Video Games: The Playful Medium

VIDEO GAMES: THE PLAYFUL MEDIUM
Recapitulation of the Genre & Semiotic Aspects

Presentation for the class: Semiotic Aspects of Media
Lecturer: Frieder Naake
Place & Time: HfK Bremen, 18. Nov. 2008
Presenter: Jan Smeddinck
http://www.globalgraphica.com/main/archives/spaceinvader_paris_sgdp_3.jpg

CONTENT

05.02.2009
 Video Games
 History

Video Games - The Playful Medium
 Trends & Myths
 Key Research
 Semiotic Aspects
 How are games semiotic?
 What are semiotic domains?
 What is so special about video games?
 Are video games art?
 Are there semiotic games?

2

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/HPM/BM1178~Video-Games-Posters.jpg

WHAT ARE VIDEO GAMES?

05.02.2009
 The media that SUCKS most!?!

3

http://media.kansan.com/img/photos/2008/05/05/Video_game_addiction_play.jpg

HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES

05.02.2009
 Device / Technology perspective
 Software specific

http://video.google.com/videoplay?doci
d=3637639460474263178

4

http://www.smart-kit.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/sleep-learning.jpg

05.02.2009
5

http://www.slideshare.net/guest003dda/megatrends-in-video-gaming, 3

OR AWFULLY STEREOTYPICAL

05.02.2009
6

theﬁschbowl.blogspot.com/2007/06/did-you-know-20.html

TREND: OLDER GAMERS

05.02.2009
7

ESA, 2008 + IGN‟s “Are You Game” from November 2008 7 | 57
http://www.slideshare.net/AdvertisingPawn/video-gaming-trends-presentation

TREND: MORE FEMALES

05.02.2009
8
 more female gamers over 18 than boys under 17
ESA “Essential Facts”, 2008 | Image: Nintendo DS Lite “Woman” 9 | 57

MYTH: LONELY & LOST SOULS

05.02.2009
9

http://www.dasgib.de/wp-content/wow_world_of_warcraft_2030_reality.jpg

TREND: SHORTER PLAY & NEW USERS

05.02.2009
10

http://www.enregistrersous.com/images/134178657420070918114858.jpg

TREND: SHORTER PLAY & NEW USERS

05.02.2009
 Even in reality!

11

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_0DTgWoL_s0o/R1y6kZF2l7I/AAAAAAAAAHs/RBfiYqCYV9U/2007-04-17_0145.jpg

TREND: GAMING UBIQUITY

05.02.2009
 Bedroom to Living-room
 Stationary to Mobile

12

http://www.freewebs.com/sonypsfree/nintendo_ds_lite.jpg

TREND: PLAYING TOGETHER

05.02.2009
 59% gamers play with other people in person
ESA “Essential Facts”, 2008

13

http://kendlesworld.com/wp-content/gallery/general/lanparty4bg.jpg

TREND: PLAYING TOGETHER ONLINE

05.02.2009
 > 70% of next-gen console gamers play online
NPD Study, October 2007 (http://www.slideshare.net/AdvertisingPawn/video-gaming-trends-presentation )

 10 million WoW subscriptions in 2008

14

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/5115/wowscrnshot010607225314uc6.jpg

05.02.2009
15

http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue20/misc/stunts1.gif

05.02.2009
16

http://www.pc-universe.de/img/articles/3821/Trackmania-Nations-5.jpg

TREND: USER GENERATED CONTENT

05.02.2009
 Users contribute:
 Maps, Models, Levels, Items, Stories

http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/04/garrys_mod_mario.jpg

http://www.alwaysbeta.com/wp-content/uploads/smcbride/tmaina_secrettechtrack.jpg

17

TREND: USER GENERATED GAMES

05.02.2009
 Classic: Mods
 Now commercialized: Spore, Little Big Planet

18


TREND: MAINSTREAM MARKET

05.02.2009
 Consoles as entertainment hubs

 Myth: Gaming for kids / not a big deal:
 Gaming bigger than DVD / movies / books / music

