What games studies can teach us about videogames in the English and Literacy classroom

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1 APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp Volume 33 Number 1 February 2010 What games studies can teach us about videogames in the English and Literacy classroom Thomas Apperley University of New England This article explores how research conducted in the emerging discipline of Game Studies may be used to develop tools for teaching videogames in the English and Literacy classroom. The article argues, by drawing on the debate between narratologists and ludologists that acknowledging and marking out the key differences between videogame play and the reading or consumption of other media texts is integral to the successful uptake and development of videogamebased and videogame-centred curriculum. Introduction One of the key dificulties facing teaching practitioners using interactive media such as videogames in the English and Literacy classroom, is identifying, describing, and conceptualising the role that interactivity has in the process of consuming the media, while still remaining relevant to the more literary concerns of the curriculum. The aim of this article is to engage with previous scholarship on videogames from the emerging interdisciplinary field of Game Studies, which seeks to analyse and critique videogames on their own terms. While the stakes of videogames in literacy education in particular are well established through the pioneering work of James Paul Gee (2003; 2005), this article engages with Game Studies scholarship in order to explore the relationship between interactivity and meaning-making in this key out-of-school literacy practice. This article demonstrates how scholarship on videogames provides useful terminology that allows games to be understood in their own right: both as a unique form of interactive entertainment media, and as a part of contemporary audio, visual and narrative cultures. Research on videogames has often focused on understanding how their aesthetic and narrative qualities relate to other media. Bolter and Grusin (1999) describe all new media as being remediated, a new technological articulation of past media forms. They regard videogames as remediated cinema largely due to their reliance on

2 Myst (Cyan Worlds, 1991) and Doom (id software, 1993) for their analysis thus in their logic videogames are not a significant break, rather a continuation of a past aesthetic using new technological means. However, I suggest that while some videogames are remediating the aesthetics of film (see Galloway, 2006), others remediate sports, card and board games, and role-playing games (Apperley, 2006). Furthermore, I suggest that it is this incorporation of a social milieu that is not traditionally associated with media that makes videogames exceptional. The notion of interactivity their unique mode of consumption is the key to appreciating the break from past forms of mediation that is suggested by videogames. The article engages with three notions which stem from the concept of interactivity, each of which suggests that a more complex model of understanding videogames rather than seeing them simply as narratives is required. The first notion, ergodicity, is important for conceptualising the actual effort or work that students put into enacting the computer game. The second notion, encoding/decoding, draws on Hall s (1973) model to examine how the ergodic process intersects with students imaginations and interpretations of the game. The final notion, ludology, one of Game Studies founding concepts, is used to suggest a way that different levels of flexibility within games may be productively discussed. Interactivity and the cybertext The notion of interactivity is used as an all-purpose catch-phrase to describe digital technologies. Aarseth (1997, p. 48) states: The word interactive operates textually rather than analytically, as it connotes various vague ideas of computer screens, user freedom, and personalised media, while denoting nothing. Through hyperbolic overuse the term interactive has become concatenated with new or digital media in general, under an uncritical rubric of creativity, freedom and control. Establishing an analytic approach to interactivity in videogames is the first step in developing critical tools for the use and analysis of videogames in the English and Literacy classroom. Aarseth (1997, p. 1) proposes two alternative terms that avoid the empty denotations of interactivity: the cybertext and ergodic. The cybertext is mechanically organised and configured by the reader, or player, while ergodic refers to the non-trivial effort required by the player to enact the cybertext (Aarseth, 1997, p. 1). The cybertext is a product of an ergodic process; which allows for a useful distinction between the process of interaction (ergodic) and the product of that process (cybertext). The interactions demanded by videogames during the ergodic process vary widely between games, and even within the same game according to the preferences of the individual player. Thus, I suggest that any attempt to understand the formal, interactive attributes of a videogame must be matched by a similar investigation into the experiences of the player during APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

