Tuesday 6 March 2007

Rewards are always fun

There are many different reasons why people play digital games but people would assume that the main reason is because they are fun, because we enjoy them and because they stimulate us. Although Steven Johnson (2005) suggests that perhapse games aren't always as fun as we want them to be. Sometimes they can be repeatitive if the player can't get past a certain level or section and sometimes the can be frustraighting because there are only certain choices you can make.

The key aspect of why games are fun and stimulatng that I am going to consider is Steven Johnson's theory of Reward. That we play games for the rewards that we are offered. These rewards can vary from the abilty to enter a new realm or level, recieving information to help you, recieving weapons and ammo or simply aquiring new skills to help with your mission. These are often referred to as 'power ups' and 'power ups take the form of physical objects in the game world but functionally they remain the same sort of animal as the large blobs in PacMan' Poole (2000, p. 194). The 'power up blobs' in PacMan allow the player to move on to new levels and also to regain strength and build up points.

As well as this, these rewards are also 'signs of possible symbolic relationship changes in the game' Poole (2000, p.194). As the player continues to collect their rewards their relationship with the game increases. For example, by being given a more powerful weapon the player can expect to challenge more powerful enimies.

The game that i can best relate this idea to is Crackdown, a cop shooter game where your character must protect the city from gangs at all costs. There are stages in the game where the player must drive the police car around the city, firing at enemy cars and racing to their destination. Jonhson's theory applies here becase this is an example of reward of faculty. The more driving you do, the better you become at it. The same applies to shooting, at the beginning of the game it is likely that you will miss your target but the more you shoot the more accurate you and your weapon become.

Word Count: 383
Bibliography:
Poole, S., (2000). Trigger Happy - Videogames and the Entertainmnt Revolution. USA; Arcade Publishing Inc.

Sunday 4 March 2007

We Are Homo Ludens

'Game play is its own reward and is clearly distinguished from ordinary life' Huizinga cited in Newman (2004, p. 22). This is one of Huizinga's four characterisitcs of play, that it is seperate from ordinary life and in terms of digital games this is true. Although there are asspects of his characteristics that could be argued against. Farley (2000) cited in Newman (2004, p. 23) suggests that play is not always volentary, what about a 'disgruntled recollection of a beaten player keen to improve'?. The addictive nature of games can sometimes mean that a player cannot bring themselves to admitt defeat and therefore play is not volentary, they are being driven on often by their ego.

Huizinga describes the place where we play games as the Magic Cirlce, which is 'essential in seperating the game from the real world' Newman (2004, p. 78). This is an enchanted area where new rules apply, often magical rules that dont apply in the real world.
Castronova described the magic circle as 'a membrane protecting the fantasy world' (2005). This membrane ensures that the players fantasy world is not subject to the laws of natural physics or culture. This can be applied to a number of digital games such as The Mario Bros. where gravity is defied and enemies can be destroyed simply by jumping on their heads. If the laws of the real world were allowed to interfere within the magic cirlce then Mario would not be able to jump over creatures the same height as himself or jump over gaps in the floor that lead to death.
Newman offers a clear way to explain how the magic circle works within a game itself, consider the 'Boss' puzzle of a Mario game. The Boss comes at the end of a level but it is not something you can see coming. The Boss is 'set in a seperate area with walls preventing escape - the puzzle is made discrete from the remainder of the game world creating an inner magic cirlce' Newman (2004, p. 23).

The Magic Circle also has its own attitude called the Lusory Attitude, Huizinga explained that this is the gaming state of mind that a player enters when playing a game within the Magic Circle. For example once a player has entered the cirlce while playing Super Mario Bros. their attitude will change. They are likely to become competitive and consumed in the game.

Word Count: 414
Bibliography:
Castronova, E., (2005). Synthetic Worlds, The Business and Cuture of Online Games. London; University of Chicago Press.
Newman, J., (20o4). Videogames. London; Routledge.