineffective and unsuccessful technique. Furthermore, those who employ “spray and pray” often get picked off by more skilled players placing well-​aimed shots in multiplayer contexts. When surveyed more widely, “spray and pray” does not emerge as a respected or admired



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approach to armed combat either. Indeed, it has been condemned as diminishing military professionalism. In this respect, it is possible to cite the oft-​quoted statement by US Marine veteran Jack Lewis (2001), in which he states that the “United States used to be known as a Nation of Riflemen; now we’ve become a Nation of Sprayers” (15). In a special edition of Joint Force Quarterly on military professionalism, Rondeau (2011) reflects on being “part of the Vietnam generation, a generation that perhaps lost sight of traditional military beliefs, or even came to abandon some of them.” Post-​Vietnam, the automatic-​fire setting on the original M16 was replaced with three-​ round burst fire for the M16A2 and M16A4/​M4 carbine. Shoot and spray weapon development was influenced by the suggestion, promoted in Marshall’s (1947) infamous Men Against Fire, that only a low percentage of soldiers fire at the enemy. This, together with the unseen enemies in the Second World War, Pacific Theatre, and later in Vietnam, required that “soldiers [fire] in the general direction of the enemy” (Avery 2012, 3). A further example of the coupling of the fiction of escapist entertainment and firearms is evident in the case of the website for the game Medal of Honor:  Warfighter (DICE 2012), which contained hyperlinks to both the McMillan Group, the maker of high-​powered sniper rifles, and Magpul, which sells high-​capacity magazines and other accessories for assault-​style weapons (Meier and Martin 2012). This speaks clearly to the proposition, “you’ve played the game, now execute these actions in the real world,” which arguably conflates the claims of gun manufacturers with the experience offered by games. The National Rifle Association (NRA) Institute for Legislative Action (2014) has, however, refused to sideline semiautomatic weapons, continuing to defend their presence and use as part of the constitutional rights of armed citizens to use them as defensive weapons. They state that: “While a police officer can carry extra magazines on his duty belt, and have a rifle or shotgun in his patrol car, and call for back-​ up, a private citizen attacked in a parking lot, or at home in the middle of the night, will probably have only the magazine within the firearm. No one should be arbitrarily limited in the number of rounds he or she can have for self-​defense.” It is argued that semiautomatic weapons are an integral part of American gun culture, with the first semiautomatic rifle having been introduced in 1885, the first semiautomatic

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pistol in 1892, and the first semiautomatic shotgun in 1902. Pro-​gun perspectives are equally culpable for muddying their claims by drawing on fiction. In making a case for high-​capacity magazines, an article in the NRA’s monthly magazine American Rifleman states: “Real life is more like a zombie movie: if the first bullet doesn’t short-​circuit the central nervous system, you have to keep shooting until the skeletal support structure no longer holds him and his weapon up where he can hurt you and yours, or until his cardiovascular system has run out of oxygenated blood for his brain” (cited in Ayoob 2013). Ropeik (2012) has argued that it is the symbolic meaning of guns that needs to form the core of discussions around their availability and presence. He argues that guns do “something emotional, something tied deeply to one of our most basic instincts, the instinct to survive. For millions of people, guns help them feel safe. They provide a sense of control and an ability to protect oneself from what feels like a threatening world.” This, he argues, sits at the heart of the desire of so many people to not only own and carry guns, but also to defend them, as a means by which individuals “maintain control” and retain their individual rights over the attempts of higher authorities to diminish their freedom of choice.

Columbine as a social drama Social theorist Bauman (1995) argues that coercion inevitably gets split into “two sharply distinguished kinds, respectively characterized as legitimate and illegitimate, necessary and gratuitous, desirable and undesirable, useful and harmful” (141). Yet despite their separate categorization, he argues that there is little to distinguish them from each other, with the exception of the partisan justification given to one but refused to the other. This is how coercion is often divided between military offensives, law enforcement, and self-​defense on the one hand, and violence on the other hand. Or alternatively, as Bauman states, the perceived differences between the “controlled and the uncontrolled, the regular and the erratic, the predictable and the unpredictable, the foreseeable and the unexpected” (142). The distinction between “order-​keeping” and violence, he argues, will always remain contested. Modernity seeks to bring under control



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those elements of society that are perceived to sit outside “designed order,” while violence is often defined by its unexpectedness when compared to legitimized forms. But as Turner (1974) has stated, when defining a “social drama,” it is the event itself that is a “breach of the norm, the infraction of a rule of morality, law, custom, or etiquette in some public arena. [Yet this] breach may be deliberately, even calculatedly, contrived by a person or party disposed to demonstrate or challenge entrenched authority” (70). To this effect, it has been strongly argued that the perpetrators of the Columbine shootings sought infamy. As Time reporters Gibbs and Roche (1999) stated, it was presented as “payback to those who hurt them, and glory, the creation of a cult, for all those who have suffered and been cast out.” In an article titled “The Columbine Tapes” they write how, in the weeks prior to the shootings, the shooters produced “haunting videos” “detailing their plans, their motives, even their regrets.” Although the shooters’ scorn was wide-​ranging and undiscerning, one declaration from a series of personal video diaries is more aimed: “I’m going to kill you all. You’ve been giving us shit for years.” Contradictory accounts suggest that explanations of bullying and social divisions did not match the reality of the shooters’ social participation leading up to April 20. Indeed, one has to reflect on the nature of these video confessionals. As Askanius (2013) has argued, individualized “modes of political expression intrinsic to the video diary tend to deflate into a politics of narcissism” (11), implying that a desire for recognition, notoriety, and fame can be inferred from the shooters’ declarations leading up to the event. The description of Columbine as a “social drama” appears apt, given the degree of preparedness and intent that preceded the event. Likewise, in line with the shooters’ knowledge of other school shootings, the term “copy cat” also holds some relevance, as it describes those “who imitate others and commit rationally unjustifiable and deviant deeds” (Degh and Vazsonyi 1983, 13).

Genre: From violent media to user and experience-​based typologies The power of games to engender violence has therefore become an established “rhetorical” genre above all else. As Carolyn Miller

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(1984) argues, rhetorical genres comprise “similarities in strategies or forms in the discourse, by similarities in audience, by similarities in modes of thinking, by similarities in rhetorical situations” (153). Thus far, it has been outlined how public discussion and evaluation of games has been dogged by their association with violent attacks carried out by young people on young people. Despite a history of media being implicated in a number of moral crusades—​in which the ever-​new and more terrible forms of moral laxity generated by media forms are identified—​the games industry has shown itself to be particularly vulnerable to being exploited by claim-​makers engaged in “symbolic politics” and “politics of substitution” (Jenkins 1992). The ease with which games have come to symbolize issues that cannot be addressed directly (Thompson 1998) has been made feasible by their perceived low cultural worth, which impedes the desire or need for any meaningful appreciation and knowledge of the appeal, function, and pleasure of games as an activity. The usefulness of considering the relationship between games and violence as a social and political problem, in terms of genre, stems from the way in which it is possible to emphasize the social and historical aspects of rhetoric in which games have become understood as an antecedent for violent action. As Frye (1957) has stated, the study of genre is after all the study of convention. In her discussion of “rhetorical genres,” Miller cites Bitzer’s (1968) thinking on the relationship between situation and discourse, in which he points out how “year to year, comparable situations occur, prompting comparable responses.” He concludes that the impact of recurring forms is that they tend to “function as a constraint upon any new response in the form” (13). In the case of school-​based or peer-​directed violence, media reporting, research agendas, social commentary, and political responses continue to point to games by way of explanation. Or in Bitzer’s terms, we find a rhetorical situation comprised of a “complex of persons, events, objects, and relations” allaying exigency via the mediation of discourse. In this case, this is achieved by the automaticity of accusation and blame aimed at games as elements that drive the aim of political expediency. In the comparable situation of the thirty-​two deaths at the hands of a single gunman at Virginia Tech in the United States in 2007, the



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customary role of games as a causal factor was initiated without delay or any need for official disclosures on the gunman. As Florida attorney and game industry critic Jack Thompson told Fox News: “These are real lives. These are real people that are in the ground now because of this game [Counter Strike]. I  have no doubt about it.” Likewise, while police were still piecing together the events of April 16, 2007, American television personality, author, and psychologist Dr.  Phil McGraw appeared on US television, declaring: “common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society.” In a report released by the Governor of Virginia, outlining the findings of the Virginia Tech Review Panel, games did not emerge as a causal factor in the massacre. Indeed, games did not appear to hold any significance in the shooter’s life, according to the profile presented by the report. Genre is a useful device for understanding media violence as a social response to a set of recurrent rhetorical exigencies. While genre functions as an “intellectual [scaffold] on which community-​based knowledge is constructed” (Berkenkotter and Huckin 1995, 24), its frame-​like quality deputizes for the entirety of its constituent parts and any variants as a simplified artifact of communication. Turning to genre theory as a primarily nominological and typological act (Allen 1989), games as objects are also divided into genres of action, adventure, racing/​driving, role play, and simulation which, in turn, affect the practice and employment of violence. As Thompson and Haninger (2001) point out in their article for the American Medical Association, the US and Canadian Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) age-​ rating of “E” for “Everyone” “does not mean violence-​free” (591). Violence takes many forms and is employed to account for the theme of the game (e.g., a shooter), the demands of the rule system (e.g., the need to resist and prevent existents (Chatman 1978) from negatively affecting a player character’s state), and the affordances provided to players to engage with the game world. Yet, the function of genre is rarely discussed among scholars, who prefer to get on with the business of finding the best ways to classify different kinds of games. Genres are typically determined as an a posteriori process (Bawarshi 2000) that serves to classify and

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organize texts based on observation rather than knowledge of how they work. There is no denying that there are formal elements that many games share and repeat due to their function and pleasure-​ affording qualities, but Järvinen (2002) has questioned whether there is use for Mark J.  P. Wolf’s (2000) classification of forty-​two different genres of games. Miller (1984) has, however, suggested that the number of genres in any society reflects the complexity and diversity of its artifacts. Additionally, as Bordwell (1991) has noted, “no set of necessary and sufficient conditions can mark off genres from other sorts of groupings in ways that all experts .  .  . would find acceptable” (147). Genre then has the potential to lead us away from broad notions of games as media violence, to an understanding of games as more complex than is acknowledged within media and political debates. In the context of film criticism, “iconography,” “structure,” and “theme” have been identified as key elements by which genre may be defined and identified (Buscombe 1970). Yet even in film, the use of iconography has been problematized for its simplicity. Take the gun as a defining feature of the Western as a genre:  Collin (1970) has questioned the simplicity of iconography as a visual convention that is merely employed to fulfill genre. He argues that guns instead appear by virtue of their relevance to the physical and temporal contexts that Western films attempt to portray. Violence is therefore endemic to the Western, as it depicts an era in which individuals were armed and violence came about as a by-​product of the commission or prevention of crime as “part of the frontier struggle to order nature and build a social life” (69). The placement of the gun is therefore not just a function of genre but is also historic. Likewise, in games the gun is relevant in relation to the spatial and temporal contexts of games, illustrating how “game genre study differs markedly from literary or film genre” (Wolf 2000, 114), as the medium demands the direct and active participation of its “audience.” As Ernest Adams (2009) reinforces, “game genres are determined by gameplay: what challenges face the player” (2), as well as the nature of the actions that are made available to the player to overcome those challenges. Games demand a reconsideration of genre theory to account for assumptions that drive and shape its various affordance-​laden formats. For example, John Searle (1969) distinguishes between



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regulative and constitutive rules, and how rules can regulate preexisting activities (such as play) while they also constitute and regulate an activity, “the existence of which is logically dependent on the rules” (34). In this way, genre works to communicate what the conventions are for enacting it. When players perform an activity in the context of a game, they do so because they recognize it to be a game, but that understanding also prompts actions that are consonant with its situational demands. Frederic Jameson (1981) describes something similar when he states that genres are “social contracts between a writer and a specific public, whose function is to specify the proper use of a particular cultural artifact” (92). Genre therefore endows games with an identity, or in Todorov’s (1975) terms, serves as “relay-​points” by which a game assumes a relation to other texts within a universe of game texts. Extending beyond form, genre is described as a “mode of being” (Foucault 1994); as “ways of being” (Bazerman 1997); or as frames for social action. Fishelove’s (1993) insistence that “the concept of role is inseparable from that of genre” (101) is highly compatible with how genre must be approached in relation to games. Lenhart (2013) focuses his discussion on game design and the potential for opening up the design process via a progression from specialization to interoperability, much in the same way that filmmaking has become commoditized (Rushkoff 2005) and composited, and made available to the amateur and aspiring filmmaker. Lenhart’s work is useful, as he identifies sets of “interoperable ludic components” that are and can be employed in similar ways across different games. Such components, he argues, have the potential to be modularized in a similar fashion to the way “modders” produce “game assets.” Using the concept of ludic modularity it may be possible to tease out the elements that comprise what T.  L. Taylor (2009) has described as the “assemblage of play”—​its constituent parts. For example, expressive and functional tools, such as weapons, reflect a player’s key means of engaging with an environment, a problem-​ solving device, an activator of new spaces, and a means of discovering new encounters. Lenhart also argues that when playing a game, it is expected that game artifacts will act in particular and understood ways. To this effect, there is a component of game violence that is principally systemic in nature (a topic for more detailed discussion for forthcoming chapters). While questioning the significance of

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game violence for players, in an article for the New Statesman Simon Parkin (2013) asks: Remember the first pawn or knight you “took” in chess—​the moment you callously toppled its body from the board? Hardly. Even if the piece had a name and backstory—​a wife and children waiting on news back home, a star-​crossed romance with a rival pawn—​such details would have been forgotten the moment you packed away the board. Weapons, in game, therefore form part of the standard mechanics for both the producer and the player, facilitating game play, interaction, and presence. While making this point, one must acknowledge, too, that the game’s ludic components may be turned and used against the player, or taken to extremes in an excess of effectance. From this perspective, Conway (2010) has distinguished between “contra-​ ludicity”—​in which player success leads to greater resistance from the game in an effort to stop play (for instance, the increased speed that each tetromino falls in Tetris, making it eventually impossible for the player to continue)—​and “hyper-​ludicity,” which provides the player with heightened power and creates new possibilities for play (e.g., the energizer or power pellet in Pac Man). Both conditions serve to destabilize the player by manipulating otherwise core conditions of game play. Game play becomes ilinx or momentarily disorienting, inducing “voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind” (Caillois 1961, 23), as players either become overwhelmed and overrun, or are sent into a heightened state of performance characterized by supreme efficacy (as in Doom’s “BFG 9000,” featuring a weapon that can destroy virtually all enemies with a single shot). Conway reasons that these conditions create a ludic juxtaposition for players, generating a rhythm that oscillates between pressure and transitory empowerment. Despite a few attempts to construct or identify different genres of games according to the kind of interactivity they offer (see Wolf 2000), here we find that the degree to which the player is allowed to play can be altered quite radically by changes and variation in ludicity within a single game. As a means of extrapolating the intended experience designed into games, genre certainly communicates and signals an entry



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point, or the point at which “variation on a theme” enters player consideration prior to playing a game. While not denying variation, the application of genre instead draws attention to familiarity with associated texts. Used in this way, genre is employed more in accordance with its ordinary meaning and use. The word genre exists as a “thumbnail classification for everyday purposes” (Tudor 1973, 3), or as an umbrella term, under which disparate concepts can be organized with ease and for convenience. As Arsenault (2009) argues, the word is used “colloquially in everyday language . . . as a marker of impreciseness: we place the word to indicate that we are making broad, imprecise generalizations” (9). One has to bear in mind that this also has the effect of creating a false impression of unity. Genre theory, however, “has been used in different ways in different fields” (Neale 2000, 28). While most people might understand and use the term Western, Tudor (1973) argues that when it is employed by an academic or critic to describe a genre, it is being “asked to carry rather more weight,” suggesting that “the critic’s conception of ‘Western’ is more complex than is the case in everyday discourse” (3). This tension is useful for understanding differences in the ways separate parties seek to portray games. Returning to the manner in which games occupy a role within “rhetorical” genre concerning the risks associated with engaging with media violence, the very concept of media violence has permitted games with markedly different qualities to be grouped together as one entity. This might explain how the violence of Death Race (Exidy 1976)—​despite being rendered in black and white and comprising a pixelated muscle car that makes contact with inconspicuous stick figures, turning them into gravestones—​was capable of causing equal levels of moral outrage as the contemporary title Manhunt 2 (Rockstar, 2008), a game described by the UK Chief Censor as containing “visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing.” Yet, as Aarseth (2001) has argued, “games are not one medium, but many different media”; this makes what Klevjer (2006) describes as the propensity for “theoretical investigation into aesthetic, social and psychological mechanisms that applies either very broadly or to games and play in general” extremely problematic. While thematic genres are easily extracted from games, many game scholars have argued that the “genres accepted by the

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audience and industry do not take into account the complex layering of genre that occurs within videogames” (Apperly 2006, 9). As Järvinen (2002) has stated, “a game genre equals hybridity, because game genres are complex sums of interaction and rule mechanisms, audiovisual styles, and popular fiction genre conventions.” Games can be simultaneously classified according to the platforms on which they are played, the style of play they afford, perspective and viewpoints through which players engage with the game world, or the kinds of rules and goals that constitute game play. As Buckingham (2006) states in the introduction to the book Computer Games, “what [games] have in common may in fact be less interesting or important than the ways in which they differ” (7). Apperly (2006) also rightly observes how “the stability of genre will be tempered by innovation; this innovation may be technical, not necessarily stylistic” (ibid.). Yet, Bogost (2008) has warned against celebrating design novelty, as it carries a risk of “fetishizing innovation for its own sake over the ways such innovation helps construct meaningful experiences.” Games may be software, but as Bogost reasons, they are not meant to “serve the same function as spreadsheets . . . but [as] experiences that spark ideas and proffer sensations.” If we consider FPSs as an example of a genre of game play at the center of the media effects debate, we find initially that it includes games that are characterized by the way they employ a first-​person perspective; that is, players are provided with an experience of an “anthropomorphic avatar that interacts directly with the game world” (Hitchens 2011). This accounts for the way in which the player experiences the virtual world of the game. Secondly, the “shooter” element of the genre accounts for the manner in which the primary game play mode involves “both the player avatar attempting to damage other game entities and those game entities attempting to damage the player avatar” (ibid.). Yet Klevjer (2003) has stated that part of the innovation of FPS games, as a genre, lies in the way that “[l]ooking and targeting come together in the same movement” (1). Furthermore, because FPS games determine that the avatar is largely absent from the player’s view, this results in game play and affordances being focused and provided through the avatar (Pinchbeck 2007). While FPSs appear to forefront the image by virtue of player embodiment of the game’s player character, Grimshaw and Schott (2007) have



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sought greater recognition for the way the FPS-​genre exploits sound. Because game environments fake three-​dimensionality (Breinbjerg 2005), they highlight how sound offers an “omni-​directional experience, capable of carrying information about virtual materials and dimensions of the game environment both on-​screen and off-​screen” (474). It is the authors’ contention that sound is a vital contributing factor to the creation of the three-​dimensionality within FPS game worlds and players’ immersion within them (see Chapter 4 for further discussion of the relationship between sound and violence). In Arsenault’s (2009) discussion of game genres, he too argues for a need to progress discussion from genre as “characteristic,” to more “illustrative” and “particular” accounts of games. In doing so, he seeks to move discussion beyond the idea that genres are “built on distinctions recognized by all” (Moine 2008, 20). In his account of FPS games, he describes how FPS game play frequently extends beyond its descriptor to require that players engage in a good measure of melee fighting, to the extent that “specialized melee characters, classes or character development skills” (15) form a consistent option and choice for FPS players. He acknowledges too how there are “sequences where the player must run and escape, or otherwise perform non-​combat actions across space” (ibid.). In his review of Halo (Bungie 2001), Järvinen (2002) concluded that the game’s inventiveness rested in its understanding of the anatomy of the FPS while being able to mix it up to good effect using third-​person driver perspective or cut-​scenes to enhance play. Modernization also determined that each weapon in Halo was given a unique purpose, therefore making different weapons more appropriate in different contexts (distinguishing itself from “spray and pray”). Likewise, it also departed from traditional FPS conventions in small but significant ways, such as the way it avoided forcing the player character to holster its firearm before deploying grenades or melee-​range blunt instruments. Instead, Halo allows both modes of attack to be utilized while a gun is still equipped. While the naissance of the FPS was initially technical, its later evolution would appear to be much more ludicly driven. Arsenault has observed how popular games that define new areas of possibility then become imitated (from Doom-​clones to the manner in which Halo’s “numerous subtle innovations have been borrowed by countless other games since,” Gamespot 2006), until

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this process reaches saturation point and the “genre effect” firmly sets in, necessitating “revision instead of replication” (14). While the evolution of genre is constant and inevitable, all games, designers, and players are, however, still constituted by the genres within which they function.

Performativity by genre The above discussion of genre has sought to drill down into the experience of play, highlighting the impact of the ludic affordances provided by different games. As Pinchbeck (2007) reminds us, the environments presented in games are “vastly reduced artificial systems” (8), which means that their affordances too are designed and intentional. The manner in which this discussion of genre has taken us from typical to definite also exposes the duplicity at play within games. That is, the subterfuge of interactivity, immersion, and presence is never fully realized when actions presented by the game are compared with actions available to the player. To be violent is to exert power. Likewise, a heroic act will often be adjudged to have required some special strength, courage, or ability. Yet according to Pinchbeck, the player avatar in a typical FPS is only afforded eight basic actions. These include: moving from four basic directions to trichording, circle strafing, and so on; looking; jumping or movement up on a vertical axis; crouching movement down on a vertical axis; widening or deepening the parameters of looking with the use of a flashlight; shooting; absorbing or incurring negative state changes from the environment in the form of injury or damage; and, finally, interacting with objects that have “one-​off affordances” attached to them. When players play they operate within the reality of a game system as defined by its rules or parameters using their affordance sets. Game players must come to understand this in order to make affordances actionable. Of course, perceived affordances (Norman 2002), applied to games by Cardona-​Rivera and Young (2013)—​that is, what the player expects and perceives to be possible—​are a result of genre, and the experience of what players typically expect in analogous situations. As Thomas O. Beebee (1994) has outlined, “a text’s genre is its use-​value. Genre



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gives us not understanding in the abstract and passive sense but use in the pragmatic and active sense” (14). Affordances would appear to hold the key to determining the relevance of the thematic components of genre within a game context, as objects can be placed within an environment for aesthetic purposes solely to corroborate the theme of the game setting. However, should an object not possess any ludic affordances, therefore making it unusable within the activity of play, there is a potential that such objects might undermine their initial purpose and intent. For example, should computer monitors or phones not work—​objects that would ordinarily be exploited in situations to call for help or access information—​ they would then potentially become counter-​constructive. Indeed, Pinchbeck (2007) comments that the “presented world [of contemporary FPS games] has increased in complexity, which runs the risk of presenting higher expectation of affordances” among its players (12). He proposes the concept of ludodiegesis to account for the manner in which player expectations are managed, allowing players to accept small affordance sets while not compromising the thematic premise of the game. The illusion of a thematically complex reality is often established early on in FPS games. However, the game’s larger reality or context is also often used as a basis for justifying the player’s experience of lengthy periods of localization and solitude, in which they become reliant on the ludic content of their proximate spaces. Quake (Raven Software 1996) might situate play within a sci-​fi war against an alien cyborg race, Halo an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens, and Half Life (Valve Software 1998) within a post-​invasion Earth that has seen the planet become an exploitable resource. Yet, as Pinchbeck illustrates with reference to Doom 3 (id Software 2004), “the sense of a wider, external reality through the radio broadcasts of panicking and overrun marine squads [is established and maintained], but once the trick of radio silence has run its affective course, the player is abandoned with reference, wholly and totally reliant upon only what is offered in the immediate ludic space” (13). Alternatively, more complex actions or interactions are mapped across to cut-​scenes (hetero-​diegetic) or nonplayer characters (NPCs) (homo-​ diegetic) that become proxy agents for progressing the play scenario. In the case of NPCs, players typically protect and accompany them as they perform acts (as in Quake 4),

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“enabling the affordance set of the player to be virtually expanded-​ by-​affiliation” (ibid.). Salen and Zimmerman (2003) state that, “[a]s a game designer, you can never directly design play. You can design rules that give rise to it. Game designers create experience, but only indirectly” (168). Interestingly, Salen and Zimmerman do not use or discuss genre in their book Rules of Play (Järvinen 2004), thus drawing attention to the way genre for gaming has assumed a quite different role from the way Schatz (1981) has conceived it in relation to film, as offering a “range of expression” for both its addressees and makers. While the expectations that trigger a gaming experience are likely to be better understood from a genre perspective and the intermediality (Egri 1942) of previous experiences engaging in similar actions with other games, the game experience itself operates according to a “proairetic code” (Barthes 1970), in which actions are both caused by an event and result in the activation of further events. Players might be drawn to a game based on general expectations, but it is understood that learning to play a game can often be a recursive process, in which wider expectations have to be adjusted and refined to fit the specific conditions and events of the game in terms of the way it is played out. It is common for a game to not only reorient player expectations in relation to other, typical forms of texts, but also to break the tacit agreement between designers and players, shifting expectations during play by subverting their own design patterns in order to create a greater challenge (Mitgutsch and Weise 2011). The simple aim here is to echo Lankoski and Heliö’s (2002) early evaluation that “action is the most important feature of the game from a player’s point of view” (319). Indeed, Geoff King (2007), in his survey of customer and player game reviews, noted the dominance of game play over context. With respect to the game Command and Conquer: Generals (EA Pacific 2003)—​which King recognizes as possessing strong and contentious political and ideological dimensions that brings it “uncomfortably close to contemporary geopolitical issues” (1)—​it was the game’s ludic dimensions that were core to player evaluations. That is, the game’s reception was not determined by its thematic subtext (see Chapter 5 for further discussion of this research). Thus, while media violence generally describes “visual portrayals of acts of physical aggression by one human or human-​like



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character against another” (Huesmann 2007, 7), when this is understood in the context of game media it becomes an act in several senses of the word—​as performance, action, and pretense. Game genres serve to delimit violence into a set of acts that define the possibilities of its usage, determining how violence will be experienced audio visually and how it will be put to use to allow the player to interact with a virtual world, in order to respond to and fulfill its gamic demands. In summary, this discussion has addressed the twofold function of genre in terms of both levels of reasoning that are applied when genre is used (simplification versus systematic), and a reconsideration of the focus of expectation it institutes among players. The aim of this book is to re-​examine what violence means, in terms of its appropriation by, and application within games. To initiate this, this chapter has first provided an account of the role assumed by games and their association with violence within the rhetorical genre of school shootings. This constitutes one very real example of the way in which genre is “out there” in the world—​a perennial doubt that has plagued the extended debates within genre theory (Stam 2000, 14). However, while genre has been identified for its part in everyday thinking around games, the kind of thinking that informs social and political discussions of the medium has used genre in such an extensive way as to render it worthless in terms of appreciating what constitutes the phenomenological experiences of game play, and where the greatest emphasis lies in its multimodal communication to the player. Film theorist Robert Stam (2000) has argued: “Subject matter is the weakest criterion for generic grouping because it fails to take into account how the subject is treated” (ibid.). To this effect, the game genre—​understood as the manner in which the player is integrated into the structure of its feedback system, requiring nontrivial effort in order for the game world to be traversed (Aarseth 1997)—​ manages to sidestep thematic and representational classifications in favor of the attributes that define the medium. Such characteristics might then be used to address the shortcomings in public and political debate should greater care be taken to move beyond efficiency to understand the particular manner in which design mediates player action. In terms of the relationship between producer and audience, genres provide a framework for how games are interpreted.

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The agreed code of genre (Fowler 1989)  provides a starting point, implying a demarcated set of possibilities for response and action. Particular features that are characteristic of a game genre are not normally limited or unique to it. As Steve Neale (1980) states, “genres are instances of repetition and difference” (48).

2 Games as violence

A

s the previous chapter outlined, the public and political debates that prompt the notion of a relationship between games and violence have not emerged in response to logical events that permit game violence to be considered in dispassionate terms. Rarely have we seen discussion of the influence and impact of games revert to a position that considers how the “relationship between the structure of a game and the way people engage with that system” (Waern 2012, 1) might constitute a significant factor in precluding transferal or transmutability to the material world. In these contexts Jasper Juul’s (2000) claim that “[c]omputer games (and games) are the great undescribed of our culture,” continues to ring true. Furthermore, when considered within the purview of game regulation, the notion that games are systems designed for play is not really permitted to penetrate treatment of games. The substance of games has failed to achieve acknowledgment or give rise to a different interpretation of the form of violence when it is appropriated within game play. This chapter therefore continues to explore the value of considering and upholding the importance of game rules as a link between games’ narrative and their abstract layers when interpreting the nature of games acts. A key difference between games situated in the real world and those played via a screen is the way real-​world games require players to adopt what Bernard Suits (1978) termed a “lusory attitude,” referring to the need to accept the arbitrary nature of rules. For example, a soccer player is not physically inhibited from handling the ball or crossing the boundary lines of the pitch as s/​he plays. Yet the player

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seeks to avoid blatantly doing so whenever possible in order to avoid penalties from a referee and/​or losing possession of the ball to the opposition. Despite a player’s best efforts or intentions the ball may still make contact with a hand or go out of play momentarily. However, in these moments, when breaches of the rules do occur, there is no guarantee that they will necessarily be upheld or enforced. This is where factors such as sportsmanship, the perspective of players, and the ability of a referee to be in the right place to observe violations come into play. In contrast, DeLeon (2013) states that in comparison to traditional games, “the walls in Pac-​Man (Namco 1980)  are not imagined to have significance, in the way that we respect tiles on a chessboard or playfield boundaries in a sport” (3). The player is no more able to move through Pac-​Man walls than s/​he can through real walls. This, DeLeon asserts, is not out of respect for the rules or any sense of sportsmanship but because the limitations are actual. DeLeon (2013) seeks an extension of the conventional notion of rules as solely quantitative definitions of success and failure, to account for the way a “game’s explicit rules operate at the same level as physical laws” (4). In doing so, he seeks to open up the scholarly terrain to acknowledge distinctions introduced by Avedon (1971), between “procedures for action” that describe “specific operations, required courses of action, method of play” and the rules “governing action” that refer to more “fixed principles” (422). Under fixed principles we could include the inability of players to circumvent boundaries, both hard (e.g., walls) and occasionally soft (such as entities that constitute enemies) (King and Krzywinska 2003). If inflexible constraints have the power to determine the actions of the player they may also prove significant in our consideration of the nature, meaning, and objective of keyed acts that trigger onscreen motion that imitates violence from the observer’s perspective. For a game to be a game it must also possess emergence and progression, the former referring to how “relatively simple rules lead to much variation in game play” (Dormans 2011), and the latter, to the manner in which a sequence of events is controlled and predesigned. Both are dependent upon rules that the players, for the most part, are unable to negotiate or ignore if they are to succeed and advance. While Chapter 3 will discuss the role of rule systems in greater detail, it is first necessary to forefront this discussion with



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an account of the way the phenomenon deemed game violence (as a class of media violence) is currently understood. Additionally, it is necessary to consider how regulation contributes to our understanding of games in a different manner, by stipulating characteristics that “potentially” affect the “greatest” impact on those who play them. “Violence,” “profanity,” and “illicit activities” are commonly listed side by side as justification for imposing age-​restrictions or recommendations for games. While such terms may suggest the tenor of a game, it will be argued that they remain potentially imprecise or misleading as portrayals of the “game” experiences that await players. Obviously, disparities between approaches and understandings of “violence” (and the way games comprise violence) come about as a result of differing concerns and agendas. The result nevertheless is a popular perception of games that underestimates the hybridity and duality inherent in the way they are set within fictional worlds that also follow themes (e.g., resistance, liberation, protection, or resolution). Differences in the way games are treated nevertheless constitute a meaningful difference, one that extends beyond being merely theoretical, as the treatment of games by regulation, for example, reflects a worldview that reflects and informs social opinion on games—​this is a worldview that has also drawn the attention of social commentators to games, in response to instances of real-​ world violence. Judgment and evaluation of violence as content came about as games were first classified under “legacy” systems comprising well-​conceived approaches for classifying linear materials that were only later required to accommodate digital games. Marczak (2014) highlights the case of the 1986 text-​ based game Dracula (CRL Group  1986) whose developers actively sought a rating from UK censors, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), for publicity purposes. In order to stand out from competing titles in a growing domestic console market (Commodore 64, Amstrad, and ZX Spectrum) the developers sought to position their game as forbidden fruit. The game was therefore notable for receiving the first rating from the BBFC from a process that was not designed to assess interactive software. The BBFC was not even mandated to classify literature, meaning that the decision to rate the text game R15 was based on the still images that accompanied text descriptors and prompts.

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By 1993, the graphical and audio fidelity of games had (perceived to have) evolved. Indeed, games such as the survival-​horror Night Trap (Digital Pictures 1992)  and fighting game Mortal Kombat (Midway Games 1992)  sparked federal hearings in the United States, based on the “realism” of their violence. Federal hearings held between December 9, 1993 and March 4, 1994 by US Senators Josepth Lieberman and Herbert Kohl determined that the videogame industry had a year to devise its own rating system or otherwise have one imposed on them by the federal government. Prior to the hearing and the ensuing establishment of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in response to this ruling, two company-​led classification systems were already in existence. The first was Sega’s Videogame Rating Council (VRC) (GA for general audience; MA-​13 for mature audiences with parental discretion recommended; and MA-​17 for mature audiences not appropriate for minors), and the second, 3DO Company’s (the company behind the 3DO Multiplayer Interactive console before becoming a third-​party game developer) 3DO Rating System (E–​Everyone; 12–​guidance for age 12 and under; 17–​guidance for age 17 and under; AO–​Adults Only). Sega’s VRC arguably enabled a more liberal approach to the release of content as it was able to release Mortal Kombat (with its graphic violence and gore intact) under an MA-​13 rating on the Sega Genesis, outselling the tamer version playable on the Super Nintendo. The VRC system came under criticism for its lack of transparency regarding the seemingly inconsistent or unspecified rationale for the ratings that were awarded to different game titles. Budziszewski’s (2012) account of the United States and Canadian ESRB rating system describes how it requires developers to submit a questionnaire outlining game content in terms of relevant categories (language, violence, sexuality, substance use, and so on), plus submit a “video recording featuring typical gameplay as well as examples of the most extreme content” (196–​7). Similarly, as Zahid Gameldien (Pearce 2011), a member of the Australian Classification Board recently explained, when a title is submitted for classification it must be accompanied by information about the game and the means to access contentious material within the game. Under the Australian Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995, it states:  “If any part of a computer game is likely to be regarded



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as containing contentious material, the application must also be accompanied by: (a) particulars of that material and of the means by which access

to it may be gained; or (b) a separate recording of that material.”

What both these methods have in common is that they suggest a focus on the declaration of the presence of content, rather than any assessment of how it is experienced in the context of play and how that might mediate or transform the impact of (otherwise familiar) content. This process was founded on an assumption that there exists a predefined range of subject matters whose harmful effects are already known and fully understood. The regulation of games constitutes a form of moral classification that is ineradicably linked to moral panics concerning the influence and impact of games. In setting out to address the subject of the impression left by games, one is immediately plunged into a complex state of affairs fraught with assumptions as to the nature of games, coupled with ambiguity as to the precise experiences they offer and the meaning and constitution of violence. Indeed the notion of reassessing the impression left by games first requires a belief that there is something within games that either accurately depicts, or can be experienced as violence. The reckoning that digital games can produce “violence” as a consequence of play has been fervently promoted by experimental effects research that cites games’ interactive qualities as deepening the impact of viewed violence. Anderson and Dill (2000) believe that “[o]ne major concern is the active nature of the learning environment of the video game,” leading them to the claim that games are “potentially more dangerous than exposure to violent television and movies, which are known to have substantial effects on aggression and violence” (1). This summation of the threat posed by games asserts that games are unconditional learning environments that allow the transfer of game proficiency to real-​world scenarios. Indeed, Dave Grossman’s (1999) testimony to the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Youth Culture and Violence, dubbed games “firearm trainers” and “killing simulators.”

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While there is an ample amount of literature in support of the learning benefits of games that must be acknowledged (Bavelier et al. 2012; Granic, Lobel, and Engels 2014), most of the literature addressing this potential cite a particular form of learning (such as problem-​solving; see Prensky 2012), or learning conditions under which benefits may be attained (e.g., Dweck’s 1999 “incremental theory of intelligence”). Rarely, however, does discussion of learning seek to persuade us that games permit the performance of behavioral equivalents in the real world, or suggest that acts performed by players in games can then also be performed accurately in the real world. Here acts such as driving a car, loading and shooting a gun, wielding a weapon, or the physical feats of combat are brought to mind—​all common acts that only require the push of a button when playing a game. When one considers the scientific processes underlying the ­prevailing and influential viewpoints that petition classification, we find a particular logic that permits research to progress without first “knowing” the phenomenon under investigation. However, there is little to be gained from criticizing proponents of experimental research for employing a vague concept of violence as a guide to correlation studies. Experimental research functions by identifying behavioral equivalents to variables of interest in order to produce a new definition—​one that is borne from the principles of psychological research. As Bechtoldt (1959) has argued, this is a matter of “principle” within psychological research rather than “­ignorance” (622). The aim of psychological experimentation is to replace ­existing accounts with scientific accounts. Experimental research is commonly understood as a process that concerns itself with “properties of observable behavior under specified conditions . . . in accordance with specified procedures” (ibid.). Before delving into the intricacies of experimental approaches more than is necessary, there is a point to be made here concerning the way psychological research utilizes a definition of media violence only to initiate the identification of analogous referents and rules. Thus the definition of media violence that accompanies experimental research, as “extreme forms of aggression such as physical assault and murder” (Anderson and Bushman 2001, 354), is not itself interrogated to determine the manner in which games correspond to, or accurately simulate or depict, real-​world violence. Instead,



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“progress” has been made on the basis of establishing relationships between an ill-​defined selection of games and “behaviorally relevant” substitutions. To give an example, a study by Gabbiadini et  al. (2014) examined the impact of violent games on immoral behaviors and a lack of self-​control. They proposed that games encourage selfish inclinations over the exercise of self-​ control. While the researchers define self-​control as the “ability to regulate one’s thoughts, emotions, impulses and desires, and behaviors”  (452), in the context of the study it was operationalized as “resisting the temptation to consume delicious chocolates” (ibid.). Social psychologist Serge Moscovici (1998) addresses this issue in the context of his writing. Under the subtitle, “The Scandal of Social Thought,” he begins with the statement, “One often hears that good science should begin by proposing clear and carefully defined concepts” (209). Yet he contends that the commencement of science often results from the “disturbing,” the “exotic,” or from “scandal.” The initiation of research around the concept of media violence would be a case in point, matching the examples generated by Moscovici, in which news media takes possession of a subject and apprises the public of a lurking danger, thus creating unease that piques the interest of researchers. Key to his argument is the power that the disturbing or scandalous retains a hold over the public, counteracting any contradictory research findings that might be subsequently produced. This process, which continues to be mediated by the media, demands that research must authenticate, rather than challenge, complicate, or cast uncertainty. He maintains, “most individuals prefer popular ideas to scientific ideas, making illusionary correlations which objective facts are incapable of correcting” (210). In doing so, Moscovici calls for a logic and approach that is different to the one articulated by Wyer and Srull (1984), who have stated that the “processes involved in dealing cognitively with non-​social events are simpler and conceptually more fundamental than the processes involved in social events. The study of cognitive processing in the context of non-​social stimuli provides a foundation on which the more complex social cognitive principles can be built” (25). It has been argued that the data of individual psychology is elementary and addresses limited phenomena, but more significantly its methods are put to work in “defence of a belief which .  .  . [the scientist] has learnt” from

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collective representation (Cornford 1957, 43). As Kenneth Gergen (1994) similarly argues:  “If forms of understanding are sufficiently long-​standing, and there is sufficient univocality in their usage, they may acquire a veneer of objectivity, the sense of being literal as opposed to metaphoric” (49). Returning to the implicit assumption that the interactive qualities of games make their effects stronger than those of other media (Olson 2010), it is necessary to acknowledge the ample amount of literature that supports the edifying benefits of games. Examples include cognitive benefits, evident in the manner in which players allocate their attentional resources in order to filter out irrelevant information more effectively (Bavelier et al. 2012). At a motivational level, games are also portrayed positively for the high levels of persistence and the continuous effortful engagement (Dweck and Molden 2005) they require in order to be played successfully. Added to this, there is much confidence in the claim that adaptive emotion-​regulation skills are achieved from playing games (Granic, Lobel, and Engels 2014). While these examples attempt to encourage a more balanced and positive perspective on the effects of games and game playing, caution must be exercised as they do so by seeking to identify qualities possessed by games that have already been repeatedly linked with positive outcomes. One such example can be found in the way games are considered “flow experiences.” Games then become associated by proxy with the positive outcomes that arise from wholeheartedly performing a task or activity for intrinsic purposes, as in Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi’s (2002) finding that flow experiences lead to higher levels of commitment and achievement among adolescent school students.

Supporting classification processes The primary research that precedes this book (outlined in Schott 2009; Schott et al. 2013a; Schott, Vught, and Marczak 2013c; Schott, Marczak, and Neshausen 2014) has sought to support classification processes as they are employed within the New Zealand classification system. The country in which our player experience research was conducted operates a legally enforceable age-​restriction system that



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aligns access and availability of media content with particular social mores. It was hoped that research could potentially furnish the capacity of regulators to utilize Section 3(4) of the current Classification Act to use concepts such as “dominant effect,” “merit” and “purpose” when classifying games (OFLC 2012), rather than serve to critique existing classification processes. In response to research conducted by Schott (2009) into the player’s articulation of the pleasures of game play, the New Zealand Office of Film and Literature Classification (2009) openly contemplated the value of exploring “the extent to which the public’s perception of causal links between game playing and various social ills” might be “moderated or even undermined by [knowledge of] how players actually respond to and negotiate their way through the content and characteristics of the medium” (24). More generally, the manner in which players might be pitting themselves against the particular logics of game systems has yet to be adopted in recognition that a non-​pejorative or defensible form of “violence” might be in operation within games. Research by Schott and his colleagues has explored the nature of gamic realism for the player and suggests that there is an argument to be made for player experiences entailing phenomenological shifts away from the affect and inferences connected to mimetic representation and visual verisimilitude that constitutes the game’s façade, so that it is closer to the underlying logic upon which games function. That is, the experience of games is recognized as an activity of conscious engagement with a rule system. This leads us to seek acknowledgment for the “entrancement” of nonfictional content and activities that may serve as a basis for challenging and redefining popular misconceptions relating to immersion as losing oneself in the text (see also Calleja 2011 for a critique of immersion). The aim here is to move discussion away from the well-​worn paths trodden by effects researchers for regulators to follow. In doing so, there is a desire to see greater consideration given to the different dynamics at play in the expression and use of violence within games. This requires that greater attention is given to how game makers have gone about appropriating and re-​ conceptualizing violence. Forewarning as to the difficulty of this task was evident at the birth of game studies as a discipline. Early proponents of the discipline mapped out the seemingly oppositional and contradictory qualities

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of games. Scholars asked which perspective they should adopt, in light of such dualistic qualities as story versus game (Aarseth 2004a); rules versus fiction (Juul 2005); simulation versus representation (Frasca 2003); or interpretation versus configuration (Eskelinen 2001). Rather than commit to, or adopt an either/​or approach in this book, it is instead possible that these uncertainties actually represent the solution in the case of violence. That is, it might be the “both/​and” quality of games that is at the heart of the discrepancies between those who, on the one hand, support and those, on the other hand, who dismiss the harmful effects of games. In the context of the violence debate, the dual nature of games’ experiential dimensions has by and large been dominated by the visual and representational qualities of games, fore fronting not only one kind of experience but also separating interpretation from configuration. While interpretation is understood as the perceptual side of the game experience, and configuration as the behavioral dimension of play, interpretations of games are often framed as an explicit and literal act from a political perspective. Games are rarely acknowledged as containing implicit meaning, and the player is certainly not adjudged to be uncovering or pulling out meaning from game texts. In Bordwell’s (1991) terms this would mean that the text is recognized as “having strata, with layers or deposits of meaning that must be excavated” (2). While Bordwell discusses interpretation as it pertains specifically to film criticism, he is critical of this impression of interpretation because of the way it obscures what interpretation really entails. For Bordwell, interpretation is a process of building up, not digging in; interpretations are not found, but made. Aarseth (1997) has noted that the player is responsible not only for having to work with the materiality of a text but also to participate in the construction of its material structure. In this way, “building” is a process of construction and extraction where rules are encountered, interpreted, confirmed, and tested. In an examination of players’ experiences with the game Resistance:  Fall of Man (Insomniac Games 2006), Schott (2008, 2009)  explored where the interpretive substance rested for its active participants within its blend of ludic and fictional exposition. While Resistance: Fall of Man is a game set in the 1950s, the Great Depression, the rise of Nazi Germany, and The Second World War are substituted with the emergence and occupation of European



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countries by an alien race that has materialized from Russia. Players are imported into the midst of an invasion of Great Britain (a historical imprecision that further detaches the game from the events of The Second World War) to find themselves situated in the north of England. Preceding the study’s examination of players’ encounters with the game, the Church of England had publicly objected to developers’ virtual re-​creation and use of both the interior and exterior of Manchester Cathedral within the game. The Bishop of Manchester at the time, the Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, commented on the BBC that: “[f]or a global manufacturer to re-​create one of our greatest cathedrals with photo-​realistic quality and then encourage people to have gun battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible.” This objection was seamlessly elevated to an accusation that the game was contributing to the city’s “gun crime problem.” Sony’s response, which they posted on the Church of England website, opted to privilege the fictional quota of the game by arguing that they “do not accept that there is any connection between contemporary issues of 21st century Manchester and a work of science fiction in which a fictitious 1950s Britain is under attack by aliens” (Reeves, President, SCEE). Media coverage of the debate between the Church of England and Sony was confounded further by misleading reports framing the game as a “computerized scene of mass murder” (BBC News Reporter Mark Simpson) that included inaccurate accounts of the game found in the comment, “for any house of God, to be used as a context for a game about killing people is offensive” (Bishop of Manchester, BBC News, emphasis added). In Schott’s (2008) interviews with players of this game, the public summation of Resistance:  Fall of Man constituted a key irritation for them. With respect to the causality that is inferred from game content, players identified a tendency for public apprehensions surrounding games to emerge from misreading specific texts, a general lack of gaming knowledge, or any direct experience with game texts. In this instance players recognized and condemned the highly public, yet surface-​level reading of Resistance:  Fall of Man on several counts. They were criticized for overemphasizing the relevance of a single facet of the gaming experience. Institutional objections to Resistance: Fall of Man were also perceived as “missing the point,” as players interpreted developers’ use

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of the cathedral and the demise of religion as effectively symbolizing the downfall of civilized society and culture (see Chapter 8 for further discussion of this theme) in a war-​ravaged landscape (irrespective of New Zealand players failing to recognize Manchester Cathedral as a faithfully replicated space that can be found in the United Kingdom). The debate was also perceived by players as serving only to heighten the significance of what is essentially a diminutive component of the broader tour de force that takes the player all across a virtual north of England. Common to other contentious game titles, it was considered that a proportionally insignificant part of the game had yet again served to make a game notorious. By far the most common reaction to questioning the role and presence of the Cathedral in the game was a ludically inspired response, as players recognized the affordances of the environment as a stronghold that provided cover and control over the chaos, vulnerability and intensity of conflict out in the open spaces of the game world. In an article for CNN, Andrew Keen (2012) found it possible to interpret the mass murder of seventy-​seven people in Oslo on July 22, 2011 by Anders Behring Breivik as a process that was assisted by games. Keen claims that games allowed Breivik to “virtualize the killing of real people, transforming them from flesh and blood characters into abstractions” (see Chapter 8 for further consideration of the attention drawn to the connection between Breivik’s game playing and his actions in Norway). As my colleagues and I have argued (Schott et al. 2013a), conceiving game play as an activity that falls between interpretation and configuration requires that meaning attribution sits between the game (as governed by rules) and its fiction (world of play). Located along these continuums are a range of complex cognitive processes of meaning construction, cognitive task performance and extranoematic activity (Aarseth 2004b) that are accompanied by different emotional states that are both affects of, and motivators for, the perceptual and behavioral activities of the player. When applied to a consideration of game violence (in the context of regulation), the problem becomes apparent as a game’s structure is contextualized, while its context is “gamified.” That is, a game’s formal elements are (partly) concealed within the expressive frame of a fictional world and narrative context. At the same time, encounters typically fraught with moral implications and consequences, should they occur in the real



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world, can be abridged and simplified as one uncomplicated move in a series of game moves. During active play, the player’s attention is often divided between layers of representational and symbolic information, allowing the fictional world of the game space, that holds the core diegetic experience of the game world, to be reconfigured and overridden by the interface level. For example, on top of many game worlds sits a Heads Up Displays (HUD), conveying information on a player’s status and gamic activity (e.g., the health bar); this constitutes a powerful directive for actions, conveying their urgency and/​or forecasting likely outcomes (such as screen death).