3 APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp the ergodic process. Laurel (1993), argues that definitions of interactivity based on objective rules, ignore that the experience of interactivity arise from the dynamic relations between the user and the computer rather than from any external factors (see also Galloway, 2006). In a practical sense, for teachers and teaching practitioners, this involves getting students to think through the relationship between the game as designed, as an object and the game as played the subjective experience of the player. Examining the ergodic structure of the cybertext may mean creating a detailed map of the game spaces, as well as an itinerary of the permitted movements, objects, actions and events. Investigating the individual experience of the ergodic journey is simpler, and may be done in a variety of ways. One teacher in our study provoked discussion by showing his class a video of gameplay. Other viable methods include getting students to keep diaries of their play of a particular game, or have them share screenshots taken while playing. While this task helps us to think through how interactivity produces and allows for different forms of experience, it might not necessarily highlight the work that the player puts into the ergodic experience. The best way of drawing attention to this distinction between the ergodic work of the player and the final cybertext which the work produces is to play and discuss a game that is very explicit about the centrality of the ergodic work to the players experience. This can done using a game like Dancing Stage Fusion (Konami Digital Entertainment, 2004), Wii Sports (Nintendo EAD, 2006), or Wii Fit (Nintendo EAD, 2008), that require the player to utilise a substantial ergodic effort to enact the cybertext. Thus, the importance of the ergodic is underscored. While it is important to foreground the physicality of the interaction during videogame play, it is also important not to reduce games to a purely physical experience. However laborious the ergodic task, the actions that the player makes are also informed by a reading of visual, aural and narrative information provided by the game. 14 Volume 33 Number 1 February 2010 Encoding and decoding In the context of Literature and Media Studies interactivity has been used to refer to the process of meaning-making itself, a factor that has caused additional confusion (see Galloway, 2006, p. 3). In audience-based studies of media use and consumption interactivity has been used to describe the process of the individual creating, or negotiating, their own meaning from a mass media broadcast. This process is articulated by Stuart Hall (1973) in his encoding/decoding model. Hall argues against the idea of a text having one particular dominant meaning; all texts are given meaning by a process of decoding that allows individuals to make a negotiated or oppositional interpretation of the text. Thus, in this model, the sender or encoder of a

4 message does not determine meaning. Rather, the members of the audience interpret the meaning through an individual or collective interaction with the text in the process of decoding. The encoding/decoding dyad is similar to the distinction between the ergodic process and the cybertext; the players interpretation of that journey. In this case, the ergodic process discussed above dovetails with the process of encoding the videogame. The players ergodic journey is part of the encoding of the final cybertext, which is dynamically decoded in a mental and imaginative process. Hall s model is useful for analysing cybertexts as it clearly marks the crucial distinction between two phases in the process of ergodic reading where the players input is required, that could be described as interactions. So the ergodic journey, a series of responses to events initiated by the computer that require action from the player, allows the player of a videogame to participate albeit in a limited manner which is proscribed by the design of the game in the encoding of the cybertext. Encoding in this case describes various context specific actions that will vary from game to game, such as: driving a car in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar Games, 2004) or Need for Speed: Carbon (EA Black Box, 2006); building a city in Sid Meier's Civilization IV (Firaxis Games, 2007), or shooting a Covenant Brute in Halo 2 (Bungie Software, 2004). While this is not encoding in the same sense as writing a novel or newspaper article as Hall originally intended in his model, these activities are encoding in the sense that they allow the player an opportunity to enter a variable into the game that has a more or less significant impact on the final cybertext. The co-production of the cybertext between player and computer means that the encoding of the game is albeit unequally shared. Decoding describes the process of reading the co-produced cybertext, the players interpret the cybertext that is dynamically unfolding before them. The player must make decisions, and some of these decisions will be about outcomes; and in order to achieve the outcomes they prefer or desire, players will encode videogames in a particular manner. For example, decisions such as whether to colonise Africa in Europa Universalis III (Paradox Interactive, 2007), may be taken with a particular outcome in mind (see Apperley, 2007). Furthermore, even if the game is encoded in the same manner, it may be decoded in variety of ways. One player may regard the decision to engage in the slave trade as an important step in creating a realistic depiction of history, while another player may read the financial benefits that connect the slave trade to mercantilism in the game as an implicit critique of the capitalist system. The player interacts with the videogame on two levels the physical or ergodic, and the interpretive but these levels are imbricated. Often players will make decisions in the ergodic process based on a preferred outcome or reading that they wish to make of the cybertext. For example a player of Sid Meier s Civilization IV may make decisions from the very beginning of the APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

