Module 2.4: Play With Me

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This week's topic is about a topic which interests me as a game player...it's about gaming and I've decided I want to be a Ludologist.

Ludologist: a person who plays and researches games for a living...hell yeah!

Let me start by agreeing with Sam Stevenson that gaming theory is interesting and important. It's a valid form of entertainment (Stevenson, 2011). Not everyone agrees. Huizinga said in the 1950's that play is voluntary, is not serious, is separate from the real, is unproductive and promotes social groupings. I agree that it promotes social grouping - well some games do. Obviously solitary ones do not. But I do not agree that gaming is unproductive and it CAN be very serious at times, depending on the game of course.

Jenkins' reader The War Between Effects and Meaning: Rethinking the video game debate, stresses that we need to understand the difference between the effects of game playing and the meaning. He declares the effects are seen as emerging more or less spontaneously and that meanings emerge through an active process of interpretation and reflect our conscious engagement. (Jenkins, 2009). He believes that games can be powerful learning tools - look at the military. They use simulated games to train soldiers. Michael Macedonia who is the chief scientist and technical director of the U.S. Army Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM) declares that for more than two decades the U.S. military has demon- strated interest in commercial games, beginning with the in- troduction of Mech War to the Army War College by James Dunnigan in the late 1970s. (Macedonia, 2001).

There is an argument that violent games create violent behaviour, however Jenkins disagrees. Research has shown that players who fight one another to death in a game, do actually grow closer as friends off screen. Many anti-gamers only look at the surface of the game and don't look beneath at the emotional meanings, stories and images.

Since the Columbine High School massacre of 1999, game developers have had to have a good look at the level of violence in games and have changed them so they are more challenging - not just about killing, but rewarding for positive behaviour and moral changes. Here is an article about Columbine 10 years on.  Some one had the nerve to develop a game after the massacre aptly named Columbine Game. That is one I am NOT interested in.

The Thornham reader "Claiming a stake in the video game" is a study on gamers. She claims there are clear paradoxes in the way games are simultaneously set up as escapism, fantasy and play by theorists and the industry alike but are claimed by adult gamers as serious, rational and logical pastimes. Adults feel they need to justify their game playing as more than just pleasure or escapism. It's interesting to note that while she was studying the gamers, the gamers declared that the initial purchase of a game console was due to peer pressure and that it was a status symbol to own one. One gamer simply wanted to 'fit in' and to have the power of owning something desirable, which other kids want or admire. An important thing to note here is that the pleasure of gaming is less about the games themselves and more to do with the presence of friends in a social environment.

Discussion 1:
What is your history of gaming? How has your experience changed due to technological convergence (or hasn't it)? How do you rationalize your participation in games?

I am an avid game player and have been most of my life. As a kid I would play scrabble, monopoly, elastics, hopscotch, skipping, jacks and other outside games with my friends and cousins. Most weekends my parents would take me to my grandparents house for a weekly family catch-up with other relatives. There we would all play boggle, scrabble, yahtzee and cards. It was the highlight of my week. It was all about catching up, chatting and sharing. I loved those times.

Sometime in the 80's I was given my first hand-held electronic game - the original Donkey Kong. I clocked it within days! I played this regularly until my brother was given a Nintendo 64 and he and I conquered Super Mario together. Then I married and moved out and didn't play games for years. During the 90's we acquired a 2nd hand computer and it had Leisure Suit Larry installed on it. (Thanks for reminding me about that game, Sam!) Shortly after this we bought a Sega Megadrive (which very soon became obsolete because Playstation took over) and played games on that console semi-regularly. However by this time I was working full-time so game-play couldn't take up much of my time.

Fast forward 10 years and we bought a PS2 and I conquered Lara Croft Tomb Raider's 1, 2 & 3. Goodness knows how I found the time, but my husband does remember calling me to bed in the wee hours of most mornings. lol How I managed to get to work on time is a mystery.

When that machine died, my kids were babies - so again no game-play for a couple of years until 2 years ago! 2 years ago we bought an XBox for our son. Then an XBox 360, then I upgraded my old computer to a fast and powerful laptop with broadband access. Things have never been the same since. We now have smart phones, a Wii, the 2 XBoxes and 2 iPod Touch's. Every day I will play apps on my iPod Touch. It is my favourite toy.

Games define me as much as music and food. I love child-like, colourful games with levels where you collect things. I'm not into killing people any more. I will play games during study breaks, while waiting in queues, waiting in the car for the kids, and to wind down at the end of the day. Over all the game devices in our house, I prefer my iPod touch. I rarely play games off-line any more. If it's a rainy day and the kids are bored, we will sometimes play board games. The only game-playing off-line that I do love is jigsaw puzzles and most school holidays I will get out a 500 or 2000 piece and spend days doing it.

The way I rationalise game play is I play purely for relaxation. I'm not competitive and would often give up if I am waiting on an opponent to make a move! So I no longer play games which require opponents. I think my kids are the same - they play for relaxation and I will only let them play once their chores and homework is done.

Discussion 2:

What are some of the criticisms that can be made about gaming? Do you agree with them?

One criticism that comes to mind is that game play takes time away from family responsibilities. I have to disagree. Firstly I always ensure my kids have done their chores and homework before they play. For myself - I only play to unwind either in between studying, while dinner is cooking, at the end of a busy day. However often I play with the kids. For example my son and I both have iPod Touch's. When he downloaded Angry Birds last year he was having so much fun playing it that I downloaded it on mine. From then on every evening after dinner, we would sit together competing with each other on our iPod's.

Nowadays it's Plants Vs Zombies. We compete by racing each other through the levels and by collecting achievements. We play together, talk together, refine our strategies and cheer when we win a new achievement. The game-playing isn't face to face, but we are next to each other on the couch enjoying quality time together.

Same with my teenage daughter. We both play The Sims and we get our characters to interact in the game like we do in real life. We both have Android phones and we will often challenge each other in games like Angry Birds or Doodle Jump while relaxing on the weekend.

Remediation assessment:
For our remediation assessment I have decided to remediate a movie scene into a comic. I have chosen one of my favourite movies from the 80's 'Back To The Future' starring Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd. I chose a scene near the beginning of the film where Marty (played by Michael J Fox) is summonsed by Doc (played by Christopher Lloyd) to attend the local shopping mall carpark for a surprise. When Marty and Doc's dog, Einstein, arrive they are greeted by Doc and a huge transporter truck. Doc unveils a car which has a very special purpose. I chose this scene because it explains the crux of the movie and that is...well I don't want to spoil it! You'll have to watch it.

References:
Jenkins, H. (2006). The War between effects and meanng: Rethinking the video game debate D. Buckingham & R Willett (Eds., Digital Generations: Children, Young People, and New Media (pp. 19-31).

Macedonia, M. (2001). Games, Simulation and Military Education. The Army Science Board Summer Study, 2001. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffpiu018.pdf

Thornham, H. (2009). Claiming a stake in the videogame: What grownups say to rationalise and normalise gaming. Convergence: The international journal of research into new media technologies, 15(141). Retrieved from doi: 10.1177/135485650810158