Presupposing experience While regulation functions as a mechanism for preventing inappropriate and objectionable content reaching those that are undeveloped and ill-​equipped to decipher it, the process has also come to symbolize the persuasiveness of “effects research” agendas that have set out to verify the harm posed by games. Regardless of perspectives and studies that contest the findings produced by correlation studies (e.g., Buckingham 1997; Ferguson 2007a, 2007b, 2008), the policy-​oriented intent of effects research is somehow partially fulfilled by the existence of classification systems globally. Yet the need to reinforce what constitutes appropriate age-​related content need not be viewed as, or confused with, a belief in the certainty that games cause harm. Classification also serves to determine what television broadcasting has more successfully conveyed as “watershed” or “safe harbor” time periods; that is, an ability to distinguish when broadcasters should schedule content that is more appropriate for adults. The wider appeal of gaming beyond children’s culture means that adult-​themed games also share themes and scenarios found within other adult-​tailored forms of entertainment that include graphic violence, horror, strong language, nudity, sexual intercourse, gambling, and drug use. Rarely do we consider how games that carry an age restriction may do so because they contain deliberately designed adult-​targeted humor, satire, irony, or social critique in their application or use of violence, violent themes or settings. As Annandale (2006) argues, games series like Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar Games)

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place players in distorted and ironic worlds that transform “huge swathes of American culture and society into ridiculous caricatures. From radio ads that are recognizable in form and style but subversive in content, to a vision of corruption that extends to all reaches of society, creating a world of inverted moral and ethical values, the game is a digital incarnation of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque” (89). Rarely do we see developers’ intent explained as a desire to provide content that requires sufficient levels of social or cultural knowledge for it to be fully appreciated and enjoyed. Just because games receive an age-​restriction rating this should not be taken as an action by classification processes to thwart game developers’ attempts to target children with inappropriate material. To that effect, the manner in which debates concerning the impact of digital games have been contextualized as part of “ongoing culture wars . . . led by adults that target the popular culture domain of children for destruction” (Calvert 2002, 3) is not always correct or fitting, as games serve a wide demographic. In order to begin to articulate the role played by violence in the relationship and interactions between games and players, it is necessary to acknowledge the range of encounters provided by games. Returning to regulation processes, the above argument highlights discrepancies between design intent and the focus of prognostic evaluation of player experiences. Yet both forecast the nature of player experiences without subsequently verifying the life of the game in the hands of the player once it is out in the world. For example, cautionary notifications included on classification labels contain little information about whether such content is a feature of active play; if it is evident under conditions of either reduced interactivity (such as quick time events); or if it represents a complete override by the system which removes the need for player participation (as in cut-​scenes). These distinctions may of course be of little concern for classification processes, as the emphasized content appears regardless of the conditions under which it presents itself to the player. However, the point serves to at least detach the interests of regulation from effects researchers and confronts the notion that regulation exists to satisfy the concerns of effects research. The occurrence of offensive content relates to its assured auditory and/​ or visual communication to the player but does not necessitate the



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player’s participation in its construction for it to produce an impression, whereas effects research reasons that it is player involvement in the enactment of behaviors that increases the danger posed by games. The acknowledgement of unsuitable content does however become problematic, irrespective of the player’s role in its materialization, when it creates the impression that it is “play” that is being reproached under classification. The omission of player involvement, and therefore experience, is a fairly common occurrence when games are evaluated. For example, a study by Ivory et al. (2009) examined 133 game titles across multiple gaming platforms for the presence or absence of profanity. Described by its authors as the “most comprehensive analysis of profanity in video games to date” (2), the study examined its occurrence across game dialogue, background music and game text. The findings were then assessed against the ESRB rating system (that categorizes games for their age-​appropriateness) to determine how well profanity is aligned with the level of rating assigned to games. The results revealed that no profanity was “found in games rated E [Everyone], and strong profanity was not found in games rated E10+ or E.  All types of profanity were present in at least some games rated T [Teen] and were relatively abundant among games rated M  [Mature]” (3).  While a strong relationship was established between the frequency and type of profanity (mild to offensive) and the rating assigned to games under the ESRB system, no emphasis was given to its role in play or the player’s involvement when profanity was evident. This is surprising given that among the 21.09  percent (n = 29)  of games that were found to contain profanity, all of those games contained profanity within game dialogue. Of interest, and absent from our current knowledge, is the configurative value of an exchange containing profanity to the player, particularly in light of the contention of Bavelier et al. (2012) that players allocate their attentional resources and filter out irrelevant information effectively in gaming situations. Indeed, from a game design and player experience perspective we learn that in-​game dialogue between a player character (PC) and a nonplayer character (NPC) typically represents a conversation that is “there to move the player forward in the game” (Graner Ray 2014), and whose core purpose is to “to keep the player involved, to keep the story moving” (Hepler 2014).

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Staying with this example, players are not typically given the power to freely initiate obscene language as they explore a game world, yet their player character may still discharge expletives by different means. Creative use of language by the mediums’ larger-​than-​life player characters (for instance, Duke Nukem 3D 1994) is often (a) triggered by, or occurs as a by-​product of, player behavior; (b) delivered in the context of a voice-​over narrative (as in Max Payne 2008); or (c) received within cinematic animations in which player control has been reduced or removed. There are always exceptions, however, such as the innovation that allows the player of Scarface: The World Is Yours (Radical Entertainment 2006) to verbally abuse enemies as part of the game’s achievement system. In this game, both reckless and conceited behavior (when examined through the lens of reality) is encouraged by the game system so that the player accumulates a “balls” rating! This achievement system has associated gaming benefits while also serving to create a convincing game equivalent of film anti-​hero Tony Montana. Again, this example illustrates the dual and relational nature of performativity within games. On one level, Montana’s cursing serves to reinforce and capture the thematic character of the game, while at another level, the probability of players fulfilling this condition and activating the cursing is increased due to its direct relevance to game success. None of the above arguments alleviate concerns about the adjudged distasteful nature of some games, but they do highlight the complexity of player involvement in the production of content, as well as the function of that content (which is rarely definite). While dealing with the example of expletives within games, it seems an appropriate point to also draw attention to the way in which profanity is frequently used against the player. Games can subject the player to a barrage of insults as they are rebuked in the face of failure (and none more direct than the 1989 game Download, as discussed by website Kotaku). To this effect, Zagal, Björk, and Lewis (2013) have promoted the notion of “dark” game design, in recognition of the manner in which games are not always necessarily created in a way that advocates for the player, but instead seeks to cause negative experiences against the best interests of the player and without their consent. While profanity is not included in Zagal, Björk, and Lewis’s (2013) account of dark design patterns, Catley (2003) includes



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“violent speech acts” in his examination and account of violence, as he acknowledges the performative function of words by drawing on Butler’s (1997) account of the manner in which “hateful, racist, misogynist and homophobic speech” (50) can inflict harm. As Butler argues, “language is not a substitute for the experience of violence. It enacts its own kind of violence” (9). Here we reach another point that serves to pull apart the intent and line of reasoning of effects research and classification, one that refers to classification’s directive to “protect.” One might assume, from an effects research perspective, that it seeks to protect the larger public from the dangers posed by games in terms of their capacity to convert players into perpetrators of violent crimes. In contrast, central to the Indianapolis videogame ordinance (American Amusement Machine Assoc. v. Kendrick) was the claim that games would cause “harm to its citizens” (later rebuffed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, 2001). The example highlights how players of games are rarely considered to be the “victims” in the context of wider discussions concerning the impact and effect of gaming. In discussion about the social construction of violence more generally (see Richardson and May 1999) it is recognized that notions of culpability and victimization are very often mediated by the social characteristics of victims and the social contexts in which violence occurs, in which greater “behavioral responsibility” is often assigned to some victims over others. Indeed, it is the relatives of the victims of school shootings that typically file lawsuits against the manufacturers and distributors of games (e.g., James v. Meow Media, Inc., 2000), not the relatives of the perpetrators of the crime.

Is it violence? The homogeneous nature of violence across different contexts, together with “media blindness” (Hausken 2004)  to the distinctive qualities of games, has led to the configurative affordances of the artifact becoming tied to, and confused with, conventional notions of violence as an interpersonal, physical, and illegitimate act. This stands in contrast to the way in which games have been characterized by game scholarship as “half-​ real” (Juul 2005), whereby the “realism” resides in players’ engagement with verifiable rules. Academic

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segregation and the disconnection between different disciplines has meant that apprehensions concerning violence in the media have yet to be re-​evaluated with the “gameness” of games in mind. As a precursor to the work of more prominent effects researchers, television research has concluded that adult physiological responses to real violence are reduced after viewing violent television (Thomas and Drabman 1975). This led to the assumption that there are morally adverse effects from playing games (McCormick 2001). Should we instead consider that the more emphatic meaning of games is their function as rule-​bound competitive spaces, then the preceding nature of the experience constitutes something quite different from that of television or film viewing. This change in perspective also makes it possible to consider the idea that gamic actions within a rule system constitute a motivational force that are adaptive to its system rather than maladaptive, constructive rather than destructive. Indeed, when the underlying parameters set by the rule system of the game are taken into account it is harder to characterize player behavior as being out of synch with the context or the cues provided (whereas a key characteristic of aggression is its misplaced nature). Furthermore, gaming assumes an instrumental quality, defined by its proactive (rather than reactive) nature; it is motivated by, and associated with, positive emotions such as satisfaction and achievement, as opposed to being stimulated or accompanied by fear or anger (Connor et al. 2004). The struggle to understand the violent character of games is clearly hindered by the more pronounced misunderstandings and disputes related to the nature and scope of violence found within the real world. From this perspective, Stewart and Strathern (2002) warn that violence does not lend itself to any single, universal or all-​purpose theory. Arendt (1969) famously cited from Sorel’s (1906) Reflections on Violence that the “problems of violence still remain obscure” (60), and then argued that not much had changed at her time of writing. Bufacchi revisited this statement again in 2005 to repeat Arendt’s observation. Coady (1986) too has identified that much of the literature on violence proceeds in terms of definitions that “aim to capture a conceptual territory believed to be at least implicit in ordinary discourse” (4), which he identifies as a fundamentally complex and unsound enterprise.



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Bufacchi (2005) usefully explores the etymology of violence, observing that the word is derived from the Latin violentia, meaning “vehemence,” and refers to a passionate and uncontrolled force. Use of the word “force” then typically leads to an understanding that incorporates “violation” (Steger 2003)  or infringement of rights or norms. More importantly, when we consider these definitions in relation to games (picking up again on the argument that game violence is not misaligned with the demands placed on the player by the system), American pragmatist John Dewey (1916) clarifies that violence is force gone wrong, “when it defeats or frustrates purposes instead of executing them” (246). While terms such as “intentional” (Steger 2003) or “deliberate” (Pogge 1991) match the nature of game play, Keane (1996) has importantly added the notion of “unwanted” to the application of force. Mizen (2011) also considers the widespread view that violence is “mindless,” which denotes that it is something beyond aggression, as a pathological variant of aggression. In his writing, he refines violence to an “ablation of mind,” rather than “absence of mind.” In doing so, this perspective acknowledges an individual’s struggle “in the face of affective experiences that he or she is unable to manage” (125). Mizen’s approach is significant in that it departs from many psychological accounts of violence by virtue of the way it actually retains the psychological, whereas others have conflated behavior with psychological processes. As he argues, “the relationship between a given behavior and a particular mental state is in fact obscure” (126). Indeed, this book grapples with the elliptical manner in which manifestations of violence have been traced back, leapfrogging the external force that executed a violent act, to implicate aesthetic experiences of violence within works of fiction. As Garver (1968) has argued, and Chapter 1 contemplated with respect to Columbine, there is a need to understand the violence under consideration, before adopting a posture toward it. It is useful to acknowledge that violence is a complex and broad phenomenon (that includes industrial and political violence, for example) that comprises of much more than what is “seen” (Bufacchi 2011). Indeed, Gilligan (1999) argues that when violence is “simply a byproduct of our social and economic structure, many do not see it; hard to care about something you cannot see” (195). Violence is socially and culturally ubiquitous in terms of its most visible

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dimension—​ acts of physical violence—​ that assume more weight and consequence because they involve perceptible actions and consequences. Yet even this form of violence has been substituted by artistic manifestations of violence that have obscured what was understood and considered to be a violent act. That is, the way violence is executed and represented on canvas, in prose, or as a moving image has arguably surpassed knowledge or witnessing of existent, factual, or material violence in terms of its predominance for individuals embedded within a media-​saturated world. As Alex Vernon (2005) states, “[w]ar, armed conflict in general, military service, and their after effects have likely inspired more textual testimonies than have any other kind of human event” (5). Sam Mendes’s (2005) film adaptation of Anthony Swofford’s Gulf War memoir in Jarhead is notable for the way it expresses the anti-​memises of the experiences of Gulf War soldiers, whose identity is predicated upon, or informed by, war films, in the absence of direct encounters with the enemy. Jarhead is fascinating in the way it consciously reflects on the war-​film canon, and for its pull on those who are in the Arabian Peninsula to perform soldiering. In the same way that the gangsters in The Sopranos persistently refer to Goodfellas and The Godfather, the soldiers in Jarhead gain pleasure from watching films about Vietnam, such as Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter. Galtung’s (1969) notion that violence is analogous to anything that impedes human realization has been criticized for making it indistinguishable from misery, alienation and depression (Coady 1986; Keane 1996). Undoubtedly too, colloquial use of the word has seen the precision and descriptive power of violence debased. To some degree this suggests a practical need for tighter definitions of violence of the kind that are concentrated around interpersonal acts, in order to identify what is implied by violence within games, and to account for everything that reflects, imitates or attends to violence as an artistic endeavor but is not itself violent conduct. Referring to the claim that playing violent videogames leads to an increase in aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, proponents of media effects research Anderson and Dill (2000) declared the debate on the effects of violent video gaming on players “essentially over.” Given the verity of this statement one would expect greater clarity with regard to the meaning of



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“violence” when apprising the public. Irrespective of the subsequent stance taken by researchers, either in support or denunciation of the view that violent imagery activates a psychic button in players, paradigms of gamic “violence” continue to evolve and synergize with games in the “narratification” of game play (Sørensen and Pødenphant 2013), thus demanding continued attention and explanation. Nevertheless, effects research has not succeeded in eliminating uncertainty as to the nature of player motivation and intent during player-​controlled acts of simulated violence. Nor has it fully grasped or articulated the role assigned to simulated violence in specific game systems, or the extent to which violence is made freely available to the player as a mode of expression versus performative function. The apparent lack of conceptual clarity surrounding digital games is associated with similar confusions as to what constitutes “mediated violence,” “violent representation” or how violence relates to simulation or playful performances. It is fair to say that effects research does not generally pay any attention to whether games contain “depictions of violence,” simulations of “violent acts” or playful performances in violently themed surroundings. At the same time that researchers began to converge under the subject of game studies, McCormick (2001) reasoned that real “humans are what matter in the moral assessment of one’s actions” (278). That is, acting or simulating that you are hurting something is not hurting someone. He states that this cannot be considered “morally objectionable, or else we would have to conclude that an actor in a play or movie playing the part of Hitler or a serial killer is also doing something morally objectionable” (ibid.). Of interest in this philosophical discussion is the distinction McCormick makes when discussing simulation within a game as a “harmful act” or a “risk-​increasing act.” From this perspective, simulation is not itself considered a “harmful act,” as it does not inflict damage on someone—​although it is argued to be a risk-​ increasing act (for critics of games). It is possible to add to this distinction that not all risk-​increasing acts are morally objectionable (e.g., the danger associated with driving a car). From a utilitarian perspective, society’s threshold for what is considered an acceptable risk is considerably high, particularly when it comes to recreational activities. Banning a game such as soccer would be considered sacrilege

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in many countries around the globe, irrespective of the injurious nature of the activity for both players and its audiences (in the form of hooliganism, riots, verbal and physical assaults). Do these arguments then take this discussion toward an explanation of games as a form of tolerable deviance (Delamere and Shaw 2006)? It is well documented that “violence” has a long history and appeal (Sparks and Sparks 2000), with games sitting within the broader context of fictional violence. Less well publicized is the game side of this particular dualism (between fiction and game). There is no equivalent history of board games as violent entities. As a precursor to computer-​based gaming, board games tend to fall under the label of wholesome family fun. The only exceptions to our commonplace understanding of games come from jocular accounts of the risks of physical injuries, the collapse of friendship, or disruption to family harmony. Nineteen sixty-​eight’s Swack, a spring-​loaded mousetrap game, was known to have devoured the odd finger, while players of Booby Trap and Kaboom chanced blindness and ear damage respectively. Greenspan (2011) also describes Monopoly as a game that was designed to let anger fester. As he explains: You slowly seethe as someone manages to keep rolling their way onto Water Works and avoiding your monopoly on the yellows  .  .  .  as they keep landing on Free Parking and raking in the money .  .  . and as their seemingly-​ comical investment in Mediterranean and Baltic is inexplicably sinking you. Then, next thing you know, you can’t even win first prize in the goddamn beauty pageant and you snap. Within the context of Schott’s OFLC study (2010) into the degree of game literacy possessed by the parents of adolescent game players (cited in Chapter  1 and discussed again in Chapter  8), discussions concerning familiarity with, and knowledge of the New Zealand classification system, produced uncertainty regarding whether game play itself could possess different levels of gravity that could determine age-​restriction. In the context of their discussions, parents in this study drew on their own media experience and history, which reflected greater familiarity with film. Following contemplation of the



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difference between the game of an R16-​and an R18-​rated game, participants’ thinking emphasized sexual content as the most probable reason for a game text receiving a higher age-​restriction rating. The following participant’s comment was representative of this thinking: My initial reaction is that R18 is more sexually explicit . . . I don’t actually know. My understanding is that it’s easier to get violent stuff when you’re younger than sexually explicit stuff. [Interviewer] Does the violence change in nature between R16 and R18? [Participant]:  I don’t know; to be honest .  .  . I don’t really know (male who plays games) What this example offers is an interesting line of thinking, in which emphasis on game and game play led to violent representation being abandoned in consideration of what produces a more restricted rating. Much of the discussion about the repeated occurrence of violence within cultural forms of distraction, enjoyment, and amusement tends to address the manner in which violence is found “within basic narrative patterns of fiction” (Grodal 2000, 197). As Heins (2000) has also stated, “violence is an eternal theme in literature, art, [and] popular entertainment” (14). Such arguments also formed part of a legal rationale for the reversal of an Indianapolis ordinance (cited earlier) that attempted to block “minors’ access to video games depicting violence” (Calvert 2002, 2). Judge Richard A. Posner (United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit 2001)  declared that games are “continuous with an age-​old children’s literature on violent themes” (578), and extended his commentary to cite positive values that are often embraced within violent narratives, such as self-​defense, protection of others, and fighting against the odds. Arguments citing cultural continuity and familiarity do not completely absolve the object or the player, whose character still remains in question due to the partial reliance on the player to make choices and instigate actions for a player character. Even approaching games as rule systems, we must acknowledge the possibilities they provide for engaging in simulated acts of violence as part of the activity and challenge of games. If it is not possible to proceed

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in the game without resorting to (simulated) violence, then it can be claimed that the game is focused on violent game play by design. However, participating in violent game play is different from participating in violence. Play studies have found rough-​and-​tumble play to be an almost universal phenomenon. Given that rough-​and-​tumble play is often likely to include play fighting that can be confused with aggressive behavior, it is a form of play that parents and educators have the most trouble discerning and tolerating (Jarvis and George 2010). Yet there are meta-​ communicative signals that differentiate it from real aggression with intention to harm (Bateson 1955). Indeed, Jarvis and George (2010) have studied the narratives that children attach to these activities, and noted that there are specific characteristics—​reciprocal, physically active behaviors with positive emotional engagement that promote friendship formation. Similar to games, rough-​and-​tumble play is often a hybrid form of play that not only includes running, chasing, jumping, and play-​fighting, but also incorporates “battle” or “superhero” narrative-​ themed talk drawn from surrounding media culture. As argued by Mäyrä (2015), the study of “dark” themes in the research of children’s play is not a common focus or concern. When play incorporating violent or death-​related themes is explored within research, it is often from the perspective of psychological coping rather than normalized as an ordinary or acceptable phenomenon for rumination or exploration. Indeed, we find accounts in which preschool children “play out” their grief after the death of a family member or a close friend (Smith 1991). Play therapy as a method relies on the notion that free play constitutes a way of making sense of the world that sometimes includes tragic or negative life experiences (Cattanach 2008). Author and media educator Gerard Jones (2002) has written about “monster killing” and related dark fantasy forms of play that might, on the one hand, be stimulated by feelings of frustration, rage, or fear but which may, on the other hand, serve as empowering fantasies. Psychiatrist Lenore Terr (2000) has also argued that humans are able achieve new perspectives on their frustrations via play, with fantasy play enabling the expression of “sexual and aggressive feelings, hopes, and terrible frustrations with past or present realities” (106). Digital games typically remove the element of physical risk and injury associated with the forms of “play”



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discussed above, while also relying on rule systems as a “protective frame” that contains violence when it is engaged willingly, within the playful mind-​set. To this effect, Goldstein (1998) has suggested that game players’ control over in-​game actions and representations lessens the emotional impact of game violence. In line with this argument, that which is classified as violent or aggressive play is partly dependent on who is making the judgment. Men who have had personal experience engaging in aggressive play are significantly less likely to classify such play among children as aggression, when compared with women (Connor 1989). A  study by Morrison (1999) sought to achieve greater clarity in regard to the definition of violence in the media by interviewing people with different kind of real-​world relations with violence:  young men and women who were familiar with violence; policemen; veterans of The Second World War; women with fear of crime; and parents of young children. Their analyses suggest that people generally differentiate between the nature and quality of depicted violence, and secondly, the manner in which it is portrayed. They would react differently to violence that they recognized as playful, as contrasted to realistically depicted fictional violence and authentic violence that comes close to their everyday world (e.g., depictions of domestic violence). These, in turn, would be experienced differently when compared to actual documentary violent material shown in the news. The most strongly experienced depictions of violence would be those that carried signals that it was unjustified, excessive, and inflicted upon an undeserving victim. The portrayal of violence in a manner that people experienced to be “realistic” also modified their perception about the degree of violence. On the other hand, some media audience studies suggest that representations of violence are signifiers that relate to the experienced intensity of conflict and drama, and thus enhance the spectator’s enjoyment of, for example, sports media (Bryant and Zillman 1983). In this chapter, definitions of violence attached to the classification or treatment of games have been considered for the way that they are derived from a different sphere of responsibility and concern. In doing so, it is important to acknowledge how persuasive and compelling those definitions are because they emanate from legal, government-​approved definitions that carry the weight of

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culture behind them (Muehlenhard and Kimes 1999). Acceptance of, or injunctions against, violence come about due to the differing nature of discourses on the symbolism of violence produced by institutions, and in the beliefs, attitudes, and social practices that Whitmer (1997) identifies as the violence mythos. A false “sense of certainty” concerning the meaning of violence has led to one kind of understanding being unproblematically applied to thematically associated practices that appropriate violence in the construction of a different mode of expression that possesses a different brand of performativity (see Chapter  6). Moreover, Whitmer has argued, “the story of violence, from a perspective of marginality, needs to be examined for what it excludes, rather than what it includes” (21). While conceptions of violence are becoming more expansive, it is difficult to uphold the notion that games conform to the most central definition as an interpersonal act that is unwanted and which involves intentional violation (resulting in death, pain, or disability) against another person (Gert 1969). Classical political philosophy has postulated the social need to control and contain violence, a position that is compatible with experimental attempts to foster the belief that portrayals of violence, as a result of player input (keystrokes or button pushing), coerce real forms of violence from its players. In this sense, this chapter has attempted to separate classification from effects research on media content, weakening their apparent companionable dispositions toward games, while at the same time arguing for a need to recognize and separate the character and focus of play and how this impacts upon the presence and reception of age-​restricted material or themes. The definition and analysis of “violent games” needs to address both the various depictions of violence taking place within its representational sphere, and the designed affordances made available to the player to engage in simulated play violence (as part of a rule system), while at the same time paying close attention to the fundamental differences between pretense violence and real aggression.

3 Re-​framing games

A

s highlighted in the previous chapter, one of the key challenges in discussing game violence arises from the way in which the goals of games are contextualized (as violence) yet by definition of being a game their contextual settings (such as war) are also “gamified.” By ignoring this duality, critics of games appear to undervalue the attention, pleasures and levels of satisfaction associated with engaging in staple game play scenarios that provide challenge. Indeed, it is possible to reconceive of the war zones, inner city lawlessness, apocalyptic and doomsday scenarios of games as obverse components within which the underlying function of games is encased. For example, it is possible to re-​interpret what occurs in most shooting based games as a form of negative reinforcement in which players preemptively target and disable advancing NPCs (or existents) that pose a threat to their virtual existence, but which also provides reward in the form of their continued subsistence (Hallford and Hallford 2001). It is not that an avatar’s lifespan is prolonged, but instead achievements and progress are registered by the system and saved as a result of continuous and unbroken play. Absolved of the need to return and replay previous sections of the game, the player is then able to progress into the game via further incursions into its hostile spaces. Accounts of the “non-​trivial effort” (Aarseth 1997)  required to traverse and progress a game draw attention to the ways in which game play is “circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined, and fixed in advance” (Caillois 1961). Yet the kind of public deliberations that have been referenced so far seek to suppress their formal elements. It must also be noted that games are not necessarily interpreted in

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terms of the expressive frames of their fictional worlds in public and political debates concerning their harmful impact. Instead, disapproval emanates from the referential nature of game moves that are understood as shooting, stabbing, punching and their consequences (killing and death). An impression has formed of games as sites of unruly and uncontrolled behavior, which condone and celebrate brutality and viciousness. However, when consideration is given to the affordances provided to players to interact with virtual worlds and attend to the various barriers placed in their way, encounters typically fraught with moral implications and consequence (when they occur in the real world) can be understood as operating by a different moral code that is capable of representing an alternative appraisal of player behavior and motivation. During active play, there is little value to players adopting the mindset or motivations of the fictional character that they are playing. Instead players are required to become familiar with the systemic attributes of the game, to acquaint themselves with how it behaves and reveal what needs to be accomplished to ensure progression and completion. In his discussion of Russian Formalism, Ted Nannicelli (2014) highlights the consideration given by Viktor Shklovsky to the notion of habitualized visual perception. This concept is useful for the way it highlights how we learn to see only what we need for our purposes. Indeed, Shklovsky (1965) describes how the percipient learns to see not the things themselves, but their assigned mental tags (Moores 2006). As such, the variance and splendor that can reside within daily life can pass unnoticed, for automatism allows us to evade the hindrance and distraction of deeper fascination as we go about the routines of life. Nannicelli states that for Shklovsky, the remedy for habitualized perception is “art,” as art possesses the power to “de-​familiarize” that which has previously been taken for granted. Shklovsky used de-​familiarization in order to “distinguish poetic from practical language on the basis of the former’s perceptibility” (Crawford 2008, 209). The basis for his distinction works well in relation to the object of concern in this book, as poetic language represents a fundamentally different language and therefore demands thought and attention for it to be understood—​it is “framed” speech. It is therefore less direct than ordinary speech, which Shklovsky (1965) incidentally equates with the “expression of a child” (20).

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This distinction operates well when applied to games, as it suggests a need to be able to offer an account of violence as re-​framed by games. While the visual presentation of violence within games offers an approximation of entertainment violence, which suggests a familiar mode of violent expression requiring little work from the observer, the experience of play on the other hand demands that the player engages with violence-​actions as something that possesses a wider set of attributes. The adaption of violent conflict within games, for example, will often pit the player against dynamic, peripatetic opponents programmed to pursue, attack and impede player progress, leading the player to become occupied by the micro-​involvement of the moment-​by-​moment experience of game play (Calleja 2007). This interpretation of play is often masked because, at the macro-​ involvement level, the exteriority of play gives the impression that the player is adopting the designed narrative of the game. That is, in the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Infinity Ward 2011), the player is seen performing as former S. A. S. Captain John. In command of the Captain the player can be observed attempting to withstand an attack from forces (connected to Russian revolutionary political party the Ultranationalist), having been tracked and found at a Russian loyalist safehouse in Himachal Pradesh, Northern India. Regardless of a game’s theme, the experience of game play is constantly punctured and overridden by the frames of play (cues, prompts, alerts, etc.) that suggest that games are not designed to convert players’ experience of their illusory fictional spaces of games into an embodied or lived experience. Games are characterized by a sense of purpose and goals. On-​screen commands demand that players perform particular actions, cuing the use of an alphanumeric keyboard—​a non-​diegetic external mechanism for effecting changes within the game world. By drawing on German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s theory of drama, Gonzalo Frasca (2001a) has also questioned the common belief that the intent of game design is to induce a state of immersion for players, in terms of their experience of a game’s narrative or dramatic setting. The relevance of Brecht’s work is traced back to the techniques he created, known as “alienating effects” (or distantiation effect) that were designed to remind audiences that they were “experiencing a representation and forcing them to think about what they were watching” (3). For example, by breaking the

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“fourth wall” a director could expose the technology of the theater to the audience, thus entertaining them without the need for emotional manipulation. Brecht also sought to extend this experience to actors as well, so that they too were completely aware of their actions. Thus, instead of seeking to be “inside the skin” of the character, he desired actors to develop a critical distance that would let them understand their role as performers (see Chapter 6 for further discussion of “distance” and performativity). In this respect Brecht’s perspective on performance is highly compatible with the role of the player involved in the ludic challenges that games present (navigation, circumventing obstacles, solving puzzles and so on) and how they must be solved. Beyond the range of more obvious experiential differences that exist between active play environments, cut-​scenes and menus (as depositories for informational content and resources), are the different lens through which players may also view the same moving-​ image content. That is, across the course of a game, an event on screen may be experienced through the lens of its fictional setting (and overarching narrative) or its ludic properties (and short, medium and long term goals). While it is not inconceivable for individuals who observe others playing games to appreciate a player’s mastery and strategic play (see Schott and Kambouri 2006), it is the player or controller who is most obliged to take note of the game’s devices and cues. For example, if we consider a typical interface layer that is superimposed over a game’s “world of concern” (Veale 2012), it possesses visual icons that convey game states (such as demonstrating levels of health, stamina or ammunition). These icons serve to suggest urgency, the most appropriate courses of action and/​or forecast likely outcomes (e.g., screen death). As feedback and communication devices, games represent a persuasive and commanding driver for the behaviors and actions that are performed by players. Yet the prescribed constituents of games have achieved little recognition or articulation within regulation or censorship debates for their part in determining how players adopt the logic of a game system when inside a themed game world. This chapter begins to consider what constitutes gamic realism for the player and why game rules have not featured more highly in the defense of games thus far. In doing so, this chapter seeks to identify the elements and qualities of a game experience that might encourage a perceptual shift away from the inferences of immersion associated with mimetic representation, or

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absorption in visual verisimilitude toward an adoption of the salient value of the underlying logic governing game play and player performativity. In doing so, the notion of “entrancement” triggered by non-​ fictional content or activities is therefore introduced into the violence debate. A considerable number of game scholars have already advanced discussions on the nature of the object with which players voluntarily engage in the name of fun. In doing so, they fulfill Dovey and Kennedy’s (2006) call for game studies to delve beneath games’ textual characteristics in order to pay particular attention to the moments of enactment as games are played. In this respect, it seems fitting to draw on the oft-​cited opening words of Jasper Juul’s (2005) book Half Real: Video games are real in that they consist of real rules with which players actually interact, and in that winning or losing a game is a real event. However, when winning a game by slaying a dragon, the dragon is not a real dragon but a fictional one. To play a video game is therefore to interact with real rules while imagining a fictional world, and a video game is a set of rules as well as a fictional world. (1) Juul reminds us not to overlook rules in favor of fiction, even though fiction very much signals the innovation of the medium, and in doing so distinguishes computer games from board games. Herein lies the difficulty: the interplay between rules and fiction is not always fixed but can, theoretically, be subjectively interchanged by the player who is capable of shifting between different levels of perceptual processing. Much like bistable perception (Eagleman 2001), of the kind triggered by optical illusions such as the Necker cube, players are also capable of “switching” or being switched between rule and fiction as they consider them in turn, given that the available data is unlikely to encourage a single view. Bjarke Liboriussen (2008) recognizes this reallocation of focus when he distinguishes between the “landscape-​ image” and “landscape-​environment” in games, as the difference between experiencing “an environment affording certain actions” and the “experience [of] an image akin to those known from landscape painting, i.e., an object of contemplation” (144). To this effect, narrative is more likely to exist as an object of contemplation in the

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context of a cut-​scene as the player assumes the role of a viewer. Yet, even within a cut-​scene and its suspension of activity, the game’s content invariably contains cues as to impending action and demands once play resumes. As Newman (2002) has noted with reference to “quick time events” (QTEs),1 the demarcation between active play and what he labels “off-​line” aspects of game experiences are effectively blurred. To this effect, he cites the example of the racing game WipEout (Psygnosis 1995), which provides the player with an experience comparable to a TV-​viewer eagerly anticipating the beginning of a car race. As the player sits with controller in hand, a crane shot pans across the starting grid so that they may survey the cars lined up ready to race. However, as the player awaits the countdown to the green light that signals the start of the race, anticipation is built by allowing the player to rev their engine, both in readiness for the action but also to achieve the best start. Supporting the notion of the incidence of perceptual shifts, reversal theory accounts for the dynamic quality of human motivation and individual capacity to reverse one state in favor of another (Apter 2007). Within this theoretical framework, four “domains” are identified, representing different motivational states comprising of contrasting constructs. Within one of these meta-​motivational states, serious (telic) is balanced against playful (paratelic) in order to account for the way motivation may either reside with future goals and achievements or be focused in the present. Within game studies, the definition of games as a paratelic activity has served more to demarcate them as “separate” (Caillois 1961)  from the real-​ life contexts that surround or frame them. Indeed, Annika Waern (2012) argues that digital games are paratelic as they are pursuits principally driven by intrinsic, experiential motivations. This distinction describes a mindset and approach and does not preclude the role of rule structures in containing and ordering that paratelic experience. In this respect, the playfulness emanates from, or is made possible by, the distinctiveness of the experience as it  Quick Time Events constitute short sections within games that are characterized by reduced levels of interactivity for the player in which they are required to perform prescribed actions or depress specific keys/​buttons in response to an on-​screen prompt. QTEs serve to collapse previous experiential distinctions between active play and ­otherwise non-​interactive cut-​scenes.

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is carried out within a “safety zone.” However, such distinctions have a tendency to downplay the explicit and fixed nature of rules that are encountered by individuals once they opt to divert their attentional resources and become a player. To this effect, Waern recognizes the need to retain the distinction between ludus (game) and paidea (play) in order to preserve “the pleasure experienced in solving a problem” (Caillois 1961, 28). While we might play for the “sake of the lived quality that attaches itself to the act of playing” (Rodriguez 2006), games can be distinguished from one another and other forms of play in terms of the structures that underpin them; that is, the rules and resources that guide and organize actions. Rodriguez (2006) seeks to clarify this in his description of the experience of play as a “trans-​individual process of action and reaction,” explaining how a set of conditions predominates once the activity is initiated. While reverse theory employs a different meaning when it uses telic, it is possible to highlight how games do contain and register different intensities of seriousness. Indeed, Huizinga’s (1955) Homo Ludens serves as a testament to the value and importance of play as a cornerstone of culture, and in doing so, recognizes the seriousness and the serious “human” need for playfulness. In this regard, the view that playfulness repels seriousness is unhelpful for understanding games. Gordon Burghardt (2005) has proposed five criteria that help to distinguish play from other kinds of activities that can also be applied to “codified” play experiences. He states that each of the criteria ­identified “must be met in at least one respect before the play label can be confidentially attached to any specific instance of ­behavior” (79). For Burghardt play is evident when: ●●

“the performance of the behavior is not fully functional” (71) in that it does not contribute to current survival. This we can take to mean that the performance is bracketed off from the normal pressures of everyday life (Korhonen, Montola, and Arrasvuori 2009);

●●

the behavior is voluntary, intentional, pleasurable, rewarding, reinforcing, or autotelic (possessing a purpose in and not apart from itself);

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●●

“it differs from the ‘serious’ performance of ethotypic behavior structurally or temporally in at least one respect: it is incomplete, exaggerated, awkward, or precocious; or it involves behavior patterns with modified form, sequencing or targeting” (74);

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“the behavior is performed repeatedly” (75);

●●

and it is initiated when participants find themselves in a “relaxed field” (78). In evolutionary terms, this refers to the initiation of play when danger is least likely or present. This point, however, is complicated by the way in which a “playful approach can be applied to even the most serious or difficult subjects,” as it “helps us see things differently” (Fullerton, Swain, and Hoffman 2004, 88).

Despite the usefulness of Burghardt’s criteria in establishing the meaning of play as a human activity, the initial approach of game studies scholars was to turn to social concepts, such as Huizinga’s (1955) “magic circle” (see Salen and Zimmerman 2003) in order to describe the nature of game/​non-​game boundaries, and to clearly partition the experience of play from real life. In his theorization of play in pre-​digital games, Huizinga describes, “temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart” (10). The concept of play and games as bordered environments defined by their own worlds was able to flow freely into game studies, given the corresponding nature of digital games as systems delineated by rules. However, as Liebe (2008) and Waern (2012) have pointed out, it was the role of play in culture that constituted the main thrust and emphasis of Huizinga’s scholarly agenda, to that effect treating play as a “wider concept than gaming” (Waern 2012, 4). Furthermore, as noted at the beginning of the previous chapter (as outlined with reference to the adoption of a lusory attitude within socially regulated play), arenas for play (whether pre-​designed or constructed) can constitute a “fragile construction” susceptible to being “interrupted and destroyed by disturbances from outside or misbehavior inside the circle” (Liebe 2008, 327). Conservation of a magic circle remains contingent upon player intentionality and commitment to the act of play.

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In their attempt to connect the fledgling discipline of game studies with the rich lineage of play theory, Salen and Zimmerman (2003) downplay the distinctiveness of games and their utilization of computational technology in order to hold, present, operate and manage play. Indeed, they state that “computer hardware and software are merely the materials of which the game is composed” (86). Yet  all impending in-​play actions within computerized gaming are executed first in code, and are therefore subject to constraints inherent in the hardware. While players do not always have to strictly adhere to a desired code of behavior or follow each rule of a game in order to progress or succeed, they have little choice but to act within the frame of the possibilities built into the system. While the “magic” of the “magic circle” is upheld in relation to the otherness of the separate and self-​ contained spheres in which play is enacted, it does not adequately express all that takes place within that sphere. Indeed, Klevjer (2009) suggests that a more faithful account of the “main attraction” and “magic” of games resides in the qualities of “real-​time, co-​presence and tangibility” (9), in terms of his appreciation of the way in which computers translate and link player input (following a set of instructions) into real time action. The consciousness of play lends itself to an appreciation and understanding of the rules that regulate the range of actions the player is able to perform, to ensure that certain actions are completed and, in some instances, that actions are performed in a particular order (Björk and Holopainen 2005). Zagal (2011a) has labeled this type of awareness “ludoliteracy,” referring to a player’s possession of a context-​specific grasp of what it means to play games and the ability to understand meanings with respect to games as they play. Extending this discussion further, among scholars who explore the capacity of games to teach us something about ourselves, Rusch (2009) argues that the answer to this thought resides precisely in their “gameness.” While she recognizes that the existence of characters and a gameworld create the more obvious expectation that games make “some sort of statement about life” (2), Rusch argues that it is possible to extract the value of games from their particular design devices, independent of their remediation of, say, filmic storytelling. How games connect with the human condition is found

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within their affective, procedural and metaphorical potential. In this way, for example, games are able to elicit emotional responses to “medium-​specific” real events, such as the “emotions of competition; the emotions generated due to winning, losing, accomplishment, and frustration” that are qualitatively distinct from a response to “represented world emotions” (Frome 2006). This example again serves to reinforce the reality of the activities and events that comprise the playing of a digital game. Rusch (2009) proposes that we acknowledge the player’s genuine relation to the game as a game “emphasizing the things one needs to do in order to win, the overlapping of game constraints and fictional constraints (e.g., setting a game in a prison which is a strongly regulated environment), [and] the mapping of the player’s goals and motivations with the avatar’s goals and motivations” (3), in order to recognize how “the game emotions elicited by the real-​world activity of playing the game are more salient during the moment-​ to-​ moment game play than the represented world emotions” (2).

Articulating a Ludo-​focused perception A core challenge for game studies has been to develop research methods appropriate for making the conditions of play more perceptible, and to reconfigure or frame play so that it is possible to comprehend a player’s attentional focus (as identifying relevant objects and components as belonging to play), interpretation (as the way a game world becomes tangible as an arena of play) or action (acting or reacting as situational). Since its establishment, game studies research has sought to validate conceptual understandings of player engagement (fun, enjoyment, pleasure, flow) in order to find ways to reach beyond the tacit and subjective nature of player experience with games. In doing so, a range of qualitative methodologies—​such as player observation, in-​depth interviews and game-​play surveys—​have been employed (Consalvo and Dutton 2006). However, such methods often struggle with their inevitable detachment from the player’s perspective in the very moments of enactment (Dovey and Kennedy 2006) as a game is played, which it wishes to capture. An alternative strand of research, focused initially upon supporting and enhancing

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design processes, has more recently been identified for its potential applicability to explorations of player engagement with games. Quantitative techniques, including the measurement and analysis of game-​play metrics (Drachen and Canossa 2008)  and biometrics (Nacke et  al. 2009), have been promoted for their capacity to offer more precise accounts of player behavioral patterns within games, alongside measures of the physiological reactivity of players (revealing levels of player arousal) (Mirza-​Babaei and McAllister 2011). Sonia Livingstone (2007) has argued that:  “rigorous scientific research is often called for by policy-​makers, in practice they can find contextual and culturally-​differentiated accounts that chart the everyday conditions under which people access and use media more helpful in framing regulation” (13). To this effect, game studies has sought the ability to access the routine experiences of gaming (rather than the everyday setting in which play occurs) to reveal how players engage with games once those games have been classified and released into society and culture. Until that is achieved the extent of player compliance, assessment and comprehension remain conjectural. In presenting their mixed-​methodology for conveying player interactions with game systems, Schott, Vught, and Marczak (2013b) sought to express game play experiences as a type of performance (in the sense that what is observable on-​screen represents the culmination of player inputs in anticipation of, or in response to, the game environment and the objects within it).2 By doing so, they have sought to frame play as a relationship with a structured object and the human activity it generates. Articulating the transformation of fiction into rules within game play performance is central to their approach. To achieve this Marczak and Schott (2015) have introduced an alternate approach for the production of game-​metrics that utilizes the audio-​visual output transmitted to the player during the course of game play. The method works by processing and analyzing the particular audio-​visual configuration on screen that comes about as a result of a single player playing a game. By exploiting the image and sound that constitute a player’s game experience (rather than  This use of the term performance refers to the activity of the player in playing the game as distinct from performing violence (a distinction that is discussed in detail in Chapter 6).

2

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source code), Marczak and Schott work directly with the focal point of a player’s concentration and comprehension and the chief source of communication and expression between system and player. By analyzing the screen, the method permitted notation of the modes of communication that address the player during play, which convey both how games cue player behavior and also display the result of player input (keystrokes, mouse clicks) as onscreen actions. When combined with measures of players’ physiological responsiveness to gaming events attained from their galvanic skin response (GSR), the research was also able to identify moments in which players were more or less aroused in conjunction with events that were taking place on-​screen. Alongside the capture and measurement of players activation of game texts during play, the broader research design employed by Schott, Vught, and Marczak (2013b) also required participants to engage in player commentaries while viewing footage of their own game-​play sessions (typically a week later). This had the effect of placing the player in the role of viewer (for an acknowledgement of the potential perspective differences that result from playing verses viewing, see Chapter 1 for a discussion of game literacy), potentially offering the player a wider field of vision than is employed during game play (Yokoi et al. 2006). Schott et al. account for the way “play commentaries” allowed players to take on the role of the player-​ analyst and thoroughly examine and articulate their experiences to the researchers (who could contrast these accounts with their own observations and interpretations of participants’ behavior). Without exception, all the participants welcomed this particular exercise with great interest and pleasure, as it allowed them to assess their strategy and actions in a different light, and learn from it. As reflected in participants’ comments: This is the first time I  have done this before looking at my own game-​play, it’s a bit funny. It is really interesting watching myself play. I’ve never really recorded myself playing or anything. Q: Is it different? Yeah it is different I can see other ways it could have gone or something, ways I could have done things better. So it’s quite interesting.