 A $34 billion industry
Wired, 2008 | GamesIndustry, 2008

 Video game ad-revenue aiming to become billion
dollar market in 2010
eMarketer, April 2007 / Advertising Age Fact Pack, 2008 45 | 57

 Online distribution (steam)
 Pay-Per-X
19

TREND: MOVIES & GAMES

05.02.2009
 Tightly intervened
 Exchange franchises & techniques

 Creative drive towards games

20

http://content.mahalo.com/images/9/9e/Piano.2.jpg

http://www.sessiocontinua.com/uploaded_images/nosferatu-797699.gif

GAMES THE NEW LIVELY ART

05.02.2009
 “Games represent a new lively art, one as appropriate
for the digital age as those earlier media were for the
machine age. They open up new aesthetic experiences

and transform the computer screen into a realm of
experimentation and innovation that is broadly
accessible. And games have been embraced by a public
that has otherwise been unimpressed by much of what
passes for digital art. Much as the salon arts of the
1920s seemed sterile alongside the vitality and
inventiveness of popular culture, contemporary efforts to
create interactive narrative through modernist hypertext
or avant-garde installation art seem lifeless and
pretentious alongside the creativity and exploration, the
sense of fun and wonder, that game designers bring to
their craft.”
Jeffrey Goldstein 2005 21

GENERATION GAME

05.02.2009
 is generation game next?

22

05.02.2009
23

http://www.slideshare.net/AdvertisingPawn/video-gaming-trends-presentation, slide 4

DIGITAL NATIVES

05.02.2009
24

http://www.slideshare.net/guest003dda/megatrends-in-video-gaming, 3

05.02.2009
25

http://www.slideshare.net/guest003dda/megatrends-in-video-gaming

DIGITAL DIVIDE

05.02.2009
26

http://www.slideshare.net/guest003dda/megatrends-in-video-gaming

05.02.2009
27

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Tic_tac_toe.svg/522px-Tic_tac_toe.svg.png

05.02.2009
28

http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/Space_Invaders.jpg

05.02.2009
29

http://www.atributosurbanos.es/images/fotos/sim-city1_large.jpg

05.02.2009
30

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1969/gw209xc4.jpg

PLAYFUL LEARNING

05.02.2009
 Games grew more complex

 Why?: Because the BRAIN demands it…
Glenn Wiebe 2008

31

http://blog.craftzine.com/BrainBunny.jpg

05.02.2009
32

http://www.slideshare.net/glennw98/video-games-for-ties-2008-presentation

BRAIN: PATTERN RECOGNIZER

05.02.2009
 More complex in games (rules, behaviors, social)

33


THE BRAIN & THE WORLD

05.02.2009
Can I eat it?

Can it eat me? Can I have sex with it? 34

SIGN INTERPRETATION

05.02.2009
 Brain loves to find patterns…
 …works best, when emotional chemicals increase

 …wants to collaborate

 Games serve all this!
 Patterns / Game Mechanics
 Emotions / Story, Immersion, motivation
 Collaboration / Multiplayer

 They are good for learning…
 AND highly semiotic! 35

SEMIOTIC?

05.02.2009
 Chess is the man-made counterpart of the natural processes
of language.
Ferdinand de Saussure 1916 (CGL)
 both dynamic, rule-based (conventional), positional strategies

 „Thinking always proceeds in the form of a dialogue - a
dialogue between different phases of the ego - so that, being
dialogical, it is essentially composed of signs, as its Matter, in
the sense in which a game of chess has the chessmen for its
matter.“
Peirce 1967, MS 298, 1905, Phaneroscopy
 Language Games: Games are conceptually prior to symbolic
codes
 “[Y]ou can learn that the word has meaning by the particular
use we make of it. We are like people who think that pieces of
wood shaped more or less like chessmen or draughtstones
standing on a chessboard constitute a game even if nothing
has been said as to how they are to be used.”
Wittgenstein, 2000–, 147, 39v 36
All via Pietarinen 2007

WHAT„S UP WITH ALL THE CHESS?

