Gaming-essays on algorithmic culture - A. Galloway

Journal of Media Research, 2017

In our work we analyze the phenomenon of video games, their impact on art, media and society. At the beginning of our studies we sadly realized that most articles dealing with "new media" phenomenon starts with the hypothesis that video games are a new form of media (new media), which has not yet found a place on the multicolored palette of interactive multimedia and that is why they are misunderstood and unsupported by academic forums. Video games are a media phenomenon still "unsettled", which still has not found its place in global culture, but it has been over commercialized and therefore it is created a huge amount of video games that cannot be counted in real-time inventory-so it is understandable that relevant scientifical analysis are in delay and that these new media "species" are viewed with disfavour by fans of art, literature and traditional media. We assume that in short time there will be a new generation of interactive programs that can interact intelligently with people around them, and not just using predetermined algorithms or variables generated by chance-as they have done before.

How did games rise to become the central audiovisual form of expression and storytelling in digital culture? How did the practices of their artistic production come into being? How did the academic analysis of the new medium's social effects and cultural meaning develop? Addressing these fundamental questions and aspects of digital game culture in a holistic way for the first time, Gundolf S. Freyermuth's introduction outlines the media-historical development phases of analog and digital games, the history and artistic practices of game design, as well as the history, academic approaches, and most important research topics of game studies.

"In highlighting the apparatus as the keystone for the magic circle of video gaming, we displace players—the subject of ludology—and “text”—the subject of narratology. This is not to deny the importance of players’ agency or the meanings of texts in video gaming; rather it is to reconsider these with regard to the screening of player from played inherent in the gaming apparatus. To better understand the situation of homo ludens in these more mediated play spaces, we turn to Jacques Lacan’s account of “split” subjectivity and retread it by explaining how it may well explain the operation of a magic circle spanning three dimensions of screen-play: rules (Symbolic dimension), representations (Imaginary dimension), and wares (Real dimension). In the end, we come around to the other space of Huizinga’s theory—the connections with the non-game world—to show that the value of video game play is also found beyond the apparatus, that the experience and enjoyment of video games are affected in part by social reality and, in turn, social reality is being affected by the experience and enjoyment of video games. Arriving at this point by first theorizing the video game apparatus, however, highlights matters of video game design more so than issues of audience or textual analysis. To illustrate this perspective, we conclude by defining three ways to analyze video games in terms of “realism,” proposing three types of video game realism: representational, simulative, and inverse. "

Games and Culture, 2006

Video games are a new art form, and this, the author argues, is one good reason why now is the right time for game studies. As a new art form, one largely immune to traditional tools developed for the analysis of literature and film, video games will challenge researchers to develop new analytical tools and will become a new type of "equipment for living," to use Kenneth Burke's phrase for the role of literature. This article discusses several of the features that make video games a unique art form, features that will, the author believes, come to play a role in analyses of games in the emerging field of game studies.

therefore always considered as low art. The other reason is its comparision with other tradition media like films and literature. The more general denigration of 'mere entertainment' is also responsible for ignoring the seriousness of videogame.

This thesis is a critical examination of videogame theory and of videogames. The analysis of various approaches to videogames, from ludology to unit operations and simulation, places each approach alongside each other to compare and contrast what is gained and lost by adhering to each perspective. Following from this, I develop a framework which considers the role of the player as part of the game system, whose attitude will influence their relationship with the videogame. Critics must acknowledge and respect the varied play practices of various kinds of players in exploring what any given videogame means. Finally, I explore three broad videogame-play experiences: ludic play, narrative or dramatic pleasure, and paidic curiosity and exploration. Each of these offer fundamentally different ways of addressing videogames as objects and the play of games as a practice, which creates a more nuanced language with which to discuss various kinds of videogames and experiences of play. Through close studies of a range of contemporary, mainstream videogames, I conclude that not only are there fundamentally different kinds of videogames which cannot all be adequately served by a single approach, but that players utilise different approaches themselves when playing. Therefore, videogame theory should become at least as varied and agile as videogame players themselves. The goal of this thesis is to explore what certain games mean, to certain players, rather than appeal to a higher, objective sense of true, universal meaning.

Videogames are beginning to share the forms and concerns of art. During the current era, calling videogames an artistic medium is controversial. However, defining videogames as an artistic medium is important as the medium offers infinite possibilities for artistic expression. This essay attempts to establish the possibilities of videogames as an artistic medium, explore their place in the contemporary art world that simultaneously rejects and embraces the new cultural form, critically analyse certain examples of popular videogames that share the forms and concerns of art and discuss artists that have embraced videogames as an artistic medium. Undoubtedly, there is a genuine artistic richness in this new cultural form, even if it is in its infancy.

Games and Culture, 2006

A short, speculative account of the state of play in the formation of a discipline or field of computer games studies. The processes of academic teaching, research, and institutional positioning in regard to computer games are viewed from the perspective of wider currents and crises influencing knowledge formation today. It is argued that the different approaches to computer games cannot ignore the differences in their conceptions of the object of study in a naive pluralism. These different conceptions of games as parts of the technocultural milieu must encounter each other in the name of the struggle against the avoidance of critical thought concerning the nature and forms of technoculture that often prevails in the production of specialist “knowledge” today.

MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research, 2010

James Newman's book Playing with Videogames is accurately as well as playfully entitled. The book documents a wide range of player creativity and productivity that situates somewhat outside but is nevertheless inherently linked to the actual playing of videogames. Instead of the gameplay itself, the book is concerned with activities that go beyond it. The fans or gamers involved in such practices are not, as Newman notes, but a minority of players, whereas the "outputs of their work exist within and even create wider cultures, communities and rich contexts for criticism, review and play" (Newman, 2008, p. 152). Thus, the book builds on the "playing with videogames" as a social and cultural practice consisting of different player hierarchies. It also presents the plasticity of videogames in regard to fan reworkings as well as the ways in which fan texts affect and inform later play experiences. Playing with Videogames is divided into three parts, each approaching player engagement from a different angle. Part 1: Videogames as representational systems considers cases of player productivity that better correspond to those familiar among earlier media and that concentrate on, although are not limited to, the narrative and "textual" level of games instead of simulation and structure, which are examined in Part 2: Videogames as configurative performances. For Newman, "walkthrough writing [as broadly discussed in Part 2] largely eschews discussion of the videogame as a representational system and instead treats it as a simulation model with inputs and outputs as a series of complex mathematical models, logical systems and programming loops" (p. 119). While various aspects of the technology of videogames are discussed throughout the book, Part 3: Videogames as technology con