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In the context of this research, participants were subject to the range of methods employed within the mixed methodology (outlined above). In doing so, they were most aware of the biofeedback measures, as the research monitored internal physiological states using finger sensors placed on the mouse-​controlling hand. Within the course of the play commentaries this had the effect of leading participants to speculate regarding which parts of the game produced noticeable physiological responses: Was my heart rate spiking there? I remember being disappointed that he just fell over. I  was expecting more. I  was really disappointed for no reason I  thought something better should have happened. While anecdotal, it is interesting to note that when player speculation occurred, it was often accurate and in line with the rationale of the researchers selection processes for determining what part of a game session participants were being asked to comment on. It also served to demonstrate how incredibly precise the player’s recall of their game play was, when presented with a 10-​to 15-​minute selection of footage from up to two hours of game play that was experienced at least one week prior to the commentary exercise. Player commentaries also produced instances where participants, in reviewing their game play, claimed to be able to pinpoint the moment that within-​game behavioral change occurred (from viewing their game footage). For example, the comment “I just realized I was on half health,” refers to a participant noting the reason behind a change in approach and switch in objectives. Such comments serve to provide researchers with insights that are otherwise unobtainable, or too subjective to discern from observation and analysis of players’ game footage alone, thus highlighting the value of directly engaging the agent in the co-​construction and configuration of the game play experience. The relevance of this approach to research on the debate about videogame violence, pertains to how it considers the perceptual veridicality of a game as residing in the ecology of the game rather than in the mental state of the perceiver (Gibson 1979). Following this line of thinking, prioritization is given to how objects are perceived in

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terms of their affordances. “Presence” in a game world is then not necessarily equated with the believability of the represented world, but synonymous with “successfully supported action in the environment” (Zahorik and Jenison 1998, 87). This necessitates a different approach to articulating a game play experience. It is supposed that a belief that internal mental interpretations that characterize gaming situations solely in representational terms, would rationally lead to a research process that would set about identifying palpable visual depictions of striking, strong, brutal or excessively graphic manifestations of violence and then assessing them for their impact on the player. Yet, given the perspective outlined in this chapter, such an approach would only produce misleading accounts as to what the totality of the experience entails for the player.

Serialistic structures of play There is no denying the capacity of games to engineer contentious moments that attract the attention of the media, and which achieve a certain shock value that generates excitement, stimulates discussion, and challenges players as to what constitutes the “correct” response. Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward 2009)  offers one such example, for the controversy it caused with the “No Russian” mission (discussed in detail in Chapter 8), in which the player is asked to take part in the massacre of civilians (one of the few scenarios in the franchise where civilians exist) so that the player can fulfill the mission objective of serving as an undercover operative. However, in these moments we identify how “shocks” too have come to constitute a formal principle of games as much as they have for films. Not necessarily climactic, instead the commonplace conditions of play are instead suspended, replaced instead with an exceptional event that possesses heightened significance, in which ordinary actions are imbued with a sense of greater enormity and consequence. Such events evoke the impact of the “cinema of attraction,” which defines pre-​narrative films in which audiences were directly confronted in a kind of inequitable assault (Gunning 1989). The cinema of attraction constituted short films, or instants that typically confronted audiences with a standalone moment, quite distinct

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from the developing situations presented in subsequent and now familiar narrative cinema. Dominated by the single shot, audiences encountered a blend of actuality and fiction (found in Electrocuting an Elephant, 1903; Photographing a Female Crook, 1904) as something recognizable yet infrequent, unfolding before them (Gunning 1989). Similarly, within games intrusions to the flow of the routine of play are often accompanied by reduced affordances and degrees of freedom, which re-​align and attune players to the weight of the particular scenario and offer an experience that is distinct from the routines of play (see previous reference to dark design in Chapter 2). Opting to approach the impact of violence via the interrogation of sections of game play, selected for the way in which they align with more traditional displays of violence, requires a belief that violence remains unchanged or unaffected by its presence as a component of a game system. A focus on the reality of play, rather than a game’s expression of a represented world, avoids assumptions being made about the significance of some aspects of a play experience over others. In tracing play patterns back to the affordances or action potential of the entity to effect movement and complete tasks set by the game, it also prevents assumptions about the way players process “violent” content. It also precludes arguing with certainty that the presence of violent themes within a game automatically produces an experience of violence, so that we might then assess its impact. In understanding games as systems, in which “players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome” (Salen and Zimmerman 2003, 80), there is a need to delve into the underlying conditions that frame game play. The segmentation of the structures of game play has formed the focus of research by Zagal, Fernandez-​Vara, and Mateas (2008), as part of the Game Ontology Project (Zagal et  al. 2005). In their research they identify segmentation as a process in which “a game is broken down into smaller elements of gameplay” (Zagal, Fernandez-​Vara, and Mateas 2008, 176). Such work is supported by David Myers’ (2009) contention that definitions of games become problematic when they are completely reliant upon activation by the player. He asks, “[a]re games such as Monopoly not to be considered games at all unless they are, at the moment of that determination, played with proper effort?” (3). To this effect, Zagal, Fernandez-​Vara, and Mateas (2008) have

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sought to understand the independent structure of the object. They proposed three modes of segmentation: (1) temporal, that refers to how a game “limits, synchronizes and/​or coordinates player activity over time”; (2) spatial, which describes how the game’s fictional or virtual space is divided into sub-​locations; and (3) challenge, referring to the manner in which the player is presented with a “sequence of self-​contained challenges” (175). This work satisfies its aim to provide a useful framework for describing games as objects. In illustrating their approach, Zagal, Fernandez-​Vara, and Mateas (2008) have applied their framework to vintage arcade games—​ games that foreground the rule system by virtue of their simplicity. This inevitably leads them to concede that more complex games are likely to include “multiple type[s] of segmentation, that are interrelated, or even co-​occur,” with novel game design in the future likely to require further ways of segmenting game play. In using a player’s performance within a game to generate and guide how they segmented a game, Schott, Vught, and Marczak (2013b) convey how players go about negotiating the types of game structures emphasized by Zagal Fernandez-​Vara, and Mateas, either profiting from, or failing to notice or comprehend, the possibilities on offer thus affecting or altering how progress or success is achieved. Performance becomes critical, as it emphasizes the unfolding nature of games and the relevance of player input to that process. The role of the player is also relevant as something more than just a necessary component to activate the game system, but as an agent that constructs their own journey through a structure. In this way, Marczak and Schott (2015) segment play by working with the structure of the game but avoiding assumptions as to what constitutes the most salient qualities of a game experience within that structure for the player. Instead, measures such as physiological reactivity permit the player to signal which aspects of the game play experience might constitute salient moments for them. The emphasis then turns to what those events are and whether they shed any light on debates that fail to examine violence for the manner in which it is re-​purposed by games. Schott, Marczak, and Neshausen (2014) found arousal levels co-​ occurred with moments of screen death, in which progress was lost and sections of game play had to be repeated. However, there were also a large number of less predictable moments of arousal connected to

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the player being under attack from an unseen sniper and seemingly less predictable and relevant content (from a classification perspective) that highlighted the thrill of being in a battalion on the move, running and jumping across rooftops, or the anticipatory nature of being in transit on their way to a drop zone. In order to achieve a more fine-​grained account of a play experience within “vastly reduced artificial systems whose affordances are, by definition, non-​ accidental” (Pinchbeck 2007, 9), Marczak and Schott (2015) conceptualize and segment games using a multi-​ layered framework. The layers, identified below, are employed in two ways: first, in a process of segmentation in which audio-​visual footage of players’ game play-​sessions is processed (as game metrics) and “deconstructed,” and secondly, as a means of interpreting player behavior. The five layers include: ●●

Game System

●●

Game World

●●

Spatial-​Temporal

●●

Degree of Freedom

●●

Interaction

As the top layer, the game system acknowledges how the functionality of games as software systems extends beyond the main attraction of the diegetic fictional world. Facilitating the player’s achievement of a pre-​existing task or goal are the menu environments that constitute archives for information, depositories for items that have been collected, or allow players to alter settings that adjust the conditions of the game (such as difficulty) or the nature of player inputs (e.g., mouse sensitivity). Flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1992), as a state of concentration and involvement, is often discussed in relation to game experiences and as an objective of game design. Absorption need not automatically preclude player access and utilization of game menus. Observation of game play often reveals a fluid movement between the game world and the game system, external to the fictional environment of the game. As game developer Brent Fox (2005) claims, game interfaces are a part of the game, as they allow users

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to interact with the game. Of course, such fluidity is dependent on strong interface design that avoids “menus that are poorly and non-​ intuitively organized leading to confusion as to where a particular option can be found” (Johnson and Wiles 2003, 1337). The initiation of game play as a diegetic experience within a fictional world is achieved in a serialistic fashion. For example, it is only possible to enter a game world once splash screens (containing copyright and production credits) have been passed and a higher order main menu is reached. Only then is it possible to initiate play, allowing the player to move from the all-​enveloping game system layer to the game world layer, as the 3D space in which the game is situated. Becoming fully involved in a game world is not always an immediate process, as games often require players to first train for their entry into the game world. As Llanos and Jørgensen (2011) highlight, a game like Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft 2007) “grounds the HUD in the fiction by making it a part of the avatar’s high-​tech equipment” (2). Indeed, the game’s narrative attempts to integrate the user interface into the game narrative by creating a multi-​layered narrative similar to Cronenberg’s film eXistenz (1999) or Cameron’s more straightforward Avatar (2009); in doing so, the player is required to engage with the game world through “Animus,” a virtual reality machine that allows its user to read and perform the “genetic memory” of another. This allows the game to prepare the user of Animus by providing a tutorial that allows the player to master character movement and stealth in a featureless space (similar to that employed by George Lucas in the film THX 1138 (1971) and the construct loading program of The Matrix). Once fully in the game world layer, play is then actively broken or paused by exiting via higher order menus. It is also the case that much anticipatory “fun” and decision-​ making can take place prior to activation of the game world. Schott, Vught, and Marczak (2013a) describe how players of Dead Island (Techland 2011)  characterized their excitement and anticipation in relation to what Lindley and Sennersten (2006) have described as the “competitive, rule constrained form of a game” (6) or with “ludic involvement” (Calleja 2011) in mind. Players’ approach to the game, epitomized what Aarseth (1997) has termed the ergodic quality of games, requires a disposition and readiness to act. This is partly illustrated with reference to character choice, in which the options

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available to players were evaluated as instruments possessing different attributes. Klabbers (2003) has also usefully noted that the syntax of a game at its most basic is a process of engaging with a rule-​ system that defines the sub-​set of positions within the game space (in this case, various scenarios in which the survivor repels zombies). The role of the player therefore “provides context for interpreting a game space” and “offers a lens and a perspective for interpreting and acting” (53). In accordance with this account, players showed a consistent preference for interpreting the game, and the game environment, from a configurative perspective. Environments, for example, were perceived as a place for action or as a means to execute a specific type of strategy. This is very different from the way that we would look at (or assess) an environment in other non-​interactive media. For example: I quite enjoyed the sewer environment ( . . . ) The groups of zombies were smaller and because of the narrow tunnels they could only attack a couple at a time. ( . . . ) It provided multiple paths and had many nooks and crannies to explore in my search for better loot. ( . . . ) They [the environments] have been designed in such a way, and rewards have been placed frequently enough, that I want to explore everything the environments have to offer. Additional to this way of thinking, character choice in Dead Island was determined based on assumptions about the nature of the game and the need to select the most appropriate vehicle for negotiating the game space: his stats appeared to be higher than the other characters. His melee specialty appealed more than the other male character that specialized in throwing. I chose Sam B mostly because of his extra health and his abilities. I felt like taking a gun person in a melee game was a bit cheating. Characters deployed in games are often recognizable archetypes that function as compositional or structural elements acting within a

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game space, utilizing abilities that can largely be extracted from the visual motives employed in their design or stats. It is worth acknowledging that ludic involvement is not always thought to require the same levels of conscious attention throughout a game. As Calleja (2011) argues, “most interactions with an environment are possible because we have an internalized knowledge of how various aspects of that environment work” (21). Yet when players are faced with experiences that do not conform to existing schemas, they are required to actively re-​engage and reconsider what they are doing. In the case of Dead Island, participants provided examples of both, as their initial interpretation of the demands of Dead Island in relation to “prior learnt experiences” aided the development of initial strategies for adapting to the game (consistent with the function of genre as discussed in Chapter 1). For example: Years and years of FPS gaming, including RtCW [Return to Castle Wolfenstein, id Software] & Enemy Territory [id Software] has taught me that headshots are supreme. Even if there are other options available, it is hard to retrain the mind and muscle memory out of this habit. Yet, on the other hand, with Dead Island there existed a continuing need to consciously attend to the shifts in the ludic demands of the game as it progressed. For example, upon beginning Level 5 of the game (the first level in the second act of the game), participants ­discovered that difficulty levels increased exponentially, with prior strategies becoming redundant and ineffective: the game suddenly became much more difficult. My tried and true method no longer works .  .  . This is good as it provides more of a challenge, but I find this somewhat distracts from my immersion. It was almost like a whole new game .  .  . The learning curve is quite steep . . . It was about this time in the game where I was starting to feel comfortable with the UI and how the mechanics of the game worked.

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As the former quotation stresses, strategic involvement overrode any extensive construction of, or attunement to, the representational façade of the game. Indeed, players articulated how the actualization of tactics occurred through a process of exploration of the available options and their perceived consequences. While there is research that expands the notion of the game device as the “central (and often final) arbiter of rules, upholding the contract of the game with its players and seamlessly and equitably enforcing a fixed set of rules” (Taylor 2009), it remains the case with more traditional configurations, that interpreting the conditions of rule-​governance still remains a key challenge and pleasure for many players: The stamina aspect is something that I soon realized is the limiting factor for my character in terms of how many creatures I can attack at once—​if I take on more than about three or four, I frequently found myself watching the zombies biting me as I waited for my stamina to recover enough to hit back. Indeed, the constrictions placed on players were acknowledged for their role in encouraging the development of more nuanced and appropriate strategies. For example: I think the stamina mechanic is excellent, and the tuning is perfect because you must time your attacks and pick your targets carefully instead of simply spamming buttons. You do get a nice feeling when you outwit the game and execute your plan properly. A further example of this in the earlier sections of Dead Island could be found when players learned the value of the “kick”—​an action that afforded players the ability to “stop a charging zombie, doesn’t drain fatigue, does a fair amount of damage, knocks down zombies and is fast. Utilizing a kick is an effective way of preserving your weapons and preventing damage to your character.” Such examples occur within the game world layer, and constitute instances of game play. When post-​processing audio-​visual material to reveal different elements and their role in instances of play, it is however necessary to clarify whether it is the player, as the entity activating the text, who is responsible for what occurs on screen (Marczak and Schott 2015).

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That is, a key challenge in the processing of game play footage in order to better understand player behavior requires the differentiation of in–​out game and active–​inactive states (similar to the issues that arose from discussion of profanity in Chapter  2). Identifying instances of “fighting” within a game would for many contemporary games produce instances where the player is acting (conditional on mechanics and resources) either in anticipation or response to inimical actions from within the environment or animated sequences in which the player may play little (e.g., QTEs) or no role (e.g., in cut scenes). Under these different conditions it is possible to argue that a different perceptual frame is being employed in construing events on-​screen. Indexing play around different components or elements of play permits the initiation of a spatial-​temporal interpretation of a player’s performance. That is, information produced about the points at which a player deliberately pauses or detaches from the game world, or information that is indicative of player progress relating to terrain traversed or activities completed (noting when cut-​scenes are triggered or when new missions are instigated via the appearance of a loading screen). These elements constitute identifiable nodes that map the progress and journey of the player and also the timing of when players experience core events in the game (this is useful for cross-​player comparisons). Related to the nature of a player’s progression through a game are the layers that account for degrees of freedom and interactivity that constitute the manner in which the logic and rule system of the game is conveyed to the player, and the degree to which the player is required to engage with the information provided by the game, or is permitted to ignore cues provided by the system.

Looting in Bioshock 2 To outline the function and focus of each layer an example is provided of the act of looting in Bioshock 2 (2K Games 2010), to illustrate its relevance as a source of information across each of the five layers. In this process the layers do not function in a hierarchical top-​ down manner—​which would mean that we would arrive at the act of looting as the end result of a process of refinement—​but the act of

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looting is instead understood in terms of its relationship to each of the other layers. In this way the layers function in a transversal fashion (Marczak 2014), allowing movement, meaning and implication to be derived from each one. Looting a corpse in the FPS body-​horror game Bioshock 2 allows the player to gather resources—​such as money—​from NPCs that in fictional terms are deceased. The player’s attention is drawn to the possibility of looting by the appearance of a looting panel that is overlaid over the game world that signals that there are items available to be looted. The appearance of a looting panel on-​screen is noted automatically every time it occurs within the audio and video feedback method of measuring game metrics (Marczak and Schott 2015). Additionally, a money logo (accompanied by a sound) indicates that money has been acquired if such an action is selected. The presence of the looting panel, the money logo and the acquisition sound indicate that an action has been performed in line with the cue provided, whereas the looting panel and no money logo or acquisition sound indicates that a player has opted not to loot in that instance (interaction). The option to loot is built into the game system, providing a mechanism for the player to collect and store items and money that can be applied (at the player’s discretion) in playing the game. The player is afforded the freedom of choice to loot or not loot. However, this option is also conditional on the game system allowing, and the player needing, to explore the game space. That is, in interacting with the game space, player movement—​combined with first-​person perspective—​will lead the player to pass corpses on the ground. Proximity and gaze cue the game system to invite the player to loot by presenting the contents held by the corpse. Additionally, opting not to loot (in the here and now) may impact on players’ degree of freedom further into the game world, giving meaning to the extent to which a player loots or does not loot throughout the game. Corpses are only found when the player moves through, and acts inside, the fictional space of the game (in the case of Bioshock 2, the city of Rapture). Such objects are not available to players in other spaces, such as the help menu, loading screen or pause menu. As an act completed during game play, instances of looting can be mapped as a value of spatial and temporal movement; that is, how quickly or slowly a player progresses through the game and how they navigate

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the game. In the wider context of the game system, engagement with objects and structures within the city of Rapture are not offered to players until they decide to start the game, and they remain available only in the diegetic space of the game world (as distinct from higher order menus). It is possible to therefore identify when a player is in or out of the game world with reference to specific acts such as looting. Looting interactions are clearly part of the game system and the outcome of these interactions are represented, collated, viewed and managed in higher order menus. They represent actions that have been made in the context of “game world”—​“interactions” that can be related to “degrees of freedom” afforded by the system—​but which are also conditional on the degree of freedom that a player possesses in future actions.

Quick time events in Battlefield 3 Using Battlefield 3 (EA Digital Illusions 2011), it is possible to work back through the layers in the opposite direction. This game contains a number of QTEs that force the player to complete a series of rote-​ based actions (e.g., press E, left click mouse, then right click mouse). These prompts from the system are not presented to the player in a diegetic or narrative form, but remain procedural, only really acknowledging the need for player input. In the context of QTEs the player temporarily loses all other possibilities for agency (i.e., they are unable to move freely or use strategy or weapons of choice). The degree of freedom becomes highly prescriptive, as the system (which is always in control of such conditions) is much more explicit in its treatment of the player. The system requires the necessary input to activate content and progress game play. Each interaction is preceded by an on-​screen prompt (or video feedback stream, as defined by the audio-​ feedback metric method), that indicates the action required (such as a blue icon matching the expected player input, E, mouse icon with left or right highlighted). Should the player follow this prompt with the correct input, the icon will then blink in blue as a means of validating the player’s action. Failure to follow the prompt will lead to a red icon, indicating that the response was either incorrect or absent.

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The interactions, defined by their degrees of freedom, are built into the game system as a form of mini-​game (a task outside what one might expect in an FPS game environment), defined by success or failure, upon which progression is conditional and non-​negotiable. As a marker of player progression, when a QTE occurs for the player it is also indicative of space and time. That is, specific QTEs (like missions or levels) are conditional on the player’s ability to reach specific locations on a game map, but are also indicative of how long it takes a player to reach these nodes within the game. A QTE will therefore be triggered only once a player has reached a pre-​defined point in the game, and should the player succeed, the same QTE will not reappear in that version of the game again. Therefore, the time taken to activate different QTEs provides a marker of pace and the rate of progression attributable to the levels of mastery possessed by the player, or the nature and style of game playing (e.g., whether it is exploratory, thorough versus action, or goal oriented). In understanding the core “affordances” of the game relative to the agent, Bioshock 2 provides an interesting example. In this game the player assumes the role of Subject Delta, a protector or Big Daddy, encased within a Victorian-​era deep-​sea diving suit that both fortifies and protects them, which permits the player character to move freely in the ocean, but creates a sense of labored or restricted movement within and around the game’s underwater city, Rapture. Schott, Vught, and Marczak (2013b) reported that some players felt more relaxed as they moved through the ocean, outside the city walls and free from the dangers contained within them. Indeed, in occupying and traversing a space on the ocean floor, participants in the study noted that the setting offered a respite from the assaults and confrontations that characterize the disorder within the city. For example: the views, just, kinda relaxing, you move slow, the music . . . I also feel safe underwater, I know the enemies can’t get me, so I am alone underwater. Permanently encased within a deep-​ sea diver suit, the player is ordinarily made to feel oversized and ungracious as he moves

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through the once lavish spaces occupied by the affluent leisure classes (of the backstory). But underwater, freed from the forces of gravity and the weight of the suit, the player becomes what Frome (2007) terms as more of an “observer-​participant,” referring to how players are able to engage with the game as an artwork without changing its material form. In this role, the experience becomes similar to engagement with films; a cityscape is gradually revealed and observed from a distance; as the player comes over the brow of the seabed, the movement triggers the rising intonation of a musical score. This is an engineered moment of reflection and contemplation, caused first by the cracking window that succumbs to the pressure of the sea that initially sent the player out onto the ocean floor, but also by the design of the game map that gently induces the player to follow the “only” path. The lack of demands placed on the player outside the city should in theory encourage an aesthetic experience. Yet even in this situation Schott et al. observed instances where players’ schemas for the game cancelled out the impact of the underwater scene. Indeed, some players failed to look up at all (despite the musical cues), preferring instead to scour the seabed for useful game components. This example is interesting in the way it reveals a level of unawareness of the demands of the scene (and the role of the player) due to the distractions and privileging of resource collection, a reinforced behavior within the confines of the cityscape up until that point in the game. As Järvinen (2005) has stated, games require strategies that in turn govern the privileging of “game components and managing their relations” (2). A good example of this in Bioshock 2 is the availability of ammunition or the positioning of health stations around which players orient and organize their actions. For example: You have to look where you shoot and actually take into account the environment rather than shooting everything and hoping for the best. Just generally things that can help you, you can destroy, like the health station at that one point . . . I was shooting at something and I missed the shot and accidentally shot it, so . . . when you respawn you always spawn half health, so at the start I could go back and get full health and get further than usual, but as soon as I’d destroyed it, I had to kill everything in

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that room so then you have to go and find health somewhere else and come back. In the above example, the player learned the value of the health station as a key node around which incremental incursions deeper into Rapture should be oriented. Indeed, a slip-​up resulting in the destruction of a health station required one player to adjust how the game could be played, making it increasingly difficult. Similarly, Schott et al. report that players attributed their “calmness” to their proximity to a health station. In one instance of the game where a participant was engaged in intense conflict and battle, biofeedback indicated little arousal. During the subsequent play commentary the participant, responding to their own footage (and unprompted by the researcher), stated: Here I was confident as I had the thing backing me up, the health station backing me up. Players were observed (and later confirmed) that much of their time was spent collecting resources and tools. This constituted scavenging through empty trashcans, or cash registers, and looting corpses scattered around the city. As in most games, there was a clear need for the player to collect and utilize a range of items in order to advance the game. The neutralization of non-​player-​characters in a game like Bioshock 2 was therefore not merely motivated by a concept of kill-​ or-​be-​killed, but was also actively pursued for the acquisition of what was perceived as necessary items. Rhody (2005) makes an important observation when discussing the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (Ubisoft 2003), as he considers the interface a fictional component of the game, since elements such as the life bar describe a fictional state of being. In doing so, he acknowledges the concurrent forms of mastery required to play games. A player’s dynamic point-​of-​view within the game world layer is extended beyond the player character to include camera control and the nature of engagement in vignettes (e.g., cut-​scenes, dialogue, and other “story-​related” devices). Mastery as complete control requires players to move beyond the fundamentals of movement and action to discover a more extensive range of movements and actions (see Chapter  6 for a discussion

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of superplay). Examples of how players grappled with purpose and function appear in Schott, Vught, and Marczak (2013b), in their discussion of Bioshock 2: I didn’t understand how you could switch ammo types. I didn’t realize when you shot them [traps from rivet guns] you could pick them back up, I usually went and bought more. [Walking around carrying a barrel of Fireflies] I was waiting for the instruction on how to drop it. I didn’t want them to kill me. One of the problems with this game is that they didn’t tell you how to switch plasmids before this, so I  had to look at the controls. I actually got lost here, I was walking in circles because you had to shock open a door; because I didn’t know how to use plasmids I didn’t get my shocking thing back up . . . I was kind of looking for another way around but you are supposed to switch back to bolt and shoot open the door or shoot the control panely [sic] thing and it opens. This is something distinct from “flawed” design, as the game remains playable and enjoyable, even when it is not fully unlocked or comprehended by a player. Play occurs even when the player is only partially aware of all the possibilities, and despite uncertainty as to the best course of action. In these moments, players are not necessarily being subjugated by the game as a rule system, but operate within it. A  core attribute of the pleasure of play is the inclination to want to persist with or prolong the activity. Brown and Vaughan (2009) have termed this the “continuation desire”—​this accounts for the “desire to keep doing it, and the pleasure of the experience drives that desire” (18). In doing so, Brown and Vaughan recognize that part of the role of a game is to threaten to stop that fun, which drives the player to find ways to keep it alive. Klimmt (2003) also accounts for this process in his description of enjoyment. Enjoyment, from an activity perspective, comes from “effectance,” or from the immediacy of feedback and the way in which the game offers repeated cycles of suspense and relief, feeding curiosity, sustaining play, and encouraging the player to repeated exposure to digital games (247).

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Compared to idealistic notions of immersion as an enveloping, consuming experience that places players within a virtual world, living the life of another, this chapter has sought to emphasize the nature of player involvement by identifying the way in which a game “requires the negotiation of multiple synchronic points-​of-​view” (Rhody 2005, 1). Foregrounding the “hybrid spaces” (Mateas 2001)  of a game system encourages the extension of our understanding of playing digital games to include the different forms of player engagement and activity that have an effect within a game world instance. Fictive principles create an impression of a “state of being”:  for example, expressing the fatigue or wellbeing of a character, or revealing the desperation of the character’s situation based on the effectiveness and quantity of resources available to them. Such qualities create a fictional scenario in order to serve a ludic purpose, limiting available choices and increasing the demand of the challenge. Having probed the game system using one strategy, the current play state may then highlight the need for greater diligence in the exploration of spaces and the collection of resources, or a more varied approach to dealing with the soft boundaries of existents who have been programmed to obstruct the player’s progress, in order to avoid the depletion of health or stamina (e.g., long or mid-​range engagement rather than melee fighting). The actions, behaviors and control mechanisms afforded to players are neither limitless nor perpetual, as they can deplete and become less effective based on the game state. Indeed games can become contra-​ludic (Conway 2010), issuing greater resistance in an effort to stop play. However, the logic of a game state can also be contravened by the discovery and use of game entities (Zagal et al. 2005), specific to digital games, that create hyper-​ludic states in which characters, objects and the environment can be imbued with new qualities. Consider the “power-​up” of the power pellet in Pac Man (Namco 1980), that increases the speediness of Pac Man and allows him to turn the tables on the ghosts that otherwise hunt him; or “Hyper-​Mode” in Metroid Prime (Retro Studios 2002), that enables use of the game’s strongest weapon, the Phazon Beam (Lange-​Nielsen 2011). When studying game play it is essential to account for how players actually activate the text under investigation. Although analyzing player behavior might go a long way toward constructing an

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understanding of what challenges players encounters onscreen, it is equally important not to create a false impression of the intent behind the observed behaviors across players. From an observer’s perspective, most player action might seem intentional given that players continuously exhibit determined behavior, suggestive of little doubt as to their intent or game comprehension. It is important to remember there is little need to motivate movement within games, as this is the natural state of an “action content space” based around the principles of activity (Gunder 2003). As Aarseth (1997) states:  “The word interactive operates textually rather than analytically, as it connotes various vague ideas of computer screens, user freedom, and personalized media, while denoting nothing” (48). Player drive and effort may reflect a general state of “challenge-​based immersion” (Ermi and Mäyrä 2005). In doing so, it is important to emphasize the way that this “challenge” constitutes a competitive situation between the player and the system; this means that the system is responsive to player attempts, and evasive when it obscures the most efficient means of task completion.

4 Indexicality and realism (in action)

T

his chapter acknowledges the way certain kinds of games, such as those themed around war and crime, will typically include icons that possess a recognizable counterpart in the world. The obvious example here is the way games often rely heavily on guns as a key mechanism for the player to interact within a game space, defining a player’s effectance on other NPCs and on the immediate environment. By drawing on a range of familiar referents games provide an interpretive locus around which the immediate experience and demands of a context may be instantly understood (for instance, “I am in a warzone”). While the substance of the digital imagery comprising most games does not support claims that there is a direct link to an exterior reality via a recorded image, it has not precluded the industry from striving for photorealism or from embellishing games with traces of the recorded nature of the image (e.g., by employing lens flare). This chapter therefore considers the extent to which the digital aesthetic of games is capable of eliciting “judgments of faithful witness” (Rosen 2001, 337), giving open consideration both to how an indexical relationship might be formed for players, and the extent of any transcoding that occurs between the physical and social world and games. Strongly emphasizing the nature of games as rule systems, this book has drawn attention to the schematic nature of game spaces. In doing so, this highlights the simplification involved in both the simulation of actions and the way in which virtual game spaces function. In

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his discussion of “micro-​worlds,” Dreyfus (1981) illustrates the implications of an abridged reality when he observed that, “there is no way [microworlds] can be combined and extended to the world of everyday life” (14), because meaningful information is converted into meaningless (discrete) information the computer needs in order to operate. While it is possible to adopt this position when considering games as systems, the representational casing of games still combines a reproduction of fictional tropes (that have come to epitomize particular experiences such as filmic depictions of war or deviant subcultures) and a further re-​visioning of these tropes as adapted for purpose (play) and function (mechanics). Furthermore, the representational devices employed by games often reproduce a range of familiar formats, including such credible reproductions of surveillance technology such as the use of CCTV perspective in Goldeneye 007 (Rareware 1998) and Metal Gear Solid (Konami 1998). Similarly, the image quality associated with helmet cams or drone cam footage signals further ways in which audiences are increasingly being inserted into newsworthy events or conflicts. In doing so, games contribute to a contemporary mindset by claiming to offer an experience of events or acts that have and do occur in the world. This chapter will consider why games continue to be understood in terms of what Vivian Sobchack (2004) has described as a “documentary consciousness” that embraces the “charge of the real” (269), despite the ways in which they alter the codes of realism by virtue of their gameness.

Realism Discussion of the indexical qualities of games might be considered nonsensical, given how they form part of a contemporary image culture that is, first, digitally constructed and secondly, imbues familiar or known objects with a set of qualities that require a different type of effort to operate or employ them. Having grown accustomed to the veracity of photography and its particular bond with reality, the emergence of digital imagery has weakened that confidence by forsaking the need for a photographic subject. Compared to illustration or painting, the photographic image has been most strongly associated with truth due to the manner in which objects in the presence of the



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camera are captured by means of the “optical and chemical action of light” (Arnheim 1974, 151). More importantly, this process fostered a way of thinking that led to an understanding of the real as something that may be “presented” independently from individual experience (Kember 1998); that is, seeing has become a cultural form of believing (Tomas 1996). Roland Barthes (1981) noted how the photographic image has rarely been distinguished from its referent. The photograph became a means by which to observe the world and “prove things existed within the relationship of space and time” (Bardis 2004, 210). The belief and trust placed in photography’s faithful capturing of the physical and material world has persisted, completely unhampered by the limitations of the medium such as its two-​dimensionality, or variables such as color capture and focus. The camera has dependably served as a capturing device, with photographs “taken” rather than “made.” In contrast to traditional modes of lens-​based photography, the arrival of digital imagery served to rupture the perceived reliability of the photograph. Image-​makers were no longer bound to the “existential connection between a specific referent and the signifier, [in which] the latter will always provide the subject with irrefutable testimony as to the real existence of the referent” (Rosen 2001, 13). The evolution of photography and the digitization of the photographic image has triggered a reassessment of the perceived truthfulness of the captured image, allowing scholars to question the extent to which a carefully framed image of an isolated moment truly constitutes a “window to the world” (Szarkowski 1978). Digital imagery has drawn attention to the “constructed, artifactual, and ideological character” (Lister 1995, 9)  of the photograph as well as the way its function extends beyond capturing concrete events to also include the representation or illustration of events. However, the concept of the image as authentic representation still holds currency. To this effect Bardis (2004) cites Grundberg and McCarthy Gauss’s (1987) contention that “we are all prisoners of what we see” (207), bolstering her own claim that “we have become influenced far more by our own pre-​conceptions rather than by direct experience due to a lifestyle dominated by the continuous flow of imagery” (213). The primacy of the photographic image is apparent to Lev Manovich (2001), who has argued that it is not reality that is often being faked by digital photography or digital imagery, but photographic reality.

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In the context of filmmaking, he states that the ideal for computer-​ generated imagery has been photorealism, in which the synthetic image is typically blended with real-​ life actors and real settings. To this extent, Manovich uses the example of how the computer-​ generated imagery produced in Jurassic Park (Spielberg 1993) had to be degraded. He states: “their perfection had to be diluted to match the imperfection of film’s graininess” (247). Within this practice, the computerized image is artificially deteriorated to align with a specific persuasive visuality, one that denotes the power attained by the rhetoric of the image. As Rosen (2001) has also noted, “the photographic medium of cinema is positioned as a key compositional model for the digital image” (313). Cynthia Poremba (2011) also questions the argument that digitization constitutes a form of de-​materialization and a loss of contact with the original item, compared with the way that photographic realism is achieved (from the same light that touches the object, revealing its physiognomy and forming a witness to its existence, Rosen 2001). Dipping into a purely technical argument, she cites Godoy’s (2007) declaration that “analog sampling using photochemicals takes the same shape as electronic sensing, in that on a micro level, a chemical marker is either on or off” (45). Furthermore, Lefebvre and Furstenau (2002) argue that a photograph’s existential connection is dependent on factors such as the photographer, the lens employed, the film stock used, and the functioning of the camera mechanisms (such as whether or not they are aged or defective). Lefebvre (2007) contends that “a single photograph can serve to indexically represent a great number of things, many of which are neither photographic nor artistic in nature nor connected with whatever object stood before the lens at the time the image was struck” (6). As Lefebvre summarizes, “anything that is affected by something else may serve to represent, by contiguity, that which affects it” (5). Stephen Prince (1996) uses a “correspondence-​ based model” of representation to distinguish imagery that is not derived from a single referential root. In his discussion of digitally enhanced and constructed cinema he believes that indexicality, “as the ground for realism” (400), has been abandoned in favor of techniques that enable audiences to connect the particular fictional reality of a film to the “visual and social coordinates of our own three-​dimensional world”



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(ibid.). That is, he believes that audiences now seek visual credibility. This, therefore, constitutes a different means of framing reality, one that stresses the interrelationship between different perceptual elements within a single world-​space so that they operate coherently in that space and time. According to Giralt (2010), Prince’s perspective on realism creates a distinction between a realism that is “representationally artistic” and one that is “representationally realistic,” the former allowing for nonexistent realities to be perceived as possessing a realism. As Giralt observes, “the greater their apparent realism, the greater the illusion displayed” (12). Following Prince’s lead by taking into account the way games have already been defined by their rule systems, one is inclined to acknowledge that gamic realism comprises what feels real (a phenomenology of realism), and this differs from public consideration of gaming realism as the extent to which games contain lifelike representations as a creative work. In his discussion of realistic representation in the digital age, Giralt (2010) draws on José Ortega y Gasset’s Dehumanisation of Art, in which he attempts to discern how to distinguish the most real and authentic reality from multiple realities. Using the example of a wife, a doctor, a reporter, and a painter witnessing the same reality of a dying man, Ortega (1968) acknowledges that each would supply an authentic account of the event. The difference between their accounts would stem from the “emotional distance of each one in relation to the common event, the agony” (20). This example provides a useful means of accounting for the tensions created by those concerned about the influence of games, and the prominence of the image in guiding these concerns, an approach that has eclipsed (and made assumptions concerning) the nature of the experience offered by games. Ortega points to the “degree of distanciation,” to distinguish between what he calls a “lived” reality, that in a game context would refer to direct involvement, skill, practice, and degrees of mastery and control, and “observed” reality, involving an examination of game events as they appear on-​ screen, which achieves independence from the demands, rules, and exchanges between the system and the player. Ortega provides a scale whereby the richest experience is felt by the individual who is closest (emotionally)—​the one most invested—​whereas the experience of the observer furthest from the event is characterized by

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“greater superficiality” (Giralt 2010). Ortega concludes that: “In the scale of realities, ‘lived’ reality holds a peculiar primacy which compels us to regard it as ‘the’ reality” (24).

Index The concept of index, or the “relation between the image and what stood in front of the camera when the picture was struck” (2)  has assumed prevalence in scholarly considerations of realism. Yet, Martin Lefebvre (2007) has argued that the concept has been wrested from Charles Peirce’s semiotic and pragmatist philosophy and theory of knowledge through signs (and with it their classification). Indeed, Peirce identified three sets of trichotomies that address different questions, namely: ●●

what constitutes or makes a sign a sign (qualisign, sinsign, legisign);

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the basis on which a sign comes to stand for its object (icon, index, symbol); and

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the manner in which a sign conceives or interprets its object (rheme, dicent, argument).

The sets of trichotomies together address three inalienable components of the sign:  the sign itself (or representamen), the object (that which the sign represents) and its meaning or ramification (interpretant). While I do not offer a fuller account of Peirce’s theory here (see Clara Fernández-​Vara’s 2011 article “Game Spaces Speak Volumes: Indexical Storytelling” for an application of Peirce’s theory to games), his theorization considers how the image extends beyond its existential connection to the object (index). The image is no longer automatically considered a consequence of reality, as the advent of digital imaging has reversed the order of nature (reality) over culture (technology), leading to a consideration of the other means by which the semiotic function is achieved, whereby signs indicate objects. A sign may stand for its object by virtue of its likeness to it (icon) and the possibility it offers (rheme), thus connecting it to its presence



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in the world. In the real world the actuality of murder, death, crime, weapons, shootings, and war is undeniable. In this way, games draw on certain conditions of existence or reality that are present in the world. Yet when a gun is placed in the player’s virtual hand during a virtual reenactment of a The Second World War campaign, rarely does that experience involve engaging with an artifact with a direct physical link to an original object. That is, the moveable object in the hands of the player is not perceived as a record of something created by light bouncing off the “profilmic” object in front of the camera (Souriau 1953), but as a playable toy. Furthermore, many of the futuristic objects for play possess an iconic quality or likeness: players understand that the configuration of a handle, trigger, and barrel represents a gun, as it exists in “our” world. The presence of guns in games is connected to their presence in the outside world through their shared function as an object capable of damaging and terminating another life-​force (albeit artificially in a game). Of course, a player’s use and mastery of a game weapon is restricted to its application relative to the conditions of play, as it remains contained within a game world instance. Indeed, the “actuality” of the physical and material properties of guns has little bearing on, or role to play, in the virtual experience of its use (in terms of weight, pullback, discharge rate, accuracy, and so on), or on the implications or consequences of its use (emotionally or legally) within games. Within the majority of games, guns possess different qualities from their real world counterparts, as games do not seek to capture or represent the truth, but are more often driven by an entertainment imperative in their appropriation of causal relationships. Guns within games serve to remove soft boundaries (King and Krzywinska 2003), maintain effective life/​health levels for an avatar, and are a means to continued progression. Existents (characterized as enemies) are drawn to the player in possession of a virtual gun, signaling that a skirmish is an anticipated and expected condition of the environment. The player is rarely a bystander in war, but adopts a role (a soldier, for example); it is through performativity and its effects the object in the virtual hands of the player becomes a gun. That is, a digital gun is used as a catalyst for creating a new reality (in which the player fulfills the role of revealing and activating the text). Poremba (2011) argues in favor of an extended index or indexical chains; similarly, Rosen

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(2001) states that “digital information and images can have indexical origins—​the digital often appropriates or conveys indexical images and it is common for the digital image to retain compositional forms associated with indexicality—​not in opposition but in overlap” (34). In this way, many games draw objects into their aesthetic and world logic, absorbing and appropriating them for their own needs while avoiding having particular elements dictate or obfuscate the activity. It may be an obvious point, but rarely is it explicitly stated that the majority of games do not actually contain bullets (with a few exceptions, such as bullet time in the Max Payne series). So while guns operate as though they are discharging bullets, what actually takes place is also an association that has been created between the action of button pushing/​trigger pulling and the events in front of the gun within the game environment. Doom co-​creator and game historian John Romero has commented how the reward for the programmer is the “feedback for what the bullet does,” that is, “the flash, the ejection and the particle effect on the wall that it hits. Just like in real life, the feedback you get is the same you get in the game, which is muzzle flash, sound and something at the end” (cited in Totilo 2010). In games, the bullet’s path has been determined, its speed has been calculated and its impact has been rendered, despite the bullet not existing in any way in object form. Some games have sought to exploit indexicality in a more traditional sense via the inclusion of archival footage (such as Call of Duty: World at War, Activision 2008). This tactic is intended to create what Paul Ward (2008) has described as a “shift in modality, intended as a shift to sober discourse” (para. 15). In this particular instance, Jamie Baron (2010) has described the inclusion of archival footage in Call of Duty as the moment in which “the ‘real’ has suddenly exceeded the ‘realism’ of the rest of the game” (2). He describes the disparity that it creates temporally between what he labels the then of the original production of the footage and the now, reflecting the conditions of its insertion within a game in which it bookends sections of game play. When players witness images or footage of Adolf Hitler, they do so in a format that recalls the events surrounding The Second World War, which comprise the historic rather than the here and now (favored by games), and also pre-​dates the medium in which it is currently being presented. The effect is disruptive, as it also exposes an



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inevitability or predetermined narrative teleology (Punday 2004). In addition, it also highlights how the “reality effect”—​which “relies on the evocation of culturally constructed notions of reality that are often understood as a synecdoche of the real” (Jaguaribe 2005, 70)—​is not itself being satisfied by the rest of the game aesthetic. To a certain extent, the shock of the real is in full effect as it does indeed disrupt the normative patterns of coherent graphic representation apparent across all game layers (referring to the conceptual segmentation of games in Chapter 3). Do games that represent contemporary military engagements present the player with a closer, more “authentic” experience of post 9/​11 conflicts? Such engagements are themselves augmented by technology, creating a convergence between videogame depictions of war and how war is presently conducted. From Der Derian’s (2009) exhaustive term the “military-​industrial-​media-​entertainment network,” to Keogh’s (2013) account of the military-​entertainment complex, there is recognition of the extent to which the two industries “remain umbilically connected” (Dyer-​Witheford and de Peuter 2009, xxix). Some argue that the military virtualization of war has extracted and exploited the unreal nature of games in order to further dissociate self from other during war. Yet the simplified worlds of games dispense with, or obscure, “a messy reality where battlefields are rarely without a civilian presence, precision-​guided ordnance is rarely precise, and where battle lines can rarely, if ever, be neatly reduced to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys” (Keogh 2013, 2). Dyer-​Witheford and de Peuter’s (2009) account of Full Spectrum Warrior (Pandemic Studios 2004)  notes how in games the “streets are deserted and houses empty, apart from ubiquitous Tangos (who all die instantaneously when hit). Air and artillery strikes do not hit wedding parties. There is no collateral damage. War is peace” (113). Smicker (2010) observes how contemporary military FPSs show a tendency toward “proleptic” warfare. That is, they enact future imagined warfare scenarios within unstable territories in a post-​9/​ 11 era, in which the aim of combat is, as King and Leonard (2010) claim, to ensure that the particular ideology that “guides U.S. hegemony around the globe” (94) prevails. Indeed, a similar modal logic is found in the concept of “possible worlds,” possessing a different ontological status but nevertheless acknowledging “things might be

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otherwise than they are . . . [that leads to a belief] in the existence of entities that might be called ‘ways things could have been’ ” (Lewis 1973, 182). To this extent, “reality,” as Buckland (1999) argues, is not simply made up of “a fixed realm of facts open to immediate experience, but a complex structure of sub-​systems, only one of which is actual” (181). Within game studies, Sybille Lammes (2010) presents a scholarly account of contemporary or modern warfare games that embraces a relatively similar thought process. She identifies games set in familiar, iconic, or narrated spaces as “magic nodes” that connect representations to the real spaces in the formation of a wider social network. In doing so, magic nodes connect the player to a social reality beyond the game, in contrast to Huizinga’s concept of the magic circle that screens off life, creating a distance and escape. Höglund (2014) adopts Lammes’s work in his analysis of Battlefield 3 as a ludic space. While he emphasizes the manner in which the game’s Grand Bazaar map is representative of an actual geographical area located in Tehran, Iran, he shows an unwillingness to comprehend that the space, devoid of civilians, and life, riddled with bullet holes and the detritus of conflict, is itself a signal that the space has already been transformed for the player into an (empty) playground. In the same way that cones on a field outline a boundary line for a soccer game, the urban space has been converted and reconstituted as a space for play. Höglund (2014) does however acknowledge that “war is the only possible practice” in which “food containers, garbage, urban art, religious signs, places of worship, and sites of trade and rest, have meaning only as shelters, hiding places and targets” (7), but maintains that a conventional FPS performance in such a space is complicated by its rendering of an actual physical space. I contend that the “realistic” rendering of a small area of Tehran does not shape or affect the relationship between the actions of the player and the game world in the way that Höglund suggests, and propose that Grand Bazaar is no different to any other military FPS. Essentially, players do not voluntarily modify their behavior or operate in a culturally sensitive manner, nor do they seek to engage with or protect civilians and their way of life within this context. The notion of possible worlds represents a more flexible concept to understand the Grand Bazaar environment, as it is able to embrace the contradiction of an assemblage that includes indexical associations



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to the real world. In making a possible world, the substratum of the conditions of play can be retained and acknowledged in terms of any impact upon the mise-​en-​scène of the game (see also the discussion of Hollywood’s desire to destroy New  York, in Chapter  7). On the one hand, the Grand Bazaar map is not entirely fictional because it is indeed grounded in the actual world; namely, it corresponds to a place inhabited by individuals that one may opt to journey to. While the space attains the same standing in the game of Battlefield 3 as a location within the world, the game-​version is distinct from what one would find should they visit that same space today (at least at the time of writing), as it is devoid of life and civilian presence. A further element of the assemblage relates to the way in which the game also extracts from existing political policy, which has then been extended within the region, taking it to a new place with similar effect. These nonfictional dimensions allow the game to lay claim to being a possible world. Warren Buckland (1999) has discussed possible worlds with respect to Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novels in the films Jurassic Park (1993) and Lost World (1997), in which he cites the speculation that the film created concerning the capacity of genetic engineering to fulfill the films’ narratives. This was considered possible given its credible scientific foundation—​that is, George Poinar’s (1992) pioneering molecular paleontology, and the extraction of DNA from a 30-​million-​year-​old stingless tropical bee preserved in Dominican Republic amber. Coupled with the knowledge of the existence of dinosaurs over 200 million years ago, the New York Times found itself reassuring readers that “scientists will not have the capability any time soon of resurrecting the dinosaurs” (Macintyre 1993, 14). Skip forward to 2013 and the internet was again awash with reports of the possibilities of de-​extinction, as the discovery of a preserved woolly mammoth in a Siberian permafrost led to thoughts that ancient beasts—​that roamed the earth tens of thousands of years ago, in the late Pleistocene period—​could also return. Games do not therefore always operate on “pure fantasy.” Their content does not constitute impossibility, but instead plays with—​ and extends—​notions of the real. This appears to stand in contrast to the possibilities brought about by the development of digital imagery. Indeed, with digitization came the ability to generate an infinite set of images (Braga 1997), freeing image-​makers from having to produce

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an “analogue of the real” (Buckland 1999). Yet, Battlefield 3’s developers (in the case of the Grand Bazaar) instead chose to confine themselves to refashioning a particular physical space and architectural form. This possibly reflects game makers’ desire to deliver—​rather than merely suggest—​expansive worlds, implementing a game version of film ellipses by moving the action from one world location to another. In film, the image attempts to be harmonious and unified, integrating both the visible (e.g., dinosaurs) and invisible special effects (such as forces of nature, great vistas, or wildlife), so that illusion anchors itself to reality to create a coherent or complete sense of realism. However, when such icons such as the Eiffel Tower (Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare 3, Infinity Ward 2011), London landmarks (The Getaway, Team Soho 2002), or the Statue of Liberty (Assassin’s Creed:  Unity, Ubisoft 2014)  appear in games they contribute to a completely computer-​ generated game aesthetic. Additionally, the player does not occupy the same diegesis, as an interface typically sits on top of the game environment as a frame or lens through which the player engages with the world. The Grand Bazaar—​like other spaces, worlds, events, and activities—​is overlaid with an interface that reminds the player of their relationship to the space. Indeed, the intent of the game is to expose the player to threats consigned within the space, while providing them with the means to extinguish those threats. The faithful representation of space does not mean that it is possible to approach or treat the space as a lived or habitable space; it is instead a traversable space and a setting for play. This discussion of player experience brings to mind the early position expressed by Kücklich (2006) who stated that game aesthetics constitute “an aesthetics of control” (108). Despite the graphical detail and scale on which virtual playing fields are now constructed, Crawford’s (1982) claim that “games are closed formal systems that create subjective and deliberately simplified representation of emotional reality” still remains relevant. Hanna Sommerseth (2007) has likewise stated that:  “[q]uestions regarding graphic realism or correspondence to outside reality are . . . less important than questions regarding the player’s actions and expectations” (767). In claiming this, she seeks to acknowledge the body and the individual working and playing behind the scene, refuting romantic notions of controllers



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as extensions to the body that set us within a virtual world, or permit us to leave our selves behind (Rheingold 1994). Indeed, Luz, Damásio, and Gouveia (2008) have stated that players are not confused in a sensory respect; instead, “our body is ‘on this side’ of the window, suffering back pain and retinal persistence from moving images” (1). Furthermore, control within games is not limited to physical movement within virtual space; players may also employ strategic thinking or associated thoughts that may initiate a pausing of play to permit consultation of repositories of information, or give consideration to options connected to the feel or sensitivity of controls or other forms of perceptual customization that reflect player preference attached to input. This describes how control and engagement extends across a range of spatial domains within games, beyond the immediate diegetic space of the game world. Alexander Gallway (2004) argues that “[g]ames signal a third phase for realism. The first two phases were realism in narrative (literature) and realism in images (painting, photography, film). Now there is also realism in action. Whereas the visual arts compel viewers to engage in the act of looking, games compel players to perform acts.” Herein lies a key source of confusion for those who seek greater regulation of, and control over games. For Gallway the solution is couched in terms of an acknowledgment of the methectic rather than memetic realism of games. Gallway’s arguments sit within a broader discussion that seeks to emphasize a distinction between social realism and realistic representation, whereby he considers how social realism might be attainable for games. He argues that social realism can only be achieved when a relationship is established between the “affective desires of gamers and the real social contexts in which they live.” He describes this as: Some kind of congruence, some type of fidelity of context that transliterates itself from the social reality of the gamer . . . This is what I call the “congruence requirement” and it is necessary for achieving realism in gaming. This argument takes the discussion of games away from issues associated with visual fidelity to some degree, by considering broader notions of realism. For example, games such as The Sims (Maxis

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2000) imitate undertakings found in everyday life. However, one has to only examine The Sims as a rule system in order to question its claims to social realism. Indeed, Miguel Sicart (2003) has understood The Sims as a simulation of the ideology of late capitalist societies, not because it seeks to function as an objective social simulator of these societies, but because what the game system allows is “ideologically guided.” As Sicart notes, the player does not have the freedom to become a misfit or to exist as a homeless person. The limitation of Gallway’s argument is the faith it places in games to be “realist in doing, in action” (counter to Dreyfus’s argument) and trusting that games may marry the social reality known and lived by the gamer to the social reality depicted in a game. There are however instances where it is hard to discern the difference between the visual presentation of games and other forms of screen-​based mediation that they mimic, when considered solely on presentational grounds. In his article on Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Development 2012), Keogh (2013) cites Wikileaks’ editor-​ in-​ chief Julian Assange’s comments on a leaked video that was captured by a US Apache helicopter (including the pilots’/​gunmen audio commentary), in which civilians were targeted and gunned down. In discussing the footage Assange is quoted as remarking on how: “The behavior of the pilots is like they’re playing a video game. It’s like they want to get high-​scores in that video game.” Without requiring any further knowledge of the pilots, whose improper conduct is exposed in this footage, it is nevertheless possible to point to the high level of visual correspondence between the Wikileaks footage and the “Death from Above” mission in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward 2007). The realism suggested by this mission is achieved only through its rendering, in which its presentation matches the same low-​resolution monochrome presentation with which on-​board cameras capture (and pilot’s view) the battlefield. Again, the game version represents a purposely degraded mode of presentation that lacks the exactness and level of detail typically associated with contemporary game aesthetics, in order to match the appearance of the real-​time interfaces found in combat. The helicopter footage provides an example of how screens constitute a lens and aesthetic filter through which warfare is increasingly experienced and enacted.