5 APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp Volume 33 Number 1 February 2010 game based on a desire to achieve certain short-term (the building of certain wonders) or long-term outcomes (obtaining victory through unusual and difficult conditions, like the economic or diplomatic victory). However, it is also necessary to highlight that these readings of cybertexts are based on the ergodic choices that players have available to them. The flexibility of choices available in a game, vary widely from game to game, and often players may have very little choice over certain key element is the game. For example, while Fable (2004, Lionhead Studios) attempted to present the player with a fantasy world full of choice, the gender of the character or avatar that the player developed through these choices had to be male (a problem which was remedied in the sequel). In the worst cases videogames present a particularly ideologically loaded portrayal of race (Squire, 2008; Nakamura, 2009), gender (Kafai et. al., 2008) or sexuality (Consalvo, 2003a; Consalvo and Dutton, 2006), which the player has little room to negotiate. In the beach volleyball game Dead Or Alive Xtreme 2 (Team Ninja, 2006), the player is given a choice between different bikinis in which to dress the characters. This kind of choice implicitly encourages the female characters of the game to be interpreted as sexualised objects. Hall s encoding/decoding paradigm is useful in conceptualising these power dynamics that are played out in the production of the cybertext: there is a limit to the player s participation in encoding the game and often this leaves very little flexibility for the player to decode meanings outside of hegemonic frameworks. However the encoding/decoding paradigm highlights an important issue in the use of videogames in the English classroom; that audiences are active constructors of textual meaning. The active audience consciously interacts with the text to produce meanings that may differ from the official authorial, encoded meaning of the text. This notion that the text may be strategically decoded in myriad ways provides for a conception of the cybertext which allows for the multiple and heterogeneous meanings that games may take on to diverse communities and subcultures of players. What is at stake in this notion of interactivity is critically important to the use of videogames and media texts more widely in the English classroom; that the meaning of mass media texts may be constructed in such a way that negotiates or opposes the intended message. While all videogames are ergodic to a degree, the kinds of interactions allowed differ greatly between games. In order to appreciate the ergodic process further, I suggest that a distinction be made between different types of interactions. Smith (1999) outlines two types of interactivity that videogames may provide. First, the player should be able to manipulate objects within the text. This means that the text present is divided into objects that can be acted upon independently of the text as a whole. For example, the player (or their avatar) is able to pick up objects, look at them more closely, or act upon them,

6 for example by pulling a level or opening a door. This enables the player to change the game s physical appearance, and importantly what the player does in the game should impact upon the game-world. Smith s (1999) second type of interactivity suggests that more than offering simple control over objects, an ergodic text should present the player with meaningful choices which affect the narrative flow and outcome of the game. This aspect of videogames is often over-emphasised, and the future possibilities of interactive narrative are discussed with more vigour that the state of the contemporary. Often these narrative choices are not really choices at all, but rather a performance of the text that requires the player to follow the linear plot of the videogame. To move away from the narrative progression dictated by the game results in an untimely death, and the game is rebooted at a point backward on the narrative trajectory a save game allowing the player another chance to perform the correct actions to allow the narrative to proceed. So the ability to affect the narrative outcome is closer to the ability to choose whether the mission fails or succeeds, which is not necessarily based on preference for a certain result, but rather on the players skill and mastery of the game. Games do exist that have more open possibilities, games such as Deus Ex (Ion Storm, 2000), Sid Meier's Civilization IV, and The Sims (Maxis, 2000) series allow the players to choose variable goals and tactics in order to win the game, and thus they allow the game to be played again and again in order to achieve the more difficult and obscure victory conditions (see Gee, 2003; Juul, 2008; Squire, 2008; Wark, 2007). For example, Sid Meier's Civilization IV allows the player to win the game through military, scientific or diplomatic means. The first and the second methods of winning are relatively unsubtle, and are easily completed on the lower levels of difficulty in the game; the diplomatic victory is more elusive and achieving it is considered by the Civilization online community to be the sign of a truly skilled player. In addition to Smith s two types of interaction, I suggest a third type of interaction exists; when the player plays with and redefines the rules of the interaction. This type of interaction is radically different, as it allows the player to change the cybertext by altering its ergodic structure, rather than by making choices within that structure. The practice of altering the cybertext in this manner is known as moding. This practice is actively encouraged in some games, like Sid Meier's Civilization IV or Neverwinter Nights 2 (Obsidian Entertainment, 2006) where an editing function is included that allows the players to alter almost any variable in the game. Other games like Doom or Call to Power II (Activision, 2000) have had their source codes released in the public domain; this means that players have access to the information that will allow them to alter and reprogram the game. These three types of interactions within the ergodic process are a starting point for more thorough formal and theoretical distinctions. The critical reason for drawing these distinctions is to show that the ergodic process of forming a cybertext is a complex interplay of APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

