The Cultural Study of Games: More Than Just Games
Abstract
(This content was first presented as an IGDA lecture during the 2001 Game Developers Conference Europe. You can download the slides (~5mb zip) from that presentation.)
We face a battle with games - to prove that they are worthy of serious critical
analysis, and not a 'lower' art form. The field of cultural studies has
spent three decades doing this, and we can use some of their most central
theoretical tools. I will use these concepts to suggest that games, as part
of popular culture, can play an intrinsic part in shaping our outlook, our
role and our lives.
This cultural impact often faces indignation because we combine terms like
'play' and 'game', associated with children, with words like addiction,
and try to explain how we might make more sensible use of such connotation
as part of the semiotic language of games. This lecture attempts to map
out how we can understand more about what games mean - and apply this to
our design. This should be useful in further determining our distinction
between gameplay and what has been termed the media content of games, and
allowing us to mature the cultural content of games.
Introduction
Today I'm preaching to the converted. Usually for an academic, audiences are involved in e-learning, educational policy or intellectual study, and it's my job to convince them that video games offer a wealth of potential in terms of education, or media study, and I'm often ranting about how important gameplay is compared to graphics and sound. You, however, don't need to be told this. Essentially my task today is reversed - instead of explaining gameplay to academics; I'm showing theory to gameplay experts. Naturally, I'm a little nervous.
ICDC is a partnership between Liverpool John Moores University and Mersey
Television. As such, it is 'half academic, half commercial'. The flavour
of this lecture will be this 50/50 approach. So we won't be drearily exploring
the intricacies and contradictions of philosophy and ideology, we wont waste
our time with ivory tower hot air. So much of the emergent academic theory
surrounding games is of little practical use to designers, hopefully that
will be avoided. Theory is a toolbox; game designers should perhaps view
it as a pile of 'tools' that they can pick and choose from at will. By using
existing media and cultural theory as tools, we can broaden the appeal of
our art, deflect criticism and indignation, and perhaps even discover radical
new approaches to design.
Part 1 - Cultural Studies and Videogames
The history of the interdisciplinary subject of cultural studies was, particularly
through it's earliest years, a battle for legitimacy in terms of what was
'worthy' of study. It has fought a long battle for the study of 'everyday'
popular culture - that it is as equally worthy of understanding as 'high
art' or classical culture. Indeed, it is vital to study it - if it is popular,
it is almost certainly going to reveal something about contemporary audiences
and attitudes that was previously hidden. At it's heart was an argument
surrounding what was meant by culture. The term 'culture' was often originally
thought of as 'the best that is thought and said' - the idea of someone
being 'cultured'. This of course would imply that one should really spend
one's time studying the 'classics', our 'high culture', and that 'low',
'debased', i.e. popular culture, was not worth the time or effort. Only
over time was the definition of culture extended to essentially 'everything
that is thought and said' - allowing academics to study 'everyday culture'
in order to explore the relations existing behind the taken-for-granted
aspects of our lives.
But in many ways the debate still rages - we now have the concept of 'dumbing
down' - our news reporters might prioritise a Spice Girl out shopping over,
say, slave labour in Burma. Paradoxically it is also argued that in fact
'the masses' are 'wising up' - queues for the Monet exhibition, opera attendance's
and visits to the Tate Modern are massive. Even within popular culture there
is a high/low debate - someone will call Whitney Houston 'shallow' whilst
Stevie Wonder might be 'true soul' - yet of course both might be called
'low' culture in relation to Handel or Beethoven. In distinct ways then,
the high/low debate continues.
And if there is one cultural form that is subjected to this debate, it is
the often-despised phenomenon of videogames. Almost since their inception,
videogames have been met with rampant prejudice, legislation and stigma.