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The screen mediates combat by placing an optical shield between a military action and its target. It is possible to connect screen-​ mediated combat to a historical preference, shown by the armed forces for engaging enemies from a distance by employing ranged weapons. This is an effective combat option that reduces the risk of losing high numbers of combatants. This principle has been consistently employed from catapults and trebuchets to high altitude bombing and surface-​to-​surface missiles. Today operators of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) represent one of the most extreme examples of remote warfare, as pilots access on-​ board cameras and laser guide their weapons to their target from the safety of their homeland. In an article for livescience, Chow (2013) reports on interviews with RPA operators based in Arizona that were flying predator drones in Afghanistan. Of interest is the way the drone operators interviewed in this article directly addressed the perceived similarity between their role and the act of game playing. In doing so, they draw attention to the lack of human connection involved in games, while emphasizing the emotional impact of the hours they spend engaging in surveillance of a target site prior to, during the attack, and again post-​deployment (a greater level of contact and connection than is experienced by onboard pilots who conduct air strikes). Such accounts serve to dispel the notion that computer-​mediated engagement of an enemy represents the gamification of warfare. The actions of RPA operators are shaped by an awareness of several factors, including how they are in control of expensive equipment; their accountability for their actions; and how there are others in the field that depend on them to work effectively and be successful. As one of Chow’s interviewees commented: “These are real situations and real-​life weapons systems. Once you launch a weapon, you can’t hit a replay button to bring people back to life.” An article in the UK’s Telegraph (Blackhurst 2012) quotes members of the Royal Air Force 39 Squadron, who were flying US-​built MQ-​9 Reaper aircraft from Kandahar Airfield (Afghanistan). They also showed an awareness of their social responsibility: “If we act like it’s Star Wars, there are people in the command centre watching us and listening to what we do.” More broadly, game-​based presentations of combat are littered with embellishments or inaccuracies that fail to correspond with the contexts they portray. Despite possessing the ability to incorporate

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ballistic data into the design of game weapons, Philippe Therien (Sofge 2008), designer at Ubisoft Montreal, highlights how he is influenced, instead, by “what defines [weapons], or what people think defines them.” He gives several examples, citing how people “associate shotguns with powerful, close-​range weapons”; this influenced their design for Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Ubisoft Montreal 2008), so that they penetrate walls and armor despite their lack of penetration in the real world. Likewise for the Uzi, Therien explains that “people think it fires lots of bullets, and it’s really ­inaccurate . . . [so] I make it fire faster than it should. It’s about taking the personality of a weapon, and making it shine in the game.” He concludes:  “We could make it as anally realistic as possible. But we’re not trying to make a live simulator.” Benson Russell, developer on the Uncharted series (Naughty Dog), cited in Kotaku (Ashcraft 2010), offers a fascinating comment on the process of gun selection that highlights the interplay between game needs, player preference, and the presentational truth of the fictional universe to which the developers remain bound. He states: There are few specific criteria we use in selecting the weapons for the Uncharted universe. Obviously since our game is set in reality, we stick to using only real life guns as a basis for our characters’ arsenal. This doesn’t mean that we can’t take some liberties with the art and the game play, but it does have to be believable in our universe. Also, our main character, Nathan Drake, can only carry one rifle style long gun, and one pistol style side arm at a given time. So when considering what type of weapons we want from a game play perspective we have to keep these points in mind and work within the boundaries they present. We have to think about the different combinations the player may prefer to use throughout the game, such as those who like to keep the power of a shotgun, yet don’t want to sacrifice having a fully automatic weapon. This leads us to find weapons that satisfy a variety of different tastes in each weapon slot. To keep things differentiated and balanced, we usually make the pistol versions of the weapon type slightly weaker, which has the added benefit of adding a layer of strategy for the player.



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He goes on to state: Once we’ve come up with gameplay choices, then we have to pick what we want the weapon to look like visually. For the Uncharted universe, a big part of this comes down to picking weapons with a specific character or charm to them and ones that will fit within the story and the difficulty ramp of the game. For example, in Uncharted 1, we wanted the rag-​tag group of pirates to have older, less high-​tech style weapons like the AK-​47 and the Makarov style pistol. When the private army of Roman and Navarro shows up, we wanted them to have upgraded, high-​tech looking weapons like the M4 and the Desert Eagle style pistol. Overall we never try to pick a weapon that’s very high-​tech looking, like a FAMAS or Styr Aug because we feel it just doesn’t sit well in the strong adventure style roots of the Uncharted universe. Outside the standard entertainment imperative of games the transferability of skills from entertainment to war has been contradicted by the existence of America’s Army (United States Army 2002). Developed as a recruitment device for the US Army, it seeks to encourage the conversion of virtual soldiers into real soldiers. In doing so, it suggests that game players constitute highly qualified candidates as operatives of modern mediated warfare. The manner in which unmanned aerial vehicles are maneuvered with a games-​ style joystick makes comparisons between the two activities simple. However, the transformation of gamers into soldiers appears less simple. In an article for the Washington Examiner, Peter Singer (2009), author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (Penguin, 2009), cites the concerns of an Air Force Colonel and Commander of a Predator drone squadron, who on the one hand recognizes that members of the videogame generation are “naturals” at piloting remote-​controlled aircraft and dealing with the fast-​moving, multitasking nature of modern warfare, but who struggle when attempting to consider the consequences of their actions. Singer quotes the Colonel as saying: The video game generation is worse at distorting the reality of it [war] from the virtual nature. They don’t have that sense of

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what is really going on. It [the videogame] teaches you how to compartmentalize it. To cite Sam Mendes’s adaptation of Anthony Swofford’s 2003 Gulf War memoir Jarheads for a second time, it contains a scene that offers a comment on how the influence of entertainment media in shaping soldiers’ expectations of war is problematic. In stark contrast to the lack of combat featured in the film’s account of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines (United States Marine Corps), the soldiers’ passion and exhilaration is most roused in a scene in which they watch the (anti-​ war) film Apocalypse Now (1979). The scene shows soldiers roaring and cheering with delight as they revel in its iconic helicopter attack, which signifies and celebrates military strength. The combination of technological dominance and the diegetic soundtrack of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” culminate in the dramatic destruction of a village being expressed as a triumph. This scene is set against the anticlimactic suspense portrayed by the film, derived from Swofford’s account of his disappointment and frustration at being cheated of first-​hand combat experience. The nature of what is transferred in any progression from gaming to computer-​mediated warfare should be a core consideration. In this respect, the concern reported by Singer illustrates unease with the apparent “gamification” of war. The emphasis appears to rest with the application of skills associated with composure, administration, and multitasking displayed during virtual combat, rather than the role of games in producing detached killers who are indifferent to the consequences of their actions. As stated in Chapter  3, games are partitioned from real life and hold no external consequences. In her discussion of gamification, Casey O’Donnell (2014) has warned that the broader notion of using “game design elements” (Deterding et al. 2011) in nongame contexts to motivate or encourage user activity requires “a great deal of analytical unpacking” (O’Donnell 2014, 349). Indeed the concept of gamification remains a highly contested one, with Bogost (2011b) suggesting that it should be replaced with the term “exploitationware.” He argues that “[w]hen people hear ‘gamification,’ it’s this incredible facility that registers, the simplicity, smoothness, and ease with which the wild, magical beast of games can be tamed and integrated into any other context at low cost and



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high scale” (2). The more typical and explicit-​ification of games within business and marketing has a tendency to mistake games’ secondary properties for primary ones, such as using points or achieving scores. This process undermines the complex nature of games as systems that characterize ideas in a ludic fashion. Likening the increasingly indispensable nature of computerized technologies on the battlefield to the pleasure and fun associated with games has a tendency to substitute human computer interaction (HCI) with games. It is HCI, not games, that seeks to make the use of computerized systems pleasurable and ergonomic for its users. That is, the notion of fun has been infused into thinking about “modes of interaction” in an attempt to provide the user with a “pleasurable experience” (Costello and Edmonds 2007). In this sense, the use of input devices that control objects and life, viewable via a screen, affords a “gameful interpretation rather than being gameful” (Deterding et al. 2011, 11). While the drone example exploits how certain features are shared (such as joysticks and heads up displays), the experience does not employ gameful design (it is not designed as or for a game experience) and lacks gamefulness (the experiential quality of a game). Deterding et  al. serve to clearly elaborate what is required in order to apply games within a nongame context. In doing so, part of their account of “gamification” indicates: ●●

the use (rather than the extension) of;

●●

design (rather than game-​based technology or other game-​ related practices); and

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elements (rather than full-​fledged games).

Discourses of concern that connect the fun of playing games to the apparently increasing ease with which death can be issued to those branded an enemy (when the physical demands are lowered) works to widen the rhetorical concern outlining the impact of gaming beyond the entanglement of mimicry and conversion already noted with reference to school shootings. In this instance, however, the gamification of war—​ seemingly characteristic in the extension of the reach of war—​has been questioned by drawing on the unease scholars have expressed in the applications and use of the concept

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of gamification. O’Donnell (2014) focuses on the “thingification” of gamification; referring to how “it wasn’t [and isn’t] really about games” (355), nor does it treat the -​ification of games in a thorough or knowledgeable way. The elements that encourage a likeness to be drawn between games and war, again, rarely address the game systems that are so fundamental to the game experience. To this effect, it has been possible to highlight the manner in which developers of militaristic games remain committed to games as cultural artifacts in and of themselves and not for other means. Eric Zimmerman (2013) believes that we are currently experiencing the ludic century. By this, he claims that we have entered into, and currently inhabit, an era that has been moving beyond the influence of the image and the linear moving-​image in favor of a world of systems that demands to be understood analytically. Gaming typically evokes a systemic approach to thinking, characterized by a desire to analyze and explore a system. Some argue (such as Baron-​Cohen, Knickmeyer, and Belmonte 2005)  that such an approach stands in contrast to empathetic concern, thus highlighting an important and chief difference between technologically mediated warfare and gaming. Discussion so far has served to reaffirm the manner in which game play is a situated activity, underpinned by the rules that dictate the flow and nature of within-​ game actions, and which makes a transcoding of actions difficult to uphold across physical, social, and (now also) other digital contexts. Simon Penny (2004) has discussed the application of simulators as effective training instruments for future actions and roles, arguing that it is difficult to refute the reality of actions within games. Poremba (2011) critiques this position, arguing that Penny’s argument “drifts between analogy and actuality” (74), and claiming that such a position fails to “fully explore the implications of context” (ibid.) that would account for the same actions having different levels of reality in different contexts. As the pilots of the Royal Air Force 39 Squadron (previously quoted) describe the focus of their actions when they fly, they stress:  “You’re attached to the airframe, you’re attached to the view that you see, and you’re attached to the laws of armed conflict”—​a set of principles that contextualize and govern their actions and conduct.



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Indexicality of sound This discussion of indexicality has yet to consider the role of sound in perceptions of realism. To this effect, the work of Mark Grimshaw served to remind game studies of the significance and importance of sound, particularly the contribution made by a game’s acoustic ecology to a player’s experience (Grimshaw and Schott 2007). The concept of an acoustic ecology highlights the web of interactions that occur at a sonic level within games. Such interactions within games again expand the parameters of indexicality; traditionally, audification asks the listener to believe that the sounds produced not only emanate from, but share the materiality of the objects they are meant to represent. As Grimshaw and Schott (2007) observe, auditory icons can range from sounds that are similar to real-​world analogues of the digital action to more abstract icons. The former lean toward some need for sociocultural knowledge or experience of a real-​world equivalent (e.g., the sound a gun makes when it is fired), while the latter are either learned or require prior experience of the auditory icon in a similar gaming or computing context. They argue that games that seek to induce an illusion of reality will contain fewer symbolic auditory icons—​which account for the more arbitrary mapping between sound data and its representation, say, in the case of a nondiegetic menu interface and its accompanying pop-​up sound—​or metaphorical auditory icons that represent fantasy objects or events (such as the sound of a teleporter). They state: In FPS games that attempt a more all-​encompassing illusion of reality, such as Battlefield 1942 (Digital Illusions) or Urban Terror (Silicon Ice), there are very few, if any, in-​game diegetic symbolic or metaphorical auditory icons. Even the auditory representation of a sinking ship in Battlefield 1942, a difficult and impractical sound to record, is convincingly represented by a caricature nomic [or representational] auditory icon consisting of the sounds of a large metal object under stress. The proportion of nomic sounds to non-​nomic sounds can therefore be used to assess the degree of the simulation of reality within a FPS game.

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Another component of indexicality is derived from the causal and relational nature of sound and its production within a game, termed sonification. Sonification refers to the sounds that are triggered in response to player actions, either in the form of kinediegetic sounds (sound triggered directly by the player’s input), or experienced due to player presence in a game world having instigated a game world instance, as in the case of exodiegetic sounds (the sounds of NPCs, environment or other game objects that have not been triggered directly by that player). Højlund and Kinch (2014) discuss how sonic habituation is an often-​ overlooked phenomenon when investigating how humans sense and cope with their surroundings. Their work focuses specifically on the stress and anxiety caused by the sonic impact of the sounds generated within intensive care units, particularly upon young children visiting relatives. Medical environments have been characterized as “too loud, too insistent, and tend to disrupt thought and communication at the very time that it is vital” (Edworthy 1994, 15). Højlund and Kinch (2014) introduce the notion of embodied sound, reflecting the notion that the mood of a space (or place) is found “neither in the sphere of the object nor in that of the subject; rather, it is a co-​presence that exists within the terms of the subject/​object engagement.” They conclude that perception is “understood as an embodied and temporal practice. Thus, atmospheres are not static states existing beforehand in a room, but rather an ongoing and temporal negotiation between the sensing body in relation to others and the environment.” Again, it is necessary to return to the qualitative difference between observing and taking part in a game. Sounds are important to the player and contribute greatly to the challenge offered by games, specifically in their attempt to disorientate, disrupt, and bewilder the player in order to make play an intense and challenging experience. For a game space to function effectively players are required to become accustomed to the sonic ecology that they inhabit. Such knowledge then also allows players to use auditory systems to detect changes that signal new or upcoming demands of play, thus allowing attention to be redirected appropriately (Horowitz 2013). Fluegge’s (2011) concept of personal sound space incorporates and acknowledges the extent to which sound space in games is our own, as it belongs to our actions and represents our presence as a



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moving entity that is interacting with the space. The concept of a personal sound space melds together sound space, personal space, and personal sound. Personal space thus represents the movement and position of the avatar, as well as the sounds that encircle the player during an activity or personal journeying. The sound files allocated to the player character’s actions might indicate expenditure of effort or reduced stamina (e.g., heavy breathing), or the use and application of resources (such as confirmation that an action has been successfully executed), and the sonic range of a game and how sound is designed to operate in the game space (e.g., the relationship between proximity and amplitude, and the degree to which we get to hear things before we see them in games). In this way, a personal aural experience of the sound space is discernable and possible, but in a manner that is reliant upon the player constructing their auditory environment through action, thus also making it subjective. Chapter  2 considered the role of profanity in games, highlighting how little attention has been given to the player’s role in the choice or content of expression. To this effect, the inclusion of profanity within games is the only recourse really given to the role of sound within classification. Rarely is violence demarcated as a sonic experience, with realism a characteristic of the vivid nature of the image (as graphic violence). However, in the United States, Channel Fox 5 ran a news story in October 2014 that reported how a school was briefly locked down in the San Diego area as police followed up reports of gunfire, only to discover a couple playing videogames at high volume.1 Drawing on anecdotal evidence taken from Schott’s (2008, 2009) field research for the project Videogame Violence:  Under­standing its Seduction and Pleasures for Young People in New Zealand, one experience stood out as illustrating the different nature that a sound “heard” (detached from play) may possess. During the course of the project a number of focus group sessions were conducted with adolescents that were preceded by game-​ ­ play sessions. During these sessions the auditory contrast between war gaming’s gesture to reality and fantasy-​based gaming’s science fiction (in this case Halo 2, Bungie 2004)  became extremely clear. While away from   http://​fox5sandiego.com/​2014/​10/​02/​violent-​video-​game-​prompts-​school-​lockdown/​.

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the screens, preparing for the focus groups, Schott experienced the way sound violated the learning environments in which the study was being conducted. The audio output of the war game penetrated the room with sharp bursts, suggesting ferocity and violence, in contrast to the gentler imagined sounds of laser fire coming from the other side of the room. Removed from the optical characteristics of the action on-​screen, the contrast was quite startling and triggered the researcher’s reflection on the role played by sound profiles in judgments concerning the violent nature of games. Much like the use of “attack” in music that denotes the passion or ferocity with which a note is hit, the sound of the war muzzle blasts penetrating the room appeared to signify that determined and aggressive actions were being performed. The chaos of the game as articulated by its sound space conveyed a sense that a violent impulse was being fulfilled, suggesting a level of atrocity far greater than was the actual case. This impression was created solely by the game’s sound outputs. In his account of the sound in a scene from Fight Club (Fincher 1999)—​in which Edward Norton’s ungainly blow hits Brad Pitt on the ear—​Mack Hagood (2014) highlights the significance and impact of the sound that signifies the blow and its ability to articulate violence. In the scene, the punch strikes the upstage side of Pitt’s head, requiring the audio experience to give it impact. As Michel Chion (1994) has also highlighted: “What we hear is [often] what we haven’t had time to see” (64). For the characters in Fight Club, their response to the impact of consumer society on masculine identity is a return to reality via the body and pain. In the context of this narrative, the audience is asked to question the construction of the image; therefore Fincher turns to sound as a “body-​double for touch” (Hagood 2014, 102). Fighting heightens the lived experience of the men in Fight Club; the contact craved by these men is found in a form of touch—​one that leaves its mark. Foley artists are concerned with voicing action (what the actor is doing) as distinct from a sound editor, whose emphasis rests more with applying effects to focus attention on relevant actions within an environment (Ament 2009). In line with the constructed nature of sound, Fight Club’s pugilistic sounds were achieved by “shattering chicken carcasses with baseball bats, cracking walnuts inside, smacking around slabs of meat with pigs’ feet” (sound designer Ren Klyce, cited in Buskin), and were



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thus authentic as physical, forceful actions. Hagood (2014) argues that:  “[r]eproduced sound reverberates through the time-​space of its reproduction, effectively bringing two moments and spaces into a phenomenological union that is not entirely ‘real’ ” (109). To this extent, Hagood concludes that the “sonically stylized” nature of Fight Club, and its reliance on synchresis, undermines its intended “utility of sound as a true filmic intervention against the postmodern visual” (110). Nevertheless, the sound design in this film does also reveal the changing nature of sonic impact. The foley artists on Fight Club were compelled to create their own punch sound library, rather than taking sounds from the generic stockpile of sounds that are available. This reflects how an acceptable index for a brutal, primal punch had changed over time, in the sense that past sounds (Hagood cites Klyce’s reference to the punch sounds used on Rocky) have become too familiar to audiences and therefore more noticeable as foley, thus losing their impact.

Authenticity of sound A core feature of sound production in film is thus how it is fashioned, then synchronized with the image to allow it to be experienced as emanating from a particular source. This has allowed the sound of actions or events to become stylized. Take, for example, the sounds that have become associated with car chases such as car horns, tires skidding, and engine revving (Moncrieff, Venkatesh, and Dorai 2001, 538). The most recognizable aural signatures are constructed, associated with an object by means of proximity or the ventriloquism effect (Alais and Burr 2004). As Lastra (2000) states: “Fidelity to source is not a property of film sound, but an effect of synchronization” (207). Fencott (1999) has argued that the accurate representation of real-​ world sounds is less important than audition and visualization processes in terms of the player’s experience, as presence is primarily a result of perception rather than sensation. Indeed, Grimshaw (2011) similarly notes that a shotgun (he uses the example of the Special Purpose Assault Shotgun or SPAS which appears in numerous FPS games), is not heard as the “original recorded sound source in its real-​ world context but becomes, through the synchresis of player action,

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game image and audio samples, the sound of the player firing the game’s shotgun” (355). The sound is therefore indexical to the player’s actions, rather than the gun from which the sound was initially recorded in the external world. There are cases where field recordings have been collected to imbue games with the highest degree of authenticity. For example, when sound engineers from Microsoft Game Studios found themselves needing electric car sounds for the upcoming games Forza (Turn 10 Studios 2005) and Project Gotham Racing (Bizarre Creations 2001), it required hours spent recording a Tesla Roadster driving at varying speeds (in increments of 10 miles per hour) and over various types of pavement. With more aggressive driving developers were also able to force the capture the Hollywood-​desired tire-​squealing noises. In this instance, sounds were captured using three large boom mics that were “suction-​cupped” to the side and rear of the vehicle; one mic in the trunk, and two up front over the “swaybars” near the front tires (Richard 2009). However, there are other genres and examples where authenticity runs counter to the need to create dramatic effect. For example, Akira Yamaoka, developer of Japanese fantasy horror Silent Hill (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo), has commented that: The sound of a real gun is loud and clumsy. The tone and timbre of the “pan, pan” when firing isn’t cool. If you were to put those sounds into a game, the impact and strength of the effects would be lost. Therefore, you need to add sounds that aren’t present in the real world in order to make it more dramatic. For example, by adding the sounds of the bullets going through the air. (Cited in Ashcraft 2010) On his videogame website Digital Love Child, writer McCarter (2014) reflects on a first-​time experience of firing a gun at a rifle range and concludes that games “remove us from the physicality of using a kind of weaponry that is, no mistake about it, innately physical. The resistance of a pulled trigger; the backward thrust of gun butt into shoulder and chest; the smell of burnt powder; the incredible noise” (emphasis added). He reflects on the unreality of shooting



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in games, as player experience entails “nothing more than a tapped button, underwhelming sound effect, and tiny controller vibration.” In their ludic imperative toward abstraction, games encourage a view of firearms as magic wands for solving problems and neutralizing targets. Firing a gun in a game is neither physically demanding nor is it sonically harsh and unpleasant. Amplitude clearly impacts on the level of accuracy a sonic experience can claim. It also impacts upon the degree of realism attained during simulation when employed in entertainment forms. Indeed, a typical muzzle blast is capable of generating an impulse sound wave with sound pressure levels that can range between 120 dB and 160 dB, possibly resulting in sensory-​neural hearing loss. It is also said that one shot from a .357 magnum pistol can expose a shooter to 165 dB for 2 msec, the equivalent to over 40 hours in a loud industrial work environment. William Derham’s (1713) Physico-​Theology remarks on the transmission of gun sound over distance—​ “The sound of guns fired by his wish for the purpose of experiment at Florence, was heard by persons in Leghorn, a distance of fifty-​five miles” (Higgins 1838, 48). In this brief account of sound in conclusion to this chapter, it is clear that its relationship with reality and its indexicality is a complex reconfiguration and transformation from a source and its eventual playback. Sound is altered from its source and its initial capture via (1) sound mixing and the addition of effects before it becomes as a sound file for the game; (2) its coupling to objects within the game world, serving as an indexical referent for player inputs; and (3) the eventual output levels of the game sounds themselves to be adjustable and controllable by the player during play, affecting its impact and altering its faithfulness as an experience. As Lambert (2011) has stated, the “sonic phenomenon presupposes mixing, contamination, and a degree of uncertainty and impurity.” The timbre of constructed sounds may however effectively possess a violent quality characterized by the force, power, and the energy they convey. There is a need to “expand the perception of sounds” (Oliveros 2005, xxiii) to understand how sound contributes contextual fidelity both in relation to realism in action and also as a signifier of violence by itself.

5 Player control, obligation, and orientation

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his chapter considers the nature of the intent associated with player’s engagements within game worlds and, by definition, encounters with their rule systems. As stated in previous chapters, the rule systems of games are understood as being quite distinct from the socially produced systems of rules to which most social activity is expected to conform and which pervades our wider social contexts. Social conventions of course derive their strength from agreement among the social majority or institutional rule (Witherell and Edwards 1991). As such, moral conventions arise from a process of social creation, in which “conflicts between rules and standards that arise within and between persons” are reconciled (Wong 1984). In this way, game worlds come into conflict with our social and contextual forms of meaning that hold a function as part of our social systems. Games have been identified as a destabilizing force, undermining social mores through their reinforcement of harmful activities that signal a disregard for life. The judgment that acts of violence in digital games breach established conventions creates a sense of unease that such transgressions may spill over into our social domains in which the individual functioning of persons-​in-​relation (Gilligan 1982) operate according to different values. Indeed, a survey conducted by the Australian Government on behalf of the Attorney General’s Department revealed that 63 percent of respondents believe that playing violent computer games results in real-​life violence. In the context of his application of emotion theory to games, Torben Grodal (2000) has questioned the idea that the fascination

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of games resides solely with violence and aggression, but claims, instead, that it “consists of many different elements” (199). He contends that emotion during game play is phasic; that is, there is a cause for the arousal experienced by the player, which is followed by an appreciation of what is needed, and a response in the form of an action. He states that: The emotional experience of a given situation will consequently be different according to whether it is cued by a film or by a video game. When viewing a film the labeling of the emotions felt is determined by the viewer’s passive appreciation of the film character’s coping potentials. But when the situation is part of a video game, it is the player’s assessment of his own coping potential. (201) Grodal’s work serves to highlight the nature of film as manipulating the audience’s lack of control over the direction of their perception or possible reactions to arousing events. In contrast, games give players control over the point-​of-​view (camera), thus controlling the point and position that the game world presents. In this respect, players are given charge of how they experience the events of a game, as well as how they manage the responsibility of sustaining the existence of the character under their control. Grodal outlines how games transfer a number of responsibilities to the player, including the use of the player’s attention to control perception and actively coordinate visual attention and motor actions. These qualities also determine the player’s experience of the other entities that seek out the player, define the nature of the actions that have to be performed, and the sense of pace and urgency with which they have to be achieved. He argues that games allow the player to participate in a self-​controlled arousing experience. The time spent on a given game is player-​controlled, and therefore it may be suggested that the player will continue to play until he or she has achieved an optimal arousal equilibrium. (209) Grodal’s work serves to generate questions regarding the nature and the extent of the relationship that exists between the player and



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the entity that is located within the game world. Indeed, Lankoski (2011) has argued that a “comprehensive investigation of the role of a player character in the playing experience is still lacking” (292). Player control or intent has to be considered in relation to a further duality that occurs between virtual figures as “avatar” or as “character.” Klevjer (2012) argues that there is a distinction between “a playable character (or persona)” and an avatar as a “vehicle through which the player is given some sort of embodied agency and presence in the game world” (17). Daniel Vella (2014) recognizes that with respect to game components two separate dualities are being conflated, which he distinguishes as the ontological duality in the figure, as both self and other, and the duality of the player’s relation to the figure as both subjective and objective. To emphasize Vella’s insights, Kristine Jørgensen (2009) had previously observed that “seeing the gameworld through the eyes of the avatar creates a feeling that the player becomes the avatar” (2); yet when the player character speaks, that relationship immediately shifts from “being completely controlled by the player into being an individual and autonomous being with a will of his own” (3). In attributing intent and causal motivation for game actions, there is a need to acknowledge whether game play experience is being adjudged according to the belief that the actions of a player-​figure constitute those of an “avatar”—​in which the virtual entity corresponds to a manifestation of the player—​or that of “player character,” that is, as a largely predetermined fictional character. In addition to the ontology of the entity itself, Vella (2014) is clear to identify the importance of the “mode of relation between it and the player” (2), and articulates this with reference to Salen and Zimmerman’s (2003) adaptation of Du Bois’s (1903) concept of “double-​ consciousness.” This is applied to games to account for the ways players may take on the role of the entity yet remain “fully aware of the character as an artificial construct” (453). Saler (2012) describes double-​consciousness as being “capable of living simultaneously in multiple worlds without experiencing cognitive dissonance” (13).1 Instead, this mode of relation permits both “an  The discomfort arises comes from the disharmony of conflicting attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

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emotional immersion in, and rational reflection on, imaginary worlds, yielding a form of modern enchantment that delights without deluding” (30). The player-​entity, whether experienced as avatar or player character, can also be related to as either self or other (Vella 2014). That is, the player gains a “ludic subject” through which they inhabit the game world, that can be perceived as “them” (subjective relation of self), or perceives their subjective occupation as being in a form that belongs to a distinct individual separate from themselves (subjective relation to other). Objectively, Emma Westecott’s (2009) paper on player characters as performing objects likens play to puppetry, as she focuses on the way a character can be viewed as acting out the movements that correspond to the player’s input (see Chapter 6 for further discussion of the value of puppetry for distinguishing player input from screen performance). As she describes it: “A doubling happens in this action, between the physical movements on the controller and the representation of agency on screen. As a player I  act, then I  watch the results of my action on screen, always already audience to my own play practice” (1). Vella (2014) recognizes that there is a distinction to be drawn between playing the figure versus playing with the figure that can widen the perceptual and experiential gap between player and screen action. This distinction not only allows for the figure to be perceived objectively from an exterior perspective, but also permits the player to recognize the character as related to him/​herself (objective relation of self) or as a distinct object separate from them (objective relation of other). Espen Aarseth’s (2004b) comment on Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft potentially exemplifies the notion of the objective relation of other, where he states:  “A different-​looking body would not make me play differently. When I play, I don’t even see her body, but I  see through it and past it” (48). Aarseth’s account describes an ergodic world filled with challenges, puzzles, and obstacles that require nontrivial effort from the player, a focus that extends beyond the figure in front of the player. As North (1999) states, if the world is ergodic, “it has a stable underlying structure, such that we can develop theory that can be applied time after time, consistently” (2). In contrast, Diane Carr (2002) has described her experience of Lara Croft thus: “I enjoy playing with Lara Croft; I appreciate her agility, her solitary determination and lethal accuracy” (171, emphasis added).



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In making this statement Carr presents quite a different account of what is otherwise also an objective relation of other. Niklas Luhmann (2000) has considered observer status in relation to our engagement with mass media, whereby he challenges the capacity of the self/​ other binary to fully account for the experience of relating to the “other.” He states: “Every observation has to work with the distinction of self-​reference and other-​reference and must fill the functional position that is other-​reference with some kind of content” (90). That is, individuals fill the other-​reference with content that is connected to them. So while we find that the basic self-​other binary makes sense insofar that the self sees another person and recognizes that that individual is separate both physically and mentally, it does not really help us to fully comprehend the way the separate figure we perceive in games is not the self (as it is a fully realized figure viewable from a third-​person perspective, or the hands and voice of an inhabited body in a first-​person perspective), but can be controlled physically (Carr’s experience) and mentally (Aarseth’s experience of Lara’s need to problem-​and puzzle-​solve in her situated environment). The psychological research of Kenny and West (2008) suggests that while the basic theoretical division between the self and other is clear, the psychological influence is not (Schalk 2011), as they conclude that the “relationship between self-​perception and perception of others is bidirectional” (134). In this respect, I have found Schalk’s (2011) discussion of “other-​self” useful, as it accounts for behavior in a way that feels mentally and physically other than typical self-​behavior and so manifests cognitively as the self-​behaving as other. Schalk describes the other-​self as “functioning to bring the self closer to the other across the spectrum of relatedness [Carr] or to force the other further away [Aarseth]” (201). The utilization of such concepts when considering player-​character relations becomes possible, as Lankoski (2011) notes: “The centrality of game characters might be explained by considering the fact that people are social animals. In biological terms this means that parts of the brain are specialized for decision-​making in social situations (see Damasio 2005). The evidence suggests that anthropomorphic agents, such as game characters, also trigger these specialized brain functions used in everyday people-​to-​people interactions” (294). In this way, the self is able to triangulate via a force that

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causes the self to identify with, or behave as, another; there then becomes a spectrum of relatedness between self and other within which the other-​self can be found. Within the spectrum of relatedness proffered by the mediated experiences of games, the affinity is possibly at its strongest when one considers how the player and game character share the same goals. To this effect, the aim of the game and the requirements placed on the player to progress and succeed also impacts on the decisions they make as or for the player character. This describes a process in which the player attempts to determine what actions and choices constitute the best option in light of a current quandary. Lankoski (2007) discusses how goals regulate play, as ignoring them will merely halt progression and lead to a “game over” outcome in the most typical of game scenarios. This, he also argues, creates a correspondence between the emotions of the player character and the player, as shared goals are likely to produce a similar evaluation of success and failure (the former being more positive) from both the perspective of the player and player character.2 Returning to the previous reference to emotion, the consequential emotions of goal fulfillment are real and personal to the player, but achieved through handling and guidance of the player character through the same process. Adopting and accepting the goals of a game as a shared enterprise between the player and character places the player in an ergodic world that Westecott (2009) recognizes as involving “sensate narrowing”; this highlights the “disconnect between our lived and game experience” that requires the player to adjust to the way the character moves within a specific game world, directed toward a particular objective. Part of the argument that drives Westecott’s comparison of player characters to puppetry is the resemblance she also sees between the removed nature of the player character from the signified, which motivates techniques such as exaggeration and amplification in their design. This, she argues, draws attention to the

 For an example of an exception to this, see Vught and Schott’s (2012) discussion of suspense, which explores examples in which the player may possess more information than the player character. For example, Fahrenheit’s (Quantic Dream, 2005) use of split screens and flash forward reveal approaching threats and situations to the player only.

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constructed nature of movement, as in the case of jumps that are characterized by increased height and reduced gravity. More importantly, she concludes that the likeness of the player character to the puppet “frees us from a historical drive to realism and builds a densely codified and condensed expressive form” (5). Unlike puppetry, the player of a game lacks the capacity to fully determine how a player character performs in terms of the type and range of movements and actions they are capable of completing. Such qualities or affordances are predetermined and regulated by the developers. In terms of how the player character functions as an instrumental extension of the player, obviously the player’s role is to execute the movement and actions that are made available for use. Yet it is important to note that the mobility of the player character can be a pleasure in and of itself. To digress for a moment, consider when the player is given control of a much-​loved and familiar character that has been adapted from another medium. In the case in Spiderman 2 (Treyarch 2004) the player is given the ability to shoot webs and swing around New York. This places the player in control of what has been, up until that point, an experience of the spectacle of the body as expressed via Rob Liefeld’s illustrations of the dynamic poses (accompanied by cross-​hatching) of an exaggerated superhero body (Bukatman 2003), or “the sheer spectacle of their symbolic excesses” (Nealon 2012, 28) when brought to life via the computer generated imagery of the contemporary event film. In contrast, when web-​spinning was made available to players of the videogame that accompanied the reboot of the Spiderman film-​franchise, The Amazing Spider-​man (Beenox 2012), the action served to highlight how the game’s level design worked against a central trait (and key appeal) of the character. The character was made less remarkable by constraining the ability of the player to move freely and to liberally apply his web-​spinning capabilities, by situating a large number of the story-​related missions in interior environments that served to restrict and prevent the expression and use of his characteristic super-​ability. As Martin Flanagan (2012) states, the moral function of Spiderman as a superhero is defined by mobility and freedom. He reclaims the streets from crime in the interests of citizens; he rescinds the right of villains to move (i.e., villains are preferably locked up rather than killed for the purposes of ongoing encounters); and his own “dazzling

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sense of freedom [is] expressed as untrammeled movement through the city space” (45). The above example suggests that while player characters in games might be “communicated through different semiotic modalities” (Vella 2014, 3)  that reshape even the most well-​ acquainted character, they are something more than just “a subject that acts and thinks within a diegetic world” (Klevjer 2007). The static mimetic elements (such as the representational elements) of a character such as Spiderman remain intact, but they are accentuated or reveal themselves in interesting ways via the ludic structures of the game. In the first example, what might be appreciated as paidea (Caillois 1961) and the pleasures gained from the sense of freedom of movement that comes from experiencing the city wrapping around a free-​ falling and swinging Spiderman, is actually very much ludic from the perspective of the “capabilities” and the relationship between the game component and its environment. Conversely, there must also be “limitations” to the character’s mobility profile. While these limitations are shadowed in Spiderman 2, they become more apparent in The Amazing Spider-​man’s interior settings. While both serve to highlight the same relationship, in the latter example it serves to highlight how the gameworld has been designed with the intent of preventing, limiting, and suppressing the freedom of movement that defines the essence of the game character. That is, stripping the superhero of his resources is a requirement for an engaging and a compelling game experience. As Juul (2003) has noted, gaming is an experience in which we freely choose “to limit our options by playing games with fixed rules.” In contrast, when playing any game in the Assassin’s Creed franchise (Ubisoft) the player is encouraged to examine the relationship between movement and the play environment. The player therefore fulfills the interdependence between mobility affordances that have been granted by identifying objects within spaces that permit the application of movement. Thus, the player character is furnished with a high level of mobility-​based actions that require the player to recognize possible opportunities. Unlike the previous example—​ that involved the creation of an interactive environment for an established character—​this example deals with the construction of a game component as one entity in a game system.