05.02.2009
 Video games can do more than that… 37

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f162/queenofsimtopia/Harper%20Week%201/h12.jpg

05.02.2009 Video Games - The Playful Medium
38

SEMIOTIC DOMAIN

05.02.2009
 …the entire vat of knowledge that we must have to
read a particular piece of literature…

 almost all literature is multimodal
 requires bigger semiotic domain than we think
 "When people learn to play video games, they are
learning a new literacy.“
 Learning to think of semiotic domains as design
spaces that manipulate us in certain ways and that
we can manipulate in certain ways.
 Think UGC!
Paul James Gee 2007
39

VIDEO GAMES: ALL SIGNS & SYMBOLS

05.02.2009
 Computer games function as human sign
and symbol systems

 share a finite set of semiotic patterns and
processes with literature
 All signs and symbols within computer
games are ultimately interpreted as icons
 valued and given meaning only within the
system of the game itself
David Myers 2004
literature
language

play 40

VIDEO GAMES: ALL SIGNS & SYMBOLS

05.02.2009
 „Whatever might be strange or mysterious
concerning a sign or symbol is systematically

removed and replaced with the immediate
sensation of the sign itself and the accompanying
ability to value and understand that sign during
play.“
 more intense than literature

 „This immersive experience of the semiotic self is
no doubt part of the addictive-like appeal of
computer games.“
David Myers 2004 41

42

43
www.robbiecooper.org

44

45

46

http://www.robbiecooper.org/

47


48


49


VIDEO GAMES: THE MEDIUM

05.02.2009
 Games allow to escape reality
 only possible with signs & media

 Draws us in on many channels
 redirecting our senses
 If any medium is an extension of ourselves (cf. Mc
Luhan) then games are our extensions to next
reality worlds.

50

GAMES ARE SEMIOTIC IN THAT…

05.02.2009
 … they are played with consensual rules
 … they create semiotic domains

 … they contain signs & symbols / icons

 … and sign users (programmer / player / AI / other
players)
 … gamers use (game) specific language

 … players can CHEAT (Umberto Eco: Lie)

 … they build models of reality

 … they are at the core of communication

51

SEMIOTIC GAMES

05.02.2009
 lifeSigns

52

http://iconica.org/lifesigns

SEMIOTIC GAMES

05.02.2009
 Eco-System of signs &
symbols (iconic)

 Manipulated by
multiplayer & evolving
http://iconica.org/lifesigns

53

54
QUESTIONS & COMMENTS

SOURCES

05.02.2009
 http://www.robbiecooper.org/
 http://iconica.org/lifesigns/
 http://icrontic.com/forum/blog.php?b=66

 http://nm4209.wikispaces.com/Do+you+think+video+games+are+a+waste+of+time

 http://www.slideshare.net/HeyWayne/the-generation-game-presentation
 http://www.slideshare.net/AdvertisingPawn/video-gaming-trends-presentation
 http://www.slideshare.net/glennw98/video-games-online-simulations-having-fun-is-
a-good-thing
 http://www.slideshare.net/glennw98/video-games-for-ties-2008-presentation
 http://www.slideshare.net/Alan_Hook/sequential-images-presentation

 Jenkins, Henry (2005): "Games, the New Lively Art," in Jeffrey Goldstein (ed.) Handbook for Video
Game Studies (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005)
http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/GamesNewLively.html

 Myers, David, (2004): The Anti-Poetic: Interactivity, Immersion, and Other Semiotic Functions of Digital
Play, Loyola University New Orleans.
http://www.cosignconference.org/downloads/papers/proceedings_cosign_2004.pdf

 Pietarinen, Ahti-Veikko J. (2008): "An Invitation to Language and Games", in A.-V. Pietarinen (ed.),
Game Theory and Linguistic Meaning, Oxford: Elsevier Science, 1-15.
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pietarin/publications/publications.html 55

Video Games: The Playful Medium

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

More from J S

More from J S (7)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Video Games: The Playful Medium