Indeed, they are often 'beneath popular culture'. This is usually related
to violence, children and education, or diminished social skills. For example,
in 1991 Eugene Provenzo claimed, "Games are pointless to most educational,
social and cultural needs" (Provenzo, 1991, p.34). Highlighting - as
we will - the relationship between games and defence industries, he also
says "The use of video games to recruit people into the military in
our own nation is already under way"(Provenzo, 1991, p. 132). "What
are we teaching our children?" he demands to know (Provenzo, 1991,
p. 124, his emphasis). And of course in 1982 the US Surgeon General famously
stated - without any evidence, that children are so desensitised that:
"When they see another child being molested by a third child, they just sit back" (Herz, 1997, p.184)
David Sheff sums up these attitudes when, describing Nintendo, he says:
"[M]any people see the company as an evil force because it deals in videogames, hypnotisers of youth.... as if America's kids had joined a cult" (Sheff, 1993,Pp. 204-205).
We might call these responses emotional, conspiratorial discourses, lacking
in sober objectivity. A cultural study insists, as we shall see, that conspiracy
theory is to be constantly avoided, and particularly when one is discussing
global power and the hidden agendas that do exist. Nonetheless, this language
of unfounded panic has undoubtedly led to age classification, restriction
and censorship.
One of the key problems is essentially one of language, or idiom. Cultural
studies makes use of the concept of semiotics - the study of signs and their
meanings - to say that one of our most potent forms of communication - language
- can be regarded as a sign system - and one which is inextricably linked
to power, restriction and ideology.
We don't have time or space to look in great detail at semiotics, but an
overview might be useful. In terms of game design - a strongly iconic medium,
a deeper understanding of signs - and the levels of signification - might
be interesting.
In 1916 the Austrian linguist Ferdinand de Saussure ran a Course in General
Linguistics, where he devised the key components of any sign - a word or
image. Like two sides of a coin, he proposed that each sign must comprise
a signifier (what the sign 'is') and a signified (the mental image that
we all accept to be the given meaning), or to quote Daniel Chandler, the
signifier is the form which the sign takes; and the 'signified' is the concept
it represents. He stressed that the relationship between these two elements
is arbitrary. That is, there is absolutely no pregiven reason why, say,
the signifier 'dog' should allow us to conjure up an image of a four-legged,
panting and rather smelly creature. A society grows to accept that this
word will do. And if we all accepted it, then we might instead use the word
'growler', or for that matter, 'cilrdghpoierhgdfn'. Indeed, society does
accept new signifiers, and new signifieds. Fifty years ago you might spot
someone looking particularly carefree and say 'he looks gay'. It might mean
something else now.
This is clearly an important element - the moment one begins to consider
what is 'culturally accepted', one is immediately encountering ideology
- and so we can argue that language, and 'accepted signs', become a central
way in which certain ideas are accepted as 'normal' at the expense of others.
Roland Barthes, in his 1957 book Mythologies, argues exactly this - that
no language use can be separated from structures of ideology and power.
Barthes recognised that the signified can operate on two levels of signification-
the primary level, that is, the most commonly accepted signified (four legs,
barks, smells); and a secondary level of signification - the 'other' signifieds
that we come to culturally accept (so with 'dog' this might be 'scoundrel'
or 'ugly woman'). The descriptions he used are now common - denotation and
connotation.
Barthes has a chapter in 'Mythologies' of interest to us - 'Toys', in which
he analyses the denotation and connotation of children's playthings. He
was one of the first theorists to recognise that these toys are pre-conditioning
children to the gender roles that they will be expected to assume. He says
that "All the toys one commonly sees are essentially a microcosm of
the adult world"(Barthes, 1972, p.53), and that for instance, a girls
doll is "meant to...'condition' her to her future role as mother"
(Barthes, 1972, p.53). If we apply this to videogames, we can immediately
see that semiotics, especially as applied to ideology, might shed more light
on the role that games play in our globalised society. If we are guilty
of making too many games for boys, then we might too argue that we are guilty
of perpetuating what is expected from boys.