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As it is, a character such as Spiderman exists in a perpetual state of identity negotiation and impression management. He swings between being misunderstood, revered, hated, and acknowledged by the public, media, and law enforcement, making his standing within New  York society perpetually unstable regardless of the threats posed by a wide array of enemies. As a game character, it is possible to exploit the uncertainty associated with his capacity to defend and protect himself, Mary Jane, or New Yorkers from the super-​powered foes that disrupt Spiderman’s assured superiority over the common criminal. To this effect, Spiderman as a game component and a character are two quite different things. As Vella (2014) might argue, this vigilante/​hero is not the “computational entity that responds to the player’s input, to which a particular audiovisual representation is attached,” but is “only a sign that represents this possible individual, engaged in a semiotic process of signification that still needs to be mapped out” (2). The reference to the preexisting nature of an individual with its own identity forms the core facet of definitions of character; but as Vella argues, this does not address the “formal techniques” by which characters are produced. In games, a character such as Spiderman contains mimetic components that connect the game component to the well-​known character, and which ensure that the appearance, name, traits, and setting for the game remain consistent with what we already know. Yet his capabilities are not fully accessible by the player as described above, nor can the player be enriched with “spidey-​senses” when acting on behalf of the character; instead, as in other games, the player is given a defined set of “capabilities, potentials and techniques” (Newman 2002). In Spiderman 2 it has already been stated that the player’s and the character’s capabilities merge, and are more frequently permitted to be put into action by the player in free play, yet in The Amazing Spider-​man it is removed from the player, working to cut the player off from enacting a full characterization. Ordinarily Spiderman cannot and does not always function as the most fully actualized version of himself: sometimes he remains trapped in the identity of Peter Parker; sometimes his abilities are disabled; sometimes they elude him or are effectively neutralized by his enemies. Games permit access to one or more of these states via a ludic mediality that goes some way to challenging Frasca’s (2001b) contention that game characters are

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flat characters, in the sense that they do not change throughout the course of the work. As Lankoski, Heliö, and Ekman (2003) state: “limiting a player’s freedom is an effective and frequently used method of creating personality to the protagonist character” (2). In a similar manner, while a player entity may be defined by the way in which it is able or unable to interact or engage with other entities, what must also be considered is the capacity of other game entities to impact upon the player character, and the meaning that is attributed to the impact of those entities upon the player. As Klevjer (2012) argues in relation to Lara Croft, she is not only defined by the “ability to jump or walk,” but also in terms of her “risk of falling down the ravine” (18). Vella (2014) uses the term “passivities” to describe the presence of such elements that contextualize the player’s affordances, framing the actions and concerns of the player. Much of what has been emphasized in this chapter runs counter to popular notions of player-​centric and monologic design (Wilson and Sicart 2009), which focuses upon the fulfillment of a player’s desires and needs. Ernest Adams (2010) has suggested that the designer has a “duty to entertain” and “build a game to meet the player’s desires and preferences for entertainment” (30). Yet game designer and scholar Peter Howell illustrates the concept of disruptive design with reference to the survival-​ horror game Amnesia:  A  Machine for Pigs (The Chinese Room 2013), on which he also served as a designer. In this context Howell and his colleagues (Howell, Stevens, and Eyles 2014) describe how it is possible to manipulate and disrupt players’ reliance upon established conventions and their experience and knowledge of “incremental accretive design” (Crawford 2003, 115), referring to how new titles in a franchise may only involve minor adjustments or additions compared to previous titles or similar genre-​ based games, requiring a limited amount of knowledge construction or learning from the player. They outline how a disruptive game design approach can be applied with respect to intraludic, transludic, and extraludic knowledge. In the case of a weapon these forms of knowledge account for the specific properties of a gun as it pertains to the game currently being played, how this is informed or compared to other games that also utilize guns, and, finally, instances of knowledge of the object that is “abstracted from any specific object or ludic context” (10). While Howell et  al. (2014) present examples



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of how disruptive design might challenge the conservatism inherent in much of game design—​in order to demand greater cognitive engagement from players—​the Spiderman games discussed above illustrate how these concepts also explain the extent to which any game opts to reinforce or single out specific character affordances, to permit the player to employ or utilize their intra-​, trans-​, and extra-​ ludic knowledge. Again citing accounts of players’ experiences, Schott, Vught, and Marczak (2013b) gathered players’ perspectives on first-​person zombie survival game Dead Island (Techland 2011). As stated in Chapter 3, these players reported how the game is characterized by significant shifts in its ludic conditions and demands that required players to adjust accordingly, or develop completely new strategies for play. As previously cited, one of the participants reported: It was almost like a whole new game .  .  . The learning curve is quite steep . . . It was about this time in the game where I was starting to feel comfortable with the UI and how the mechanics of the game worked. The quotation outlines how player mastery is never fully achieved in the sense of allowing players to become complacent with the nature and form of the game play so that they may continue to apply the same actions, methods and logic throughout the whole game. Mastery is typically understood as a “learned ability to effortlessly perform intended actions in the game’s virtual environment” (Przybylski, Rigby, and Ryan 2010, 156, emphasis added). Such accounts fit neatly with Howell, Stevens, and Eyles (2014) notion of disruptive design, that confronts how previously learnt information can be coopted to “create situations in which players are challenged to cognitively engage with the process of understanding and choosing an action, rather than simply challenged to demonstrate their skillful performance of actions” (3). The notion of a disruptive design process conceptualizes player engagement in such a way that it identifies variances in the level and focus of player engagement with player characters while also drawing attention to the degree of demand placed upon the player. Howell, Stevens, and Eyles outline how players construct

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ludic knowledge through play in order to reach an understanding of game components and requirements. Indeed, player accounts of playing Dead Island articulated how actualization of tactics, via a process of exploring the perceived available options and their associated consequences, ostensibly dominated and characterized the play experience across the whole game. However, the constrictions placed on players were acknowledged by Schott et  al.’s participants for their role in encouraging a more strategic construction of actions—​one that did not represent an absolute solution to a problem, nor an archetypal or characteristic action that conveyed the character under their control, but a learned and intra-​ ludic understanding. Again the example of how players learned to utilize “kicking” in Dead Island is relevant here, as players understood the value of the action in the context of other factors that had immediate implications for player character survival in the short and medium terms. Kicking was understood as an action that enabled the player to repel approaching zombies in a way that did not damage player stamina levels, or squander ammunition. Players were able to push away threats, avoiding the hazards of fully engaging zombies and risking screen death. Howell et al.’s challenge to design conservatism is useful for the way it seeks to encourage more stimulating and thought-​provoking games, although in doing so it possibly underestimates the reasoning involved in using the conventional tools made available to players to navigate game environments. Wilson and Sicart (2009) state that players can sometimes only be challenged, “within the limits of what an implied player model suggests” (2), and changes therefore remain incremental to avoid unsettling the player. While I am not disagreeing with this, a case-​by-​case assessment of the specific game under consideration is required. Here we arrive back at the processes of classification and how the function of regulation does not typically include an assessment of the playability or changing states of a game. Yet playability encompasses the operative demands of games and the degree to which a game exploits the procedural, semantic, or episodic memory of the player or requires additional levels of comprehension specific to the game title, and stipulates the capacities by which players are to accomplish defined objectives. Even in cases where the action processes of a game are familiar to the player—​say,



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in the case of recognizing the pattern of enemy attacks and what is required in order to repel them (procedural memory)—​it is suggested that the storage of this information is very much ludically predisposed (Howell, Stevens, and Eyles 2014). Perspectives that privilege understandings of games as rule systems are typically seen by opposing scholars as neglecting assessment of the way players create meaning through play. Treanor and Mateas (2013) highlight how system-​centric perspectives are often criticized for treating games as “static artifacts” rather than personal activities, due to an underlying misconception that such approaches hold that the “designer prescripts a player’s choices before he or she ever makes them” (2). Proceduralism is one approach that has been critiqued for seeking to appreciate how the meaning of games can be found in relation to the processes that the system affords. With respect to understanding game violence I share with proceduralism a concern for how a “play-​centric perspective [might] overstate the freedom of players at the expense of the still to be explored field of procedural rhetoric” (3), that is, “the art of persuasion through rule-​based representations and interactions, rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures” (Bogost 2010, 3). Where proceduralism appears to court the most scholarly resistance is in its strong association with, and contribution to, design literature. For some, this suggests a leaning too far toward viewing players “only as activators of the process that sets the meanings contained in the game in motion” (Sicart 2011). This book primarily holds an interest in balancing out accounts of game violence with an exploration of violence that draws on ontological definitions of what games are and how they function. This particular approach seeks to challenge the prominence of effects research and the manner in which it has shaped the nature and focus of the debate, through assuming that the interaction between game components and entities constitutes expressions of violence—​that games serve as violence facilitators and violence generators. A  focus on simulation as rule-​ governed and player-​ executed need not preclude player creativity, appropriation, or transformation, but the appeal of understanding game play as rule-​ diffused comes from the detachment and impartiality it encourages in the context of wider political unease and manipulation. Treanor

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and Mateas (2013) state that for proceduralists, players must first “ascribe meaning to the game as machine” (5), for its meaning is derived from its process. To this effect, games need players that assent to play, and who desire to engage and interact with them so that “they naturally create the processes that align with the authorial intent” (ibid.). Proceduralism constitutes a sincere attempt to achieve a comprehensive accountability for game processes, and to this effect I argue that it is possible to detach a procedural perspective from a procedural design agenda so that the relationship between a game’s processes and its meaning can be appreciated. Meaning is not constrained to or by rules, but is realized through them. It is in this way that the implementation of a game may not necessarily embody the theme of the game. As game designer Soren Johnson (Civilization III & IV, Firaxis 2001, 2005) reflects in his online game design journal: Ultimately, designers need to recognize that a game’s theme does not determine its meaning. Instead, meaning emerges from a game’s mechanics [as constructs of rules]—​the set of decisions and consequences unique to each one. What does a game ask of the player? What does it punish, and what does it reward? What strategies and styles does the game encourage? Answering these questions reveals what a game is actually about. (2010) He goes on to argue that while games may be initially purchased for the lure of their theme they are typically enjoyed for their mechanics. To this effect, Johnson claims that the distinction between the two can occasionally lead to dissonance if, say, a player is expecting Super Mario Bros (Nintendo Entertainment 1985)  to be about plumbing rather than timing, for example. In this way, games can also possess the same theme but can offer radically different player experiences based upon their rule sets, while sharing the same mechanics can make games feel equivalent irrespective of different themes or settings (e.g., Alpha Centauri 1999, and Civilization, Firaxis 1991). The proceduralist design agenda seeks to close this gap. Jason Rohrer’s Passage is cited as an example of a proceduralist-​style game because of the way that “each game mechanic has a specific authorial intent” (Treanor and Mateas 2013,



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7), which leads players to find meaning in its procedural elements. Treanor and Mateas (2013) conclude that: A proceduralist must accept that the only aspect of the game they have direct control over is the game as mechanism and that the meaning of the artifact is ultimately produced through a dialectical interplay between the mechanism and ways that players ascribe meaning to it. (7) The mechanism encompasses the “enframing aspects of the game that the player does not change during play” (5). Bogost (2010) clarifies the role of the player in his application of the concept of the “player enthymeme”: It is useful to consider interactivity in relation to the Aristotelian enthymeme. The enthymeme, we will remember, is the technique in which the position of the syllogism [a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions] is omitted; the listener (in the case of oratory) is expected to fill in the missing proposition and complete the claim. Sophisticated interactivity can produce an effective procedural enthymeme, resulting in more sophisticated procedural rhetoric. Sometimes we think of interactivity as producing user empowerment: the more interactive the system, the more the user can do, and the better the experience. (43) The player’s actions are said to fill in the missing portion of the syllogism by interacting with the game, although within the confines of the system in which the action occurs. In doing so, Bogost is pragmatic in acknowledging the extent of the freedom that may be attributed to the player. He frames the game as a “possibility space” that holds and accounts for the “myriad of configurations the player might construct to see the ways the processes inscribed in the system of work” (42). Playing is therefore a process of exploring the possibility space for what its rules afford. The player must imagine some relationship between its symbols and input some action in order to interact with the procedural system and derive meaning from it. The system defines the input options, accepts the input when employed

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in the correct context (i.e., a game world instance), and presumably advances the model according to the underlying rules. In using the broadest definition of rhetoric, Bogost draws on “the uniquely human ability to use symbols to communicate with one another” (Foss, Foss, and Trapp 1985, 11). I contend that the assertions of proceduralism also offer a means of working through the confusion society has found itself in, with regard to the different “persuasive” capacities of violent games, by suggesting how the “image is subordinate to process” (Bogost 2008, 124). In applying a different form of rhetoric (from that discussed in Chapter 1) in the form of procedural rhetoric, it is possible to develop an understanding of games that accounts for the “consumptive act as the point of meaning creation” (Harper 2011, 399). Returning to the brief consideration of genre in Chapter 1, it may be useful to recap on its summation of game genres as being “based on interactivity” (Wolf 2001, 115), which focuses on what is and has to be done (Apperly 2006). Harper (2011) offers a useful assessment of how proceduralism accounts for meaning construction, shifting the focus of the play experience to account for the role of its computational underpinning. Harper states that games “create modified simulations of actual rhetorical events; by changing the system of representation in a simulated way, the game makes a rhetorical argument about how things are, rather than representing them directly” (399). “How things are” might be taken to mean narrations of the system, such as Treanor and Mateas’s (2013) reference to the way in which the modeling of psychological needs in The Sims is a characterization of the conditions of an artificial intelligence system for (managing) its agents (compatible with previous interpretations in Chapter 4). The game’s system architecture is thus able to “create and tune particular representations of needs” (6). Games typically exploit an interpretive framework that enables players to understand the procedure as something more than abstract algorithms. In this way, agôn or games of competition are often habitually framed as scenarios of mortal combat, accommodating the need to identify opponents that seek to eliminate the player from the game and utilize the means made available to block, oppose, or prevent them from fulfilling their aim. As a player, one has to identify enemies, target them for action, perform an action to satisfy the needs of the system, seek feedback to confirm the success



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of the action, and extend this process to other entities, or repeat with the same entity if unsuccessful and the conditions are favorable (i.e., if resources are adequate and time permits). A series of procedures such as these are reliant upon other representational qualities embedded into the feedback loops associated with such actions, so that the player knows that an action has been performed (has the gun been fired?) and its likelihood of success (did it hit the target with the accuracy required to discontinue its involvement in the game?). Yet this is what we usually characterize as shooting or killing. Such an argument stops short of Bogost’s (2010) contention that: We must recognize the persuasive and expressive power of procedurality. Processes influence us. They seed changes in our attitudes, which in turn, and over time, change our culture. As players of videogames . . . we should recognize procedural rhetoric as a new way to interrogate our world, to comment on it, to disrupt and challenge it . . . the logics that drive our games make claims about who we are, how our world functions, and what we want it to become. (340) The attitude changes referenced by Bogost do appear to correspond well with Zimmerman’s (2013) notion of the ludic century that celebrates and emphasizes how we live in a systemic society and his manifesto that:  “We must learn to be designers, to recognize how and why systems are constructed, and to try to make them better” (3). Likewise, Rodriguez’s (2006) reading of Huizinga states that the ludic element is pervasive and fundamental. There is not one type of activity, called “play,” that subsequently turns into another, called “culture.” The heart of culture is essentially constituted by elements of theatricality, exhibitionism, virtuosity, joyful improvisation, competition and challenge. The display of skill, the pleasure in surpassing oneself or overcoming others, the pursuit of honour or glory or victory for their own sake and other ludic attitudes are pervasive. The particular viewpoint highlighted by this book suggests that players are being asked or persuaded to adopt a ludic attitude or

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mindset. This mindset includes a recognition that theme is translated into a distinct form of expression that possesses a computational logic driven by abstract processes. A game does not seek to mirror the complexity of its source system, and so some aspects of the source system are prioritized over others to become modeled processes. In this way, games do not typically allow the player to change the rules (in the context of play, at least), for as Bogost (2010) argues: “One usually makes rhetorical claims precisely to exclude opposing positions on the subject, not to allow for the equal validity of all possible positions” (37). This is the very nature of computer-​mediated interactive experiences. As Klabbers (2011) surmises, “fidelity does not seem the most important criterion of success. [Bogost] stresses that meaning in videogames is constructed not through a re-​creation of the world, but through selectively modeling appropriate elements of that world” (4); games are therefore abstractions of a real or imagined referent system. The development of proceduralism as an analytical theory and a design paradigm is grounded in discussions of, and reflection on, art games that intend to communicate and persuade players of their ethical and political message by requiring players to actively co-​construct the expressive capacities of games. In applying these ideas to games more broadly, one must again return to Johnson’s (2010) design reflections, in which he highlights the occasional disparity that occurs between the theme and purpose of the game and how its main challenges are defined in design. Furthermore, he notes that the mechanics that connect players’ actions with challenges play a significant role in forming the experience of a game’s theme. This does not, however, impede or undermine the intent of admirable design-​oriented scholars such as Mary Flanagan (2009), who advocate for the potential of games to “model the complexity of the problems faced by the world and make them easier for the players to comprehend” (249). This allows for the realization of different design intent, bringing us back to Sicart’s (2011) chief concern that proceduralism “grants great power and influence to the designer” (6). I choose to express the concern in a different way: That if all games exploit or possess procedural rhetoric, then where does the distinction reside between games that offer compelling and absorbing entertainment, and those that contain serious persuasive messages that convey and deliver the right message?



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One way to approach this issue is to refer to Bogost’s (2006b) conception of any medium as a “configurative system, an arrangement of discrete, interlocking units of expressive meaning” (ix). The interplay between a text’s constituent parts he terms “unit operations,” which he acknowledges are biased in different degrees. Art games such as C-​Levels’ Waco Resurrection (2004) “leverage procedural expression to represent, communicate, or persuade the player toward a particular biased point of view” (Bogost 2006a). In addition Bogost (2006b) states that: “games require players to create a subjective understanding of the synthesis of one or more unit operations. Games demand that players be capable of making this synthesis palpable in their own experience” (123). In this way Bogost presents the value of unit operations as striving to “articulate both the members of a particular situation and the specific functional relationship between them” (14). Herein lies the possibility of a distinction between entertainment and serious games and the effects that both are capable of producing. For example, Jason Hawreliak (2013) draws on Charles Forceville’s (2006) nine communicative modes, that comprise: “(1) pictorial signs; (2) written signs; (3) spoken signs; (4) gestures; (5) sounds; (6) music; (7) smells; (8) tastes; (9) touch” (382), in his discussion of how games may exploit several modes through metonymy. Whereas metaphor has the capacity to substitute one thing for another across two domains in order to see one thing in terms of something else (source and target referents) (Warren 2003, 113), in metonymy the association is concomitant. Hawreliak exploits the manner in which the mapping in metonymy takes place within the same domain or domain matrix. Combining metonymy and multi-​ modality, he states: In the abstract sense enemies are often signified by using the colour RED in some manner, such as a red dot on a radar, the enemy’s name written in red (e.g. above their heads), and so on. Similarly, allies are often signified using green in the same ways. The game does not need to explicitly tell you who is friend and who is foe; we just know automatically that RED means ENEMY and GREEN means ALLY. This is because we often associate RED with DANGER in our experiences, (e.g. traffic lights/​signs,

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gauges, blood, etc.), and GREEN with GOOD. This is a multimodal metonymy since the visual mode (red dot) informs the ludic mode (opponent). Here, ludic and representational signs combine in both play and narrateme (identified as a unit in Propp’s (H) struggle: hero and villain do battle), as the game’s existents are simultaneously represented as character types and tokens more commonly found in board games such as La Conquête du Monde or Risk (Hasbro). With few alternatives (as surrender and diplomacy do not constitute a choice/​action) the game tokens are advancing and will conquer unless repelled. The game is thus established. Treanor and Mateas (2013) are also able to explain how Rohrer’s (2007) Passage constitutes a proceduralist game, and one that is distinct from less message-​oriented games in terms of the way Rohrer “had specific intentions for the various mechanics.” In presenting an entire life from young adulthood, old age and death over the course of five minutes, life challenges are represented in Passage by a maze in which Rohrer gives the player a choice: “You can spend your time in pursuit of . . . hard-​to-​reach rewards, or you can explore and enjoy the scenery that unfolds before you to the east. As you grow older, your view of the territory in front of you shrinks, and navigating new areas in life’s maze becomes more difficult.” In contrast, nonserious games contain mechanics that fail to underwrite the proposed theme. As Treanor and Mateas state:  “Games will often have processes that are not accounted for or [which will] even prevent the desired interpretation from being possible. One example of this can be seen in Bioshock where the game’s ambitious narrative critique of a philosophy is undermined by violent and conventional gameplay” (7). Rodriguez (2006) takes a very different approach in considering whether there exists a fundamental difference between play as a nonserious endeavor (as asserted by Huizinga), and the genuineness or significance attributed to “serious games” (which make a difference in people’s lives; Frasca cited in Carless 2006). In doing so, he works from and draws upon the qualitative nature of accounts of play as “ ‘tension,’ ‘release,’ ‘challenge,’ ‘effort,’ ‘uncertainty,’ ‘risk,’ ‘balance,’ ‘oscillation,’ ‘contrast,’ ‘variation’ and ‘rhythm’ [that] typically describe



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the activity of playing as a temporal modulation of rising, falling and evolving intensities” (2). This is particularly relevant to games involving chance or competition, in which the outcome is not guaranteed. Rodriguez stresses that the fundamental aim of play is the modulation of the player’s experience. With this in mind Rodriguez argues that in order for there to be compatibility between this understanding of play and serious games, designers must ask: “What aspects of the subject matter in question already exhibit ludic features? And how can a game designer exploit and highlight these aspects?” This stands in contrast to the idea of the application of games to learning as, say, just an “efficacious instrument,” but instead supports Zimmerman’s notion of the ludic century by highlighting how the “sharp temporal boundaries” of play, understood as the magic circle, are evident across many other cultural forms (for instance, from the rituals observed in temples to political debating in governmental houses). This line of thinking stands in contrast to Bogost’s belief that meaning is carried by the player outside the context of the game (in order for serious games to be effective), thus challenging the notion of the “magic circle.” However, returning to Treanor and Mateas’s (2013) argument pertaining to the importance of procedure and the manner in which mechanics can either promote or exist autonomously from a theme or authorial intent, Geoff King (2007) examined the extent to which the political or ideological dimensions of Command and Conquer: Generals (EA Pacific, 2003) is inferred during play. The game was identified for its many references to “contemporary geopolitical issues such as the so-​called war on terror in the aftermath of 9/​11 and the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq” (1). In his analysis of game reviews he found that players devote attention to issues relating to gameplay rather than to the specific historical or geopolitical context in which the game is set. This is hardly surprising. If it is impossible to play without focus on core gameplay tasks, while it is possible during play to pay little or no conscious attention to contextual specifics. (2) This finding and comment highlights the disconnect between mechanics and theme that is inherent in the design, but also exemplifies how players have a set expectation for what they are seeking

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from the game—​which King identifies as a sense of fun or escapism. One confounding variable evident in this research arises from the game’s status as part of a franchise. To this effect, player feelings of unease or unhappiness were attributable to the differences in implementation of game play found in this most recent title (at the time of King’s research) compared with previous titles. However, well-​suited to the current discussion, King (2007) noted that such differences “have the potential to change the nature of what has to be done by the player him or herself, in a temporally extended set of procedures, and how satisfactory or otherwise the experience becomes for the player” (6). In this sense, the game is a franchise of mechanics, not theme or geopolitical commentary. When players expressed their disappointment in the way that the real-​world resonance of Generals intruded on the fun-​ness of the game, these comments were interpreted by King as a commentary on the consistency of game play in the Command and Conquer franchise. This reaffirms the initial emphasis and basis of player enjoyment in the way that the geopolitical context both disturbs and diverts the game play experience toward an experience that contradicts player wishes. To bring this chapter to an end, the focus will now shift to the manner in which certain game scholars have articulated the processes that players engage with when they encounter certain play scenarios. The intention is to bring the discussion back to an assessment of player action and what intent can be inferred from an understanding of game systems more generally. While design intent and control has already featured heavily in this chapter, it is interesting to cast the net a little wider before progressing further in order to consider the role assumed by the player in design literature. Olli Sotamaa (2007) has written an interesting paper on this subject. His paper begins with the statement that all game design is player-​centered, and qualifies this with an assertion that the game designer’s role is to challenge the “player’s skill and creativity . . . in a battle of wits” (456). In doing so, this challenge is characterized as a largely internal and imaginary battle. This insinuation hails from reflections, such as Adams’s (2006) comments, that in his time at EA he witnessed little by way of rigorous or valid incorporation of player evaluation, but instead found the player’s presence to be based mainly on “guesswork and hunches.” Games are used voluntarily by individuals seeking a particular kind



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of experience that extends beyond the ease and feel demanded from computer–​human interactions, to also include a well-​balanced application of difficulty. Despite the interest shown in players within design literature, Sotamaa was not able to extricate “a clear explication of ‘player’ ” (458) from the design literature reviewed. Players are variously represented in general and unspecific terms within design literature, either in a broad acknowledgment of the need for a player as a structural component for a game to function, or characterized broadly and profiled into types to account for the primary drivers or motivations that attract players to particular kinds of gaming experiences, defined by a particular set of procedural conditions. The concerns of such approaches primarily deal with what the player is going to do (Rollings and Adams 2003). Stemming from the way players are discussed as a collective or in an abstract fashion, Salen and Zimmerman (2003) group players into types as standard or rule followers who play in the manner intended; dedicated, describing those who hold a deeper interest in formal structure of the game, with the intent of attaining an informed and concentrated strategy; or the unsportsmanlike player, who follows the rules but “violates the spirit of the lusory attitude” (Sotamaa 2007, 460), presumably seeking to infringe the prohibited “use of more efficient in favor of less efficient means [constitutive rules]” (Suits 2005, 54). Transgressors are also identified interestingly, not by any desire on the part of the player to exploit games for such unsavory reasons as to fulfill sociopathic urges, but to evade rather than beat the rules (to cheat, for example) or ruin the pleasure that the magic circle represents for others (more applicable to games that contain a social dimension). Much attention has also been devoted to contemplating the motivations for play, particularly in regard to what fuels players’ “continuation desire” (Brown and Vaughan 2009); that which embodies “perseverance, determination and tenacity” (Schoenau-​Fog 2011, 4). Some of the earliest contributions to game studies literature considered how games constitute a particular kind of problem-​solving context that requires the player to structure courses of action. In an early essay, Aarseth (1999) described the aporias contained within games. This refers to a clearly defined problem or “roadblock” that players must overcome by employing an unknown combination of (known) actions, in yet-​to-​be-​tested applications. He gives an example from

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one of the first games to invite controversy, the classic FPS Doom (GT Interactive Software 1993). In the context of this game the player enters a space containing demonic enemies. The player employs the tools made available and attempts to dissipate the threat by employing the literal application of the weapon found in their hands by targeting those enemies. Turkle (1995) argued that when players interact with simulations whose algorithms are unknown to us they use the strategy of the bricoleur, an application of the idea of initially making do with whatever is “at hand” (Levi-​Strauss 1966). In the Doom example Aarseth describes how the aporia is only overcome by an epiphany. In this example it is achieved from firing at the barrels at the other end of the room to explode them and to eliminate all the enemies in one efficient and effective action. For Aarseth, this is not necessarily a sudden revelation that materializes from nowhere, but stems from an expectation on the player’s part that such solutions are there to be discovered. The difficulty level of the interaction, which demands that the player both evades and targets individual existents, suggests the need for a more efficient solution, particularly when running the risk of damage or screen death. Jørgensen (2003) argues that the player’s first mental step is to prepare for intentional action. This is then followed by executions of actions in an attempt to solve the problem. Learning through failure, then is an essential part of game-​play experience. In using learning, reference is made to the way games offer a context that provides a specific framework for acquiring field-​dependent knowledge in which interactivity enables and determines the authenticity and veracity of the actions performed (Choi and Hannafin 1995). Mitgutsch and Weise (2011) apply Suits’s (2005) notion of playing as reflecting a “voluntary attempt to intentionally confront ourselves with unnecessary challenges in a satisfying way” (5). Again referencing Jørgensen’s research (2009), she presents some interesting findings from her player study, in which she found how “players tend to accept all features [of a player character] that aid them in understanding how to play the game, and that it does not matter whether features have a stylistic or naturalistic relationship to the gameworld” (1). In this way, Llanos and Jørgensen (2011) are able to claim that “players have a tendency to accept game UI [user interface] features regardless of how they are positioned in the game, as



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long as the UI is able to provide them with relevant information in the given game situation” (5). This refers to different approaches that game developers choose in regard to conveying system information relevant to player performance and decision-​making, either by superimposing it (as in a heads-​up-​display) or integrating it into the fictional world. As an example of the latter, Llanos and Jørgensen reference Peter Jackson’s King Kong (Ubisoft 2005), which attempted to convey all system information through characters, animations, or particle effects (giving “the impression that the dense jungle is truly alive; sunlight shifts; leaves and creatures stir,” Ubisoft press release). The rationale for integrated interfaces is often attributed to the potential threat to player immersion caused by the “intrusive” superimposed user interface (UI). Llanos and Jørgensen dispute this rationale by illustrating how players find UI a familiar and elegant method of representing system information that only becomes distracting when players receive more information than they need. Eladhari and Lindley (2003) consider the player character to be the “concentrated mirror of functionality” (1) and assert that the constitution of game worlds forms the basis for the types of qualities that the player character requires, for there is “no need for skills that are not useful in the game” (ibid.). Aarseth’s (2007a) commentary on the contested notion of the player cites Hans-​Georg Godamer’s notion that games are the real subject in play: All playing is a being-​played. The attraction of a game, the fascination it exerts, consists precisely in the fact that the game masters the players .  .  . The real subject of the game (this is shown in precisely those experiences where there is only a single player) is not the player but instead the game itself. What holds the player in its spell, draws him into play, and keeps him there is the game itself. (106) Aarseth reflects on this in relation to creativity and freedom, and the infrequent and unexpected moments that can occur during play, described as an unintended part of the game repertoire. While game transgressions constitute entertaining highlights in any game experience—​and which also stimulate the interest of game scholars as symbolic of player creativity and freedom (Heide Smith

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2006)—​Aarseth claims that these are statistically marginal, as for most players it is in their interest to follow directions and play to win. He asks, “why put the focus on those few who don’t?” (131), and concludes: We as players are only half ourselves when we play —​the rest, he argues, is temporarily possessed by the un-​free player subject.

6 Performativity and violence

T

his chapter queries the certainty with which critics of games are able to interpret and escalate an action, comprised of the depression of buttons (or keys) on a console (or PC), to read it as an equivalent to an enactment of violence (within the context of deliberations on the violent nature of games). Concerns over games largely concentrate on the nature of the screen performance—​and while it is possible to acknowledge that the moving image is activated or triggered by player movement or from the direct “keyed” involvement of the player, rarely is the nature of player performativity considered as a separate act. Basing judgments of player performance solely on the images that are produced on-​screen fails to accord enough significance to the process behind the image-​making, thus undermining the chain of events between design-​ affordance, scenario-​ comprehension (engaging with immediate or short-​term sub-​goals that make up the routine of movement and interaction within a game environment), and the milliseconds that unite player input and its effect on-​screen. Typically too, experientially the same kinds of input (i.e., a small number of buttons and keys) produce a multitude of different actions across different games and genres, but may also produce different screen outcomes within the same game when buttons are combined with one another. I  recall David Surman’s 2005 conference presentation at the Holy Men in Tights superhero conference in Melbourne, as being one of the first papers to focus on

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the performance of the player from the point of view of the actions completed by the person sitting in front of the screen pushing buttons and executing screen action. By focusing on Capcom’s Street Fighter series, his presentation (later published in 2007) emphasized the manner in which the games’ design contained added demands for the player in terms of the physicality and agility required to execute the more advanced moves which the system was capable of accommodating—​transforming inputs into complex fight moves during hand-​to-​hand combat. In achieving an advanced move, Surman recognized how the player steps beyond the basic procedural requirements for achieving a winning state, to enter a different performance realm that reflects a knowing and successfully executed manipulation of controller inputs that holds its own reward. Surman (2007) argues that the difference between what is written about “how to play,” in say a manual or booklet that accompanies a game, versus what an expert or experienced player may impart, within a “FAQ,” can be considerable. He argues that the level of mastery illustrated in the latter signifies how players “are experiencing different media texts, individuated by their implicit competency” (205). In an article for Gamasutra Tim Rogers (2013) similarly acknowledges the impact of controls on game play and player experience, when he describes how as a child “Super Mario Bros. [Nintendo 1985] felt like magic. The fine degree to which the minute variations of button-​press length could affect Mario’s jump heights and lengths checked every box in my child-​brain’s ‘best thing ever’ wish list” (1). Aligning with Surman’s focus, Rogers accounts for the extended relevance of the duration of a button-​press for the manipulation of running speed. He also comments how it was possible to recognize a level of ludoliteracy in other players, by observing how others operate a controller. He remarks: “When I was a kid, you knew another kid knew what was up in Super Mario Bros. if he was holding the controller perpendicular to his torso, buttons out, thumb keeping the B button depressed” (3). Surman’s analysis of Street Fighters “special moves” also serves to shift attention away from spectacle as a hyperreal representation to highlight and also include the spectacle of the performativity of play. In doing so, his focus moves beyond Poole’s (2000) account of Street Fighter’s “visual excess” (45). Surman instead accords significance to the way the game’s audiovisual and representational elements



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sit outside the player’s creative control, while the quality of play can be “spectacularly skilled, eccentric or incompetent” (207). In many single-​player games, the visual spectacles outside the player’s control are often presented as a tacit reward for play accomplishments, presenting players with narrative twists, intense dramatic scenes, or spectacular animations (within cut-​scenes). For Surman, special moves in the Street Fighter series are characterized by “two pleasure registers” that reflect the affiliation between behavior and reward within games. The player is rewarded visually for executing a special move through a spectacular representation, for example, “enormous blue light trails from swishing limbs and fireball attacks” (Poole 2000, 45), but this also doubles up as corroboration of the successful execution and mastery of a special move. As Surman outlines, for Ryu to hurl a fireball from his hands: Players must roll the directional controller or joystick from a downward position through a quarter-​circle toward the opposing player, accompanied by a depression of one of the punch buttons. (210) Newman (2008) chronicles a different range of gaming practices that also signify the relevance of mastery for player experience which, like Surman’s (2007) work, highlights a different level of execution, implementation, and performance that serves to elevate some players above the norm. He outlines examples of “superplay,” which reflect a determination on the part of the player to consciously broaden the aim of play by devising an additional set of self-​imposed rules that can be superimposed on top of the existing rule set of the game. As the term suggests, superplay refers to an extraordinary accomplishment. Therefore, when such feats are completed successfully, they are considered a commendable and noteworthy performance that justifies public dissemination to encourage appreciation of their distinctiveness and achievement. Like Surman’s focus on the Street Fighter series, examples of superplay hold a relationship with the kind of player performativity associated with the skills that might have been on show in arcade game parlors for decades. Evidence of notable performances on individual arcade machines are evident in the presentation of a high score table that quantifies and commemorates a sustained period of faultless play beyond the

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actual feat itself (while the score remains unsurpassed by others). In games, high scores initially served as a performative marker that signified and differentiated different levels of success within games that did not hold an ending as a defined and achievable goal for players. Arcade games offered simple game scenarios that suggested that they could theoretically continue ad infinitum (Newman 2004). Some classic games did however possess technical limitations that became known as “endings” and indicators that a perfect game had been achieved. For example, Pac-​Man (Namco 1980) is said to have descended into chaos after 256 levels, “when an overflowing 8-​bit level register causes half the screen to be filled with random symbols and become unbeatable” (Orland 2013). Yet, from this era of gaming the high score has been retained and has continued to be applied to the dispersed gaming scenarios and expanded game worlds of contemporary games, even though screen death no longer governs or determines the time of game sessions in the same way. In superplay, we find extended examples of how the player engages in the disciplined calculation of ludus (Caillois 1961) at the expense of the narrative structures that attach and propel game action or provide a platform for mimicry. For instance, superplay may involve attempts to traverse a game world from start to finish in the quickest time possible (speed running), which as Newman (2008) notes, “may involve devising and implementing strategies to allow sidestepping of huge portions of the intervening narrative or a large number of levels along the way thereby making a stripped down, discontiguous and potentially incomprehensible narrative experience” (124). One interesting example, worthy of note, given the theme of the book, is “Quake Done Quick” (QdQ), which Lowood (2007) has dubbed “high performance play.” This permutation of the speed run, which has been completed with FPS Quake (id Software, 1996)  but also other titles as well, is attempted under “pacifist” conditions whereby players attempt to use nonlethal weapons and other means to avoid “killing” existents. Players who complete these feats first perform critical interpretations of game-​play spaces. Adam Williamson is a player, noted on the Compet-​n database for Doom (GT Interactive 1993)  speedruns, not only for his style and approach to speedruns (believed to be based on accurately predicting monster behavior) but also for pioneering several new routes. Alternatively, other (super)



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players seek to engage in any opportunity to accrue points or achieve high scores by collecting objects or registering successful actions (such as kills), which produces a quite different effect. “100% challenges” are based upon lingering, seeking out, exhaustive exploration, and thorough searching to discover and obtain all there is to achieve and acquire. James Ash’s (2009) work has been especially useful in re-​ conceptualizing performativity as it pertains to games. Writing from a geographer’s perspective, his work also emerges from a sense of discomfort with the image and its capacity to create “false impressions and disguised truths” (Phillips 1993, 180). Instead he promotes a perspective on the spatiality of images through theorizing the spaces that the “images themselves produce” (2105, original emphasis) in contrast to the spaces represented by images. Ash notes how it is typical for meanings to be extracted from images based on its content. However, in the case of games, such an approach serves to mask the specificity of the medium and how it maneuvers interactivity within time and space. Similar to Ash, this book has sought to explore the potential of a nonrepresentational conviction, favoring how the image is made performatively within player and computer interactions. Drawing on Heidegger in his rethinking of the relationship between objects and images, Ash suggests that flat or weightless images are also capable of producing their own mode of spatiality—​what he terms “existential spatiality.” Moving beyond the notion of images as just representations or inferior copies of reality, he argues that “the space of the image can be considered as a surface, a flat image presented on the screen, without losing any of the complexity, relatedness, and ‘depth’ that is imagined . . . because of the mechanical movement of the screen and image” (2111). Space is therefore constructed around the activity and engagement of the player. In games, he argues, the image “is imbued with a spatiotemporalising capacity” (ibid.). Jenkins (2004) has made similar claims, but under the guise of promoting the storytelling or narrative capacity of games, in which he recognizes the manner in which games have always “centered around enabling players to move through narratively compelling spaces” (121). Engagements within game spaces are governed by a structure of concern that is orientated and framed by an impending or upcoming

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temporal structure. In doing so, the objects that are placed within games are there to be used; they possess expedient qualities and present the player with the means to work toward progression and completion. The player’s referential context and the material composition of the image itself combine to produce an existential space and time (Ash 2009, 2113). Commenting on the connectedness between space and the human condition, Heidegger (1971) states: “When we speak of man and space, it sounds as though man stood on one side, space on the other. Yet space is not something that faces man. It is neither an external object nor an inner experience. It is not that there are men, and over and above them space” (1997, 334). Architect Juhani Pallasmaa (2009) adapts and expands this thinking to contest the notion of space as inactive, instead promoting space as an opening that “either empowers or weakens, charges or discharges. It has the capacity to unify or isolate, embrace or alienate, protect or threaten, liberate or imprison. Space is either benevolent or malicious” (7). Here we encounter the notion of spaces or objects as motivating behavior in an individual. This idea is captured within the concept of “hodological space,” explained by Mitropoulos (1975) as “the activity of movement through space. Not only towards a visible goal but also towards a non-​visible destination” (201). This notion of space is connected to the conceptual system of dynamic psychology constructed by Kurt Lewin in the 1930s. His work sought to influence psychological descriptions of behavior (and cognition) by contending that “the world needs to be differentiated to such separate states which have meaning to the subject” (Rainio 2009, 1). This can be translated, for our purposes, as the player engaging in a hodological (intention-​based) space containing “paths” that constitute what is “preferred” in terms of performativity, what is achievable via the shortest distance, or the most economical or secure route, employing minimal nontrivial effort for maximum experience (Castro 1999, 26). Beyond the capacity for movement, the play-​frame is also disposed to forces and tensions. Psychological force is affected in space as a cause of locomotion of the point of application (the person) from one territory to another (Rainio 2009, 4). Force therefore has direction, strength, and a point of application. Furthermore, there are distinguishable types of force: driving forces can be applied to a person to stimulate behavior, restraining forces seek to hinder the person



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from advancing, and boundary forces function as a block or obstruction. Employing the stimulative nature of objects and environments, Norberg-​Schulz (1971) has translated Lewin’s (1938, 54)  concept of hodological space as the “space of possible movement” (22), in which subsequent pursued paths may be qualified by their “preference level or satisfaction potential within that space” (Carr 1970, 53). Salen and Zimmerman’s (2003) definition of play as “free movement within a more rigid structure” (304) connects well with the above discussion. In their own configuration of Norberg-​Schultz’s definition of hodological space, Salen and Zimmerman’s (2003) “space of possibility” (67) addresses an extended range of concepts that cover: the nature of a game as a designed context; all possible game actions that can occur during game play; all possible meanings that can emerge from the game design; all possible relations between game elements that render a system; the interactive functioning of this system, which allows for ­navigation and exploration. (Ibid.) Heidegger (1962) notes the manner in which we consistently, subjectively qualify time and space, by citing instances in which we employ qualitative descriptions—​ such as determining distance as being a “stone’s throw” away or using half an hour as an estimate for 30 minutes. For Ash (2009) the spatiotemporal quality of the image in games is also facilitated by the qualitative temporality recognized by Heidegger, allowing games to reconfigure the “parameters by which spatial distance is judged around a different set of bodily registers” (2114). With reference to Call of Duty 4 (Infinity Ward 2004), Ash argues that players do not spatially orient themselves within the fictional Middle Eastern cities in which they are placed (because they are unable to), as the game does not offer a complete Cartesian map that would allow them to navigate to other locations of their choosing. Instead, the route is governed by level design, and navigation is compartmentalized to the forces that push and pull the player between spatial points. He states that “spatial movement is based upon temporal immediacy of events as they occur and on reaction

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to affective, sensory stimulus, rather than on a conscious, rationally thought-​out or premeditated plan” (2115). Movement is thus prioritized over stasis, but in doing so qualitative passage is prioritized over quantitative position. Psychologists Green and Bavelier (2012) make a similar argument when they state that: Games require players to constantly make predictions regarding future game events both spatially—​“Where an enemy is most likely to appear?”—​and temporally—​“When is an enemy most likely to appear?” The latter occurs at many different time scales, from the millisecond range when considering enemy appearance, to minutes for knowledge of the lay of the land, to hours or days for meta parameters such as achieving the goal of a particular game level. (201) To return to the performative demands and core “affordances” of games, these have to be understood relative to the agent. As Linderoth (2010) argues, affordance is not an objective property of the environment. He uses an illustrative metaphor of the empty space between two fitting jigsaw puzzle pieces to describe what an affordance signifies. In the case of games, the environment has certain properties that—​together with the body constitution or capacities of the player character—​constitute the possibility that certain actions can be performed when those two units combine. Experience of spatiality within games is therefore very much conditional on predetermined factors such as the speed, duration, or distance with which a particular player character is capable of moving. For example, in Grand Theft Auto III (Rockstar Games 2001) the player character was permitted to sprint. However, the game only permitted the action to track for a limited length of time and also required an interval before the player could again employ it. Although player character’s actions exist and occur relative to the demands of the game, this does not mean that they are always fully merged with its corresponding scenography, with actions and movement in space not always completely faithful to the qualities and dimensions of the represented body or materiality of the represented space. Games do not seek to fully simulate the laws of motion of the human body in space (Schlemmer 1995), nor



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do player characters truly dwell in, or adapt to its spaces, but instead move swiftly through a game’s many spaces, repeatedly applying a small but universal set of movements or actions. Consider, for example, the heavy-​footed lumbering character of Subject Delta in Bioshock 2 (2K Games), who is encased within a Victorian-​ era atmospheric deep-​ sea diving suit, versus the agility and athleticism of Lara Croft, who is not restricted by the bulk or weight of equipment or body armor. Experientially, Subject Delta’s suit is actually not as onerous or unmanageable as it should be, plus it actually offers an advantage in the manner that it fortifies, protects, and permits the player to move freely under water. Likewise, within the original Tomb Raider series Lara Croft’s acrobatics and cave-​ based parkour-​like moves should really leave her covered in scrapes, scratches, and bruises that would slow her progress, weaken her, or reduce her abilities, eventually requiring her to rest and convalesce. In making this point, impact on the body was subsequently addressed (to a certain degree) in the Crystal Dynamics 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider, highlighting the field-​independent nature of the character in its previous incarnations. As Joe Douglas’s (2013) online response and review disclosed: I was not prepared for just how brutal the game is on poor Lara. Every movement, every tumble, every injury results in a chilling cry of pain from our heroine. When you face your first enemy there is real fear for Lara, wondering just how the hell you’re going to get her out of danger. Throughout the game Lara is covered in mud and grime, cuts and bruises cover her body. At a few points in the game Lara receives some rather nasty injuries and her movement is compromised by this, jumping and stumbling visibly and audibly causing her pain. There are also little touches such as Lara shivering in the rain and flinching when she brushes the sharp rock of a cave wall. Player characters typically possess a limited yet distinctive range of moves that determine their motion in space. In triggering and employing repetitive, automated and stylized moves and actions, rarely is the player character susceptible to fumbling as they attempt to reload their weapon under pressure, nor do they clumsily

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mishandle their weapon, letting it drop to the floor. That is, the performance of certain actions (on-​screen) is often assured, or (put another way) pressing buttons reliably translates into action with a certain degree of consistency. The performativity of the player may on the other hand be vulnerable to miss-​hits or the selection of the wrong button or key. As Eladhari and Lindley (2003) have argued in terms of player character design, “there is no need for skills that are not useful in the game. What is useful is defined by the rule set” (1), thus preventing full integration with the environment. There are, of course, always exceptions to the predetermined attributes of a player character, such as in Dragon Ball Xenoverse (Dimps 2015), in which players are able to customize their characters, suggesting that a better fit between player and environment is achievable. In this instance, the player is able to modify player character height. An increase in height sees attack power increased but movement speed reduced, while a decrease in a character’s height increases movement but decreases attack power. Yet, in this instance, customization is merely a simplistic inverse relationship between just two variables. Turning to the objects within its frames, games typically employ a “nonmimetic mode of haptic manipulation” (Ash 2009, 2120)  via inputs in the form of keystrokes, triggers, and buttons that do not correspond with the actions animated on-​ screen (unlike, maybe, the tennis strokes that are possible with the Wiimote controller). Additionally, game objects are ungraspable. Object manipulation is mediated via controllers, joysticks, and keyboards; these do not engage our somatosensory system, which controls our touch sensations and provides the brain with the wealth of information that we typically receive concerning our surrounding environment. The lack of information relating to temperature, pain, and pressure make game objects largely haptically homogenous in nature. Schott (2008) reported how the health levels of the player character constitute a relevant factor in the strategic thinking of the player. Within Resistance: Fall of Man players realized that a partially depleted health-​bar (signifying that an injury has been sustained during combat) would automatically refill after a short pause. As Schott (2008) observed, this subsequently influenced players’ approach to, and style of play, as play became governed by players’ awareness of their health status. In Resistance:  Fall of Man players showed a



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propensity for employing a particular sequence of behavior that comprised attack-​ withdraw-​ pause. Additionally, players extended their knowledge of health renewal to their observations of enemy behavior. Players believed that the (alien) enemy appeared to operate according to similar behavioral patterns; this then informed the timing and judgment of player incursions while also reinforcing the significance of player decision-​making.

Interactivity Clarification of the nature of performativity serves to draw attention to the looseness of the term interactivity (Smuts 2009). Early writings by scholars such as David Saltz (1997) first construed interactivity as synonymous with control, giving viewers “control over what they will see and hear at any given moment” (120). Similarly, Dominic McIver Lopes (2001) equated interactivity with control over “the sequence in which [audiences] access content” (68). Given the emphasis that has so far been assigned to games as systems, governed by rules, such definitions fail to adequately account for the way in which games contain, imply, and require action, yet in a manner that flirts with the uncertainty of outcome. As Toprac (2013) outlines, there are different forms of control, ranging from fully probabilistic and emergent to uncontrolled. A game that offers full control would make all outcomes known in advance. This level of control would prohibit the event from being classified as a game. In contrast, probabilistic control involves the awareness that the outcome has a degree of uncertainty attached to it, in advance of the engagement. That is, while the probability of the outcome can be assessed, the outcome may still be different from the most probable outcome. In games with rules, such as digital games, the “player responds to the game’s emergent behavior, but cannot fully control it. That is, the player makes choices and feels, to a degree, in control, but paradoxically, is not necessarily in control of the outcomes” (22). Extending this further so that it becomes untenable, actions producing random outcomes would cause frustration or boredom, resulting from the inconsequential nature of actions. This further elucidation of control shifts interactivity toward a sense of responsiveness. Indeed, Smuts (2009) argues that for something to

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be interactive it must respond in a particular way and that interactivity often takes place when the user is seeking to gain control (e.g., skill development and the process of achieving mastery). He states: “in learning to do something one can be said to be interacting with it and only later does one become able to control it” (64). He thus characterizes something as interactive if it “(1) is responsive, (2) does not completely control, (3) is not completely controlled, and (4) does not respond in a completely random fashion” (65). Performance may therefore be evident in postinteractive moments of game play once actions become manipulation (as exemplified in super-​moves and high-​performance play, mentioned earlier in the chapter). Digital games thus require matos, or a willingness to initiate the affordances associated with the merging of space, interface, and playable character. This willingness is first evident when the player picks up a controller or opens up a piece of software via a personal computer to create a game-​world instance. This point returns us to the idea of gaming as requiring external input with respect to the person or body (as declared in the previous chapter) that performs the operation of actuating game play from outside the game world. This view of performativity evokes a comparison to other kinds of operative-​based contributions to performance—​that is, the kinds of contributions that possess a crucial role in the effect and impression created by a performance, although assuming a less central or visible position in relation to what an audience might view. Examples of these kinds of performance may be found to differing degrees within performance art, such as shadow theater (following Westecott’s (2013) lead on the affinity between games and puppetry). Shadow theater (excluding shadowgraphy or ombromanie, that uses the hand to cast shadows) typically functions by inserting objects between a light source and a screen to create the effect of a puppet or animated character. Key to this performative mode is the way neither the puppeteer nor the puppet is witnessed in the final performance itself, but rather the effect that is created when the performance object is combined with light and screen. While puppets constitute one of the oldest forms of performing objects, it is noted that the scholarly attention they have attracted often overlooks their role as a performing object, instead focusing upon their cultural, ritualistic, and social functions and meaning (Bell 1999).



