Barkentin
Barkentin, Peter M.A. student
Film- and Media Studies/University of Copenhagen/Denmark
e-mail: barkentin@hum.ku.dk
Lost in Time (Abstract)
The paper will discuss the use of time in computer games. More specifically, time as a part of immersion in the gaming experience in contrast to more traditional studies of time-structures in litterature and film. Beginning in two related areas; firstly the immersive ideals of the "realistic" novel as well as of todays films and digital games, and secondly, the immersive theories of flow and gameplay, time as an instrument of immersion in games will be discussed and exemplified. The movement from circumcised timeframes to open-ended gameworlds, from turn-based to realtime strategy-games, from the bodily realtime games of sports to the bodily realtime games of First Person Shooters and last, but not least, in the new time-structure of web-based games like Planetarion or Hattrick. The latter games utilize their persistent world in a more dramatic fashion than Massive Online Multiplayer Games like Everquest because of both a non-static world but also because of a "waiting game" that extends the virtual online-world into the daily life of the player by matching the time of one world to the other. The paper will argue that this "waiting game" or "imminent" quality is a potent tool in creating immersive web-based games and should also be a critically important part of many new "mobile games". Parts of this discussion will be published in >pcplayer, a Danish games magazine.
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