TY - CHAP A1 - Möring, Sebastian A1 - Aarseth, Espen T1 - The game itself? BT - Towards a Hermeneutics of Computer Games T2 - International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG ’20) N2 - In this paper, we reassess the notion and current state of ludohermeneutics in game studies, and propose a more solid foundation for how to conduct hermeneutic game analysis. We argue that there can be no ludo-hermeneutics as such, and that every game interpretation rests in a particular game ontology, whether implicit or explicit. The quality of this ontology, then, determines a vital aspect of the quality of the analysis. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3402942.3402978 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - ACM CY - New York ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Möring, Sebastian A1 - Aarseth, Espen T1 - The game itself? BT - Towards a Hermeneutics of Computer Games T2 - International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG ’20) N2 - In this paper, we reassess the notion and current state of ludohermeneutics in game studies, and propose a more solid foundation for how to conduct hermeneutic game analysis. We argue that there can be no ludo-hermeneutics as such, and that every game interpretation rests in a particular game ontology, whether implicit or explicit. The quality of this ontology, then, determines a vital aspect of the quality of the analysis. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/0.1145/3402942.3402978 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - ACM CY - New York ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Neitzel, Britta T1 - Metacommunicative circles N2 - The paper uses Gregory Bateson’s concept of metacommunication to explore the boundaries of the ‘magic circle’ in play and computer games. It argues that the idea of a self-contained “magic circle” ignores the constant negotiations among players which establish the realm of play. The “magic circle” is no fixed ontological entity but is set up by metacommunicative play. The paper further pursues the question if metacommunication could also be found in single-player computer games, and comes to the conclusion that metacommunication is implemented in single-player games by the means of metalepsis. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24647 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Jennett, Charlene A1 - Cox, Anna L. A1 - Cairns, Paul T1 - Being "in the game" N2 - When people describe themselves as being “in the game” this is often thought to mean they have a sense of presence, i.e. they feel like they are in the virtual environment (Brown/Cairns 2004). Presence research traditionally focuses on user experiences in virtual reality systems (e.g. head mounted displays, CAVE-like systems). In contrast, the experience of gaming is very different. Gamers willingly submit to the rules of the game, learn arbitrary relationships between the controls and the screen output, and take on the persona of their game character. Also whereas presence in VR systems is immediate, presence in gaming is gradual. Due to these differences, one can question the extent to which people feel present during gaming. A qualitative study was conducted to explore what gamers actually mean when they describe themselves as being “in the game.” Thirteen gamers were interviewed and the resulting grounded theory suggests being “in the game” does not necessarily mean presence (i.e. feeling like you are the character and present in the VE). Some people use this phrase just to emphasize their high involvement in the game. These findings differ with Brown and Cairns as they suggest at the highest state of immersion not everybody experiences presence. Furthermore, the experience of presence does not appear dependent on the game being in the first person perspective or the gamer being able to empathize with the character. Future research should investigate why some people experience presence and others do not. Possible explanations include: use of language, perception of presence, personality traits, and types of immersion. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24682 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Mitsuishi, Yara T1 - Différance at play : unfolding identities through difference in videogame play N2 - This paper approaches the debate over the notion of “magic circle” through an exploratory analysis of the unfolding of identities/differences in gameplay through Derrida’s différance. Initially, différance is related to the notion of play and identity/difference in Derrida’s perspective. Next, the notion of magic circle through Derrida’s play is analyzed, emphasizing the dynamics of différance to understand gameplay as process; questioning its boundaries. Finally, the focus shifts toward the implications of the interplay of identities and differences during gameplay. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24697 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Juul, Jesper T1 - The magic circle and the puzzle piece N2 - In a common description, to play a game is to step inside a concrete or metaphorical magic circle where special rules apply. In video game studies, this description has received an inordinate amount of criticism which the paper argues has two primary sources: 1. a misreading of the basic concept of the magic circle and 2. a somewhat rushed application of traditional theoretical concerns onto games. The paper argues that games studies must move beyond conventional criticisms of binary distinctions and rather look at the details of how games are played. Finally, the paper proposes an alternative metaphor for game-playing, the puzzle piece. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24554 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Glashüttner, Robert T1 - The perception of video games : from visual power to immersive interaction N2 - This paper highlights the different ways of perceiving video games and video game content, incorporating interactive and non-interactive methods. It examines varying cognitive and emotive reactions by persons who are used to play video games as well as persons who are unfamiliar with the aesthetics and the most basic game play rules incorporated within video games. Additionally, the principle of “Flow” serves as a theoretical and philosophical foundation. A small case-study featuring two games has been made to emphasize the numerous possible ways of perception of video games. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24578 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Liboriussen, Bjarke T1 - The landscape aesthetics of computer games N2 - Landscape aesthetics drawing on philosophy and psychology allow us to understand computer games from a new angle. The landscapes of computer games can be understood as environments or images. This difference creates two options: 1. We experience environments or images, or 2. We experience landscape simultaneously as both. Psychologically, the first option can be backed up by a Vygotskian framework (this option highlights certain non-mainstream subject positions), the second by a Piegatian (highlighting cognitive mapping of game worlds). Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24586 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Liebe, Michael T1 - There is no magic circle : on the difference between computer games and traditional games N2 - This text compares the special characteristics of the game space in computer-generated environments with that in non-computerized playing-situations. Herewith, the concept of the magic circle as a deliberately delineated playing sphere with specific rules to be upheld by the players, is challenged. Yet, computer games also provide a virtual playing environment containing the rules of the game as well as the various action possibilities. But both the hardware and software facilitate the player’s actions rather than constraining them. This makes computer games fundamentally different: in contrast to traditional game spaces or limits, the computer-generated environment does not rely on the awareness of the player in upholding these rules. – Thus, there is no magic circle. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24597 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ljungström, Mattias T1 - Remarks on digital play spaces N2 - Most play spaces support completely different actions than we normally would think of when moving through real space, out of play. This paper therefore discusses the relationship between selected game rules and game spaces in connection to the behaviors, or possible behaviors, of the player. Space will be seen as a modifier or catalyst of player behavior. Six categories of game space are covered: Joy of movement, exploration, tactical, social, performative, and creative spaces. Joy of movement is examined in detail, with a briefer explanation of the other categories. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24602 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Calvillo-Gámez, Eduardo H. A1 - Cairns, Paul T1 - Pulling the strings : a theory of puppetry for the gaming experience N2 - The paper aims to bring the experience of playing videogames closer to objective knowledge, where the experience can be assessed and falsified via an operational concept. The theory focuses on explaining the basic elements that form the core of the process of the experience. The name of puppetry is introduced after discussing the similarities in the importance of experience for both videogames and theatrical puppetry. Puppetry, then, operationalizes the gaming experience into a concept that can be assessed. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-27509 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Pinchbeck, Dan T1 - Trigens can’t swim : intelligence and intentionality in first person game worlds N2 - This paper explores the role of the intentional stance in games, arguing that any question of artificial intelligence has as much to do with the co-option of the player’s interpretation of actions as intelligent as any actual fixed-state systems attached to agents. It demonstrates how simply using a few simple and, in system terms, cheap tricks, existing AI can be both supported and enhanced. This includes representational characteristics, importing behavioral expectations from real life, constraining these expectations using diegetic devices, and managing social interrelationships to create the illusion of a greater intelligence than is ever actually present. It is concluded that complex artificial intelligence is often of less importance to the experience of intelligent agents in play than the creation of a space where the intentional stance can be evoked and supported. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-27609 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bogost, Ian T1 - The phenomenology of videogames N2 - Jesper Juul has convincingly argued that the conflict over the proper object of study has shifted from “rules or story” to “player or game.” But a key component of digital games is still missing from either of these oppositions: that of the computer itself. This paper offers a way of thinking about the phenomenology of the videogame from the perspective of the computer rather than the game or the player. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24547 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Løvlie, Anders Sundnes T1 - The rhetoric of persuasive games : freedom and discipline in America's Army N2 - This paper suggests an approach to studying the rhetoric of persuasive computer games through comparative analysis. A comparison of the military propaganda game AMERICA’S ARMY to similar shooter games reveals an emphasis on discipline and constraints in all main aspects of the games, demonstrating a preoccupation with ethos more than pathos. Generalizing from this, a model for understanding game rhetoric through balances of freedom and constraints is proposed. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24616 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Günzel, Stephan T1 - The space-image BT - Interactivity and spatiality of computer games N2 - In recent computer game research a paradigmatic shift is observable: Games today are first and foremost conceived as a new medium characterized by their status as an interactive image. The shift in attention towards this aspect becomes apparent in a new approach that is, first and foremost, aware of the spatiality of games or their spatial structures. This rejects traditional approaches on the basis that the medial specificity of games can no longer be reduced to textual or ludic properties, but has to be seen in medial constituted spatiality. For this purpose, seminal studies on the spatiality of computer games are resumed and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. In connection with this, and against the background of the philosophical method of phenomenology, we propose three steps in describing computer games as space images: With this method it is possible to describe games with respect to the possible appearance of spatiality in a pictorial medium. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24561 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Meldgaard, Betty Li T1 - Perception, action, and game space N2 - This paper examines the use of the ecological approach to visual perception in relation to action in game spaces. By applying the ecological approach it is believed that we can gain new insights into the mechanisms of perceiving possibilities for action. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24624 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bartle, Richard T1 - When openness closes : the line between play and design N2 - One of the informal properties often used to describe a new virtual world is its degree of openness. Yet what is an “open” virtual world? Does the phrase mean generally the same thing to different people? What distinguishes an open world from a less open world? Why does openness matter anyway? The answers to these questions cast light on an important, but shadowy, and uneasy, topic for virtual worlds: the relationship between those who construct the virtual, and those who use these constructions. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24536 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schrape, Niklas T1 - Playing with information : how political games encourage the player to cross the magic circle N2 - The concept of the magic circle suggests that the experience of play is separated from reality. However, in order to interact with a game’s rule system, the player has to make meaningful interpretations of its representations – and representations are never neutral. Games with political content refer in their representations explicitly to social discourses. Cues within their representational layers provoke the player to link the experience of play to mental concepts of reality. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24668 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hoffstadt, Christian A1 - Nagenborg, Michael T1 - The concept of war in the World of Warcraft N2 - MMORPGs such as WORLD OF WARCRAFT can be understood as interactive representations of war. Within the frame provided by the program the players experience martial conflicts and thus a “virtual war.” The game world however requires a technical and as far as possible invisible infrastructure which has to be protected against attacks: Infrastructure means e.g. the servers on which the data of the player characters and the game’s world are saved, as well as the user accounts, which have to be protected, among other things, from “identity theft.” Besides the war on the virtual surface of the program we will therefore describe the invisible war concerning the infrastructure, the outbreak of which is always feared by the developers and operators of online-worlds, requiring them to take precautions. Furthermore we would like to focus on “virtual game worlds” as places of complete surveillance. Since action in these worlds is always associated with the production of data, total observation is theoretically possible and put into practice by the so-called “game master.” The observation of different communication channels (including user forums) serves to monitor and direct the actions on the virtual battlefield subtly, without the player feeling that his freedom is being limited. Finally, we will compare the fictional theater of war in WORLD OF WARCRAFT to the vision of “Network-Centric Warfare,” since it has often been observed that the analysis of MMORPGs is useful to the real trade of war. However, we point out what an unrealistic theater of war WORLD OF WARCRAFT really is. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24674 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Pohl, Kirsten T1 - Ethical reflection and emotional involvement in computer games N2 - This paper focuses on the way computer games refer to the context of their formation and ask how they might stimulate the user’s understanding of the world around him. The central question is: Do computer games have the potential to inspire our reflection about moral and ethical issues? And if so, by which means do they achieve this? Drawing on concepts of the ethical criticism in literary studies as proposed by Wayne C. Booth and Martha Nussbaum, I will argue in favor of an ethical criticism for computer games. Two aspects will be brought into focus: the ethical reflection in the artifact as a whole, and the recipient’s emotional involvement. The paper aims at evaluating the interaction of game content and game structure in order to give an adequate insight into the way computer games function and affect us. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24652 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Müller, Petra A1 - Coppock, Patrick A1 - Liebe, Michael A1 - Mersch, Dieter A1 - Bogost, Ian A1 - Bartle, Richard A1 - Juul, Jesper A1 - Løvlie, Anders Sundnes A1 - Pohl, Kirsten A1 - Schrape, Niklas A1 - Hoffstadt, Christian A1 - Nagenborg, Michael A1 - Liboriussen, Bjarke A1 - Meldgaard, Betty Li A1 - Günzel, Stephan A1 - Ljungström, Mattias A1 - Jennett, Charlene A1 - Cox, Anna L. A1 - Cairns, Paul A1 - Mukherjee, Souvik A1 - Pinchbeck, Dan A1 - Glashüttner, Robert ED - Günzel, Stephan ED - Liebe, Michael ED - Mersch, Dieter T1 - Conference proceedings of The Philosophy of Computer Games 2008 N2 - This first volume of the DIGAREC Series holds the proceedings of the conference “The Philosophy of Computer Games”, held at the University of Potsdam from May 8-10, 2008. The contributions of the conference address three fields of computer game research that are philosophically relevant and, likewise, to which philosophical reflection is crucial. These are: ethics and politics, the action-space of games, and the magic circle. All three topics are interlinked and constitute the paradigmatic object of computer games: Whereas the first describes computer games on the outside, looking at the cultural effects of games as well as on moral practices acted out with them, the second describes computer games on the inside, i.e. how they are constituted as a medium. The latter finally discusses the way in which a border between these two realms, games and non-games, persists or is already transgressed in respect to a general performativity. T3 - DIGAREC Series - 01 Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-20072 SN - 978-3-940793-49-2 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Mukherjee, Souvik T1 - Gameplay in the "Zone of Becoming" : locating action in the computer game N2 - Extending Alexander Galloway’s analysis of the action-image in videogames, this essay explores the concept in relation to its source: the analysis of cinema by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. The applicability of the concept to videogames will, therefore, be considered through a comparison between the First Person Shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Andrey Tarkovsky’s film Stalker. This analysis will compellingly explore the nature of videogame-action, its relation to player-perceptions and its location within the machinic and ludic schema. Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-24638 ER -