Semiotics can clearly help explain some of the indignation about games.
The primary signifier of the signs 'Toy' or 'Game' might be 'object / method
of play' - but the secondary level might also include images and concepts
such as 'childhood', 'innocence', 'trivia', 'pleasure' and even 'waste of
time'. Add these connotations to the secondary signifiers of the word 'addiction',
combine them with the semiotic imagery of gratuitous violence, and someone
- in a position of legislative power - is going to get upset. Unfortunately,
the semiotic language of videogames has not provided an adequate alternative,
nor has it tried to wrestle these terms from their connotations. Many developers
would argue that alternative terms like 'leisure software' or 'interactive
media' are used by regulators in order to avoid these aforementioned terms
- but out of a sense of shame and embarrassment. Arguably a new glossary
of videogaming is needed.
To begin this, we need to acknowledge that there are certain 'negative effects'
of playing games. It is difficult to disagree with the fact that many games
engage in gratuitous violence - i.e. violence for it's own sake, and also
that too many games are misogynistic, and often celebrate their own lack
of depth. Work done by Prensky, Jenkins, Greenfield and others has offered
reasonably concrete proof that videogames can have extremely positive benefits
- particularly in relation to learning, but we must recognise, even if only
to strengthen our argument with balance, that games can indeed have more
concrete adverse effects.
There are the more obvious physical dangers - wrist, neck and elbow pain
(perhaps a form of RSI: Repetitive Strain Injury), as well as (in rare cases)
epilepsy, peripheral neuropathy, and encoprisis, although Dr Mark Griffiths
notes that the 'cure' for most of these ailments is to simply stop playing
- or press 'pause' (Griffiths, 1999, np.).
Note that none of these 'ailments' can be curbed by age restrictions - they
are theoretically applicable to all videogames. They are therefore 'gameplay'
dangers - and are not related to the images or signs that we encounter in
the game 'text'. As gamers, don't we often argue that it is precisely this
gameplay we are enjoying? As psychologist Sherry Turkle once said, "Those
who fear games often compare them to television. Games players almost never
make this analogy" (Turkle, 1984, p.66), and that someone with a familiarity
with games is more likely to associate playing them with "sports, sex
or transcendental meditation" (Turkle, 1984, p.66).
Indeed, in 1988 Leslie Haddon wrote what is arguably still one of the most
useful academic texts on games, 'Electronic and Computer Games: The History
of an Interactive Medium'. He notes that as soon as games became sophisticated
enough to have "at least some narrative content", they could immediately
be discussed and analysed as 'media':
"The storyline of the games allowed commentators to see the new form as a medium, and thus comparable to other media texts. Indeed, it was this feature which enabled the transfer of concerns about 'violence' from areas like TV and film to the new entertainment machines" (Haddon, 1988, p.62)
Haddon refers to the narrative, characterisation etc as media content, a
key concept. As gamers we might not use the same terms, but we are well
used to separating the media content from the gameplay - and suggesting
that it is only the latter that 'matters'. But Haddon's observation allows
us to go to suggest that we can study 'media content' using the same theoretical
tools that we would study news media, TV or cinema: that is, we can 'transfer
the theory' as well as the 'concerns'. Until we do, the indignation continues.
Two months ago, Prince Charles suggested, "One of the great battles
we face today is to persuade our children away from the computer games towards
what can only be described as worthwhile books". As JC Herz says, "Videogames
inspire unstinting hysteria among adults in positions of bureaucratic authority"
(Herz, 1997, Pp. 183-184).
