Computer Games, Meaning and Method

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Computer Games, Meaning and Method

• Diane Carr
• Reporting from Digital Technologies and Game
  Formats Computer games, motivation and gender in
  educational contexts Project
• Research supported by the Eduserv Foundation

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• PROJECT DESCRIPTION
• The project aim is to develop an understanding of
  meaning in games, and the motivating pleasures of
  computer games, in order that their learning
  and/or pedagogic potentials might be better
  understood.
• Motivation is examined in terms of the pleasures
  and frustrations of computer game-play, and
  gaming culture.
• These will be explored using theory drawn from
  computer games studies.
• This work will addresses the pedagogic potentials
  of games while incorporating a Cultural Studies
  perspective on context and motivation.
• The methods combine close textual analysis from
  the perspective of player-as-analyst, with the
  observation of play and players in a range of
  contexts
• at home
• in the classroom
• and online.

Screenshot from World of Warcraft, Blizzard
Entertainment Inc.
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These issues were filtered through particular
perspectives

• Digital game studies
• (field)
• Humanities orientated - rather than psychology or
  computer science, for instance
• (discipline)
• Media studies / cultural theory
• (background, frame of reference)
• Between game studies and games and learning
• (situating of research)

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Shared ground between digital game studies
and games and education

• Meaning (rules, structures, textuality) and
  learning
• Play reconfiguration, agency, self-expression,
  production, preferences
• Cultural baggage in formal learning contexts
• The construction of the player (see baggage)
• Motivation Theorising pleasure, flow,
  immersion, engagement, presence, compelling or
  meaningful play
• Methodology understanding player-to-game,
  game-to-player and player-to-player relationships

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During the research process

• Observed computer games club at a school for a
  term
• Observed games in formal learning contexts
• Documented play sessions in the home
• Played and analysed offline and online games
• Read theories of structure, text and
  inter-textuality

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• Questions raised
• a. Theoretical
• Games and meaning
• theorising the emergence of meaning within
  the dynamic between structure, representations,
  textuality and play)
• b. Methodological
• Holistic methods?
• Participatory methods
• Textual/philosophical approaches

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Explored the central issues through various
pieces of research different games particular
contexts of play
Screenshots Ico, SCEI, Enter the Matrix, Atari
Inc, World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment
Inc.
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Playing at home - Ico
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Playing at the computer games club
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Third year of the project
Online games and Learning
Meaning and Game Textuality
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Meaning and method in the analysis of two
particular games

• Enter the Matrix
• Tensions between play and structure
• Compelling play (Salen and Zimmerman)
• de Certeau
• Practice and method

• Civ III and series
• Relations between play and interpretation
• Existing critique
• Between rules, play and meaning
• Theory and method

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Analysis of play? Whose play?
Analysis of data of play?
Of walkers, de Certeau writes that pedestrian
movements form one of these real systems whose
existence in fact makes up the city. These
movements can be transcribed, collated or
recorded, but any such data would only refer to
the absence of what has passed by. Surveys of
routes miss what was the act itself of passing
by. Such documentation, while Itself visible,
it has the effect of making invisible the
operation that made it possibleThe trace left
behind is substituted for the practice. It
exhibits the (voracious) property that the
geographical system has of being able to
transform action into legibility, but in doing so
it causes a way of being in the world to be
forgotten. Computer game analyst Torill
Mortensen makes a related point, when she writes
that in order to study games, and how they are
realised into texts or experiences through the
activity of playing, I have to study that process
from the viewpoint of a player. To study logs
from the game as texts afterwards is like
studying a description of an event rather than
being present at the event. (Mortensen 2002)
De Certeau, Michel (1984) The Practice of
Everyday Life Berkely and Los Angeles University
of California Press Mortensen, Torill (2002)
Playing with Players Potential Methodologies
for MUDS Games Studies vol 2 issue 1 July 2002
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Sid Meiers Civilization

• Consider existing critique
• Thing about meaning in relation to
• Rules
• Play
• Culture (to use Salen and Zimmermans Schema)
• Interpretation and play

C
R
P
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Further developments and future directions?
Meaning as it emerges between Game structure
textuality trans/inter-textuality
Online games, Meaning and Learning
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Digital Technologies Learning and Game Formats
Computer Games, Motivation and Gender in
Educational Contexts

• Diane Carr
• London Knowledge Lab, Centre for the Study of
  Children, Youth and Media
• IOE University of London
• This research was undertaken with the support of
  the Eduserv Foundation