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Stephen Kaplin’s (1999) work in this field is noteworthy for the way in which it distinguishes between the differing dynamics of performance as conditional upon “distance” and “ratio.” Distance—​referring to the level of separation between the object and the performer—​can range between “absolute contact” (when object and performer are one) and the more separate and remote, psychic, bodily, or temporal degrees of contact. For example, the previous chapter raised the probable displacement between player and player character, suggesting a psychic distance characterized by the objective distance between the player and the character. This too has been discussed with reference to acting. In the case of a role such as Hamlet, it commands a certain range of gestures, movement, and the delivery of dialogue. Director and theorist Richard Schechner (2002) is cited as stating that “performance isn’t ‘in’ anything, but ‘between’ ” (22), that is, the performer is suspended between their behavior and what they are attempting to cite or imitate. He states: So Olivier is not Hamlet, but he is also not not Hamlet. The reverse is also true: in this production of the play, Hamlet is not Olivier, but he is also not not Olivier. Within this field or frame of double negativity choice and virtuality remain activated. (Schechner 1985, 110) The performer in this instance is not only performing someone else as “not me” but also simultaneously the “not not me.” He goes on to observe: “Olivier will not be interrupted in the middle of ‘To be or not to be’ and asked: ‘Whose words are those?’ And if he were interrupted, what could his reply be? The words belong, or don’t belong, equally to Shakespeare, Hamlet, Olivier” (111). This observation takes us beyond questions about the degree of identification with player character, to a complication of the idea of “a performance” as a player character. English philosopher John Langshaw Austin (1979) is acknowledged for formulating the initial application of the concept of performativity, in which he observed how “speech acts” can be described as performative without being constative (statements, descriptions, and assertions). Speech acts represent a kind of social activity rather than merely a matter of stating something as true or false, and thus are understood by Austin as actions in themselves. James Loxley

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(2007) contends that the concept of performativity is “detachable from the circumstances of its formulation without significant loss and useful application to a wide range of differing intellectual challenges or problems” (2). In rendering an on-​screen shooting of a nonplayable character by a playable character, the act does not describe how it is executed within play. For example, Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios 2008) “Vault Dweller’s Survival Guide” (or user’s manual) states that the act of using a weapon necessitates that as the player, you “aim with your crosshair and pull RT [right trigger on Xbox 360 console controller] to attack. When using an automatic weapon, holding down RT will continuously fire as fast as it is able. Your character will automatically reload a weapon when you use up your current rounds, provided you have additional ammo available. To reload at any time, you can tap X” (28), while in the PC version of the manual RT is replaced by “Left Click” and “Left Clicking,” with X replaced by “you can tap R” (28). Using RT or left click constitutes a particular action, rather than describing that action when rendered on-​screen. Nor does the action describe its likely success, which is contingent on other factors such as aim, accuracy, timing, and distance, which contribute to how effective or lethal a single shot might be. Stretching the elasticity of this point even further, the performativity of shooting in games does not describe how, when shooting a gun, “the adrenalin kicks up, the blood supply to your peripheral nervous system is starved. So your fine motor control is slowed . . . Things don’t work right. Aiming therefore is difficult and why combat shooters train under stressful situations so their autonomic system can respond. Your vision will narrow and you will be hyper-​focused on details” (Penn 2012). A “distance” is also identifiable between player input and the nature of the resulting animation on-​screen. It is possible to illustrate the triggering nature of player-​activated actions that then result in on-​screen motion, with an example drawn from the earlier theme of high-​performance play (Lowood 2007). In his record speed-​run with the notoriously difficult action RPG Dark Souls (From Software 2011), Fred “Thanatos” Vasquez’s description of his strategy included a comment that highlighted the sequential transformation of a player’s input into what eventuates on-​screen. This emerges from his description of his exploitation of the action of rolling. He states:  “In Dark Souls, whenever a player rolls, the player becomes immortal for a



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set period of time, roughly 0.6 or 0.7 seconds. During this time, no damage nor conditions will be applied to the player, making it a better way to avoid damage than even the greatest of shields” (Haley 2012, 3). In this brief moment an animation is being enacted on-​screen that shields the player from any intervention, disruption, or interference until it is completed. While this is over in an instant, the animation is still required to play out, before the next unit or sequence of action/​ response is initiated. Likewise, he states that he employed a roll after jumping from a height, in order to avoid inducing a “staggering” animation in which he could not effect any inputs and which would also cost him time. Returning once again to the example of the practice of shadow puppetry, it employs distance in the bifurcation of performer and performing object that possesses a likeness to the directorial influence that the player asserts over playable entities. In this instance, there is a clear separation of the manipulatable object from its image. The image capturing the gaze of an audience is not the object being manipulated by the performer but the image of that object that is being cast onto a screen by a light projection. In contrast to the invisibility inherent in the production of shadow puppetry, the performers of Japanese Bunraku instead appear openly and in full view of the audience. Commenting on the influence of Bunraku on European puppet theater, Jurkowski (2012) noted that “in the 1960s, principles of homogeneity were broken and the actor entered the puppet stage not only as the puppet’s visible manipulator but also as its partner” (129). By exposing the mechanics behind the performance, puppeteers attained a position of being “both present and absent from the stage” (Eruli 2012, 142). In his essay On Bunraku, Barthes (1971) also stated that: “In Bunraku the agents of the spectacle are both visible and impassive” (79), thus “expos[ing] art and work simultaneously” (77). In this art form the physical presence of the puppeteer must be accounted for, necessitating consideration of the way the performance is comprised of a dyad, resulting in work and performance becoming more clearly differentiated. The manner in which Bunraku disrupts where an audiences’ attention and gaze should ideally be directed, draws attention to the way on-​screen consequences resulting from player input in games is often mistaken as performance in a traditional sense of the word—​cinematic, photorealistic action that

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demands to be watched. Yet games comprise effective feedback loops to serve and urge player action, rather than engage a nonparticipatory audience. In addition to distance, Kaplin (1999) uses ratio as distinct components to form an X–​Y axis for “plotting various permutations of the object/​performer relationship” (22). While his notion of ratio provides an interesting means of considering a compartmentalized performance, it may also be applied to a consideration of a performance involving distributed degrees of agency (see below). Kaplin uses ratio to account for the number of performing objects in comparison to the number of performers. For example, he describes a 1:1 ratio as “a direct transfer of energy from a single performer to a single performing object” (22), a description that runs counter to the mediated manipulation of player characters on-​screen; whereas a many:1 ratio would be applied to the example of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, or Star Wars:  Return of the Jedi’s Jabba the Hutt, both objects requiring a number of individuals to work them. Having argued in favor of the distance between player and performance, I would now like to offer an appropriate and related example that highlights the impact of a 1:1 ratio when applied within a gaming context. Research presented at the International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, presented by Mueller et al. (2014), describes the development and play testing of a mode of combat play involving physical exertion. Following the trend within mainstream gaming for games that support bodily actions (such as Nintendo Wii, Xbox Kinect, and Sony Playstation Move), Mueller et al. introduce a virtual body-​to-​body game titled Remote Impact. This game breaches the typical distance (and, as argued below, the extension of Kaplin’s concept of ratio as applied to puppetry) between player and performing object within conventional gaming situations and shadow puppetry. Yet, like shadow puppetry, it utilizes the shadows cast as players projected onto a screen. Supporting one-​to-​one combat, the game is described as follows: Once the game starts, both players try to strike each other’s shadow. They can target any area of their opponent’s shadow, and strike with their palms, fists, feet and entire body . . . An impact on the remote person’s shadow area is considered a successful



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hit. The impact of the user’s body onto the surface is measured by detecting the deformation of the surface area. The higher the intensity of the hit, the higher the points scored. If a hit is placed within the shadow area of the remote person, a visual indicator is displayed on the impact spot and a sound effect is played. (151) Unlike the stylized movements typically witnessed in cinematic violence and reproduced in games, players of Remote Impact instead threw their entire bodies against the surface in order to guarantee impact. While punching did inevitably constitute the most common technique for engaging a shadow adversary, performance and strategy became subject to player exhaustion and tiredness. The fact that player’s actions were both situated within a game, as well as the mediated nature of that experience, inevitably served to alter and transform what players would normally encounter or understand as combat. For example, Mueller et al. report how no physical risk to their own bodies made defensive actions meaningless in the context of the game, eliminating the need to block or avoid strikes from the opposing player in favor of trying to out-​hit their opponent. As in computer-​mediated games, players also exploited the limitations of the system, which they discovered existed with the tracking system. As Mueller et al. explain, players realized how the conical capture area of the camera did not track the entire room. They report how participants “used the borderline between these two areas as part of their play strategy. For example, a pair of players realized that if they lie with their backs on the floor and kick the interface surface with their feet, approximately half the bodies were not captured, reducing the area on which they could be hit” (152). Despite the direct nature of the interactions between players, in which they were given the freedom to behave without restraint (within the bounds of their own physical capabilities) and indexicality of the shadow as representative of another player’s movement, Remote Impact offered players a “new bodily experience” that could not be considered direct equivalents to boxing (as a socially acceptable contact sport) or physical assault. Given that the interaction surface of the game was made out of “mattresses, ripstop and lingerie fabric” (151), it too offered players a distinctive sensation unlike that of striking flesh and bone.

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Telematic performances push the notion of “distance” beyond convention as a result of the performance being conducted across multiple sites in real-​ time. These performances offer interesting examples of presentations that purposely exploit and embrace distance in order to produce a different experience. That is, they deliberately set the conditions of their own obstacles by attempting to run a mediated and controlled event under dissociated circumstances. The intention is to embrace how these conditions might effect a “change [in] the nature of conventional relationships, inventing a new language that would be superfluous and unnatural in proximity” (Giges and Warburton 2010, 26). Such works seek to bridge the physical divide between performers and performance, exploring the outcomes of a “body disassembled and reassembled across a network” (ibid.) in an otherwise proscenium performance. The co-​joining or linking of two performances taking place in two locations, as described by Giges and Warburton in their account of the dance performance Lubricious Transfer (2005) (performed simultaneously in both California and New York), entailed two sets of audience at both locations. This particular account of telematic work proves interesting for the way it spurs consideration of the role of the observer, or an evaluator in the case of games (as discussed in Chapter  1). The audience of a telematic work is asked to make sense of the “juxtaposition of the remote and the proximate coupled in real time” (27). This creates a situation that draws attention to the way in which the audience’s point of view is incomplete when the totality of the telematic work is considered. Yet the same partiality is rarely permitted to complicate evaluations of games as performances of violence, permitting viewpoints such as “performing violent actions in video games may be more conducive to .  .  . aggression than passively watching violent acts on television,” and “the more [players] practice violent acts, the more likely they are to perform violent acts” (Cesarone 1994, 4, emphasis added).

System > Player > System As stated, performativity in gaming constitutes the implementation of actions that require pressing particular (function) buttons or keys



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at the appropriate moment, in the correct context in order to produce a desired simulation that contributes toward progression. Within this activity, it is possible to interpret a similarity to the many:1 ratio highlighted by Kaplin (1999), which describes the cooperation required to operate larger performance objects. This ratio can be considered similar to the role of the player as one component that fulfills and completes the design of the game system (completing what was previously constructed by a development team). Aarseth (2007a) has commented to this effect, stating that the system may be understood as simply requiring a player. He states that games exist without actual, current players, as material and conceptual game objects (“texts”). While the game-​without-​a-​player is a limited perspective, it does denote a hierarchical relationship: the historical player cannot exist without a game, but the game, at some point in its existence (e.g. before the first playtesting session in a development cycle), can exist without players, and always without one particular, historical player. (1) This argument, as already cited in Chapter  5, leads Aarseth to the claim that the player is not a free subject, but subjected to the rule system. The performative actions of the player permit the system to perform as a simulated environment that serves to express motion, permit encounters, and to tell stories. This perspective is not that unusual, as early scholarly consideration of the changes that were about to take effect in media, culture, and scholarship as a result of the rapid developments in digital technologies sought to accentuation the mechanics behind a work. Without input from a user/​player the medium then has to “summon engagement, providing a user with a reason to interact” (Wearne 1997, 21). As van Zwieten (2011) argues, FPS games produce dis-​identification as a result of the hardware necessary to manipulate the game. He states, “because there is no inherent link between the buttons pressed and the resulting action on the screen . . . agency available to the player is always circumscribed by both hardware and code” (3). Yet, like other scholars who recognize the way in which digital media invites the user to contribute, activate, or realize what would otherwise remain hidden and inert, such perspectives emphasize how “malleable structuring becomes as much a

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part of the text as any visual or content consideration” (Wearne 1997, 20). It is possible to recognize what is happening in games as “performing interactivity” (Dixon 2007), in which the interplay between user and game can be understood as a “performative relationship with a digital design” (Bolter and Gromala 2003, 147), whereby the user performs the design. Jaron Lanier (1996) uses a dance metaphor to describe the performance of interactivity, claiming that the visual is less significant than the rhythm of the interaction. Stepping outside games again, deejay laptop performances constitute another type of performative relationship involving computer systems, which raise questions regarding the degree of human input that is necessary or on display, on the one hand, and the degree of computer autonomy on the other (Hamm 2003). With the shift from physical formats to digitized music, audiences have become accustomed to seeing deejays hunched over laptops. This has created an issue, as “[a]dvanced generative music has the same public face as the simple cross-​fades and pre-​composed track library of an mp3 DJ, typically, the glowing apple on the back of a Macintosh Powerbook” (Collins 2003, 67). That is, there is little to distinguish between a press-​play set (characterized above) and the performativity involved in, say, live coding to generate music (see Andrew Sorensen’s TED performance using Extempore; Ben Swift). The need to distinguish between these different endeavors, and the extent of the input required to generate an outcome, proves relevant to definitions of interactivity as “either the performer’s actions affecting the computer’s output, or the computer’s action affecting the performer’s output” (Garnett 2001). With reference to the latter, gaming software again becomes relevant in the evaluation of performance. Take, for example, Dark Side of Gaming’s PC performance analyses of games, and consider Papadopoulos’s (2014) review of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare: While the game came with somewhat low CPU requirements, it listed 6GB of RAM as its minimum RAM requirement. Contrary to COD: Ghosts’ Story, however, Advanced Warfare really needs more than 4GB of RAM .  .  . the actual game used more than 3.6GB of RAM. This suggests that even if PC gamers find a way to run this title with 4GB of RAM, they will face major stuttering



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issues .  .  . In order to find out whether this title can be played with constant 60fps on a variety of PC systems, we simulated a dual-​core, a tri-​core and a quad-​core system. All of the aforementioned systems were able to push constant 60fps. However, we do have to note that on our simulated dual-​core system there were noticeable stuttering issues that went away as soon as we enabled Hyper Threading. Returning, however, to the role of computing as a partner-​ in-​ performance when employed in musical output/​performance, there are instances in which software may possess high degrees of autonomy during a performance, requiring only tweaking and touch to manipulate an audience. In Playing with Something that Runs, Mark J. Butler (2014) discusses the nature of DJ performances as combining preexisting compositions. The performance assumes a particular character—​for instance, the capacity to “beat match”—​that enables the fusing of two tracks to form a new work. In the larger context of his book, Butler refers to the “collaboration” that takes place between the preexisting elements of compositions and the DJ, realized within improvisation. Improvisation is therefore understood as “bringing real-​time musical processes into dialogue with certain pre-​ existent constraints, be they a repeated chord progression, the form and melodic structure of a [song] . . . or a particular kind of rhythmic cycle” (114). Butler’s work is a testament to the intricacies of the relationship between “what is done” in the context of what a technology “does,” highlighting a range of relationships that includes computer autonomy and the degree to which it serves as a performance instrument, in contrast to the user as computer operator (Hamm 2003). The particular configuration of relationships that involve an operator/​ perfomer, hardware, and software is difficult to discern, as in the case of both the “performer who [simply] pushes a button to start a sequence” and the live coder, “all we learn about the music is what our ears can tell us” Puckette (1991). Goulart (2014) advances on this characterization by highlighting the systems that define the parameters of execution: A DJ software (or any task-​specific application) ties the user to its paradigms. All actions, control structures, and interaction

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possibilities are defined in advance. With a rigid interface, they offer high visibility of available operations and immediate gestural control for the live performer to adapt sound immediately and continuously, but with reduced potential for creative exploration. As Nick Collins (2003) has argued, laptop performances have led a­udiences to assume that the “use of a playback sequencer like Logic” (68) is being employed when in fact a real performance could be taking place. Peter Kirn (2012), in an article on “press play sets” by high profile DJ acts who command large performance fees, provides a balanced account of these controversial issues. In doing so, he highlights the complexity of human–​computer collaboration: There are DJs doing more than just twiddling knobs, configuring elaborate loops that allow them to rework music as they play. There are people scrambling to patch modular synthesizers onstage. There are people who sing or add vocals or instruments, live, over their sets, while still maintaining enough underneath that people can dance. There are people who can play entire techno dance sets, live coding or live patching entire compositions improvisationally. There are artists on instruments like the monome, cutting up patterns as they go. There are controllerists and scratch turntablists, finger-​drumming percussionists who toss all the loops and play beats from one-​shots, multi-​instrumentalists and beatjazz maniacs. And the list goes on.

Performativity > Presence We also find arguments that seek to challenge the viewpoint that it is immersion in visual imagery and sound that is chiefly responsible for providing a player with a sense of “presence.” Wijnand IJsselsteijn (2002) has argued in favor of the active presence-​producing role of the users in order to avoid constraining and limiting the concept of presence to a passive perception. He instead argues that presence “is tantamount to successfully supported action in the environment. Being there thus becomes the ability to do there” (251). This argument might be translated as “performing presence,” accounting for



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what players may be generating via the manipulation of a device. Indeed, in Production of Presence:  What Meaning Cannot Convey, literary scholar Hans Gumbrecht (2004) defines presence as a corporeal phenomenon that describes the processes by which a relationship to the world and its objects is initiated and intensified (xiii). Within digital media it is motor activity (rather than representational verisimilitude) that is said to constitute the “key to fluid and functional crossings between virtual and physical realms” (Hansen 2006, 2). As Aarseth’s (2007a) argument (above) concerning the game system’s “need” for a player suggests, that process necessitates someone fills the gap in order for the work to be coherent. In a similar way, Wolfgang Iser (1980) considered the way in which a work of fiction manifests itself in a “virtual” space between the text and the reader, which as Seegert (2009) clarifies, is “dependent upon both but localized in neither” (27). Seegert argues that: “one must take into account not only the actual text but also, and in equal measure, the actions involved in responding to that text” (50). Much like the concept of flow, “reading is [considered] only a pleasure when it is active and creative” (51). These arguments form the context for Seegert’s (2009) interesting account of presence in regard to “interactive fiction” (IF). His discussion holds interest for the way it draws attention to the “triad of relations” that permits the impression of “tangibility” (Gumbrecht 2004, 94), between “[t]he interactor (you at the keyboard), the player character(s) in the story (the narrative persona(e) you control, referred to as the second person ‘you’) and the narrator” (30). In terms of player performativity, IF provides a clear example of how the “interactor at the keyboard is called to respond at the cursor prompt” (ibid.). This distinguishing feature separates IF from hyper-​fiction, as a process that requires the user to click on hyper-​ links to connect discrete portions of text. In contrast, IF “accepts typed, natural language input, which is analysed and responded to by a computerized narrator” (25). In Nigel Thrift’s (1996) discussion of performance within “non-​ representational theory or the theory of practices,” he also questions how the “hardly problematized sphere of representation is allowed to take precedence over lived experience and materiality, usually as a series of images or texts which a theorist contemplatively deconstructs, thus implicitly degrading practices” (4). Cultural geographer

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Catherine Nash (2000) argues in favor of placing emphasis on practices that cannot be adequately spoken of, practices that texts do not adequately convey in an attempt to avoid losing the “doing” to the “thing done” (Diamond 1996). Resuming discussion of the distance between player and on-​screen animation, and combining it with the notion of player completing and fulfilling a many:1 ratio, in the context of her discussion of performing bodies in Floria Sigismondi’s music videos, Lisa Perrott (2015) constructs an argument that supports the contentions presented in this chapter. The first deals with the animistic impulse to work on a gestural level. In doing so, she recognizes how gesture migrates “intertextually through films, music videos, fashion, photography, dance and theatrical performances” (131), to which I would add digital games. Similarly, with respect to cinema, Stern (2002) has noted the movement of gesture transversely across the medium and to and fro between the social milieu and artistic mediums. Secondly Perrott understands that within animation audiences also experience a “filmic performance” that describes how a performance is mediated by all the contributing components in play. In the case of film—​lighting, sound, editing, camera placement, and movement possess equal potency as “performers.” This leads me to the argument that on-​screen performance during games reflects the co-​presence and temporal linking of the way developers have infused player characters with culturally recognizable “gestural animations” that determine movement and actions, together with the player performativity, as player character movement is activated in response to the driving forces of the game environment. Perrott recognizes that collisions of this nature can result in a form of “transgressive imagery.” That is, what she describes as “the shifting agencies of various performers,” possesses a disrupting influence that prohibits the expression of normative human motion, instead creating a new performative experience. Reflecting back on the discussion of indexicality in Chapter  4, Perrott’s reasoning further highlights the extrication of computer-​generated animation from the real. While animation reflects an interchange between stillness and motion, that is, it brings life to what is otherwise static or frozen within the still image, Perrott’s analysis stresses that the manner in which such a “life-​force” is generated can create movement of an equivocate nature.



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Reinforcing the culturally constructed nature of the violent gestures placed in the hands of the player, J. Daniel Sawyer and Mary Mason (2012) have produced a writer’s guide for fiction writers disadvantaged by a lack of knowledge of what it means to “do” or handle and shoot a gun but who wish to incorporate violence into their work for dramatic effect. Here we find a quirky example of a challenge to the myths and misunderstandings that we have learned to accept in the application of guns and gun fights within writing. Sawyer and Mason highlight common misconceptions and gaps in knowledge such as the lack of awareness of the difference between a revolver and a pistol; the belief that shotguns shoot bullets (instead of spraying pellets); little understanding of the way bullets pierce and penetrate a number of material objects (that would prevent characters from engaging in discussion while taking cover from a shooter); the need for greater knowledge as to what a bullet does to the body (for instance, the difference between a “puncture wound and the hydrostatic shock wave that pushes all the fluids out the hole and flooding other organs” Sawyer, in Penn 2012); and the types of responses triggered within those threatened by firearms or violence (e.g., freeze). In line with the lack of authenticity or knowledge evident within literary accounts of guns and gun use, within the practice of gaming, the actions activated reflect popular illusions of violence. To this effect games require players to trigger actions that align with the cultural flows constructed by, and generated within, other mediums that deviate from reality in their application to drama. Finally, having addressed player performance within games, it is worth noting that the more expected and familiar theorization around “being performative” is associated with the work of Judith Butler (1990), who promotes a view of the reception of the visual as distinct from its experience. This is a reference to Butler’s more comprehensive thinking on the politics of visuality, in which she has argued that there “is a performativity to the gaze,” which has created an opportunity for a discussion of the “modes and schemas of categorization that operate to differentiate through visual cues” (Bell 1999, 7). While the influence of Butler’s recasting of performativity probably demands more attention than it receives here, it serves as a reminder that discussion of performativity cannot and should not rely solely on the persuasiveness of how a player

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operates as an active component who frames what is on-​or off-​ screen (Ash 2009). Some of the emphasis should also be placed on the gaze and the performativity attached to the more widespread visual reading practices and dispositif (Foucault 1977), that permit the game screen to be perceived as, and equated with, the vehement violence that we seek to eradicate, suppress, and protect against. An event-​related study of FPS Tactical Ops:  Assault on Terror (Kamehan Studios 1999), conducted by René Weber and colleagues (2009), examined patterns of behavior within the game. They reported that:

Violent player actions were defined as those periods of playing time when a player fires his weapon (combat-​phase). The analysis revealed that these violent player actions occurred in 15% of all events and accounted for 7% of the total time played. In addition, experience as the target of video game violence (when players were attacked by opponents without engaging in violent behavior themselves) was also analyzed. This was covered by the under-​ attack phase of our content analysis, occurring in 7% of all events and corresponding to 1% of the time played. The safe phase (no opponents/​ stranger in the player’s visual field) was generated most frequently with 36% of all events and accounted for almost half of the total time played (45%). The danger phase (opponent/​stranger in the player’s visual field) showed the second most frequent occurrence with 28% of all events, but accounted for only 8% of the total time played.

Weber et al.’s study demonstrated, with reference to one specific based encounters (in which game, that the proportion of conflict-​ critics generally interpret violence) is not automatically as high as the levels of concern surrounding games might otherwise suggest. Recalling the discussion in Chapter  1 on violence as a rhetorical genre of politicking, we find that violence has similarly been subjected to “an organized system of management and control which produces and reproduces classifications” (Terry and Calvert 1997, 6). The understanding of games as violence has become real within the



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performative spaces of state politics—​not via a single political act, but from a “reiteration of norms that have assumed their political status through their repetition” (Schurr 2014). The reconceptualization of performativity outlined in this chapter comes into conflict with the performative nature of the deportment of politics.

7 Violence as spectacle

T

his book highlights the way games offer a pretense of violence by adapting and integrating the notion, act, and methods of killing into game scenarios, as both a performative affordance and an offensive obstacle that the player is required to manage. This has led to a consideration of violence within games as possessing a distinctive quality that requires some understanding of “what kind of choices and constraints the players are presented with, and what these mean” (Sicart 2009, 37); that is, how combat-​based contests operate within the context of the rules of a game system. For Miguel Sicart this is considered more important than “what the fictional world looks like” (ibid.). The advent, role, and execution of game violence should therefore first be differentiated from the experience of, or exposure to, real violence of the kind found at a community level and in the sanctioned confrontations of war. To explain the predominance of violence as a narrative device and visual spectacle within media entertainment, this chapter will discuss not only how the intensification of entertainment violence coincides with the disappearance of real violence from everyday life (Appelbaum 2013), but also the sensitivity with which death is handled by news media. Wilson and Rosenthal (2003) conducted an extensive meta-​analysis of research on community-​level violence and concluded that the closer the physical experience of violence, the greater the chance of impact. This factor alone should mediate the suggestion of the potential impact of media violence. Throughout the course of this book it has been suggested that a game’s reality exists most strongly in its function as a configurative and interactive phenomenon, which requires the

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player to bring life to the game and provide an opportunity for it to exercise its effect (Iser 1974). While effects researchers perceive the same interactive qualities of gaming as intensifying the presumed impact of televisual or cinematic screen-​violence, this book seeks to understand violence in terms of how it is situated by a game. This factor alone holds the potential to confound the function of violence as a spectacle, as the player is likely to be primed or attuned to the more immediate performative demands of the activity. Evidence for a prioritization of the conditions of play as the principal form of “reality” for the player emerges within both player accounts of game play (see Schott et al. 2013; Schott, Vught, and Marczak 2013b) and the thinking of player-​analysts (Aarseth 2007a; Juul 2005). These accounts implicitly oppose the more widespread criticisms that have come to dominate public perceptions of gaming—​criticisms that have been formulated in response to the age and targets of assailants that have used firearms in attacks on educational institutions. Retroactive accounts of games have stopped short in their consideration of the nature and purpose of gaming as a pastime, focusing on their mimetic surface features as part of a now customary reconsideration of the cultural sanctioning of violence within entertainment. This book has suggested that maybe too much faith is being placed in the explanatory power of what one can see on-​screen, as doing so has led to a misinterpretation of the experiences delivered by gaming. So far, condemnation of games as a cause of violence has given little attention to the manner in which game systems might mitigate the power of depiction. Instead, elements of the screen image that portray an imagined game world continues to be privileged within critical evaluations of games, overlooking what is overlaid on-​screen, such as peritext or extradiegetic components (such as HUD) and what they might signify in terms of a game’s capacity to cue, guide, and contextualize player activity. Regarding which information or presentational element of a game is favored in their evaluation appears to reflect a discrepancy between the experience of the viewer who is detached from the demands of responding to the immediate environment, and the individual who is deep in “concentration on a manageable and clearly structured set of actions” (Csikszentmihalyi 1985, 491); that is, engaged in play. For example, the postmortem of Columbine (as discussed in Chapter  1) found influential and powerful sections of



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society complicit in failing to question the reality and the nature of those events (Baudrillard 1995; Patton 1995). This chapter goes on to address how “distance” again comes into play when determining whether representations of violence produce judgments of pleasure and appreciation, or generate condemnation or disgust.

The polysemic nature of violence Surprisingly, an evasion or denial of the polysemic nature of acts construed to be violent can be found with reference to the treatment of killing in the context of war. Indeed, as sanctioned killing, the rationale for war is often characterized by logical and civilized thinking, alongside a depiction of those who execute war as following “chivalrous codes . . . involving honorable exchange, compassion and altruism” (Bourke 1999, 58). Joanna Bourke (1999) stresses that the primary role of men at war is “killing,” yet recognizes that for politicians, military strategists, and historians it is often presented more in terms of “the conquest of territory or the struggle to recover a sense of national honour” (1). In her book, An Intimate History of Killing, Bourke seeks to chronicle candid accounts provided by soldiers of the pleasures of war. Yet many of the accounts presented in her book are actually adjudged to be fanciful, so as to fulfill the expectations at home that daring, heroic, and fearless actions (that make up the warrior myth) are being satisfied, experienced, and achieved. While it is supposed that the nature of a combatant’s duty has only recently become more mediated—​with intimate combat assumed to be prevalent in the First and Second World Wars and conflicts such as Vietnam—​Bourke argues that even during the First World War long-​ distance shelling was more common than, say, the bayonet charge. Indeed, historically the tactical advantage of bayonet charges was relatively short-​lived (Crossman 1918), as this quotation from U.S. Marine Combat Conditioning (1944/​2011) illustrates: [The] “throw point” as it is sometimes called can be used to thrust from a distance an unarmed enemy who is running backwards away from you. This would probably be the only time you would actually thrust a man with a [throw point] because unless your

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enemy is off his guard and unless you have a very strong arm, there is too much chance of dropping the rifle or of his knocking it from your hands. (7) Despite the evolution of both warfare and its weaponry the bayonet has interestingly remained an instrument of war despite its diminished tactical relevance. Instead the bayonet is steeped in symbolism, playing a key role in tales of heroism, in which accounts of bravery typically detail soldiers’ experiences of intimate encounters with their enemy. Such tales are not confined to historic campaigns but continue to emerge from war zones in this day and age. To quote a recent example, in 2011, the Military Cross was awarded to Corporal Sean Jones of 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (1 PWRR), for exemplary gallantry for a bayonet charge over 80 meters under enemy fire in Afghanistan (Ministry of Defence 2012). Outmoded as a standard military strategy, the bayonet charge has remained a symbol of hope and doggedness, permitting soldiers to “stick it” to the enemy in desperate, ominous, and extreme moments. Bourke notes how even during the Second World War “men’s ignorance of the realities of modern warfare” (54) meant that recruits “simply did not feel like real soldiers until they had fixed shiny blades to their rifles” (ibid.). The continued presence of the bayonet as equipment (in a context that has no place for the inessential) has become a charged emblem for courage and the highest achievement of “warrior culture,” thereby preserving and promoting the significance of intimate combat. The bayonet serves too as a strong reminder that central to the identity and role of a soldier is the act of killing. Fictional representations of war abound with far-​ fetched accounts of men using their bayonets to toss their enemies, as if they were hay-​making (Finnemore 1903; Gould 1916). Indeed, in Men Under Stress, Grinker and Spiegel (1945) state that men’s minds “are full of romanticized, Hollywood versions of their future activity in combat, colored by vague ideas of being a hero and winning ribbons and decorations” (44). In her analysis of killing, Bourke has assessed accounts of combat. In doing so, she draws attention to the need distinguish the fiction of war from its reality, as the two so often coexist and influence one another. Switching from expectation to reflection, it is also possible to locate accounts of the “spiritual resonance” and “aesthetic poignancy”



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(Bourke 1999, 14) of war, as notably expressed by William Broyles Jr (1984) in his Esquire article Why Men Love War: War is not simply the spirit of ugliness, although it is certainly that, the devil’s work. But to give the devil his due, it is also an affair of great and seductive beauty. War is beautiful. There is something about a firefight at night, something about the mechanical elegance of an M-​60 machine gun. They are everything they should be, perfect examples of their form. When you are firing out at night, the red racers go out into tile blackness as if you were drawing with a light pen. Then little dots of light start winking back, and green tracers from the AK-​ 47s begin to weave ill with the red to form brilliant patterns that seem, given their great speeds, oddly timeless, as if they had been etched on the night. Here we find an aesthetic judgment that deviates from the expected response of displeasure that human suffering is meant to generate. It also deviates from how, culturally, we have grown more accustomed to an identification with the victims (bereaved or surviving) of violence (Braud 2004, 17). Instead, in Broyles’s appreciation of the beauty of war, we find a position that both freely admits and promotes how “violence and pleasure have a bond with each other” (Broughton 1991, 234). Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien (1990) also describes the “guilty pleasure” of the war aesthetic: “For all its ­horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat . . . [i]t fills the eye. It commands you. You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not” (cited in Owen 2002, 87). In his account, Broyles draws upon a particular range of presentational constructs connected to what Charles Soukup (2009) has labeled “techno-​scopophilia”; that is, the manner in which militaristic technology serves as an object of fantasy and pleasure.

Distance and spectatorship The desire “to see” is most evident in the “safety” of entertainment-​ based explorations and fantasies detailing and imagining violence. Safety can refer to both the fictional nature of the subject matter and

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the lack of direct threat posed to the viewer. The latter is evident in the alleged global audience that has emerged for footage showing the beheadings of Western captives in the Middle East. The viewing and sharing of these gruesome scenes has prompted warnings such as the one released by UK Metropolitan Police:  “We would like to remind the public that viewing, downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under Terrorism legislation” (Evans 2014). It has also produced a moral debate whereby the interest of viewers of this “extremist material” has occasionally been defended. As freelance writer Elle Hardy (2014) wrote online: “It needs to be accepted that humans are curious creatures, and when it comes to the barbaric methods of IS [Islamic State], some people may wish to obtain a visual understanding of an act—​and a distinct moment in history—​that may otherwise be quite incomprehensible.” In an article for CNN, Frances Larson (2015a), author of Severed:  A  History of Heads Lost and Heads Found (2015b), considers the appeal of defiled bodies. She states that “[t]he advent of film proved this beyond doubt. If the history of beheadings tells us anything, it is that there will always be people who want to see. Today the Internet offers us front-​row seats, on the understanding that no one need know we have taken our places to watch. Murders can be ‘nothing to do with us’ even as we click on the screen to play the film.” Larson contends that a sense of detachment—​the fact that the event has already taken place in an alien and distant land, together with private access to an intimate act of composed violence—​draws viewers to watch acts of “ruthless authenticity.” Commenting on our more general appetite for (media) violence, Robert Appelbaum (2013) contends that the “public taste for aestheticized representations of violence corresponds with a removal of violence from everyday life . . . as actual violence becomes more remote from everyday life, simulations proliferate, and the idea of violence becomes just as central to everyday experience, if not more central, than it was in experientially bloodier times” (122). He extends this point by suggesting that the spectator/​contributor colludes with media displays of violence, explaining media violence as “for us, but violence that is not wanted (by us), or violence that is wanting, and therefore violence that must be supplied (for us, by us and against us)” (original emphasis, 124).



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In an interview with IGN, Silent Hill 2 (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo 2001) producer Akihiro Imamura (2001) claims that in making the survival horror game, the development team focused on how “in our daily lives we don’t really feel much fear. It’s not a common emotional state in day-​to-​day life. Our aim is to stimulate that emotion” (cited in Keeling 2001). The desire or willingness to experience fear via television, film, or a game is a desire to experience fear without consequence. Morreal (1985), cited by Bernard Perron (2012) in his scholarly analysis of the Silent Hill series, states that:  “When we have the ability to start, stop, and direct the experience, we can enjoy a wide range of experiences, even ‘unpleasant’ ones” (97). Extending the notion of collusion as identified by Appelbaum, both Jonathon Frome (2007) and Perron (2012) have found it useful to apply Ed Tan’s (2000) concept of “artefact emotion” to acknowledge the conscious experience of a game as an artifact or “crafted art object” that generates emotions precisely because it is an artifact. As Tan (1996) states in relation to film:  “the viewer will realize that this is a special experience and be aware of what he or she is seeing is indeed an artefact” (65). Perron (2012) argues that, in a game such as Silent Hill 2, the player knows that the developers have created the game’s particular horror so that the player can respond to it (thus reinforcing Imamura’s design-​ intent). It is the unreality of texts that contain gruesome imagery and graphic violence, or induce fear or sadness, that has led scholars to explain their enduring appeal or fascination. In an article titled A Strange Kind of Sadness, Marcia Eaton (1982) maintains that we do not classify the experience of some affecting texts as involving “aesthetic pains” as an opposite to “aesthetic pleasures.” In an attempt to account for her own repeated watching of the film Soldier in the Rain (Nelson 1963), despite the knowledge that she will weep throughout, Eaton contemplates how: “[m]y family infers from my behavior that I must be sad. Yet other aspects of my behavior (I rearrange my schedule so that I can watch the movie, tell friends what a good time they will have watching it, etc.) imply that I do not find it painful” (51). She suggests that a distinction between the practical and impractical might constitute a rough measure of what is “appropriately aesthetic.” That is, the experience of fear, sadness, or delight (when viewing something distasteful) comes from an experience

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“most of which is directed at formal or abstract qualities rather than at practicalities” (62). Appelbaum (2013) draws on Kant’s notion of “aesthetic judgment,” in which an aesthetic attitude is dependent on the degree of indifference toward an object. He uses this to support his assertion that a core condition for spectatorship is a required indifference. He argues: “We never respond to violence in an artwork with the same emotions as we do when we respond to violence in life unless the frame of representation has been so shattered for us that we respond in error” (125). An example of the kind of “error” to which Appelbaum refers may be found in Baudrillard’s (1995) assertion that the Gulf War (1990–​1) did not take place. This is an error that operates in the opposite direction, that is, in response to reality (rather than fiction). This claim drew attention to the manner in which Western media viewers were turned into spectators by media coverage that made it impossible to distinguish what was truly happening in the conflict. As a war orchestrated for television, the Gulf War debuted on US prime time television with a “CNN reporter in Saudi Arabia describing the ‘sweet, beautiful sight’ of bombers taking off” (Kellner 1992). This was later followed by CNN colleague John Holliman describing the “beautiful red and orange” of the bombs exploding and the “beautiful tracer fire.” While this presents a narrative similar to that provided by Broyles (above), for the viewer at home the Gulf War was distant and clean. The magnitude of the spectacular scenes described by journalists was not assessed in terms of the carnage imposed upon those on the receiving end. Remarking on the Gulf War, Appelbaum (2013) also argues that the role of the victim was occupied not by Iraqi civilians or military personnel but by journalists reporting from Baghdad, who conveyed uncertainty and fear as to their own safety when reporting from the war zone. He contends that in their eventual return from Iraq they also became the heroes of the war—​a tale that echoed Spielberg’s war narrative Saving Private Ryan (1998). In contrast to the indifference described above, Bourke (1999) provides numerous examples of fantastical narratives detailing combat experiences by ordinary combatants that provide more intimate and detailed descriptions of war than perhaps the soldier’s actual role permitted them to experience. She explains these narratives as performing a “cathartic and consolatory function rather than . . . [an] objective



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recital of ‘experience’ ” (4). In one example, she reflects on a war story in which the consequences and results of remote (and bloodless) actions were being recalled with graphic detail, despite the distance that would have existed between the combatants as agents and their military opponents. Likewise, Weinstein’s (1973) neuropsychiatric account of soldier experiences during the Second World War drew attention to a tendency for fictional or highly distorted accounts of battle. Instances of posttraumatic flashbacks experienced by soldiers who served in Vietnam also revealed a disjuncture between the horrific images plaguing them and their actual roles and experiences, which would actually have prevented such proximity or access to disturbing and gruesome scenes (Wallace 1984). In contrast to the indifference inherent in the Western press coverage of the Gulf War, the fantastical accounts of real combatants referenced here appear to be connected to the nature of a combatant’s intent and business when going to war, defined as killing and avoidance of death in the name of military efficiency (Bourke 1999). Indeed, the combatant’s function is often defined by its direct relationship with death and dying. A soldier’s responsibility has been articulated as follows: The killing of an individual enemy with a rifle, grenade, bayonet—​ yes, even the bare hands—​is the mission of the Army . . . [t]his mission has no civilian counterpart. (Forsythe and Dunwoody 1955, cited in Bourke 1999) Games clearly involve their own degree of self-​interest and commitment, as the “violence” present in games is not being played out as it is for a film audience, but used by the player toward achieving goals. However, as Appelbaum notes with respect to film, “violence is its own premise” (127) in the sense that it constitutes the premise of the represented world of the character or the world itself (one that is governed by violence). In such instances, violence is then both the problem and the solution. This argument leads me to revisit an earlier assertion that violence in games is not a product of aggression. The understanding of aggression as a compulsion to attack or confront has become entangled with the forward momentum of games in which the incentive behind in-​game confrontations has been misinterpreted. By neglecting the rule systems of games, there has been

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a failure to recognize how actions in games possess a different motivational force that is adaptive to its system, not maladaptive in the same way as breaches to social norms. As an obstacle to progression, confrontation within a configurative medium becomes a means to construct rather than destruct. What would otherwise remain a concealed section of the text is activated through the effective removal of obstacles or solving of problems. Thus, once again reflecting on the underlying parameters set by the rule system of games that possess contest “as its own premise,” brings player behavior in sync with the context or cues provided. Aggression is stimulated by fear and accompanied by anger (Connor et al. 2004), whereas play is motivated by, and associated with, positive emotions such as satisfaction and achievement. While this argument prioritizes the absorption of violence within play over the idea of play as violence, it still leaves the visual range of violence on display unaddressed. That is, violence has the capacity to be expressed in a number of different ways, both within and across game genres. At the same time it is also able to retain an association with extratextual expressions of violence.

Requisitioned death? Chapter 4 explored the truth claims associated with photography or the captured image, in terms of how experience has been successfully suppressed by the power of the image (Kember 1998). With respect to war, Zelizer (2001) too notes that “seeing is believing,” with visual representations holding the power to become a “concrete corollary” for what war means. However, research has consistently suggested that the US news media in particular has increasingly shied away from showing dead or wounded troops, failed military actions, or civilian casualties in its news coverage (see Griffin and Lee 1995; Hallin 1986; Paletz 1994; Zelizer 2004). In his article The War Without Blood, Pete Hamill (2004) writes: One fundamental truth of the war [Iraq War, 2003–​11]—​the killing of human beings—​is not getting through. Photographers and television cameramen must surely be among those who feel the most severe frustration. What we get to see is a war filled with



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wrecked vehicles:  taxis, cars, Humvees, tanks, gasoline trucks. We see wrecked buildings, and rescue workers examining rubble. We see wrecked helicopters. We see almost no wrecked human beings . . . There are no photographs of dead young soldiers. There are very few photographs of the wounded. In short, we are seeing a war without blood. (28, 30, cited in Silcock, Schwalbe, and Keith 2008) Fenton (2005) has identified the tension within news journalism, between a duty to be compassionate (Sanders 2003)  and being mindful of taste (Frost 2000), while also respecting the “power that comes through controlling the flow of information” (Bok 1983, 19). He relates how CBS news videographer Nick Turner and correspondent Barry Peterson’s report on a mortar attack on a primary school in Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict (1992–​5) was edited because the then executive producer found “the whole war over there very depressing” (33). Likewise, Campbell (2004) cites news correspondent Martin Bell’s critique of BBC in-​house regulations that enforced censorship based on “good taste,” thus preventing the portrayal of the reality of the Bosnian war. As stated in Taylor (1998), irrespective of its good intentions, regulation obscures the fact that “[w]ar is real and war is terrible. War is a bad taste business” (75). Even though the profound image of war is death (Silcock, Schwalbe, and Keith 2008), games strangely appear to work in contrast to public digestion of conflicts in the modern era. Walter, Littlewood, and Pickering (1995) use the phrase “emotional invigilation” of death to cover the “simultaneous arousal of, and regulatory keeping watch over, the affective dispositions and responses associated with death” (586). As sociologist Philip Mellor (1992) has noted, while death may no longer be “taboo,” “it [still] remains a hidden one in the sense that it is generally sequestrated from public space” (11). Institutionally repressed, death has been removed from the main arenas of life, only to be replaced by death as an entertainment form. Even within news media, death is described as “antithetical to social ordinariness” (Walter, Littlewood, and Pickering 1995, 583) in the sense that it only becomes “publicly visible, and thereby publicly authenticated, when that death is extraordinary, or when the circumstances in which it has occurred is extraordinary” (584). In such

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cases, the focus of coverage is often on the grief of survivors. Writing in 1955, Geoffrey Gorer observed in his essay The Pornography of Death how “natural death” has increasingly become “smothered in prudery,” whereas violent death has assumed an “ever-​growing part in the fantasies offered to mass audiences” (173). This is a viewpoint later taken up by Vicki Goldberg (1998) in her essay Death Takes a Holiday, Sort of, in which she observes: “When it came to matters of death, people who were no longer seeing quite so much of it up close learned to accept representations that looked real as a substitute for experience” (30). It would appear that substitution, indifference, and fantasy contrive to make the representation of death pleasing. As Elisabeth Bronfen (1992) notes:  “The aesthetic representation of death lets us repress our knowledge of death precisely because here death occurs at someone else’s body and as an image” (x, original emphasis). Writer and political activist Susan Sontag’s (1990) noted essays on photography have outlined the medium’s capacity to “deaden consciousness” as much as to arouse it. She states that “the aestheticizing tendency of photography is such that the medium which conveys distress ends by neutralizing it. Cameras miniaturize experience and transform history into spectacle. As much as they create sympathy, photographs cut sympathy, distance and emotions” (109–​10). One should exercise caution in denying the impact of first viewing a powerful or arresting photograph, but such arguments are testament to how quickly impact weakens and normalization follows. To some extent, what Sontag has noted with respect to the photographic image is also true of games:  both are subject to a process of “cultural translation” whereby impressions of death end up doing “contrary work in different settings because of changes in the conditions of reception” (Campbell 2004, 63). Games participate in, and contribute toward, an established system of dealing with death, which operates in relation to Campbell’s (2004) dimensions of “indifference to others,” “taste and decency,” and “display.” The final dimension listed refers to the context within which images are situated. With respect to news media, this dimension includes contextualization in the form of captions and titles. In games, the imagery produced in response to player activation is triggered and understood within the immediate framework of the HUD, mechanics, prompts, and principal game rules.



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As a visual experience, games—​according to Bolter and Grusin (2000)—​“borrow avidly from [other digital media] as well as from their analog predecessors such as film, television, and photography” (9). An interesting example, discussed by Schott (2008), accounts for the manner in which FPS game Resistance: Fall of Man (Insomniac Games 2011)  clearly evokes the feel of director Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998). Yet while the film represents a significant shift in the presentation of war violence, taking Second World War imagery into “new territories of verisimilitude” (Sturken 1997, 42), Resistance: Fall of Man functions to offer much less of a spectacle by virtue of its ludic demands. In Saving Private Ryan Spielberg applies what has been described as a post-​Vietnam representational logic to an account of the Second World War in order to reflect “disillusionment with the heroic and celebratory representational practices of earlier Hollywood war films” (Owen 2002, 259). In making this film Spielberg adopted a subjective sensibility. As he explained in an interview: “war is no longer about a greater good but becomes intensely personal. Kids in combat are simply fighting to survive, fighting to save the guys right next to them” (1998, 68). The film’s audiences were sutured into the intensity, the chaos, and the horrors of combat (Nelson 2000)  via a long-​standing feature of games—​the point-​of-​ view perspective. In Saving Private Ryan’s opening Omaha beach-​ landing sequence, defeating the enemy is secondary to the basic human concern with staying alive. The influence of Saving Private Ryan is evident in other games, such as the Spielberg-​ produced Medal of Honor (DreamWorks Interactive 1999)  and Call of Duty (Infinity Ward 2003), in which emphasis upon the “lone wolf,” once typical of the FPS genre (e.g., Wolfenstein 3D, id Software 1992), is displaced in favor of the preservation of self and “unit.” Promoting the idea of a “company” stood in stark contrast to the war heroics portrayed by film. A strong component of the “warrior myth,” according to Bourke (1999), has been defined as the “John Wayne Syndrome.” Appearing in a number of soldier accounts, this syndrome represents a kind of gung-​ho attitude, brashness, and arrogance that conveys a sense of invincibility. This attitude is evident in oral accounts of the Vietnam War, assembled by Kim Willenson (1987) who cites a marine as asserting: “Hey, we’re going to wipe them out. Nothing’s going to happen to us.”