So, we can clearly argue that there are games that do not conform to the
model of 'a bad influence' or 'long-term ill effects'. We know that playing
games can have enormous benefits in terms of contemporary work skills. So,
what we have is the potential benefits obscured by the foregrounding of
the 'bad influence' model. We can clearly see that the reaction is therefore
out of all proportion to the genuine 'threat'. This is immediately relevant
to the theories developed by the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies in the Seventies, and in particular their analysis of youth cultures
and the 'mugging' threat as explored in 'Policing the Crisis':
"When the official reaction to a person, groups of persons or series of events is out of all proportion to the actual threat offered, when 'experts', in the form of...the judiciary, politicians, and editors perceive the threat in all but identical terms...above and beyond that which a sober, realistic appraisal could sustain, then...it is appropriate to speak of the beginnings of a moral panic" (Hall et al, 1978, p.16, their emphases)
We are perhaps all familiar with the phrase 'moral panic' - but I think
we need to look at this definition and remind ourselves of the crucial fact
that moral panic is primarily related to ideology - or perhaps we might
call it 'the politics of everyday life', and always draws attention to subsequent
legislation. Arguably a key term here is consent - moral panic is used to
justify, gain and maintain the consent of the moral majority.
The moral panic is a discrepancy, between a 'threat' posed to society, and
the level of attention given to it (in the popular media, most notably the
televised news, and national newspapers). Again, it is crucially an ideological
process - involving as it does this notion of a threat to the moral majority.
The panic is then used to justify - or gain consent to - increased curbs
and regulatory powers.
It has been noted that the arcade was once a source of moral panic. Fears
were publicly expressed about the often darkened, smoky halls that housed
remarkably successful videogames: the nascent games industry. Indeed, most
public coin-operated amusements, from phonograph machines in the 1890's
through 1920's kinetoscopes and pinball parlours in the 1950's, have all
been associated with 'dangerous' male youth cultures (Herz, 1997, Pp.44-45).
JC Herz argues that the arcade has been a constant source of moral indignation
about potential delinquency, or the corruption of youth .She describes it
as "parental paranoia", about children coming "into contact
with all sorts of social undesirables, blue collar kids, maybe even blacks
and Hispanics" (Herz, 1997, p185). Herz identifies the crucial class
element that underlies ideological theories, and is a key element of the
moral panic.
Another key element, and again central to the relationship it has to power
structures, is the subsequent state legislation - based on public consent
- that should inevitably follow the panic. The arcades were no exception,
Haddon notes that "In the US, moral panics resulted in some much publicised
by-laws to regulate arcades", and that in Britain in 1981, the 'Control
of Space Invaders (and other Electronic Games) Bill', tabled by Labour MP
George Foulkes, was narrowly defeated (Haddon, 1988, p.60). True to the
claims of Hall et al, politicians are amongst those whose reactions are
out of proportion to any actual threat. Haddon perhaps sums it up best when
he suggests that:
"Very traditional fears about 'deviancy' and working class, male youth seem to underlie much of the apparently new alarm about video games playing" (Haddon, 1988, p.61)
However, this model does not quite fit in terms of contemporary games. Both
the videogame and broader media industries have become far more densely
complex, and intertwining. Firstly, the cultural space is often now the
home - not a public gathering space, which has in any case become commodified
into giant entertainment centres. Online gaming, and the micro worlds that
modern games can offer (see Cassell and Jenkins, 1988, Pp. 262-297), mean
that the home is not necessarily an anti-social or closed space; indeed
through networks the opposite is possible. Panics seem to remain, but often
now focus more solidly than before on the media content of particular games
themselves, and are far more prosaic. In "The Moral Panic in the Age
of the Postmodern Mass Media", Angela McRobbie suggests that:
"Moral Panics...[have] become the norm of journalistic practice, the way in which daily events are brought to the attention of the public" (McRobbie, 1994, p.202)
And in fact, when one looks to recent 'panics' about specific games, it
can be said that often the controversy is initiated and sustained by the
game developers themselves, for publicity. 'Grand Theft Auto', generated
what appeared to be a minor moral panic in Britain, connecting videogames
to joyriding, and implying that civil society was in some form of 'danger'.
