Ian Bogost

“Press A to Shoot”

Pokémon Snap-Shots and Gamespace Ownership

Alexandra Orlando and Betsy Brey 2 Comments

Drawing from the international popularity of the Pokémon series, Snap repositions gameplay from the role-playing mechanics of earlier games. Due to its in-game mechanics and integrative real-world mechanisms, Snap shifts the definitions of digital subjects and photographers, illustrating the complex relationship of subject and shooter in digital photographic practices. Ultimately, the practices portrayed in Snap prove to be deeply imbalanced experiences in terms of power dynamics, complicated by the popularity of the Pokémon series which encouraged players to “catch ‘em all.” These competitive practices extended beyond digital spaces with the intersections of print and digital photography and the gamification of photographic practices as taught and presented by the game. Continue Reading →

Persuasive Games

The Expressive Power of Videogames

Philip Miletic 2 Comments

Before I begin this review of Ian Bogost’s Persuasive Games (PG), I have to make two points that address the nature of this review. One, I am relatively new to game studies, and PG may very well be the first book of video game scholarship I have read. Two, PG is not altogether new (but I hesitate to say “old”), since it was published in 2007. So, as I am writing this review, I am aware of the delayed context of the review and that some, if not most FPS readers are already familiar with Bogost’s text and Bogost himself. At the same time, not everyone can read all the things, and so this review will hopefully be helpful to those who are considering perusing PG. This review, then, can be a useful but brief return to Bogost’s text for those who have already read PG; it can be an introduction for those unfamiliar with the text and it can perhaps provide a different perspective from a newcomer to the field of game studies. Continue Reading →

Living the Dream

An Allegory for Breaking Procedure

Miguel Penabella 1 Comment

What happens when videogames frustrate narrative lucidity and the expected norms of play? Every Day the Same Dream, a 2009 short game authored by Paolo Pedercini and his Italian collective Molleindustria, resists the formulaic patterns of videogame composition to produce new meaning. Gaming essayist Braxton Soderman points to Molleindustria’s penchant for disruptive play, recounting the developers’ ability to “…confront a variety of political, economic, and social issues, embracing a form of design ‘that aims at starting a serious discussion about social and political implications of videogames’” (Soderman). This critical analysis of Every Day the Same Dream locates not only the social and political objectives of the game but also its buried critique of videogame form itself. In offering cyclical patterns of gameplay and monotonous imagery, Pedercini emboldens the ability to break videogame procedure, evoking McKenzie Wark’s notion of allegorical play and destabilizing the procedural rhetoric that Ian Bogost longs to agitate. Moreover, Every Day the Same Dream affirms the expressive capacity of videogame language, antagonizing the generic conventions recycled by familiar algorithms and prosaic authorship. Continue Reading →

Useful, Joyful, Willful

Thinking About Types of Play

Jörgen Skågeb

In this paper I outline three perspectives that emphasize different characters of play: useful; joyful; and willful play. I further argue that designing for willfulness (e.g. rule-bending) will allow players to become game-changers rather than being played.

Generally speaking, computer games have created new arenas for play in several senses. Massive multiplayer online games have spurred, amongst other things, particular forms of social interaction and behavior; mobile and casual gaming has generated new breeds of gamers; the fundamentally code-based underpinnings of computer games make hacks and modifications possible; and grand ambitions of gamification, supported by digitization, even aims to turn ‘anything and everything’ into a race for points and badges. Instead of clearly situating itself within one particular practice, this paper will take an overarching perspective on play. It will go on to propose three perspectives that, in the light of processes such as the increasing specialization, quantification and rationalization of play(Pargman & Svensson), emphasize different characters of play. Continue Reading →

The Naked Dungeon

Situationist Practice in Warren Robinett's Adventure

mrghosty 2 Comments

In 1979, Atari released the graphical adventure game, Adventure, programmed by Warren Robinett for the Atari Video Computer System (VCS) home gaming console. A remake of the text adventure game, Colossal Cave Adventure (1977), Robinett’s Adventure became famous for it’s inclusion of a secret room, containing a message hidden within the game. This form of hidden message soon became known as the Easter egg; rooms, items and areas hidden within games waiting to be discovered by venturous players. While Adventure’s hidden room was not the first instance of the Easter egg created in a game (in 2004, an Easter egg was discovered hidden in a game title for the Fairchild Channel F console, which predated Adventure by several years), it was the first ever discovered by a game player. In time, the Easter egg became commonplace in video games as a means for programmers and designers to place their own embedded authorial markers within a game. Continue Reading →

Unified Games

The Classical Unities & Open-World Games

Paul Bills 3 Comments

In recent years, the open world philosophy of game design has moved from innovative exception to nearly the norm. The idea of completely fleshed-out spaces that are fully interactive and explorable has gripped the minds of players and developers alike, and literally hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in the pursuit of the biggest, most detailed open-world game possible on current hardware. This development has seemed like a revolution in game design, but it is really just the ultimate realization of the literary and dramatic theories of the unities that have existed since Aristotle. Continue Reading →

Real Soccer

Strategy & Realism in FIFA 14

Tim Sheinman 5 Comments

In recent years, authenticity has also meant a commitment to FIFA accurately modeling the on field action of modern soccer, moving closer towards realistic simulation. However, FIFA is a necessarily incomplete version of soccer and can only prioritize some aspects of the sport it seeks to adapt. This article examines the priorities of FIFA’s simulation, how they shape the game and underpin its ambitions for realism. I will suggest that, while FIFA models many aspects of real soccer well, that which it does not adapt–complex strategy and teamwork– undermines its authenticity and contributes to significant gameplay problems. Continue Reading →