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Saving Private Ryan allowed audiences to visually experience the carnage of war, and its various horrible deaths, through the immediacy of hand-​held camera work, blood-​splattering on the camera lens, and temporal and auditory distortion signifying both mortar concussion and shocked detachment. Past glorification of war is firmly suppressed in favor of a “new kind of dying .  .  . uncut and uncensored” (Spielberg 1998, 68)—​replaced instead by an aesthetisization of violence. Yet, when manifested within post-​Vietnam War cinema, moments of sensory intensity are coupled with deeper moments of reflection on the trauma of war, that explore the psyche of the “tormented lost soul, the permanently damaged survivor of a nihilistic hell too terrible to be put into words” (Holden 1999, 12). In contrast, a game such as Resistance: Fall of Man may immerse players in analogous encounters of conflict, but it does not offer the same level of gruesome spectacle of fallen men, of soldiers injured or dying. Instead, voyeuristic spectatorship is exchanged for an onus on the player to endure and survive its fast-​paced, frenetic, and hazardous spaces. There is simply no time to stop and look when pitted against a system that has been programmed to obstruct the player’s progress toward achieving a winning state.

Slow motion and prolonged gaze There are examples of games, such as F.E.A.R. (Monolith Productions 2005), that offer players “reflex” or “bullet time”—​a mode of play that simulates John Woo’s (1992) tea house shootout in Hard Boiled and popularized by The Matrix—​in which the game world is decelerated, allowing the player the opportunity to observe otherwise imperceptible events such as the trajectory of bullets. While this ultimately creates a tactical advantage for the player during encounters with the enemy, it pushes games to emphasize the corporeality of that encounter compared to the swift nature of regular game-​combat. Thematically, F.E.A.R. reflects a hybrid genre (Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson 1985) that purposefully combines the distinctive stylistic flourishes of action films (“defeating the enemy with style,” according to F.E.A.R. developer Craig Hubbard) with the accentuated visceral nature and “pleasurable tensions” (Tudor 2002) associated with



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both Western and Japanese horror respectively. This brings the game more in line with Doherty’s (1998) assertion, that “far from being horrifying and repulsive . . . [violence] on screen is always exhilarating” (69). When translated as an entertainment form, violence becomes an “authentic fake” (Eco 1986) or a “thicket of unreality,” positioned between the player and the “facts of life” (Boorstin 1992). Max Payne 3 (Rockstar Studios 2012), similarly, is a game renowned for its use of bullet time (which portrays a bullet’s trajectory in slow motion). The player, acting for Max, is given the capacity to slow time in the surrounding game world, while leaving player input unaffected (i.e., they can continue shooting in real time). Within Max Payne 3, bullet time also forms a part of the “shootdodge” move, Max Payne’s signature maneuver that creates a temporal distortion as the character dives through the air. Activation of bullet time or shootdodge sees the same world momentarily and temporally carved up, as enemy actions are witnessed via a perceptual alteration of time; this allows the player to evade bullets, aim accurately, and return fire in real time. In the third iteration of the game, Max is also able to aim 360° and dispatch remaining enemies from the ground, avoiding the need to stand up. With respect to film, Peebles (2004) has argued that the pervasiveness of slow motion as standard cinematic practice—​since its initial cultural impact in Arthur Penn’s 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde—​ has meant that it has “lost much of its power to shock or disturb” (45). Yet in direct contrast to this argument, the Australian Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games (2012) still maintains the belief that the impact of games “may be higher” when a game-​play sequence contains slow motion. There is a distinction that needs to be drawn here between (1) a distortion of perceived time, and (2) the aestheticization of violence that it might permit as a result. Beginning with the use of temporal distortion, we find a preexisting association between slow motion and violence that extends beyond its application within cinema. The phenomenon of “tachypsychia” (Ayoob 1983)—​ a slowing down, speeding up, or heightened awareness of time—​is found in accounts given by perpetrators, victims, and witnesses of violence, when individuals are around, or placed in “life or death” situations. Tachypsychia describes how a temporal subjectivity operates during such intense moments. As Haanstad (2009) argues: “The fractal traumatic moment

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penetrates the daily collective construction of time [or ‘social time,’ (Munn 1992)] through an usurpation of ordinary temporal reckoning” (74). It describes how rational consciousness can therefore be ruptured, stretching out in moments that offer a challenge to the “vivid present” (Schutz 1962), while also stressing the significance of mortality. F.E.A.R. and Max Payne 3 use “tachypsychia” as a conscious device that a player may apply to meet the game’s aim. However, within Max Payne 3 it is also triggered in response to the player character’s health status. During a subjectification of time, the sentiment that “living is time, dying a moment” (Pescador 1973, 146) is heavily imposed in the Max Payne 3’s “last man standing” mode. This particular scenario is triggered by a significant loss of player character health. On the brink of screen-​death, Max is automatically placed in a Western-​style gun duel that elevates the significance of a single exchange for the player. Bullet time is therefore employed as part of the player’s repertoire within Max Payne 3, allowing the player to actively manipulate time to exert their advantage over Max’s adversaries. In situations where Max is overwhelmed and outnumbered and/​or the player reasonably anticipates an ambush, shootdodge is typically activated as part of the game’s strategic play. As the players of Max Payne 3 in Schott et al.’s (2013) study confirmed: [shootdodge] gives me a lot more reaction time I like to use [shootdodge] when you know you are going to get shot or you need time to carefully pick them off and not wasting your own clip and having to reload at a crucial moment When slow motion (as bullet time or shootdodge) is employed in Max Payne 3 it still requires the player to remain alert and to continue to function effectively during a moment of game-​world deceleration. Indeed, the advantage is only available to the player for a limited duration of time. In the course of their research Schott et  al. (2013) were able to confirm the frequency and importance of this mode of play to players’ strategic approach when playing Max Payne 3. Given that the shootdodge mode is directly triggered by the player pressing “left shift” and “space bar” respectively, Schott et  al. found it possible



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to note and examine each time a participant opted to trigger slow motion during the course of their play by logging player key-​strokes (depression of keys on the keyboard). Their research confirmed that for the majority of players, bullet time constituted a core tactical and strategic tool, the need for which was understood as being built into the game. As one participant indicated in the course of an interview conversation: “it’s probably not worth aiming for the head if you don’t have bullet time, because you’ll probably get shot up pretty bad.” As a core mechanic that has to be applied throughout the game, player relationship with slow motion changed over the duration of the game. When the move was still novel for players at the beginning of the game, Schott et  al. reported that the initial response was positive. Indeed one player is quoted as stating: “I like it when I jump, I feel like such a badass .  .  . it’s like The Matrix, so cool.” Indeed, player exposition recognized the intent of the game to incorporate a cinematic mode of representation into play. As the game progressed however, players found that slow motion became a major source of frustration. Players would often press the space bar seeking (or needing only) to jump in real time, but found themselves having to always do so in a protracted fashion. In Max Payne 3 employing bullet time or shootdodge does not necessarily heighten the effect or outcome of simulated violence. The reflections provided by players, of their experience with Max Payne 3, supports the notion that the game’s appropriation of temporal manipulation is primarily ludic and therefore quite distinct from the relationship that has been formed between slow motion and the aestheticization of violence within film. This relationship was first cemented during the most unlikely of events. Described as the “most influential filmmaker of the last half of the 20th century” (Mullin 1995, 12), Abraham Zapruder was responsible for the infamous footage that captured the assassination of the 35th President of the United States, John F.  Kennedy (1917–​63). Mullin has accredited this captured piece of footage as establishing “a new code of reality for the representation of violent death,” a code that included the “exploding, spurting wound” (ibid.). By the time the public eventually got to see the footage in 1975 it had however been manipulated by film technician Robert Groden, who had “slow[ed] the speed, isolated the head of JFK on frames depicting head shots, enlarged some parts

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of frames .  .  . and produced a film version with devastating visual impact” (Wrone 2003, 65). There are examples such as Call of Duty 4:  Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward 2007)  that reflect the impact and influence of the new visual codes established by the Zapruder film, in which the game employs confirmatory visual signifiers of player actions, such as blood spraying and staining. The experience is also offered under detached conditions, as the player uses a long-​range sniper rifle. Even prior to the public release of the Zapruder footage, film director Arthur Penn’s comments on the climax of Bonnie and Clyde, which shows Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway “rolled and jerked in gory slow motion as a multitude of bullets sprayed their bodies” (Peebles 2004, 45), draw parallels with the Zapruder film. Penn made a point of highlighting how “even a piece of Warren’s head comes off, like that famous photograph of Kennedy” (Labarthe and Comolli 1972, 169). After Bonnie and Clyde, protracted killing became an essential component of the thrill of violence in action films. Thus violence in slow motion served to represent an aestheticized violence, in which exhilaration turned into examination, representing visceral enjoyment with an indefinable allure. As Bruder (1998) acknowledges, “violent images encourage us to take pleasure in the spectacular representation of other people’s pain, [but makes] our fascination with them difficult to justify.” In her discussion of the Medal of Honor series Eva Kingsepp (2003, 2007) observes that, in contrast, many games offer their players a “postmodern death”—​similar to Baudrillard’s (1995) notion of a clean war, owing to its highly sanitized treatment of death. Indeed, the imperative drive of the game is reaffirmed in cases where existents that have been successfully neutralized are then cleaned up and disappear off the screen in full view of the player. Rather than have the player wade through virtual corpses—​suggestive of excessive slaughter—​the game’s “flow state” (Csikszentmihalyi 1990)  is instead preserved and with it the fragile illusion of the authenticity of a guerilla warfare scenario, despite its improbabilities and over-​ reliance on utilizing existents as obstacles or soft boundaries. The role of bullet time or shootdodge in Max Payne 3 is primarily to permit the player to manipulate what Grodal (2000) has termed “game-​world-​generated time”; it provides the option of manipulating time in order to manage challenging odds, or to afford the player



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a means of surveying the scene as they enter unexplored and obstructed spaces. In doing so, the game provides the player with an essential and prescribed tool that has to be employed in order to successfully navigate the game’s challenges. When examined against its sibling medium, the opening sequence of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers gives us slow motion embedded in six minutes of violence, containing “rapid-​fire shifts” in a montage of editing, shots, and film formats that disorientate and position the viewer variously as killer, victim, and instrument of death (Young 2009). In contrast, Max Payne 3 confines itself to the use of one cinematically derived motif in slow motion; in doing so, it dilutes its aspiration to offer the mediated truth of an action movie hero, through the consequences and demands placed on player performance during its execution.

Carnivalesque deaths In contrast to the ludic role and presentation of death (described above), Kingsepp (2003) uses “carnivalesque death”—​an application of Mikhail Bakhtin’s writing on the subversion of, and liberation from, the dominant style—​to describe deaths that highlight “the bloody, the gory and the grotesque” (2–​3). Indeed, not all games are created equal. There are of course other, more gruesome examples of game death, such as the example of FPS game Soldier of Fortune (Raven Software 2000), in which character models are comprised of individual body parts, permitting the dismemberment of existents. Players are given the power to make a target’s head explode, to shoot off limbs, eviscerate intestines, and incite the performance of a slower painful death from a shot to the groin. In addition, such detail also permits the player to disarm existents with a shot to the hand, forcing them to cower and surrender. While the detail of this game is found in its anatomical partitioning, the game play itself has achieved limited praise as it is considered lacking in its tactical sophistication. In witnessing carnivalesque [game] deaths that are more protracted—​ deaths that are typically reserved for the “superhero of the American monomyth” (Shelton and Jewett 2002, 6)—​it is possible to argue that the status of enemies can thus be raised, contradicting the idea of the existent as always a fleeting obstacle.

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On first examination, the “brutality of the camera eye” (Witcombe 1975, 11) when it comes to representation of the pain and demise of the “other,” can be readily applied to Max Payne 3’s “bullet cam” feature. Segmenting the game experience for the player, bullet cam is suggestive of a celebratory moment or climax point at the end of a substantial section of play. When Max shoots the last enemy to conclude a defined sequence of play, bullet cam is automatically triggered. Unlike bullet time, the effect of bullet cam is an elaboration, exaggeration, and aestheticization of an action that is otherwise performed many times within active play in order to create a conscious spectacle. In this moment, not only is the trajectory of the bullet shown in Zaprudian detail, but the player can also slow the bullet down and trigger the flight of further bullets, without recourse to aim or accuracy. Firing further shots extends the scene and adds to the physical annihilation of one adversary above those that preceded the “bullet cam” ending. While pleasure may arise from this scene as a signifier of player achievement and assured safety while bullet cam plays out, participation does come at a cost—​the tactical disadvantage of wasted resources. Rutsky and Wyatt (1990) provide insight into how this game scenario should be understood, as they outline how “non-​serious pleasure” or “fun,” “cannot be figured in terms of depth . . . never ‘anchoring’ itself in the depths of meaning, character identification or imagistic fascination” (11). Bruder (1998) further describes such moments as a call toward style or effect and away from “truth.” Indeed, the further the player indulges in the extension of the bullet cam moment, the more it draws attention to the boundaries of gaming mechanics to represent further deviations from human-​like motion. The increase in the “obviousness” of what is happening even diminishes the suggestion that it is a perfectly rendered imitation or shares intertextual familiarity with the stylized violence employed by directors such as Woo. Bullet cam thus offers an interesting proposition for the regulator, as the camera remains focused on the instrument of screen death, not its issuer, following its trajectory and creating a position for spectatorship that does not reflect the point of view of the player’s character. A detachment therefore occurs as the player becomes disconnected from the protagonist, yet retains the ability to input and manipulate the scene by continuing to fire. This scene underlines



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the divide between player input and the nature of on-​screen action discussed in the previous chapter. On first encountering “bullet cam,” the player receives an on-​screen directive or prompt to “continue shooting.” Schott et  al. (2013) found that the player’s subsequent actions fulfilled this prompt in response to the first instance of its appearance. The scene then provokes a response comparable to what Boltanski (1999) has articulated as the double movement of “aesthetic pleasure.” First, the reactions expressed by some players, conforms to what Boltanski identifies as the initial movement—​one of “horror” at the amplification of ordinary actions and assuming a more involved perspective. Yet the extension of killing, by virtue of affording it greater time, attention, and triggering repeated shots, shifts the experience of bullet toward impartiality and into the second movement—​“pleasure.” The enemy’s body contorts, folds, and bounces in a manner suggestive of nothing more than a rag doll. When fully realized during play, bullet cam ultimately forsakes the codes of presentational truth established by the game in its normal operational mode. By placing the representational properties of the game under scrutiny in this way, “the spectacle obliterates the humanitarian quality of suffering” (Chouliaraki 2006, 263)  and reinforces Brooker’s (2009) contention that “videogame aesthetics are associated with empty spectacle” (124).

Violence is its own premise: The represented world of the character Participants in Schott et al.’s (2013) study expressed their awareness of Max Payne 3’s backstory and how it provides an explanation for what initially propels and steers the character of Max Payne. Players understood the character to be a “hired gun,” who was applying his specific skill set (as a former police officer) in contexts that possess greater tolerance for the character’s crisis of faith, moral ambiguity, and substance abuse in the wake of personal losses. While retribution and revenge constitute the character’s past in the third installment of the Max Payne series, the theme remains central to the character and continues to shape his design and motivations. It

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was, however, highly questionable whether the placement of the character’s state of mind at the forefront of the game (as a theme) actually had any subsequent impact on player choices or the general approach to play once the game commenced. For example, in interviews with participants, Schott et al. report the following viewpoints to illustrate player understanding and evaluation of the character’s disposition: I’m just making this up here, maybe he feels like he failed protecting someone one time . . . maybe he feels he should do better by ummm . . . he should try and make up for it by trying his best and save these people I’ve seen flashbacks of his past but I  don’t really know anything about him If anything, all the game’s preface offers players is a further indication (having assented to play the game) that the impending game experience is not seeking to present a normative framework of reality. In making this point, “normative” is used to distinguish real-​world from game-​world. While the game engages the player in lawless violence, in doing so it subscribes to notions of “legitimated violence” that Young (2009) identifies as a kind of normative paradox associated with cinematic violence. That is, “the violence of a wrong-​doing can be met with violence” (8). This is a sentiment that is reinforced in Max’s stream of consciousness throughout the game that typifies his personal philosophy and propels his subsistence (for instance, “I hope I  haven’t lost my edge along with everything else”). As a guiding principle too, it avoids the player having to reevaluate or question whether or not every new NPC encountered should be engaged in a gunfight. The world is characterized by violence. As game play commences, players however switch their attention to the role of on-​ screen directives provided by the game system—​for example, “continue shooting, press left mouse” (in bullet cam mode)—​as a core mechanism for the initiation of new actions and their subsequent adoption. Schott et  al. state that on-​ screen directives possessed greater explanatory power compared to the narrative backstory. In a situation where the player’s in-​game behavior ran counter to the linear thrust of the game, the player ran away from the action. The



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player explained this by saying that: “[the game] told me to search for clues, I assumed it meant search more carefully everywhere.”

Destruction Separate from the focus upon killing is the visual pleasure derived from decay and destruction. In The Warriors, J.  Glenn Gray (1958) writes:  “thousands of youths who never suspect the presence of such an impulse in themselves have learned in military life the mad excitement of destroying” (52). Such pleasures are also to be found in games, in the spaces they present and the actions they permit. Aesthetically there exists a long artistic and literary attraction to demolition, damage, and the signals of attempted obliteration of spaces and structures that once contained the energy of life in the form of inhabitation or commerce. In 1953, Pleasure of Ruins by Rose Macaulay presented a history of “ruin lust” evident in eighteenth-​ century European art and literature. The desuetude of a ruin or vacant structure becomes a vehicle for imagination or play, suggestive of a past life, but like the inevitability of death, the potential of all existing structures to stand as remnants of a past world at some point in the future. To this effect, Macaulay speculates that in the future Catholicism may only exist “when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul’s” (188). Macaulay’s vision was to be repeated in scenes produced by Danny Boyle for the zombie apocalypse film 28 Days Later (2002), when Jim (Cillian Murphy), having awakened from a coma, wanders a deserted London across Waterloo Bridge, surveying the London skyline (that includes St. Paul’s). The vistas conjured within doomsday scenarios present the pleasure of a behavioral reboot or the dawning of new age that brings with it a discontinuation of the material, social, and moral conditions of the past. To do this requires large-​scale destruction of “iconic objects, infrastructure and landscapes” (Anderson 2012, 267). This has been achieved to great effect with images of the toppled, half-​ buried Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes (Schaffner 1968), or half-​submerged and frozen in The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich

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2004); the collapse of the Eiffel Tower in G.I. Joe:  Rise of Cobra (Sommers 2009)  or Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare 3 (Infinity Ward 2011); and the destruction of the White House in Independence Day (Emmerich 1996). Yet British artist Damien Hirst and German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen were condemned for interpreting and labeling the destruction of New  York’s World Trade Center’s Twin Towers as a work of art. Hirst emphasized the comparative nature of the visual spectacle with what Hollywood had been accomplishing with greater impact for years prior to the attacks, and again since. He commented: “The thing about 9/​11 is that it’s kind of an artwork in its own right. It was wicked, but it was devised in this way for this kind of impact. It was devised visually” (cited in Allison 2002). Reflecting on Stockhausen’s comments on the grand scale of the orchestrated event, Castle in 2011 found it possible to compare the sentiment of his comments with the “cult of the Sublime,” describing an eighteenth-​century aesthetic that included “anything that by its size, strength, or the danger it posed to human life produced instinctive terror and awe.” He argues that Gothic novelists such as Horace Walpole, Matthew Gregory Lewis, and Mary Shelley, like disaster filmmakers of today, realized that “skillfully packaged, things otherwise dread-​inspiring could be a source of perverse yet intoxicating delight.” Jesse Kavaldo (2013) has constructed a fascinating article around the notion of cinematic disappearance and amnesia following the collapse and destruction of the Twin Towers, in which he contemplates the change in Hollywood attitude in response to apocalyptic fantasies being undermined. As Page (2008) has observed, the sight of the Towers post-​9/​11 was considered likely to “detract from the narrative and undermine the escapist pleasure that is the essence of Hollywood films” (204). Kavaldo outlines how the Towers quickly disappeared from their usual placement as part of the New  York skyline in the introduction of the television series Sex and the City (HBO, 1998–​2004). Likewise, films such as Spider-​man (Raimi 2002), Zoolander (Stiller 2001), Serendipity (Chelsom 2001), Spy Game (Scott 2001), Men in Black II (Sonnenfeld 2002), and The Time Machine (Wells 2002) felt the need to delete the image of the Towers from their films. Despite the familiar edict “we will never forget 9/​11” (Dixon 2004), post-​9/​11 Hollywood replaced apocalyptic visions with



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a cinematic preoccupation with amnesia—​as in The Bourne Identity (Liman 2002), Vanilla Sky (Crowe 2001), Mulholland Drive (Lynch 2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry 2004), and Kill Bill (Tarantino 2003). Kavaldo understands this shift as reflecting the “ruined topography of pre-​9/​11 apocalypses turned inward, to the shattered setting of the mind” (67). While this argument reflects a cultural interpretation of films that were conceived and filmed prior to 9/​11, for Kavaldo their reception is considered more salient than their genesis, as he argues that they appealed to a “newfound psychic vulnerability” (66). The comments of Hirst spoke more of a New York that had, until 9/​11, consistently and unproblematically been a “celluloid simulation ripe for destruction” (ibid.). The concept of erasure does, however, strike a chord with the experience of landing in a game universe as players typically experience the aftermath of events (e.g., in Bioshock, Half Life 2, Battlefield 3, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, and Metro 2033), whereby they encounter despoiled ravaged worlds that have left individuals morally contaminated. When players inhabit an original game character they too embody the amnesiac. Typically there is no history to be recalled or drawn upon as they deal with the ambiguity of the present and the future. Cormac McCarthy’s (2006) novel The Road (adapted into a film in 2009)  is notable in that it never explicitly addresses the catastrophe that precedes the book’s narrative. What happened remains irrelevant, like the slowly fading memories of the “man,” or the “boy” who has no memory of life prior to the apocalypse. What the characters find and what they lose as they journey through a post-​apocalypse landscape define them as characters. Similarly, one could describe the “quick save” feature employed within many games as embodying a fear of forgetting, a need to register actions that have just taken place. Unlike the destruction of iconic objects that reflect a shift in power, the end, or downfall of a particular set of values, it is important to consider the pleasures of nonsymbolic destruction. It is possible to cite neorealist filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni’s explosion scene in Zabriskie Point (1970) as an example of the pleasures of destruction, in which he achieves a “pure poetic spectacle” by repeatedly showing a building exploding over and over from different angles. Villella (2000) describes how “the movement of objects

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through space is rendered graceful and brilliant. Flying toward the viewer, these many shards of shiny bits and pieces that once served a utilitarian purpose when part of a greater object here exist in and of themselves in a purely dazzling spectacle.” Jakob Tanner (2008) describes the pleasure of the “transformation of functional objects into useless fragments, which arrange themselves in bright spaces into wonderful images with instinctive precision. The explosive effect is sublimated into an immaculate execution of colors and forms” (71). Here we address the enjoyment derived from the act of destruction as “wreckcreation” (Allen and Greenberger 1978). In inhabiting destroyed spaces, gamers occupy places that have been reset for play by virtue of the ineptitude, distortion, or transformation of their prior functionality or utilitarian value.

Arousal In 1967 Zinberg and Fellman stated that: “Little attention has been paid . . . to the possibility that the nature of man includes destructiveness in a quintessential way such that the existence and dynamics of that destructiveness must be understood and faced on their own terms” (533). This position serves to introduce an argument for the inevitability and universal nature of outward destructive activity. Drawing on Freud’s clinical observations and psychoanalytic account of human destructive drives, Zinberg and Fellman posit the psychological reality of destructiveness and the necessity of “socially and adaptively acceptable substitutes for the . . . impulses which threaten [the] survival of social order and the species” (534). Such an argument brings us dangerously close to the notion that game violence is a substitution for real violence, downplaying the formal characteristics of the medium. In querying the emphasis of a psychoanalytically derived explanation for continued and varied manifestations of violence within society and culture, it is fair to comment on research that states how violence within media entertainment is rarely a lone variable, but is confounded or accompanied by other features that also increase enjoyment, such as action or suspense (Valkenburg and Cantor 2000; Vorderer and Knobloch 2000).



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Schott, Marczak, and Neshausen (2014) examined the degree of physiological arousal experienced by game players while playing FPS Battlefield 3 (Electronic Arts 2011), as a means of providing a more textually neutral method of accessing the experiences offered by what many would classify a “violent” game. The premise for using biometric measurement is based on the suggestion that screen-​ conflict can produce physiological arousal (including increased heart rate and skin conductance). In their application of bio-​feedback measures, Schott, Marczak, and Neshausen used them to not only capture the extent of player arousal produced by/​within Battlefield 3, but also used arousal levels to determine which aspect of the players’ experience should be selected for analysis. Within the context of their multimethod approach to studying player performance (discussed in Chapter  3), bio-​feedback constitutes a novel way to acknowledge how the formal properties of games (as rule systems) should not permit assumptions as to whether (1) players automatically process the violent content at a representational level, or (2) that the violent premise of the game theme produces an experience of violence. As outlined, Schott, Marczak, and Neshausen (2014). sought to avoid selecting parts of game play for interrogation, based on an assumption that what is being played out is experienced as violence, based upon its appearance. They argue that such an approach would fail to acknowledge how violence is effected by its altered presence when appropriated for game play. Instead, Schott et al. explored the value of allowing arousal levels to provide a map of salient moments for the player. In their application of biometric measurement Schott et al. utilized Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) as a measure of the conductivity of human skin. Typically GSR has been used in HCI research settings to examine the degree of users’ psycho-​physiological investment, such as the level of mental effort or stress/​anxiety incurred (Lin, Omata, and Imamiya 2005). Put more simply, physiological measurement attempts to explore the relationship between mind and body. A  common application of physiological measures in HCI research is found in experimental studies seeking to determine the value of GSR as an objective measure of user experience. This means that GSR has been examined for its presence/​value in assessments of

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preidentified contexts in games (Lin, Omata, and Imamiya 2005), network applications (Wilson and Sasse 2000) and webpages (Ward and Marsden 2003), where the experience is preselected for its expected response from the user. In contrast, Schott et al.’s use of GSR is nonexperimental and exploratory in nature, in the sense that games such as Battlefield 3 were played by participants at their own pace without interruption, at one session per week (1–​1.5 hours in duration) over a six-​week period. This differs significantly from Lin, Omata, and Imamiya (2005), who asked players to complete three tasks in Super Mario 64 (Nintendo) as quickly and correctly as possible, with their performance compared to performance estimates of what a skilled player could achieve in those selected tasks. While the results of their study revealed a strong relationship between subjective (stress rating scale) and objective measures (GSR), the conditions under which “users” were assessed were predetermined by experimental design and, therefore, were not necessarily a good representation of the player’s experience of play or wider conditions under which GSR is registered. Once Schott et  al. accounted for arousal spikes associated with player death in Battlefield 3, they were left with GSR spikes that were unaccounted for. The remaining spikes produced an interesting picture of other dimensions of a playing experience that appealed and contributed to player enjoyment. From the amount of an unaccounted GSR spike a proportion were interpreted as representative of the anticipation and suspense that punctuates play and experience throughout Battlefield 3. To give an example—​at one point in the linear game, players emerge with their battalion from a dark interior into a bright exterior. This action requires a quick visual adjustment and sudden exposure to an expansive outdoor urban area. The player is directed to “Follow,” requiring them to keep pace with NPCs ahead rather than approach the scene with any caution. At the same time a fellow marine declares, “Not a single civie. I don’t like this shit.” The interior is also populated with metal shelving, obstructing the player from attaining a clear view of what lies immediately ahead. As they emerge from the interior space the battalion quickly comes under fire and an NPC battalion member is shot, requiring the player to drag the character back to the safety of cover. Such a scene does not portray enemies of old, which would provide the player with opportunities



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to indulge in the slaying of waves of adversaries, placed in front of the player to mow down indiscriminately. Instead, in this context the enemy remains aloof and invisible. Additionally, other unaccounted-​ for GSR-​ prompted extracts of game play contained many examples of otherwise trivial or negligible content unlikely to attract consideration in the context of classification but which offer a more balanced account of where excitement and investment resides for the individual experiencing play. To highlight further examples, there were many moments when the battalion was on the move, running and jumping across rooftops. In one section of game play, the members of the battalion pause to craft a makeshift gangplank between two buildings, before leaping off roofs until they eventually reach ground level. Likewise, mission briefings, anticipatory moments in transit, and loading screens for new levels all generated responses that drew consideration away from the more obvious dimensions of the game. While such distinctions relating to the nature of play with Battlefield 3, via moments revealed by GSR activity, might not appear overtly momentous as a commentary on the experience of game play, such examples nevertheless deserve to sit alongside judgments delivered by watchdogs as to what a game experience entails. Such examples serve to present game play experiences with greater breadth. They also further collapse the experience of play as violence, disclosing the role and forms taken by violence in specific game contexts. Indeed, the dynamism of the game system is evident in the example outlined above, presenting a clearer representation of the role of the player in the processes of play. The player is asked to perform a particular task, having been maneuvered into position by the conditions of the game and having had their degree of freedom reduced and restricted. In such contexts the influence of the rule system is unequivocal. The purpose of this chapter has been to consider the manner in which player engagement mediates violence in a game that assimilates violent content, in terms of the degree of spectatorship that is possible or permissible. The aim was to outline and acknowledge not only the complexity and variation in the concept of violence employed within games, but also the different forms of expression in relation to the function and role of violence in terms of the demands of the game. The role of the gaming apparatus as a mediating factor

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in understanding game-​simulated violence is currently underplayed, undeclared, or avoided in order to prevent cluttering discourses of concern and protection. The examples presented in this chapter have sought to reinforce and illustrate the argument that games mirror elements of reality only to re-​appropriate them and reproduce them in fragmentary modes assembled under new codes and laws.

8 Compulsion, cues, and fixed outcomes

A

head of its release date in 2009, a scene from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward 2009) was leaked, kick-​starting a familiar wave of controversy and debate across mainstream news media outlets. News anchors and journalists took the opportunity to deliver shocking headlines, effectively reintroducing a set of well-​rehearsed and familiar arguments for and against games. For example, Fox News began its coverage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) by stating: A popular new videogame actually allows you [points at screen] to be a terrorist and kill people . . . you can join the enemy on a ­terrorist attack on an airport. (Fox News) This chapter gives consideration to the controversy surrounding MW2, as this particular moment in gaming history draws attention to the consequences of tipping the interplay between play and storytelling too far in any one direction. The issue in question here is the “No Russian” mission. This mission occurs early on in the game, when the player controls a deep-​cover Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent placed within a Russian ultranationalist terrorist group that are seeking to incite a war. As an undercover operative, the player character is required to submit to the agenda of the terrorist group for the “greater good.” In the lead-​in to the No Russian mission, the briefing

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received by player character Joseph Allen tells him: “I ask much more of you now. Yesterday you were a soldier on the front lines. But today front lines are history . . . Makarov is fighting his own war and he has no rules. No boundaries . . . [y]ou don’t want to know what it’s cost already to put you next to him. It will cost you a piece of yourself. It will cost nothing compared to everything you’ll save.” In their attempt to foster a strong emotional connection to the game’s storyline, the developers of MW2 created a powerful and uncommon scene (from a game play standpoint) that serves to implicate the player. This is achieved by providing the player with the same degrees of freedom that permits the player to trigger actions normally provided for full-​ combat game scenarios but within a benign noncombat scenario. That is, No Russian essentially places the player in a nongame situation in which they retain the capacity to kill, therefore enabling them to participate in the massacre of unarmed civilians. The absence of core game play interactions that customarily require players to expect or react to threats from opponents radically changes the function and nature of the narrative state that the massacre represents. A game state typically refers to a snapshot of the game, accounting for the relationship between player actions and resource availability as it pertains to an objective at a single point in time. To describe the No Russian massacre in narrative terms, the scene demands a response from the player, to act as either a bystander or an accomplice, with the latter choice presumably having a more beneficial impact or outcome for the player character than the former. Indeed, the massacre scene quickly tests the player character’s determination to uphold the utilitarian logic suggested prior to the commencement of the No Russian mission. Once the player is in control of the player character, it is the normative statement, “It will cost you a piece of yourself. It will cost nothing compared to everything you’ll save,” that creates a tension between the options of restraint and noninstrumental acts within an otherwise directive and challenge-​based medium. A  player typically engages with the environment and the objects within it using the actions provided. Yet No Russian pushes players to appropriate the tools placed at their disposal in order to instead fulfill a narrative cue. Maintaining Allen’s strength of character in this situation is not a requisite play directive, but the parameters and conditions of the mission heavily imply that



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the player needs to participate in the terrorist action and not attempt to prevent it. Those who condemned the No Russian mission within news media showed no inclination to mention how the mission constitutes an optional level or how players are given several warnings ahead of the uncharacteristic scene, whereby the option of skipping the level is communicated effectively. As Activision’s statement clarified:  “At the beginning of the game, players encounter a mandatory ‘checkpoint’ in which they are warned that an upcoming segment may contain disturbing elements, and they can choose not to engage in the gameplay that involves this scene” (cited in Stuart 2009). No score is calculated should the player, who is currently allied with terrorists, opt to kill civilians during the massacre (for their own curiosity, pleasure, or to fulfill the storyline). Nor is any penalty incurred for skipping the level. Activision’s response to the media coverage of the “leaked” game play was to provide greater context as to the purpose and function of the scene. At no point during the use of No Russian as a springboard for a customary discussion of the perils of videogames, has debate considered that the leaked footage represents two things. First, the action is set within a scene that ambitiously seeks to promote greater investment in the storyline from the player. As Mohammed Alavi, designer on MW2, explains: In a first person shooter where you never leave the eyes of the hero, it’s really hard to build up the villain and get the player invested in why he’s “bad.” Secondly, discussion of No Russian failed to address how the intent of the scene (as expressed by the development team) might have been negated and/​or overridden by the nature of the player’s involvement in the leaked footage. This is a factor that largely went unnoticed in much of the public commentary on the scene. The leaked footage of No Russian represented a player fully exploiting the possibilities of the massacre scene (albeit utilizing the actions provided by the developers) with the intent to release it. Nevertheless, in viewing the unknown player partaking in the massacre the tone of the scene is certainly altered. To watch the scene transformed into play raises questions as to the degree of impact that the scene may have

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on the player (assuming that the leaked footage chronicles genuine play rather than a premeditated performance). With no game, and therefore no adversaries that are combat-​enabled and programmed to confront the player (in the first section of No Russian), participation is converted into something quite foreign for the player. For example, as play, the footage could represent playful destruction or liberation from the challenge dimensions of game play, leaving the player with the pleasure of playing within a pressure-​free game-​world scenario (also found in God-​modes). To a certain degree, a player choosing to exert the agency provided within the No Russian mission serves to highlight the distinctive position games can assume between reality and fiction. As discussed in Chapter  3, games possess their own reality. This reality emanates from the actions provided and permitted, as well as their relationship to outcome and consequence within the confines of a game system. As Aarseth (2007b) has argued, the capacity to act is a decisive factor that distinguishes games from fiction in the sense that “we get to know the simulation much more intimately than we come to know the fiction” (1). The meaning and understanding assumed by an object and its actions within a game—​as “selective modeling of reality” (Therrien 2009)—​may also override how it might otherwise have been represented, not only in reality but in fiction. This also allows for game behaviors to be conceived in terms of their ­specific value and impact within a particular game system, thus releasing actions from their regular representational function and meaning. As Aarseth (1997) states:  “In a material sense [a game] includes the rules for its own use, a work that has certain requirements built in that automatically distinguishes between successful and unsuccessful users” (179).

Assessing player actions against player options In Aarseth’s (1997) elucidation of ergodic literature, he uses the term extranoematic to point to the degree of effort necessary to traverse a game text; that is, an effort that extends beyond the (noematic) effort of thought (or mind) to incorporate the physicality required to



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act on or within a game space. However, in the No Russian scene the player is able to casually walk through an environment (depressing customary keys to move forward, backward, and to strafe left and right) and shoot (left mouse) at passive NPCs. Such a description of this particular scenario does not suggest the same level or degree of effort that Aarseth’s term necessarily connotes. As Bryan (2013) has also argued, with regard to Aarseth’s notion of nontrivial effort, the question of a user’s perspective on effort is not fully accounted for. He argues that the term calls into question “whose and what sorts of effort” (7). Indeed, Aarseth uses nontrivial effort to distinguish games from books, arguing that: “[a] reader, however strongly engaged in the unfolding of a narrative, is powerless” (4). While noematic effort may be employed in the player’s engagement with the No Russian scene, no amount of extranoematic activity will alter how the scene unfolds once it has been instigated. As texts characterized by interactivity, games aspire to provide the player with the agency to make decisions. Yet, in this instance, the decision is reduced to either playing the mission or not. Either way, it has no bearing on the outcome of the mission. Sicart (2005) has argued that the “ethical values of virtual spaces are hardwired in the code, and softwired in the architecture, as it depends on [how] the player . . . enacts or rejects those values” (4). This statement can be interpreted as referring to the value possessed by the code itself, in the sense that the code determines “what is virtuous in order to achieve the goals of the game, and what is unacceptable behavior” (ibid.). Zagal (2009) has similarly argued that “[g]ames create spaces that mediate our understanding of the ethics of players’ actions. Actions considered unethical in an out-​of-​ game context may be expected or even demanded while playing a game” (2). Critically, this also allows a game to alter the value of otherwise normative (and virtuous) behaviors, in order to trigger a level of doubt and uncertainty in players. An example of this is found in the first-​person survival horror game F.E.A.R., which plays with player expectations and the accepted conventions of game structure. Player accounts online explain how through the whole game it seems like it’s leading you to a final showdown with Fettel or Alma or both. However at the end you go into one of your dream like states or what I thought was a dream

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and you kill Fettel who is just kneeling on the floor . . . Where is the challenge or fight? from a video game, gameplay perspective it was very disappointing to kill Fettel without a fight and not have a real fight with Alma either. (USAF_​Captain, 2012, gamefaqs.com) The encounter with Paxton Fettel, F.E.A.R.’s chief antagonist, is strongly aligned with both the storyline and the nature of the character, as Fettel is defined by his mental rather than his physical acumen. Throughout the game Fettel’s threat and power stem from his telepathic control over a battalion of highly trained, heavily armed supersoldiers. When encountered in person, he poses no physical threat and possesses no weapons. The player (as Point Man) shuts down the forces under Fettel’s control by killing him with a single gunshot at point-​blank range. Progress and completion demands it, making the action comprehensible on two levels (game play and narrative). Yet compared to the nature of the game play and the challenges that come before, the encounter with Fettel offers no challenge and does not constitute a culmination of the preceding challenges. In a relatively new line of research, Grizzard et al. (2014) suggest that committing immoral behaviors in games leads to increased sensitivity to moral issues. Its authors identify that further investigation is required as to whether moral sensitivity triggered by games extends to the real world. While these findings are thought-​provoking, further research would also do well to assess the moral nature of games themselves (discussed further, later on in this chapter). Finally, with respect to the narrative-​driven nature in which F.E.A.R concludes, the replay value of the game is diminished compared to a more traditional boss fight ending that can be replayed and enjoyed over again. The lack of directive associated with the opening scene of No Russian (its status as a “mission” is questionable by the end), leaves players to respond in one of two ways. First, the opening section of the scene, in which the player is placed among armed men traveling in an elevator, provides a familiar context of men seemingly preparing themselves for combat. This scenario imparts a sense of expectation characteristic of most combat and war-​based games (e.g., traveling in armored vehicles to drop points in Battlefield 3). Designer Alavi



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indicates that No Russian was designed with the intent of interrupting player reflex, when he comments: In the sea of endless bullets you fire off at countless enemies without a moment’s hesitation or afterthought, the fact that I got the player to hesitate even for a split second and actually consider his actions before he pulled that trigger—​that makes me feel very accomplished. The player is however free to activate behaviors that are more appropriate and conventionally employed within combat-​ oriented game play. Indeed, the game play that immediately follows the massacre demands the combat-​based actions that the game provides. However, during the massacre itself what are normally routine (or virtuous) actions are transformed so that they take on an unseemly quality when put to use. What is more, the player’s behavioral repertoire is not increased so that there is a possibility for the player to be contextually or morally responsive. That is, the player is not given the option of issuing first aid, rescuing the wounded, or guiding people to safety. In issuing the actions that serve the rest of the game’s scenarios so well while in the midst of the airport massacre, emphasis and judgment invariably shifts onto the player (in that the action becomes meaningful, even if the choice to instigate it is speculative from a game play perspective). Participation in the massacre inevitably raises questions as to the player’s intent in employing the actions made available to them, or how significant or inconsequential the use of those actions is perceived. Indeed, participation can be assessed only against the player’s single alternative once the scene is initiated; that is, to walk through the scene without killing a single NPC. In this scenario, however, the scene is still witnessed, thus creating a different set of experiences. The scene may therefore cause the player to engage more noematically—​as a thrilling aesthetic experience—​or to reflect on the dilemma and the possible frustration it creates, resulting from a desire to intervene but having to surrender to the will of the game system. To return to the manner in which this scene was presented to the public by the media, No Russian was really considered only from the perspective of a player fully engaged in a terrorist act, thus taking for granted that dispatching NPCs in this manner was

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a source of both approval and pleasure. For example, the UK newspaper The Guardian describes how the game’s narrative and affordance cues result in: Russian terrorists on a bloody rampage through an airport building; civilians are gunned down as armed men run through the departures lounge, and it’s evident that the player is firing too. In one alarming moment someone is shown dragging an injured person across the concourse—​the player shoots them both dead. (Stuart 2009) In his article, Stuart (2009) inevitably reflects on the player’s capacity to perform actions in conjunction with the unfolding terrorist act (which he terms interactivity), not only for the part the scene plays in destabilizing the role of the player, but also for the way it implicates the player. In order for the player to witness the scene they are required to be where the action is taking place, controlling the (camera) eye, walking side-​by-​side with the executioners as an accomplice. Remaining stationary or inactive within a game is counter to the nature of games, for it contradicts the impulse to configure the text and progress the game. Stuart makes the point that, “[i]f a movie were to depict a terrorist outrage, the viewer takes no active part.” This position has since been compromised, in the recent cases of audiences viewing footage of factual terrorist beheadings (as discussed in Chapter  7); viewing and sharing the footage has been adjudged as being complicit with the intent of the terrorists who stage the executions. Requiring the player to be an active witness from a terrorist perspective also constituted a conscious device that served to counter what MW2 designer Alavi has identified as the ineffectiveness of “the fear of dying in a video game, which is so normal it’s not even a feeling gamers feel anymore.” This statement reveals a shared knowledge of contemporary games that is not necessarily possessed by the wider community, which highlights the importance of understanding how the affordances and limitations of the medium can also determine the ways developers choose to tell their story. In the case of its affordances, it is possible to consider how the expectations and impulses associated with game play can



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be effortlessly utilized in order to manipulate player movement and actions to situate them within a story or situation.

Presuming player acceptance The orientational function of media reporting on a game such as MW2 is also tailored toward members of the population who are less conversant with games, and who are more likely to experience genuine shock in response to brief extracts of game footage and/​ or accounts of the scene. While regulators and classification offices awarded MW2 an appropriate age restriction or age guideline, controversy still ensued. Mainstream news reporting adopts a particular line of thinking and reasoning that fails to consider any potential disruption and interference that the subversion of the challenge-​based functioning of games might produce for the player. Rather than the impact upon the player, news coverage adopts the position of judging the developers for their irresponsibility in pandering to the player’s desire to engage in such activities. There is no thought given to how a scene of this nature might be adjudged by a player to be unnecessary, surplus to requirements or “over the top,” while also not detracting from the overall challenge and enjoyment derived from playing the game. Underlying general discussions of the merits of digital games are assumptions regarding player acceptance, readiness, and enthusiasm for scenes of this nature. MW2 has also suffered the misfortune of being name-​checked by convicted mass-​murderer Anders Behring Breivik, as having a role to play in the preparation for his attacks in Norway. In his manifesto, 2083:  A  European Declaration of Independence, Breivik wrote:  “I see MW2 more as a part of my training-​simulation than anything else. I’ve still learned to love it though and especially the multiplayer part is amazing. You can more or less completely simulate actual operations” (cited in Gaudiosi 2011). While his comments implicate the game, they do not explicitly reference the No Russian mission. Indeed, Brievik’s comments are extracted from a vast manifesto that has offered analysts little tangible commentary on his motives. The press has ignored the majority of Brievik’s manifesto, with exception to his references to MW2 and the claims that he spent a year playing

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World of Warcraft (Blizzard 2004). In his consideration of the MW2, Jackson (2012) has considered the possibility that what No Russian may have offered Breivik was: If nothing else, those few minutes [that] allow the player to listen to the panic of “people” fleeing for their lives. In “No Russian” you can gun down dozens of people in a few short minutes. You can even watch the wounded crawl away. Some cower in fear in various corners while others lie dead in pools of blood. MW2 is the only game I  know of where your character enters a closed environment with scores of people and systematically guns them down as they try to run, help wounded bystanders, and try to hide behind shelves and columns. Similarly, a player account posted online describes the impression left by the scene, stating: “In the mayhem, you watch as a middle-​ aged man in a purple shirt tries and fails to crawl away from a pool of his own blood. He was not a combatant. He could have been a bus driver or an accountant or a teacher” (Burns 2012). This constitutes a change in condition from the “clean wars” or prepared playgrounds, as emphasized in Chapter 4, and appears to be significant in terms of highlighting the conditions of play that prevent games from slipping into the territory of bad or dubious taste. Again it is possible to cite the developers’ intent in portraying suffering and fear. Call of Duty director Keith Arem is quoted stating that: It’s a difficult moral question for the player and directing the actors and hearing what the actors are saying in [No] Russian is actually almost worse than seeing the action on screen, because these families [in game] are separated, fathers telling their wives to take the children and everything will be okay, and knowing that it’s not . . . it was a difficult thing to work with a lot of the actors. Some of the actors were very tearful saying the lines because it was a pretty emotionally charged scene. Arem describes an emotionality that has resulted from actors adopting the perspective of the victim, as they imagine trying to protect their family in the face of death. This is arguably a more powerful



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identification than the player’s assigned outlook, which has already been cued by the preceding narrative and activated by an imperative to act. Furthermore, the scene is required to reach its conclusion, in order to deliver its full impact and reduce the player character to the status of victim alongside the other NPCs who have been slain. The scene’s ultimate success rests in the manner that it raises a whole manner of questions concerning the way the logics of game play continue to influence the player during a nonnegotiable narrative-​driven encounter. This also has implications for the success of the scene, and for assessing the extent to which an observer can assume what aspect of the experience occupies the player’s reasoning during those moments.