Stories could be found in the News of the World, The Sunday Times (front
page), and on 'Newsnight' (Arcade, Iss. 4, p.83). In fact, a marketing company
engineered every aspect of the panic, initiated by contacting a 'typical
rentamouth peer' (Arcade, Iss. 4, p.83). Sony was also 'forced' to withdraw
an advertisement for 'Cool Boarders 2' after complaints. Arguably the withdrawal
of the advert, more than the advert itself, becomes of more value to the
marketing department:
"Powder. My body yells for powder. I need the rush, the buzz. I have to get higher than the last time" (Guardian, 18/2/98, p.2, underlined as per advertisement)
For McRobbie, whilst the moral panic is still used by the right, as a strategy
for generating control, their "high rate of turnover" (McRobbie,
1994, p.198) in contemporary media, and the familiarity that the public
has with the strategy (although perhaps not in terms of consequent legislation),
radically affects its use. The traditional structures have:
"been replaced by a more diverse and more fluid set of institutions, agencies and practices which sometimes interlock" (McRobbie, 1994, p.211)
We can argue that the games industry is one of these institutions, manipulating
the moral panic as a strategy of it's own in post-modern 'news', associating
their product with some oblique 'deviancy', and so appealing to young people.
Public indignation about games can still be connected to theories of moral
panic, but only after accepting firstly that, occasionally, they can be
easily 'self-generated', and secondly that they are too common to be as
effective as they once might have been. Therefore, we need to broaden the
ideological debate.
Part 2 - Global Power and the Videogames Industry
In cultural studies, whenever these power relations are analysed - ideology,
popular culture, popular consent, media manipulation, a key term inevitably
arises: hegemony. The 'primary signifier' of the term is of course 'leadership',
but in this context the term is usually based upon the Prison Notebooks
of Antonio Gramsci, translated into English in 1973. Gramsci, whose work
was smuggled from an Italian prison during Mussolini's dictatorship, places
central importance on the way in which a ruling party or social group -
democratic or not - must combine consent with coercion in order to maintain
power. That is, in order to avoid collapse, one must win the battle of ideas,
and back it up with the clear threat of force (laws and regulations, as
well as physical force). Gramsci clarifies, without ever resorting to conspiracy
theory, the complex manner in which ideology, expressed through popular
culture, is a weapon in the constant battle for political power, disseminating
ideas and principles. He wrote that:
"A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise 'leadership' before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power); it subsequently becomes dominant when it exercises power, but even if it holds it firmly in its grasp, it must continue to 'lead' as well"(Gramsci, 1973, Pp. 57-58)
This 'leadership' cannot be maintained solely by coercion - and so popular culture plays a central part in attaining consent. Perhaps ironically, given the tone of conspiracy, Eugene Provenzo drew attention to how games "reflect a larger cultural hegemony" (Provenzo, 1991, p.116). For Provenzo, this is the crux of the problem with the videogame - in their reproduction of an individualised, patriarchal culture, he asserts that videogames help in the constant maintenance of ruling class power. "Video games", he suggests, "...are neither neutral nor harmless, but represent very specific social and symbolic constructs"(Provenzo, 1991, p.75).
Again, conspiracy theories are not compatible with hegemony theory. One
of the most useful aspects of Gramsci's theory is that it utterly refutes
the suggestion that a popular media merely 'reflects', as Provenzo says
here. The relationship between culture and politics is not reflective: as
the moral panic shows, it is a process, never stable, which must be constantly
fought over. Provenzo tries to position games concretely and permanently,
but refers back to a concept of power that by definition is never 'solid'.
He also positions games as hegemonic in relation to patriarchy, with a focus
on gender, rather than more broad political hegemony. And in the current
political age, that hegemony is a globalised one. In order to understand
better exactly what the relationship between the videogames industry and
hegemony is, one should perhaps begin to apply instances of global power.
A powerful case study might be the media representation of global conflict,
including the media content of games.