7 APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp several types of ergodic action, that may not necessarily be motivated from or produced by the interplay of the player and the videogame, but by the larger socio-political milieu in which these relations take place. This final type of interaction may be beyond the scope of many classroombased approaches to dealing with videogames. However, there is a great deal of potential for the products of players and gaming culture in the classroom (see Walsh and Apperley, 2008; 2009). Other scholars have thought about this level of interactivity with the code of the game it self as a form of design based literacy (Salen, 2007; Zimmerman, 2009). The other two types of activity are more amenable to discussion, especially considering the current popularity of open-ended or sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto series, The Sims series, and role-playing games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Studios, 2006), which mean that students are often aware of the highly different experiences of game play available, without having access to the vocabulary to designate the categories. Scholars working specifically on open-ended games have noted that players often develop their own definitions of performance within the game, creating highly specific experiences of the game that vary from personto-person and between groups (Juul, 2008; Squire, 2008). These differences can lead to very interesting discussions among students, which demonstrate the different cybertextual stories that players may produce. The simplest way for educators to deal with the relationship between encoding and decoding in videogame play is to get the students to work on producing a narrative from the videogame. One method is to use in-game features to take screen shots as exist in The Sims series or the screen capture (print screen) feature found on PC computers, the students then use the still images taken from the game to construct a storyboard narrative. Other possible projects include assigning students to write a descriptive, instructional account of gameplay similar to a player produced faq or walkthrough (see Consalvo, 2003b). This can then be shared with other students, and effectively contrasted to the sound, imagery, and narrative of the game. 18 Volume 33 Number 1 February 2010 The narratology/ludology debate Game Studies initially divided scholarly inquiry on videogames into two major schools: narratology and ludology. Frasca (2003, p. 223) describes ludology as a disciplinary approach to games that argues that narrative is not the central structuring principle of video games. In addition to representation, video games operate on an alternative to representation and narrative: simulation. Narratology, however, regards computer and video games as merely a new medium of narrative potential. This approach is dominated by the dual politics of what Aarseth (1997, p. 106) identifies as apologetics and trivialisation. The apologists believe that games have the potential to become great, just the right people aren t making them, while trivialists

8 believe that computer games cannot be taken seriously by literary studies (Aarseth, 1997). While I believe it is safe to merely dismiss the trivialists at this point, the apologists require further discussion. Apologetics in this case is inherently imbricated with technological determinalism, and the myth of total immersion. It is work that is concerned with what videogames may become rather than understanding them as they are. They are assuming that the videogame is destined to become another form of narrative. Which, of course, they are, but within an interpretive system where narrative is no longer the predominant structuring principle. However, strict adherence to ludology is not constructive beyond the point made above. Even the most orthodox ludologist must acknowledge that games do try to tell stories, or at least to give the players the raw materials to construct the story themselves. Aarseth (1997) acknowledges this by dividing narrative into two levels: description and narration. Videogames are rich in description, they show us visually and aurally the material the player requires in order to construct stories, while they are poor at providing an overarching narrative voice. While games are often narrated, Aarseth argues that it is outside the specific context of the game that the narration is made. The point is that within the game a different set of concerns is operating. Frasca (2003, pp ) describes games as operating within the rules of a simulation rather than a narration. The simulation or cybertext is distinct in that it has both inputs and outputs from the player the player enacts the cybertext while narrative is solely output. Or, in Hall s model, a simulation allows the player to both encode and decode the game, but a narrative is purely decoding. This is the bottom line of ludology: that videogame analysis must not focus solely on the produced cybertext, but on the dynamic interactions between human(s) and computer(s) through which the cybertext is produced. These interactions take place within a space defined by the rules of the game. Different games provide vastly different qualities of game-space, and I suggest that it is the freedom that can be found within these latitudes that defines a game over any other factor. While Grand Turismo 4 (Polyphony Digital, 2005), Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition (Rockstar San Diego, 2005) and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (Rockstar Games/Rockstar Leeds, 2005) are all ostensibly from the same genre: simulations, and more specifically the same subgenre, as they are all driving sims, they have large differences in their ergodic processes. Grand Turismo 4 takes place on a racetrack, the movement is linear and although many tracks are available they are only more complex in the challenges they provide the player in the linear ergodic process. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is more open allowing the player to drive in the traffic and streets of a busy city. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is even more open, the player can get out of the car, run around get into another car drive anywhere in the virtual city, crashing into cars and hitting pedestrians. APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