Player failure and fixed outcome Stuart (2009) identifies the importance of context. In the case of No Russian context is both vital and valid. In his summation of the leaked footage, he concludes: What we’re robbed of when viewing this illicit footage is what happens before and afterwards, the exact nature of the scene, and the authenticity of the player’s involvement. It’s certainly far too early for tabloids to be bandying accusations about—​but then, when did that ever stop them? For the player of MW2, No Russian is provocative, in part, because of the manner in which it constitutes a break from the norm. As David Cage, the director of Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream 2010)  has commented, “when you look at most games you see today, they are based on patterns, on loops: you always do the same thing, whether you shoot, drive, or jump on platforms” (cited in Zagal 2011b). Indeed, had the massacre in No Russian been more conventionally articulated as a cut-​scene, it would have been understood as a platform and plot device from which the player could go on to engage in further conflict or battle scenarios in response to the events depicted. Yet a cut-​scene would have failed to co-​opt the player and ensure the impact of Allen’s eventual exposure as an undercover agent by

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the terrorist group, and his final execution at the end of the mission. There is a cumulative effect to the game seamlessly resuming game play in response to the massacre that has yet to be considered in reflections on the massacre itself. The impact on the controller of the player character being killed at the end of the scene is ensured by their involvement in the post-​massacre firefight with the police, who are quick to arrive on the scene. Player reflex (and the need to avoid screen-​death) ensures that, post-​massacre, the player effortlessly picks up with the action once again and fights alongside the terrorists in a more balanced conflict against opposing parties. Having helped to secure the terrorists’ extraction from the airport, it is at that point that the terrorists opt to discard the player and execute Allen. While betrayal from the terrorists does not come as a surprise, betrayal by the game does. That is, fulfilling the tasks of the game typically leads to reward in the form of progression. While failure obviously serves as a contrast to winning—​thus making winning more enjoyable—​Juul (2009) recognizes that “failure adds content by making the player see new nuances in a game”; failing makes the players reconsider their strategy, thus making game playing itself more interesting. This, however, refers to the process of play. Instead, the player who reaches the end of the No Russian mission succeeds in this regard, but the player character is unable to progress beyond this point, emphasizing to the player how their actions (up until their execution) have been ineffectual in terms of achieving a winning state. The conclusion of No Russian also draws attention to the lack of agency possessed by the player throughout the scene. Attempting to stop the terrorist mid-​massacre ends in screen-​death and a restart of the mission. While death is the final outcome of the level for the player character, the level requires that the sequence of events unfolds in the manner determined by the game. That is, the player is required to die at the “end” of the mission, not before. What this illustrates is the game’s need to have the player experience both the massacre and the subsequent gunfight with the police who arrive on the scene, as the game requires both scenes to emphasize the betrayal and futility of the mission. The use of the CIA undercover operative is a key element in the plot, as the discovery of Allen’s body at the scene leads to the outbreak of war. However, the game does not permit the player to determine where in the scene Allen’s body is



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discovered—​whether it is within the airport terminal or at the point of the terrorists’ extraction. Presumably, either location would produce the desired effect in terms of the terrorists’ plan. As one player commented online: When the police arrived I tried to shoot the terrorists in the back. I  was killed instantly. Upon restarting I  noticed the police managed to kill a few of the terrorists so I waited until there was only a couple left and tried to shoot them in the back again. I  died instantly again. I tried to run back into the building and shot them from inside but I  was killed again (I realised I  might have some explosives strapped to me). So I just completed the mission as it was laid out. I have to say, because my way of playing the level wasn’t allowed, I  felt a little manipulated. (floppylobster, posted 2.12.2009, The Escapist) The massacre itself cannot be stopped. From a player’s perspective, one can turn against the terrorist, but this constitutes a vain and pointless attempt to assert some external morality and defiance into the situation. It is also the case that, while participating in the ensuing police response to the massacre, the player can, by accident, catch fellow terrorists in their crossfire but this will not kill them. Commenting on No Russian, Walt Williams (writer of shooter critique Spec Ops: The Line, Yager Development 2012) stated: “There’s a certain aspect to player agency that I don’t really agree with, which is the player should be able to do whatever the player wants and the world should adapt itself to the player’s desire.” On the contrary, No Russian is not a mission that indulges player agency, as its fixed outcome denotes a betrayal on several levels. Furthermore, the player’s notions of what actions are appropriate for success are ambiguous from the outset. Should the player of MW2 opt to play a part they are ostensibly punished at the end of the mission. At the same time, if they only witness the scene but then aid the terrorists in their extraction they are also punished. Breaking role and attempting to prevent the massacre is also prohibited by the game. To attempt to thwart the terrorists only results in the massacre having to be replayed, until the player concedes to the intent and function of the mission.

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Clearly the union of games and narrative within digital games is a balancing act; it is responsible for producing diverging experiences as it determines whether the principles driving the game-​world are maintained or interrupted. Indeed, imposing storytelling devices can have the same effect as a player who abandons their pledge to abide by the rules of a game, as Huizinga (1955) states: “when the rules of the game are transgressed, the play-​world collapses” (11). In an attempt to articulate the degree of control exerted by a game over the player, Leino (2007) has presented a useful distinction between deniable and undeniable content. He states:  “In games there are meanings the player can deny without decreasing his possibilities to act in the game. There are also some, which cannot be denied without such consequences” (116). To this effect, the No Russian mission is deniable, as it may be skipped. Under Leino’s definition of the terms, the massacre within the No Russian mission is deniable, too, because the choice to participate or not has no bearing on the outcome of the mission. Allen will get shot and the terrorists will exploit the undercover agent in their midst in order to achieve their goal, regardless of what happens in the mission. While Leino’s concepts are extremely useful for demarcating the compulsory nature of predetermined material, it does require additional context in order to fully understand the player’s experience and understanding of what is required. For example, in the massacre scene, participation involving the killing of NPCs is deniable as a set of actions, yet at the point that the player makes a decision to act or not, they are unaware of its future significance in terms of outcome. As it happens, No Russian is not sophisticated enough to question the player’s loyalty and commitment should they opt not to kill NPCs during the massacre. The massacre constitutes an event that occurs regardless of player input and is therefore mandatory once the mission has been instigated. To this extent the massacre as an event is undeniable, but it is neutral in the sense that the scene cannot offer any ludic advantages or disadvantages to the player. The outcome of the mission is connected to a different set of principles associated with whether or not the mission has a fixed outcome (which it does), or a negotiated or adopted outcome. The use of adopted outcome refers to a choice of conduct (for instance, good versus evil) that can produce alternative game experiences along the same pathway (see the discussion of Fallout 3 below).



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In addition to considering outcome it is also worthwhile to contemplate and acknowledge incentive for the part it plays in the inevitability, perceived or real, of an action or set of actions being implemented by the player. To this effect, discussion of the No Russian mission has highlighted the value of considering whether player behavior is cued and directed, or undisclosed and discoverable. The narrative preamble in this instance attains some significance, rather than merely serving as a pretext and meaningless platform for regular game play that is articulated in a manner befitting the genre of the game (war, fantasy, crime, or sci-​fi). Players are more typically accustomed to explicit directives from the system that overlay the screen and urge them to perform certain actions and fulfill specific goals (as Chapter 7 introduced). As Schott et al. (2013) discovered in their research into player experience with Max Payne 3, Max’s stream of consciousness/​voiceover had little effect on subsequent choices and actions made by players during play. When playing, players employed proxy agency (Schott and Kambouri 2006) by following directives provided by the game and utilizing the cues and information displayed by the HUD. An illustrative example of this is how players used the cross-​hair in Max Payne 3. Typically, the function of the cross-​hair is to indicate to the player where on an opponent a shot from a weapon will strike. However, the cross-​hair in Max Payne 3 imparts more than just accuracy, making its use significant in a number of ways. At the beginning of the game, the HUD stipulates and teaches the player that when aiming with the mouse “the reticle turns red over your target.” In doing so, it denotes the certainty of an action, showing where on the body shots will strike. This technique not only permits the player to act with increasing levels of accuracy (itself a challenge contributing to the pleasures of play), but also determines that players will exercise restraint and economy in expending their ammunition. Players understood ammunition to be a valuable and limited commodity. Players also went on to discover that the cross-​hair presents itself as a white cross when an enemy has been killed, suggesting restraint in the face of an accomplished action and indicating little need to shoot fallen enemies by way of certainty and extra care for character preservation. Comments such as “you know not to shoot anymore .  .  . really cool,” were indicative of the relationship Klimmt, Hartmann, and Frey (2007)

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have demonstrated between causal agency (effectance), control, and enjoyment. The cross-​hair also served to distinguish enemies from bystanders, as it remains white in the case of the latter, determining that NPCs not directly involved in the action become deniable content (Leino 2007). The presence of the cross-​hair on-​screen also served to effectively bridge noninteractive and interactive moments. Very early in the game, Max Payne 3 is given the appearance and feel of a movie. Finding himself a floor above kidnappers seeking to escape with a client under his protection, Max (not the player) dramatically opts to end the stand-​off below him by jumping off the balcony, sliding down a roof and landing in the pool below. During this daring move, the cross-​hair appears on-​screen, signaling the need for input from the player. The player is then required to perform an action while in motion. There is a requirement to aim at the kidnapper who is holding the hostage in front of him, while also accounting for the duration of the slide and the size of the rooftop. As “undeniable” content (Leino 2007), the game demands correct and accurate player input to avoid failure and repetition of the scene until either success is achieved or the player gives up. The above examples highlight a distinction between cued or explicitly directed behaviors against undisclosed, discoverable behavioral options.

Simulating murder In contrast to the outcome of MW2, what if executions were rewarded or constituted the most effective way to eliminate opponents? The decision by the British Board of Film Classification to ban Manhunt 2 (Rockstar Games 2007) singled out the game’s “unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone” and “a sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged” (cited in Lanchester 2007). Alternatively, the game has been re-​framed by players and reviewers in terms of its ludic qualities. As Gillen (2009) on Rock, Paper, Shotgun comments: Manhunt’s design was really a delightfully cut-​down stealth game. Its key mechanics—​hide in shadows, stalk enemies, run away,



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repeat. Perhaps the most elegant mechanic is the actual executions itself [sic]. To get the most brutal execution—​which also scores the most points—​you have to stay unobserved, holding down an attack button and waiting for the cursor to change from white to yellow to red. AND THEN THE VIOLENCE. In other words, it’s a risk-​reward system, encouraging increasingly risky play for the best rewards. This is made more interesting by a distinction between the game play and what it triggers: You set up the kill, but you never actually perform it. Each death is a cut-​scene, entirely out of your actual control. It doesn’t really simulate the kill, but the stalk. I mean, it’s telling the game’s called “Manhunt” not “Mankill” (or “Manslaughter” or, more likely, “Snuff”). The game is the stalking. The killing is . . . something else. The game is about filming a snuff-​film, with everything—​from the sinister narrator urging you on to the (then, relatively novel) grainy filters to the distortions on images to the blood splattering against the camera lens—​trying to capture that. The point being, that at the point of murder the game is trying to be as close to the idea of a snuff film as possible. Like the narrator, you watch, you don’t play. How do you feel? In citing this account or perspective, the intention is not to defend the game from the criticism it has received, but to highlight the difference in conditions between the game play and the acts of execution that occur as a result of successful play. In this example, there is a shift from preemptive/​proactive acts to inactive/​viewer that again serves to distinguish performativity and performance. It heightens the consequence of player actions leading up to a kill, and also delivers a higher degree of spectatorship than might otherwise be experienced in games, due to its focus on gaze. The game creates an association between lead-​up behaviors and feats of enactment. A key asset in the game can be the “radar,” which indicates to the player how aware the enemy is of them. Yellow signifies that the NPC is completely unaware of the player’s existence, or has forgotten about them; amber indicates a heightened awareness without knowledge of where the player is; and red indicates to the player that they are

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being actively hunted. To perform a gruesome execution in Manhunt it is necessary to creep up behind a victim, then when the player character raises his weapon the player must signal the start of an execution by depressing and hold the allocated function button. The button must be held down until the target cursor around the victim turns yellow (to attain a “violent” execution), or hold it until it turns red (for a “gruesome” execution). When the player lets go (when the cursor turns the appropriate or desired color), they then sit back to watch the selected execution. Sicart (2009) argues strongly in his book on The Ethics of Computer Games, that: Experienced players have a better chance of understanding Manhunt’s ethical conundrums because the more we play, the more literate we are in the rhetoric and play styles of computer games. We better understand the design decisions, and we are able to penetrate the game as object in different, more complex ways during the process of subjectivization. (85) Sicart uses the term “subjectivization” to refer to the way players adopt and experience a temporary subjectivity in the context of their relationship with the game-​as-​structure. That is, according to Sicart, a game player develops an understanding of what their actions in a game are supposed to be. Knowledge and praxis is then shaped by the “game system, its rules and mechanics” (66). While the Max Payne 3 example (above) challenges the notion of a “merger of the player and the diegetic character into a single, stable subject” (de Wildt 2014, 3), this stance still leaves the concern that through their practice the player simply affirms the program’s “ideological stance” (Müller 2009, 53). In her DiGRA hardcore column, Diane Carr (2007) questions the account of ideology in games, for its reliance on a static model of interpellation that she finds unsatisfactory. She instead stresses the dynamic nature of digital games, meaning that the subject position offered to the player can be “activated or dormant, taken up, dropped or ignored by a player from moment to moment.” Certainly the No Russian mission has served to illustrate the unstable nature of the “ready-​made roles that digital games offer for us to adopt” (de Wildt 2014, 4).



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Gamifying moral dilemmas In his discussion of Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks 2008), Marcus Schulzke (2009) claims that his interest in the game stems from the way it contains “compelling simulations that force players to test their own values then using sanctions in the game to respond to the player’s choices. We should see them as a training ground in which players can practice thinking about morality” (2). This argument is somewhat problematic for the manner in which it positions sanctioning as a detached event that occurs in response to an action, ignoring how it informs the actions taken by the player. As Babij (2013) recognizes, often “the most effective way to play is to suspend any ethical consideration and choose one particular set of actions” (159). To this effect, Schulzke’s notion that it is our own morality that is being tested is also questionable. Within games, players are not being themselves, as they respond accordingly within a gladiatorial arena (however outfitted). Sicart (2005) has adjudged actions within games according to the principle that “[p]laying is an act of judgment of the rule systems and the fictional world the player is presented with” (16). Games that incorporate moral dimensions—​such as Fallout 3 or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Bioware 2003)—​rarely test moral boundaries, but instead uses morality as a device for navigation determined by which side of the dichotomy of good or evil the player chooses. Rather than employing extremes in terms of the morality of the actions or behaviors demanded by the game system for the player to progress, the extremes branch the journey and experience of the player. That is, games with moral dimensions designed into the game play experience typically utilize and exploit familiar and accepted tropes associated with good and evil. Babij (2013) not only highlights the way players are keenly aware of this overly simplistic separation of character traits, but also how playing or taking any sort of mid-​ground position is typically a poor decision from a game play perspective. The “Han Solo problem” takes its name from one of the most popular characters from the Star Wars universe that possesses an ambiguous moral framework as a smuggler in debt to his gangster boss Jabba the Hutt. During the context of Episode IV and

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V, Solo withdraws his support from the rebellion as he prioritizes self-​ preservation over collective needs and doing the right thing. Babij outlines how “[s]ome players question why they cannot play these games in a way that Han Solo might act and still find the game to be as fulfilling” (160). Games such as inFAMOUS (Sucker Punch Productions 2009)  employ a karma system in order to give relevance to decisions about actions and choices made throughout the game. To gain positive karma, the player has to incorporate civilian safety and well-​ being into their strategy when fulfilling the game’s challenges and demands. For example, when playing Cole MacGrath, positive karma results from exercising caution when administering attacks that affect a wide area (such as “thunder drop” or “shock grenade”), and choosing instead more precise attack options, such as the “precision” use of lightning bolts. Enemies may also be stunned and restrained, thus keeping them alive. The application and employment of certain game mechanics, and the suppression or selective use of others, is tied to the karmic-​based score system that the game explicitly utilizes. In this way, the mechanics and the scoring system are (designed to be) contingent upon one another. Otherwise, the game gives the player choices related to the storyline that have karmic implications attached. One example is Cole putting himself in harm’s way when there are other alternatives, such as turning a tar valve himself instead of having a civilian do it, despite the fact that the player character then gets sprayed with tar. Another example includes stopping to consider the plight of others, by choosing the collective good against an emotionally driven rationale, as when Cole can save six doctors instead of Trish. inFAMOUS 2 (Sucker Punch Productions 2011) extends the logic of the previous game by containing story missions that must be cleared and completed either in one morally driven mode or the other. In doing so, the player also locks and determines which mode of play they will adhere to throughout the remainder of the game. The impact on the game for the player is found in the responsiveness of civilians and the police force, who revere the character and support him by coming to his aid (in the case of good karma), while little concern shown for anyone except himself entails greater destruction and damage. Civilians display their abhorrence by verbally abusing and threatening him, or throwing rocks and physically attacking him.



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Within games such as this one, which deals in absolutes, a lack of conviction in one direction or the other results in higher-​tier powers remaining unlocked (Perdue 2011). Once the path has been chosen, the format of the game is determined and no longer constitutes a moral choice. As Babij (2013) notes, “true ethical consideration becomes secondary to the gameplay strategy” (ibid.). Fallout 3 replaces the bifurcation of paths found in good or evil absolutes with a trifurcation of game play possibilities. In this instance, players are permitted to adopt a neutral path. However, such an option constitutes a difficult and challenging task for the player in a crude quantification of morality geared toward embracing or experiencing extremes. As one player of the game (Doolz2024) posted online: I’m not sure how to go about doing this. I’ve played as an evil karma character, and as a good karma character, and found it easy to keep my karma either good or bad. Now I  want to be a Neutral karma character, but I’m wondering how I  can maintain it all the way through the game without becoming good or evil. (http://​www.gamefaqs.com) Responses to this particular request suggested the need for repetitive actions for karma maintenance, such as pickpocketing evil characters or providing beggars with water, in order to redress the balance. Additionally, players could exercise caution by saving the game prior to interactions with NPCs in order to keep the option of replaying the conversation to alter its karmic outcome. This enforced condition of maintaining neutrality is a consequence of the nature of games, that is, they require decision. Nonintervention means not playing. Furthermore, while the player triggers actions that are labeled good or evil according to a built-​in ethics system of the game, this can be reversed with enough experience points later in the game. Babij (2013) thus describes Fallout 3’s application of a moral framework as an “egregious violation of the principles of ethics” (162), as the player may later select their desired ethical alignment, irrespective of previous actions and behaviors up to that point. The quantified morality employed throughout the game really plays with the

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player in terms of instant gratification against short-​to medium-​ term consequences. The player is encouraged to consider whether they should destroy a whole town in terms of what Schulzke (2009) has dubbed a “hedonistic calculus,” weighing the heavy karmic price they will incur (thus affecting future NPC interactions or the promise of spaces that will lock or open up) against the incongruous position of resisting and rejecting the capabilities provided by the game. In his writing on Fallout 3, Schulzke draws on the example of the “The Power of the Atom” mission to illustrate how there is little difference in outcome for the player, regardless of how they respond to the mission’s main choice. The premise of the mission is to ask the player to disarm a nuclear bomb and avoid the destruction of Megaton. This is a mission that the player can either choose or reject. Regardless of the seriousness of the apparent dilemma, the mission serves as an opportunity to negotiate a higher reward (using speech skill) or raise karma by doing the job for free, and in doing so, engaging in a complex web of interpersonal transactions and upskilling necessary to complete the task. As leaderoftheages posted on gamefaqs: If you save megaton, you get: 1 A house 2  A Bounty on your head 3 Good Karma

If You Blow It Up you get: 1  An Apartment in Tenpenny towers 2  Clean water at tenpenny tower 3 Bad Karma 4  a bounty on your head

The story will continue the same no matter what you do, and you can still get the wasteland survival guide mission complete.



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Single player games have often sought to contrive moral dilemmas that sit outside the main thrust of the story-​based action, requiring some thinking as to its intent and impact on the player. Such moments typically break the norm and flow of play and exploit the uncertainty of the player as to whether or how they should act. Examples include how Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy, Quantic Dream 2005) was able to switch the emphasis of most action and conflict-​based games, by exploiting players’ general sense of compassion by placing a person in peril for the player to respond to. The game uses a common scenario of a child that is about to fall through ice into water. The situation, when used in Fahrenheit, becomes complicated by the player’s need to stay hidden and avoid being spotted by the police. In the horror film-​adaptation The Thing (Computer Artworks 2002) the game uses survival and the need to contain alien infection to ask players of the game to look for early signs of infection and therefore present them with the dilemma as to whether or not they should kill a member of their own team to prevent further losses later down the line. While these examples simulate a moral dilemma, they do not necessarily constitute a moral dilemma for the player as their decision-​making seeks to bring about the best outcome. Within research commissioned by the New Zealand Office of Film and Literature, Schott (OFLC 2010) asked adult participants, representative of parents (with varying degrees of game play experience), to play Halo 3 (Bungie 2007) and Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games 2008)  in the context of a wider investigation into parental knowledge and understanding of the NZ classification system. During a play session with GTA IV, participants—​ whose experience with the game was limited to knowledge of the moral panics surrounding the game—​were first required to gain experience of the rules of the game and the objects needed to play. “Way points” were set for players to reach, first on foot and then by car. This allowed participants to explore the game environment while pursuing an end-​ goal. Once these simple tasks were achieved, participants were then asked to play the mission “Ivan the Not So Terrible,” selected for the dilemma it presents at the end of the mission. In the noninteractive cut-​scene for this particular mission, the player sees his/​her protagonist, Niko, in an encounter with Russian crook Vladimir Glebov. Vlad informs Niko that his boss Mikhail Faustin wants Ivan dead. Ivan has

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been instructed to rob Roman Bellic’s cab depot to create a situation in which Niko can kill him in self-​defense. Niko is therefore directed to go to Roman’s cab office in order to intercept Ivan and also prevent the robbery. The game resumes and, as the player arrives at the cab office to find Ivan, he is making his getaway. A chase ensues (in response to a prompt from the game) requiring the player to follow the car some distance before Ivan eventually abandons his vehicle and enters a construction site on foot in a further attempt to lose Niko. The chase continues up ladders and across roofs, requiring the player to leap across buildings, until reaching a dead-​end. This mission then presents the first life-​or-​death decision of Grand Theft Auto IV as Ivan, having slipped, is left hanging onto the ledge of a building. The player is again prompted to act by a pop-​up window that displays the action buttons required to either kick Ivan off the ledge to his death, or to help him back up. Should the player help Ivan, the player will still receive a 100  percent completion for the mission, as Vlad never sees Ivan again. However, Niko also benefits from saving Ivan, as Vlad reappears later on in the game to give Niko an extra mission. In playing a mission parents not only applied their new skills, but also experienced how a noninteractive cut-​scene provided them with a better sense of who the player character (Niko) was and the situation he had found himself in. The participants learned that to play can constitute fun without requiring the player to be in accord with the underlying premise of the game. Indeed, media representation of the game contributed to anxiety for participants who were expecting a much more harrowing experience than they received. Experience of the game came as relief to parents as it reinforced the notion that the player character is being coerced to work for criminals for whom he shows little respect. It also constituted the first time that many participants experienced the game’s dynamics, or run-​ time behavior—​the events that take place when the game is played and the way in which they are governed by rules. For many in this study, the underlying narrative of the game was powerless in the face of the richness of the game play and the interactivity of the environment. This tension was unearthed during the “Ivan the Not So Terrible” mission, as one participant required assistance to reach its climatic moral scenario because she was attempting to follow the road code during the car chase (described above). The consequence of stopping at red



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lights and politely following behind cars at a safe stopping-​distance meant that Ivan escaped and the mission failed. In this instance it became necessary to take over the car driving for this participant in order to ensure that she reached her destination. Having aided the participant in the mission, the participant did however go on to successfully negotiate the roof-​top chase and reach Ivan as he hung off the ledge of the building. Without hesitation this participant kicked the character off the building to his death. She later stated that on the street she was not so clear whether that still constituted the parameters of a game, yet the roof-​top scenario was so familiar from film and television, and so removed from everyday life, that she had little hesitation in conforming to the context of the game and meeting the expectation that the character should be murdered. Indeed, she was the only participant in this particular study to select the option of killing Ivan. All the other participants nervously helped the character back onto the building. It was common for participants to report later that they expected to be subsequently double-​crossed by Ivan for showing kindness/​weakness. For example: By not stepping on the guy’s hands and helping him up, I was wondering whether I might jeopardise my character, later on. Whether that guy would go “ha ha ha” and push me off, or run off. So I was aware of those sorts of elements . . . I suppose there was an element that you could see what happened if you went beyond your brief, that was kind of nice. In an article for Gamasutra, Perdue (2011) states that the problem in melding moral dilemmas with game play is that “[t]he idea of a moral choice often runs directly counter to the tendency of many players to make optimal moves in the game.” Even if games encourage players to ponder deeper issues, as Sicart (2009) notes, game play is “focused on very concrete experiences” (156). To return to an argument cited in Chapter  5, Traenor and Mateas (2013) state that:  “Games will often have processes that are not accounted for or [will] even prevent the desired interpretation from being possible. One example of this can be seen in Bioshock where the game’s ambitious narrative critique of a philosophy is undermined by violent and conventional gameplay” (7). According to Sicart (2013), many

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games that promote their choices as moral and meaningful do so as a “tame problem, formalizing decision-​making through finite, solvable, computable puzzles.” This, he argues, is “aesthetically unsatisfying because it encapsulates the process of ethical thinking in the context of gameplay dynamics, which are not necessarily related to the moral nature of players” (28). Sicart’s viewpoints are framed in relation to design, which serves as an important reminder that games are a developing medium—​one that has yet to fully master the tension between structure and freedom. The ambiguity uncovered within the No Russian mission comes about from a moment in which the players are left to their own devices. That is, a moment in which suggestion and context take the place of commands, a situation takes the place of a game state, and the type of causal relations between game elements and the nature of their consequences assume a different nature. In terms of the overall structure of the game, it is also unfair to expect the player to be morally invested at such an early juncture of the game (No Russian occurs at the beginning of MW2), in order to place faith in this informing player’s decision-​making. The player had yet to acquire the necessary knowledge of how the game operates to make a sound decision.

Concluding comment This book constitutes an attempt to discuss the contentious issue of media violence and its pleasures (from spectatorship to playful appropriation) in dispassionate terms. It has sought to move discussion beyond the impasse that was reached long ago between those who apportion blame to games for worsening the impact of media on society and those who critique this position either on the grounds of limitations in research design, or because they place greater faith in the savoir faire of the ludo-​literate who consume violence as entertainment. The type of treatment given to games in this book has nevertheless been developed in response to the way games have been characterized within the effects debate. It has been argued that what critics identify as the blameworthy characteristics of games ignores their properties as systems and the experience that creates. In doing so, it has been necessary to moderate and question the significance



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of the representational image throughout the book in order to emphasize and explore the way game objectives are realized via an interplay of rules and mechanics that re-​purpose and transform the denotative value of its icons. This book has thus attempted to accomplish two things: first, to interrogate the substance of the argument that gaming constitutes a violent and immoral pursuit, and secondly, to promote and explore the discounted properties of games as rule-​ governed systems in terms of what light it sheds on claims formed within the media effects debate. The book has reflected equally on primary empirical research and theory and research attached to the multidisciplinary approaches of game studies. Game studies has proved invaluable for its capacity to explicate how the properties and functioning of game systems advance a distinct logic. It is hoped that this has the effect of encouraging those researchers already steeped in the cultural value of games to apply their research more openly and publicly to instruct the public on the meaning of games. Likewise, it is hoped that experimental approaches go on to find value in perspectives that grapple with the inscriptional technologies of games as they continue to evolve as an emerging “medium” and incorporate this knowledge and understanding in their research to achieve a better understanding of the research variables being measured and manipulated.

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Index Aarseth, Espen  ix, 21, 27, 38, 40, 55, 72, 84, 116–​17, 135–​8, 157, 161, 168, 200–​1 Adams, Ernest  18, 122, 134–​5 affordances  17–​18, 22, 24–​6, 45, 54, 56, 68–​9, 71, 119, 139, 150, 167, 204 environment 40, 122 mobility 120 player character  79, 123, 146 age-​restriction  31, 36, 41–​2, 50–​1, 205 aggression  3, 10, 26, 33–​4, 46–​7, 52–​4, 114, 156, 175–​6 Amazing Spider-​man  119–​21 America’s Army 101 Anderson, Craig  33–​4, 48 animation   as filmic performance  162 integrated interfaces  137 non-​interactive cut scenes 44, 141 player triggered  152–​3 Apocalypse Now 48, 102 Apperly, Tom  22, 128 arousal  192–​4 death 177 phasic 114 player  65, 70, 81, 193–​4 (see also research methods: bio-​feedback) Assassin’s Creed  72, 96, 120 attitude(s) 115, 190 ludic 129 lusory  29, 62, 135

public  6–​7 toward violence  1, 54, 174, 179 Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification 32, 181 Bakhtin, Mikhail  42, 185 see also death: carnivalesque   Barthes, Roland  26, 87, 153 Battlefield 1942 105 Battlefield 3  78, 94–​6, 98, 191, 193–​5, 202 Bioshock 2  76–​7, 79–​82, 132, 147, 191, 221 board games  59 Chess 20, 30 La Conquête du Monde 132 Monopoly 50 Bogost, Ian  4, 22, 102, 125, 128–​30, 133 enthymeme 127 unit operation  131 Bonnie and Clyde 181, 184 see also slow motion   Bordwell, David   genre 18, 180 interpretation 38 The Bourne Identity 191 Breivik, Anders Behring  40, 205–​6 British Board of Film Classification 31, 212 Buckingham, David  7, 22, 41 bullets  12, 92, 100, 110, 163, 180–​1, 184, 186, 203 Butler, Judith  45, 163

268

Index

Caillois, Roger  20, 55, 60–​1, 120, 142 Call of Duty 179 Advanced Warfare 158 Modern Warfare 2 68, 197–​200, 202–​12 Modern Warfare 3  57, 93, 190 Modern Warfare 4 98, 145, 184 World at War 92 Calleja, Gordon  37, 57, 72, 74 Carr, Diane  116–​17, 145, 214 challenge  ix, viii, 8, 18, 26, 51, 55, 58, 68, 70, 74–​6, 83–​4, 116, 124, 136, 198, 202, 216 aporias  135–​6 designing  124, 134, 185 mastery 211 role of sound  106 cinema 88 of attraction  68–​9 gaze 153 gesture 162 Hollywood  110, 170, 179, 190 post 9/​11  190–​1 war  48, 102, 170, 179, 180 coercion  4, 14–​15 Columbine  2–​15, 47, 168–​9 combat   intimate  170, 174–​5, 179 mediated  98–​9, 102, 169–​70 physical  140, 154–​5 Command and Conquer: Generals  26, 133–​4 competition (agôn)  128–​9, 133 configuration  38, 40–​1, 43, 45, 65, 67, 73, 127, 131, 167 control   gun  2–​3 self 35, 99 sense of 14 social  2–​3, 10, 54, 164 copycat killings  4, 15 Counter Strike 12, 17 Croft, Lara  116, 122, 147

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly  36, 71, 168, 184 cut-​scenes  7, 23, 25, 42, 58, 60, 76, 81, 141, 207, 213, 219–​20 Dead Island  72–​5, 123–​4 death  52, 54, 56, 91, 103, 175, 180–​1, 220–​1 carnivalesque  183, 185–​7 natural  132, 178, 189 news coverage  167, 176–​8 postmodern 184 screen death  41, 58, 70, 124, 136, 142, 182, 194, 208 unlawful killing  3, 16–​17, 206 Death Race 5, 21 Deer Hunter, The 48 deniable content  210 design, game  7, 20–​1, 22, 26–​7, 30, 41–​2, 57, 71–​2, 82, 124–​6, 130, 145, 157–​8, 204, 212, 215–​6 dark  43–​5, 69 disruptive  119–​20, 122–​3, 202–​3 player-​centric  122, 134–​5, 173 player character  148, 187–​8 weapons  100–​1 destruction  102, 189–​92, 216, 218 Doom  2–​3, 20, 23, 25, 92, 136, 142 Duke Nukem 3D 44 effectance  20, 82, 85, 212 Eiffel Tower  96, 190 emotion(al) 58 artifact  46, 64, 113–​14, 115–​16, 174 connection  14, 198, 206 distance  89–​90 impact  40, 46, 52–​3, 64, 99, 118, 173–​4, 176 invigilation  177–​8 regulation 36

Index 269 enemy  13, 48, 99, 103, 125, 131, 146, 149, 169–​70, 175, 179, 180–​1, 186–​7, 195, 197, 211, 213 see also existents   Entertainment Software Rating Board 17, 32 ethics  201, 214, 217 existents  17, 55, 83, 91, 132, 136, 142, 184–​5 see also enemy   experience divide  6–​8, 39, 42–​3, 50–​1, 53, 62, 89–​90, 110–​11, 114, 164, 169, 174–​5, 205, 214, 219–​20 extranoematic  40, 200–​1 F.E.A.R.  12, 180, 182, 201–​2 failure  30, 44, 78–​9, 118, 136, 207–​12 Fallout 3  152, 210, 215–​18 fantasy  95, 105, 107, 110, 171, 178 accounts  174–​5 narrative 52 fear 206 emotion  46, 52–​3, 147, 173–​4, 176, 191, 204 societal  4–​5, 10 Ferguson, Christopher  3–​4, 5 Fight Club  108–​9 fighting  32, 52, 76, 108–​9, 179 melee 23, 83 firearms  3, 13, 163, 168 AK-​47  12, 171 Colt .45 9 KG-​9  11 KG-​99  11 M4 13 M16 13 M16A4 13 M16A2 13 M-​60  171 shotgun  11, 13–​14, 163 TEC-​DC9  10 TEC-​9  11

firing a gun  14, 34, 111, 152, 171 first person shooters  3, 22–​5, 74, 77, 79, 93–​4, 105, 109, 136, 142, 157, 164, 179, 185, 193 flow  36, 64, 69, 71, 161, 184 forces (games)  78, 110, 117, 176, 215 boundary  83, 91, 145, 184 cued behavior  41, 46, 57–​8, 60, 76, 80, 176, 204, 211 motivational  46, 144, 162 restraining  144–​5 fun  50, 59, 64, 72, 103, 134, 186, 220 game(s)   actions  19, 23, 24–​6, 30, 51, 53, 57, 63, 78, 81–​3, 96, 106–​7, 110, 115, 119–​20, 122–​4, 127, 129, 136, 139–​40, 145–​52, 156–​9, 161–​4, 184, 188, 191, 198–​218 arcade  70, 141–​2 controller  57–​8, 60, 96–​7, 111, 116, 140–​1, 148, 150, 152, 161, 183 definition 21, 38, 60 environment  23, 24–​5, 40, 58–​9, 62, 73–​4, 80, 94–​6, 106–​7, 117, 119–​20, 145–​8, 200–​1, 219–​20 industry  1, 5, 16, 22, 85 literacy  6–​8, 50, 63 mechanics  20, 74, 123, 126, 130, 132–​4, 157, 186, 212, 214, 216 segmentation  69–​71, 93 studies  ix, 37, 59–​60, 62–​5, 105, 135, 223 systems  24, 29, 37, 44, 55–​6, 58, 63, 65–​6, 69–​84, 96, 98, 104, 113, 120, 125–​31, 145, 156–​61, 168, 175–​6, 180, 188, 195, 200, 203, 211, 214–​17, 222–​3 (see also rules and see also proceduralism)

270

Index

game guns  111 AK-​47  101 ballistic data  100 BFG 9000  20 M4 101 Shotgun 100, 109 Special Purpose Assault Shotgun  109–​10 Uzi 100 gamification  99, 102–​4 genre  15–​28, 110, 139, 176, 180, 211 as game-​play  18, 24–​8, 74, 122, 128 rhetorical  15–​17, 164–​5 theory  17–​24 war  40, 48, 55, 86, 93, 102, 107, 179–​80, 202, 211 western  5, 8, 18, 21, 182 see also first person shooters   geopolitics  26, 133–​4 gesture  107, 151, 162 Grand Bazaar  94–​6 see also Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Grand Theft Auto 41 IV  8, 219–​20 III 146 Grimshaw, Mark  22, 105, 109 Grodal, Torben  7, 51, 113–​14, 184 guns   automatic  11, 100, 152 crime 3, 18, 39 law 9, 12 possession 9 semi-​automatic  10, 12–​14 symbolic function  19 Half Life 25, 191 Halo  23, 25, 107, 219 Heidegger, Martin  143–​5 hero(ism)  9, 24, 121, 132, 174, 185 John Wayne Syndrome  179 myth  1, 3, 12, 169–​70, 179

high score  98, 103, 141–​3, 155, 199, 213, 216 horror  32, 41, 77, 110, 122, 173, 181, 201, 219 see also genre   Huizinga, Johan  61–​2, 94, 129, 132, 210 human computer interaction (HCI) 103, 193 icon  58, 78, 85, 90, 96, 102, 189–​91, 223 auditory  105 (see also sound) ideology  93, 98, 214 image  ix, 10, 22, 31, 48, 59, 65, 89, 104, 107–​9, 128, 139, 143–​5, 153, 161–​2, 168, 175–​9, 184, 189–​90, 192, 213, 223 analogue 86, 90, 97 digital  85–​6, 88, 92, 95–​6, 119 immersion  23–​4, 116, 137 challenged-​based  84 critique of  37, 57–​8, 83, 160–​1 indexicality  85–​111, 162 interactivity  20, 24, 42, 76, 127–​8, 136, 204, 220 critique of  149–​50, 158 interpretation  29, 38, 40, 57, 64, 68, 74, 76, 128, 142, 168, 191, 221 “Ivan the Not So Terrible”  219–​21 see also Grand Theft Auto IV  Jameson, Frederic  19 Jarhead 48, 102 Järvinen, Aki  18, 22–​3, 26, 80 Jurassic Park 88, 95 Juul, Jasper  29, 38, 45, 59, 120, 168, 208 Kill Bill 191 killing  21, 33, 39–​40, 52, 56, 129, 142, 167, 202–​3, 210, 212–​13, 221 protracted  180–​5, 187

Index 271 sanctioned  169–​76 unlawful  2, 4, 12, 17 King, Geoff  26, 91, 93, 134 Klevjer, Rune  21–​2, 63, 115, 120, 122 Lankoski, Petri  26, 115, 117–​18, 122 learning  33–​4, 74, 122–​3, 136, 150 problem solving  6, 19, 34, 61, 111, 135, 176 recursive 26 ludic  19–​20, 23–​6, 40, 58, 94, 111, 120–​1, 125, 132, 179, 183, 210, 212 century  104, 129, 133 contra 20, 83 extra  122–​3 hyper 20, 83 intra  122–​4 involvement 72, 74 subject 116 trans  122–​3 ludo   diegesis 25 literacy  63, 140, 222 magic circle  62–​3, 94, 133, 135 Manhunt 2  21, 212–​14 Manovich, Lev  87–​8 Marczak, Raphaël  31, 77 massacre  4, 10, 17, 68, 198–​210 The Matrix  12, 72, 180, 183 Max Payne  44, 92, 181, 211–​14 bullet cam  186–​8 bullet time  92, 180–​6 (see also slow motion) shootdodge  181–​4 Mäyrä, Frans  52, 84 meaning  10, 21, 30, 33, 38, 40, 46, 62–​3, 77, 90, 94, 122, 125–​8, 130–​3, 143–​5, 186, 200, 210–​11, 214, 223 symbolic  3, 9, 14, 16, 137, 191 violence  33, 48–​9, 54 Medal of Honor 179, 184 Warfighter 13

media effects research  4, 22, 33–​5, 36–​8, 41–​6, 49, 125, 168, 222–​3 Men Against Fire 13 military  11–​14, 48, 102, 170, 175–​6 entertainment complex  93 modeling  128, 130, 200 moral  6, 21, 49, 119, 172, 187, 189, 191 code  15, 42, 56, 113, 203 dilemmas  202, 206, 209, 215–​22 karma systems  216–​18 panics  4, 9, 16, 33 Mortal Kombat 2, 32 National Rifle Association  13–​14 Natural Born Killers 185 New York  95, 119, 121 World Trade Center  190–​1 New Zealand Office of Film and Literature Classification 37, 219 news media  2, 6, 17, 35, 39, 53, 107, 167, 176–​8, 197, 199, 204–​5 Night Trap 32 9/​11  93, 133, 190–​1 “No Russian”  68, 197–​222 see also Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2  non-​player characters  25, 43, 55, 77, 85, 106, 188, 194, 201, 203, 207, 210, 212–​13, 217–​18 non-​trivial effort  55 nudity 41 Pac-​Man  30, 83, 142 paidea 61, 120 paratelic 60 Passage  126, 132, 146 performance  5, 20, 27, 34, 40, 49, 58, 61–​2, 65, 70, 76, 123, 137, 141–​2, 150–​63, 193–​4, 213 distance  58, 145–​6, 151–​6, 162

272

Index

filmic 162 ratio  151, 154, 157, 162 telematics 156 performativity  24–​8, 44, 54, 91, 139–​65, 213 player   agency  78, 115–​16, 154, 157, 200–​1, 208–​9, 211–​12 body  96–​7, 117, 147, 150, 154–​6, 193 characters  22, 44, 107, 115–​20, 136–​7, 146–​8, 161–​2, 220 control  40, 44, 53, 81–​3, 89, 96–​7, 113–​38, 141, 149–​50, 161, 198, 210, 213 definition  134–​5 engagement  83, 123 (see also flow; fun; pleasure) experience  64, 96, 111, 140 freedom  1, 71, 76–​9, 84, 98, 120, 122, 125, 127, 137–​8, 155, 195, 198, 222 input  54, 63, 66, 78, 97, 103, 106, 116, 121, 127, 139, 150, 152–​3, 157, 181, 186–​7, 210, 212 types 135 pleasure  55, 61, 66, 75, 82, 119–​20, 129, 135, 141, 161, 169, 171, 173, 184, 186–​7, 189–​92, 200, 204 Pleasure of Ruins 189 political   agenda  1–​2, 5–​6 debate  5, 18, 27, 38, 56, 125 possible worlds  93–​6 presence  20, 63, 68–​9, 106, 109, 160–​5 proceduralism  125–​30 profanity  31, 43–​4, 107 progression  30, 56, 79, 91, 118, 144, 157, 176, 208 psychology   critical 36 dynamic 144

experimental  33–​4, 54 social 35 puppetry  116, 118–​19 Bunraku 153 shadow  150, 153–​4 Quake  2, 25, 142 quick time event  60, 76, 78–​9 Rainbow Six Vegas 2 100 realism  32, 89–​90, 92, 96, 107 in action  37, 58, 97 documentary 86 photorealism 85, 88 regulation  1, 4–​5, 29, 31, 33, 40–​2, 58, 65, 97, 124, 177 Remote Impact  154–​5 representation  10, 37–​8, 41, 49, 51, 53, 58, 68, 75, 86–​9, 94, 96–​7, 109, 120, 128, 140–​1, 143, 172, 174, 176, 178–​9, 183, 186–​7 correspondence  88–​9 research methods   bio-​feedback  66, 193–​4, 195 game commentaries  66–​7 game metrics  71, 77 observation  7, 64, 66, 71 survey  6–​7, 64, 113 Resistance: Fall of Man  38–​9, 179–​80 rhetoric(al)  4, 128, 130 events  6, 17, 103 genre  14–​15, 21, 27, 164 procedural  125, 127–​9 rough-​and-​tumble play  52 Scarface: The World Is Yours 44 self   double-​consciousness  115 other  115–​18 subjectivization 214 sexual content  32, 41, 51 Shklovsky, Viktor  56 shock  68, 93, 180–​1, 205

Index 273 shootings   mass  2, 6, 40, 205 school  2, 15–​16, 27, 45, 103 Sicart, Miguel  8, 98, 122, 124–​5, 130, 167, 201, 214–​15, 221–​2 Silent Hill 110, 173 Sims, The  97–​8, 128 slow motion  180–​5 tachypsychia  181–​2 see also Max Payne 3: bullet time   soccer 29, 49, 94 social   drama  14–​15 mores 37, 113 soldier(s)  13, 48, 101–​2, 170, 174–​5, 177, 179–​80 Soldier in the Rain 173 sound  23, 77, 92, 102, 155 acoustic ecology  105 amplitude 107, 111 foley  108–​9 indexicality  105–​11 stylized 109 spatiality  25, 70, 72–​3, 79, 83–​4, 87, 89, 94, 96, 106–​9, 143–​7, 161 hodological space  144–​5 spectacle  119, 140–​1, 153, 167–​96 spectatorship  171–​6, 180, 186, 195, 213 beheadings 172, 204 indifference 174, 178 Spiderman 2  119–​21 “spray and pray”  11–​13, 23, 163 Star Wars  99, 154, 215 The Han Solo problem  215–​16 Jabba the Hutt  154, 215 Statue of Liberty  96, 189 Street Fighter  140–​1 success  20, 30, 36, 44, 70, 79, 118, 129–​30, 142–​3, 152, 207, 209, 212 Super Mario Bros 126, 140

superhero  52, 119–​20, 185 superplay  82, 141–​2 high performance play  142 100% challenges  143 speed running  142 Surman, David  139–​41 suspense  82, 102, 192, 194 symbolic   politics 16 structures  3, 6, 8–​9, 14, 54, 170 systems   computer autonomy  158–​9 and fixed outcomes  197–​211 rule  8, 17, 24, 37, 46, 54, 70, 76, 82, 98, 157, 176, 198 tactics  75, 124, 180, 183, 185–​6 telic  60–​1 theme  17–​18, 25, 31, 41, 49, 51–​2, 57–​8, 69, 126, 130, 132–​4, 187–​8, 193 Thompson, Jack  17 3DO Rating System  32 28 Days Later 189 2083: A European Declaration of Independence 205 Uncharted  100–​1 undeniable content  210, 212 Urban Terror 105 user interface  71–​2, 137 heads up display (HUD)  41, 72, 168, 178, 211 health bar  41, 58, 67, 80–​1, 83, 91, 148–​9, 182 life bar  81, 91 stamina  58, 75, 83, 107, 124 victim  2, 4, 45, 53, 171, 174, 181, 185, 206–​7, 214 Videogame Rating Council (Sega) 32 violence   aestheticized 172, 184 carnivalesque  185–​7

274

cinematic  11, 108–​9, 175, 179–​81, 185, 188 definition of  45–​50 as entertainment  41, 51, 57, 168, 171, 178, 181 legitimized  5, 10, 14–​15, 188 mythos 1, 3, 54 physical  26, 34, 45, 48, 54, 108–​9 simulated  49, 52, 54, 183, 196 speech acts  45 sound  107–​9 Virginia Tech  16–​17 Waco Resurrection 131 war   Afghanistan 99, 170 clean  174, 184, 206 First World War  169 Gulf War  48, 102, 174–​5 pleasures of  169–​71

Index proleptic 93 Second World War  13, 38–​9, 53, 91–​2, 170, 175, 179 Vietnam  13, 48, 169, 171, 175, 179–​80 weapons 142 bayonet  169–​70, 175 ranged 99 remotely piloted aircraft  99, 101 see also firearms; guns   Westecott, Emma  116, 118, 150 Wikileaks 98 Woo, John  11, 180, 186 X-​Men Origins: Wolverine 7 Zabriskie Point 191 Zagal, Jose  44, 63, 69–​70, 83, 201, 207 Zapruder, Abraham  183–​4 see also slow motion   Zimmerman, Eric  183–​4