We know that, as a subject matter, war and defence are common to many game
genres. Also now accepted is the fact that our games machines, to Sega's
M3 arcade processor board, designed by Lockheed Martin, to the N64, partly
designed by Silicon Graphics, long associated with defence simulators. And
of course, the relationship is reversed: defence 'borrows' from videogames.
Provenzo notes that:
"Skills such as aerial refuelling, gunnery, aircraft landing, and missile launching are taught to recruits using video game formats" (Provenzo, 1991, p.132)
Famously, DARPA (the Defence Department Advanced Research Project Agency)
licensed Atari to design an advanced version of its arcade game 'Battlezone',
to train soldiers with. The US army has also adopted motion capture, and
'embedded simulation' has also emerged, whereby soldiers, using transportable
technology, can simulate the battles that are about to take place, to 'practice
daily in the field' (Herz, 1997, p.204).
However, little has been noted about how we can compare the representation
of war (in the news media), to representations of war in games. These are
overlapping representations: 'Jane's Combat Simulations', 'a world leader
in military simulations' (Arcade, Iss. 3, p,12), are an affiliate of Electronic
Arts, who produced the 'Desert Strike' Apache helicopter series. EA have
designed two games, 'Jane's Fleet Command' and 'Jane's F-15', and both were
used by the NBC news to simulate the 'Desert Fox' assault on Baghdad (Arcade,
Iss. 3, p,12).
So, it would appear that both of these industries are intertwined - much
like the games industry and Hollywood. One can watch footage of assaults
and bombings of Baghdad live on television, watch news 'analysis' of the
assault which uses game software, then with acute verisimilitude fire the
same remote-controlled 'Smart' weaponry - virtually, on a machine that is
likely to owe its existence to the same research institutions. On the surface,
it is correct to suggest that "Video games provide an almost perfect
simulation for the actual conditions of warfare" (Provenzo, 1991, p.132).
And yet, this notion of verisimilitude is doubtful in this context - there
are, in a defence industry synonymous with the covert, with illicit sales
and propaganda, questions as to exactly what 'the actual conditions of warfare'
are.
Whereas a flight game might use the same HUD, and fly over exactly the same
contours of the ground and buildings as in reality, it, like the Western
news, won't often dwell on the atrocities caused by warfare. One can suggest,
using the reports of renowned journalist John Pilger, that the actualities
of the Gulf conflict bear very little relation to the images seen in the
West:
"The Gulf War in 1991 was reported as a technological wonder, an event of bloodless science in which....there were 'miraculously few casualties'...few journalists reported the truth, still widely unknown, that a quarter of a million Iraqis…died unnecessary deaths" (Pilger, 1998, p.2)
These videogames based on genuine contemporary conflict, where the point
of view is always a military one, can be seen then to add to the manner
in which these facts continue to be 'widely unknown': they play a part in
the obfuscation of the real conditions. The human cost of international
conflict, the actual facts missing from the Western news according to Pilger,
are also therefore missing from the 'media content' of the game. The high-accuracy
'smart' weapons, which 'lock on' to a target, provide exhilaration to viewers
both on the news, and perhaps more intensely in videogames. Yet, again according
to Pilger, only seven per cent of the weapons used in the Gulf conflict
were 'smart', and:
"Seventy per cent of the 88,500 tons of bombs dropped on Iraq and Kuwait...missed their targets completely" (Pilger, 1998, p.48)
Often leading to civilian casualties - which of course rarely appear in
videogames, except in terms of sensationalism. 'Desert Strike', released
in 1992, is (as the title implies) an explicit example. It is not strictly
a 'simulator' in that realism is sacrificed for arcade style action - one
controls an Apache helicopter from an external viewpoint. Nonetheless it
still clearly represents the landscapes of Iraq. The levels are interspersed
by subtitles and still images which detail the surrounding narrative, and
this narrative features a character called 'The Madman'. The 'villain' of
the narrative, his military uniform, with beret, and his moustache, bears
an clear resemblance to Saddam Hussein, and his behaviour builds a picture
of him as the sadistic, insane dictator that he is portrayed as in the Western
media.