9 APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp Volume 33 Number 1 February 2010 While they all involve simulations of driving, some games have a greater degree, or margin, of flexibility. Caillois (1962, p. 8) argues that each practice of play is defined within a dual system that describes the practice s relationship to strict rules. The games most subordinate to rules are described as ludic (Caillois, 1962, p. 13), while those characterised by spontaneity and creativity are classified as paidia (Caillois, 1962, p. 27). Importantly, these categories are not exclusive as the two styles of play are allied and always present. While all the games have ludic qualities, Grand Tourismo 4 is clearly the most ludic of the three games while Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories has the most piadia. This characterisation of the game space in terms of the latitude of movement provided by piadia within the game's ludic structure suggests that the spatial framework for understanding games devised by Henry Jenkins and his collaborators over the past decade has a great degree of credence. By conceiving games spatially we can free them from the aforementioned difficulties that come from analysing games in categories like visual genre, furthermore, it allows games of radically different technological levels to be assessed in a continuum (Fuller and Jenkins, 1995; Jenkins and Squire, 2002). The linear or ludic structure of many games places a particular emphasis on performing specific ergodic tasks in order to complete or move through the game or level. Games that are more open, and characterised by piadia, often have more flexibility in relation to specific goals that require a certain level of ergodic performance. Students are able to negotiate different outcomes and play the game according to their own predilections and skill levels without being restricted by highly structured performance requirements. Past studies of open-ended games have also pointed out that such games are appropriate for both short and long periods of play, as they are particularly flexible in relation to the outcomes (Apperley, 2008). The player effectively determines the length of the session rather than some external factor such as the size of the level. In the classroom the issue of flexibility in relation to game space can be approached in a number of ways. Of key importance is that students are able to encounter a large set of games that demonstrate different degrees of flexibility. During the course of the ARC Linkage Project Literacy in the Digital World of the 21st Century: Learning from Computer Games one strategy we found particularly useful was to encourage the teachers to take their classes on excursions to the Game On exhibition at ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image). This allowed the students to see first-hand a historic development of videogame design. While it is important not to equate narrative, or open worlds, with technological development, providing students with a historic perspective on the development of the medium allows for a more nuanced perspective on the present. Space, objects, movements and actions have multiplied, and videogames once at the cutting edge of development have been relegated to casual or mobile platforms. Teachers

10 and educators without access to such excellent facilities will have to use other strategies to allow for students to encounter a wide repertoire of games. Conclusion By examining videogames in this manner, it is apparent that they are by no means a closed circuit of player and game: the cybertext is formed from a complex interaction of the actions permitted by the game, the player s own ergodic choices, which are influenced by whatever predilections the students might bring to the game and the decoded meaning that the player gives to those choices. The decoded meaning may be informed by any number of different intertextual materials (films, literature, television programmes, card games, general genre fiction, sports, popular culture and current events). Furthermore, the interpretation of the game will be profoundly affected by the player s contact with the community of gaming, which may be accessed through specialist magazines, or websites (see Consalvo, 2007; Newman, 2008). Furthermore, as gaming becomes more oriented towards online play with the success of online PC gaming and the introduction of online console gaming in 2003 (Xbox Live), a new community forum is ascending in importance, the online games themselves, and associated chat forums. Finally, gaming takes place within the broader social context of contemporary society. Computer games are informed by contemporary events, reflecting current political struggles (King & Kryzwinska, 2006). Contemporary gaming deals with such issues as: terrorism in Counter-Strike (Valve Software, 2000); covert operations in Superpower (GolemLabs, 2002), and military coups in Republic: The Revolution (Elixir Studios, 2003). Thus, I suggest that a classroom-based account of videogames requires a framework that incorporates the flow of meaning from the game into the social and cultural milieu of students and vice versa. On the simplest level the videogame cybertext may be understood as an interaction between a player and a computer. However, the player in particular is making choices in relation to a wide repertoire of social and cultural factors. This repertoire is shaped on a variety of scales: the players individual predilections; the social milieu of gaming culture; and wider local and global issues. APPERLEY AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, pp References Aarseth, E. (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Apperley, T. (2006). Genre and game studies: Towards a critical approach to videogame genres. Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal of Theory Practice and Research 37(1), Australian Journal of Language and Literacy

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