Petri Lankoski

The article Definition of Videogames¹, which I commented earlier, reminded me of a discussion about defining games at Digra 2007 conference. When I mentioned Wittgentein² critique on definitions based on necessary and sufficient conditions, I got a reply that dismissed Wittgenstein critique, because he changed his mind. The presented argument, he changed his mind, is an example of ad hominem argument which is logically invalid argument.

Wittgenstein critique on the categories of natural languages seem to be accepted in social psychology (see, e.g., Kunda³); the categories of natural language has no clear borders, and whether something belongs to a category is based on similarity rather than necessary and sufficient conditions. There are of course categories that are based on strict definitions, e.g. odd numbers. But there are also categories, such as art and game, where using necessary and sufficient conditions (or cluster definitions) in defining what belongs and what does not belong to the category has turned out to be problematic.

Maybe we should take Wittgenstein critique on formal definitions seriously and start to think what implications of that in game studies, instead of proposing different definitions that can be used to categorize an arfifact just by looking at its formal features.

References

1. Tavinor, Grant. (2008). Definition of Videogames. Contemporary Aesthetics 6. Available http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=492.
2. Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical investigations. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 3rd edition. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe.
3. Kunda, Z. (1999). Social cognition: Making sense of people. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

In the volume 6 of Contemporary Aesthetics, Grand Tavinor takes on task to define videogames. He accepts that “videogames cannot be defined by a simple necessary and sufficient condition definition of videogamess”.¹ He proposes that a video game can be defined by disjunctive definition (e.g., X is a game if A or B). His proposal is as follows:

X is a videogame if it is an artefact in a digital visual medium, is intended primarily as an object of entertainment, and is intended to provide such entertainment through the employment of one or both of the following modes of engagement: rule-bound gameplay or interactive fiction.¹

My initial impression is that the definition is problematic.

The first condition, the requirement of digital visual medium, is needed, according to Tavinor, to exclude games such as Chess or Sudoku when they are not played using computer.¹ The condition, however, seem to exclude games such as Metris², which is a digital game that does need monitor; the game is essentially Tetris without pictorial or textual presentation of the state of the game. Does this mean that Teris is a videogame, but metris is not (even when the both are played using the same hardware)?

The second issues is the concept of interactive narrative. To me it is unclear what that term means, and it is not clarified in adequate level of detail (at least for a formal definition).

Third issue relates to the usability of the concept of rules in context of videogames. I have discussed this earlier on the post On Rules, Game Systems, and Practices.

Despite my initial critical impressions, the article contains knowledgeable discussion, and I definitely need to reread the article and give it a further thought.

References

1. Tavinor, Grant. (2008). Definition of Videogames. Contemporary Aesthetics 6. Available http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=492.
2. Inspire Code. Metris: Musical Tetris, http://inspiredcode.net/Metris.htm.

Audio Mostly Conference proceedings is available at http://www.audiomostly.com/programme/Proceeding_AM07_Web.pdf.

The proceedings contains Inger Ekman’s paper on sound design for our The Song of North game.

There are also at least two other papers on games that I need to check:

• Farnell, Andy James. Procudural game audio using Pure Data;
• Berndt, Axel; Hartmann, Knut. Strategies for Narrative and Adaptive Game Scoring.

A Report Media effects on minors – review of international research and practices of media education and regulation (Salokoski & Mustonen) has been recently published.

Sonja Kangas has already made some insightful comments on it. I choose to comment the report from the other point view, as I find some premises and facts in the report problematic.

Salokoski and Mustonen, e.g., allege that the children learns the grammar of pictorial media between 3 and 6. As an example they mention that children starts to understand that when camera zooms to a target, the target does not grow (Salokoski & Mustonen, 2007).

Why the children would have that kind of conception of zooming? Their everyday experiences does not support that: in everyday life when something grows suddenly, that thing gets closer. There are multitude of research that argue, and present evidence for support the argument, that presentations (schemas, or scripts) of the possible actions (e.g., touching the target) influence the perception and judgments. (See, e.g., Niedhental et al, 2005; Noë, 2004; Gallagher, 2005). Is there any empirical support for the claims posited by Salokoski & Mustonen on the grammar of visual media?

In addition, Salokoski & Mustonen (2007) seems to assume that understanding requires concepts: e.g., understanding that things are persistent (something exists even it is hidden) requires understanding the concept of persistence that is developed around the age of two according to Salokoski and Mustonen (2007). This is very problematic if I assume that Sthey use the term concept to refer to linguistic constructs. Again, I think that is no reason to assume that one require a concept persistent to understand persistence. Moreover, Meltzoff & Moore (1995) discuss experiments where an object moves and in the middle it is a short while hidden. They repost that 5-month old infants trace moving objects with their gaze and respond violations, such as object that the object is a ball before occlusion and square after occlusion, differently than without a violation. They also assert that 9-month old children responds to violations of permanence (Melzoff & Moore, 1995). This research contest the timeline of the children’s development asserted by Salokoski & Mustonen.

Above mentioned assumptions (by Salokoski & Mustonen, 2007) seem to be invalid. Thus, arguments presented in the report may also (at least partially) be invalid.

References

• Gallagher, S. How the body shapes the mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Melzoff, A. & Moore, M. (1995) Infants’ understanding of people and things: From body imitation to folk psychology. In Bermúdez, J. Marcel, A. & Eilan, N. (eds.). The Body and the Self. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 43–69.
• Niedenthal, P., Barsalou, L. Winkielman, P., Gruber, S. & Ric, F. Embodiment in attitudes, social perception, and emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review 9(3), 184–211.
• Noë, A. Action in perception. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
• Salokoski, T. & Mustonen, A. (2007). Median vaikutukset lapsiin ja nuoriin – katsaus tutkimuksiin sekä kansainvälisiin mediakasvatuksen ja -säätelyn käytäntöihin [Media effects on minors – review of international research and practices of media education and regulation]. Available http://www.mediaeducation.fi/publications/ISBN978-952-99964-2-1_taittamaton.pdf.

Steven Poole’s book Trigger Happy is downloadable at his site for limited time. The book is worthy to read.

Laramée has written small piece on character-based game design. He writes:

A [player] character is only interesting if:

• He or she wants something badly;
• And he or she can’t get it without a struggle.

And

Spend as much time giving motivations to your bad guys as to your heroes!

An insightful but really short peace.

Laramée, F. (2000). Character-Based Game Design. Available http://www.gignews.com/fdlcharacterdesign.htm.