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Carr, et al.
Diane Carr, Andrew Burn, Gareth Schott
'Textuality and Videogames'
Institute of Education, University of London
In this symposium the participants report on the two year AHRB funded Textuality and Videogames project, based at the Institute of Education, University of London. We present an overview of our methods and findings, before reporting on two example case studies. We invite discussion and exchange concerning our methods and conclusions.
Project Overview: Textuality and Videogames; Interactivity, Narrative Space and Role Play.
By Diane Carr, Andrew Burn, Gareth Schott, David Buckingham
We present an overview of this project, from the initial proposal by David Buckingham, to the book (working title Computer Games; text, narrative and play) that is planned as the final outcome (Polity Press, 2004). During the project we have combined our own experiences of game play with textual analysis, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and interviews with game players, producers and designers. Our project focuses on computer Role-Playing Games, and then 'story-driven' games more generally. We look at transtextuality and genre, and analyse Baldur's Gate - an RPG rooted firmly in the Dungeons and Dragons tradition. Baldur's Gate insists on combining game-play with storytelling, and our analysis queries the manner in which the game 'as system' accommodates differently generated events, and dual address. We then consider flow, transformation and pleasure in computer games, and follow this with an analysis of Final Fantasy VII that employs multi-modal theory and considers the 'grammar of gaming'. Our attention then shifts to the player. We look at co-play and console gaming, as well as fan art and international slash culture. Finally, we are collaborating on a paper with a game producer and scriptwriter, in which our findings are interpreted in relation to the development and production of a particular 'story-driven' console game.
Case Study I: Agency, Interactivity and Community - playing Abe's Oddysee
Gareth Schott
This paper addresses the limitations of the term 'interactivity' to fully account for the interaction between the player and the game. When examining closed-structured, story-driven, console games that possess a prescriptive or linear approach to game flow, a different kind of engagement is identified as supplementary to the processes of game-play. This paper identifies how players of the popular console game franchise Oddworld experience several different kinds of agency (personal, proxy and collective) through their engagement with the main character, Abe, with the moral landscape of the game, and with their own constructions and extensions of Oddworld. Research is drawn from direct engagement with the Oddworld player communities through online surveys and analysis of the fan sites and forum threads.
Case Study II: Role play, fantasy and character assassination in Anarchy Online
Diane Carr and Andrew Burn
Our analysis of the MMORPG Anarchy Online has developed into two papers. In one, we use social semiotic theory to analyse the sign making and sign reading activities involved in playing the game. Social semiotics suggests that all sign making is motivated by discourse and context. After leveling up in Anarchy Online (as martial artists Nirvano and Aisea) we propose and describe three broad categories of motivation: ludic, representational, and communal. In a second paper we are looking more closely at the degrees of role-play present in the game. As evident on the player forums, one section of the player population designate themselves 'role players', and they distinguish between themselves and the general player population (those busy with missions, exploration and 'leveling up'). We examine these styles of play, where they overlap, and how various players identify or align themselves in relation to these options. Underpinning our inquiry is a concern with the political potentials of game and performance, and an interest in existing categories and rhetorics of game, and of play. In this session, we expect to present from the former, social semiotic paper.
Note on the contributors.
Diane Carr, Gareth Schott, Andrew Burn and David Buckingham work together at the Institute of Education, University of London on the Textuality and Videogames Project. Diane Carr is a researcher and writer, Gareth Schott is a psychology lecturer, Andrew Burn lectures on media, literacy and education. David Buckingham is the project's instigator, and the Director for the Centre for Children, Youth and Media at the IOE.
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