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Worlds at play: Space and player experience in fantasy computer games
Abstract
The relationship between the fantasy genre and the medium of computer games has always been a very tight-knit one. The present article explores the close connection between fan-tasy and computer games through different media, arguing that the fantasy genre's specific 'mode of function' is the ability to build complete fictional worlds, whereby it creates spe-cific experiences for its users. Based on empirical data from focus group interviews with players of the most popular Western Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) of all times, World of Warcraft, the article develops the concept of worldness as an experiential, phenomenological understanding of player experience. I discuss how this way of framing a core quality of the fantasy genre (of world-building) functions across single fictional universes and aims to grasp a specific fantasy experience of being in the world. This experience works on the level of genre, by anchoring the specific fantasy world in the larger, surrounding fantasy genre matrix.
There are two ways to understand play: one is to observe it, the other is to participate in it. Since 2001, game studies has promoted participation as one of the main requirements to understand play. Some play is so performative that while it can be observed, it also must be played. Game worlds, the worlds of online, multi-user games, are delicate constructs of make-believe and technology, which act as support and arenas for immersive, theatrical and/or competitive play. This is a discussion of how far virtual ethnography can take the researcher in understanding game worlds. To explore this, this article will address play, game worlds and transmediality, as well as discuss methods. I will look to Lisbeth Klastrup and Susana Tosca to discuss story worlds, as well as to discussions led by Celia Pearce, Tom Boellstorff and T. L. Taylor (among others) to discuss ethnography in games and virtual ethnographies.
Over the past 65 years millions of fingers have constructed their own worlds of wonder with LEGO bricks, and thousands of fingers have controlled LEGO figures through franchise-designed gameworlds of wonder with LEGO bits. Typically these tangible user-created story designs and kinaesthetic activities remain absent from the field of media studies in general and research on digital seriality in particular.
However, when it comes to contemporary blockbuster franchises such as the Skylanders, World of Warcraft, LEGO, Lord of the Rings or Star Wars universe, the conceptualization of digital seriality as solely relating to transmedia or even trans-transmedia storytelling are no longer sufficient. So, rather than trying to fit a somewhat square peg into a somewhat round hole the article develops an analytical comprehension of and conceptual framework for digital seriality through (i) taking a more play(er)centric and interactional approach field that a more in line with the concept of “new serialities,” (ii) uncovering and establishing the transformative and transgressive nature of play(er)centric digital seriality that emerge from actual “serialities-in-use,” and (iii) developing frameworks and conceptual models for serialities-in-use that are able to embrace these emerging play(er)centric aspects of digital seriality.
Our aim is not to oppose or question established contemporary understandings of digital seriality but to expand some of the parameters and categories. Thus, we explore not only “the aesthetic forms and cultural practices of serialization as they are articulated in and around interactive digital media” (Denson & Jahn-Sudmann 2013, p. 10-11) but also the kinaesthetic experiences and practices at the heart of playful serialities. Furthemore, answering Denson and Jahn-Sudmann’s call for a multi-pronged approach, therefore, we likewise hope to initiate a dialogue between (at least) two distinct fields of research: media/game studies and design/toy studies. Both echoing and expanding the efforts of Denson and Jahn-Sudmann, our focus here is on three sets of interrelations with respect to (digital) serialities:
interrelations between transmission, transformation, and transgression on the one hand and world-building, world-sharing, and world-designing on the other;
interrelations between technologies, social practices, and spaces on the one hand and franchise-centric, play-centric, and player-centric spaces of serialities-in-use on the other;
interrelations between intra-texts, inter-texts, and para-texts on the one hand and what we call intra-actional, inter-actional, and para-actional levels on the other, including how they come together in the intra-ludic, inter-ludic, and para-ludic serialities described by Denson and Jahn-Sudmann.
The material immateriality and immaterial materiality that lies at the core of LEGO’s seriality - in its oscillation between digital bits and tangible bricks - accentuates how the experience of digital seriality is often the simultaneity of perceiving immersive and expansive worlds and of expressing yourself (kin)aestheticlly through technological engrossment in this continuing serial activity. Overall, the article posits digital seriality, as it e.g. emerges through experiencing LEGO Star Wars and LEGO The Lord of the Rings games and franchises, as something concurrently material (bricks & engaged technologies) and immaterial (bits & perceived worlds).
Hollywood moviemaking is one of the constants of American life, but how much has it changed since the glory days of the big studios? David Bordwell argues that the principles of visual storytelling created in the studio era are alive and well, even in today's bloated blockbusters. American filmmakers have created a durable tradition-one that we should not be ashamed to call artistic, and one that survives in both mainstream entertainment and niche-marketed indie cinema. Bordwell traces the continuity of this tradition in a wide array of films made since 1960, from romantic comedies like Jerry Maguire and Love Actually to more imposing efforts like A Beautiful Mind. He also draws upon testimony from writers, directors, and editors who are acutely conscious of employing proven principles of plot and visual style. Within the limits of the "classical" approach, innovation can flourish. Bordwell examines how imaginative filmmakers have pushed the premises of the system in films such as JFK, Memento, and Magnolia. He discusses generational, technological, and economic factors leading to stability and change in Hollywood cinema and includes close analyses of selected shots and sequences. As it ranges across four decades, examining classics like American Graffiti and The Godfather as well as recent success like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, this book provides a vivid and engaging interpretation of how Hollywood moviemakers have created a vigorous, resourceful tradition of cinematic storytelling that continues to engage audiences around the world.
An investigation of what makes digital games engaging to players and a reexamination of the concept of immersion.
Digital games offer a vast range of engaging experiences, from the serene exploration of beautifully rendered landscapes to the deeply cognitive challenges presented by strategic simulations to the adrenaline rush of competitive team-based shoot-outs. Digital games enable experiences that are considerably different from a reader's engagement with literature or a moviegoer's experience of a movie. In In-Game, Gordon Calleja examines what exactly it is that makes digital games so uniquely involving and offers a new, more precise, and game-specific formulation of this involvement. One of the most commonly yet vaguely deployed concepts in the industry and academia alike is immersion—a player's sensation of inhabiting the space represented onscreen. Overuse of this term has diminished its analytical value and confused its meaning, both in analysis and design. Rather than conceiving of immersion as a single experience, Calleja views it as blending different experiential phenomena afforded by involving gameplay. He proposes a framework (based on qualitative research) to describe these phenomena: the player involvement model. This model encompasses two constituent temporal phases—the macro, representing offline involvement, and the micro, representing moment-to-moment involvement during gameplay—as well as six dimensions of player involvement: kinesthetic, spatial, shared, narrative, affective, and ludic. The intensified and internalized experiential blend can culminate in incorporation—a concept that Calleja proposes as an alternative to the problematic immersion. Incorporation, he argues, is a more accurate metaphor, providing a robust foundation for future research and design.