It is, in both instances, the use of 'demonisation' to disentangle the 'sides'.
For Pilger, Demons can be either individuals or "entire religions like
Islam, entire nations like Iran" (Pilger, 1998, p.32). Saddam Hussein
is regarded as "one of the most successful demons of all" (Pilger,
1998, p.32), who of course was for many years not a 'demon', but an ally
to Western powers, and indeed a considerably valuable arms customer. His
'conversion' into a demon comes about to provide justification for attacks,
for maintenance of Western interests. These games simplify what in reality
are complex, cross-cultural power relations into 'good and evil'. Videogames,
with comparatively crude narratives, often create 'demons' as targets for
the player - literally, in the case of 'Doom'. "We all crave the perfect
enemy" writes Herz, it is a "deeply satisfying" concept (Herz,
1997, p.87), absolving the player of any sense of guilt that might accompany
the exhilarating catharsis of violence.
Clearly, one can begin to assess these war games in terms of propaganda,
that more explicit attempt to continually be assured of consent. Propaganda
in a sense represents the limits of hegemony - the point at which consent
is in danger, and needs to be absolutely assured, in the absence of coercive
means. Propaganda usually indicates a weak hegemony.
The verisimilitude of the games is flawed by the fact that its source is
propaganda, not realism, and so the game itself helps to convince the player
that the images one sees of war are objective, legitimising consent for
continued aggression. It becomes an extension, a reinforcement of whatever
the propagandist message might be.
This is how videogames play a part in the constant process of hegemony.
Not by providing some means of upsetting the moral balance, by encouraging
delinquency, or promoting aggression, but by adopting a role in the maintenance
of Capitalist globalised hegemony in the two quintessential ways: by gaining
and maintaining consent; and by legitimising coercion, the two axes of continued
hegemony. Provenzo is quite correct when he says:
"Video games are instruments of information that serve important hegemonic functions in their perpetuation of bias and gender stereotyping" (Provenzo, 1991, p.138)
Yet whilst identifying patriarchal hegemony, he misses the same functions
at work in the context of defence, due to a belief that the 'actual conditions
of warfare' are represented. If games are to mature, then the themes explored
need to address the lack of any serious political enquiry. 'Final Fantasy
VII' begins with a small band of rebels being labelled 'terrorists' by the
mainstream media - a technique that resonates across the globe in 'real'
life. The central thrust of 'Metal Gear Solid' - covert destruction of oppressive
weapons, has many parallels with the aims and achievements of the 'Ploughshares'
group. Therefore our art must have the potential to address, challenge and
affect global ideological assumptions. Until it does, the 'threat' of videogames,
in terms of hegemony, is currently nil.
References
(not all quoted)
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References on semiotics are from Daniel Chandlers excellent web introduction: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/. Book to be published shortly.
Author Bio
Matthew is a researcher and lecturer in interactive media, specialising in media and cultural studies of digital games, as applied to design. He teaches on the MA Digital Games, MA Multimedia Art and Design, and BA Media Professional Studies at the International Centre for Digital Content, a partnership between Liverpool John Moores University and Mersey Television.
Of particular interest to him is the history of play, games and education, games and ideology, and definitions of 'gameplay', research which follows on from his own Masters Dissertation, 'The Cultural Study of Videogames'. He has been playing computer and videogames since almost before he could walk. His favourite games are Rollercoaster Tycoon, Championship Manager, ISS Pro and Unreal Tournament. Currently he is involved in a project which aims to test how useful commercial 3D gameplay might be to school learning.
Before that he has been a playscheme member and a labourer on 'Planet Hollywood' in Berlin. His broader interests are the social effects of media technology, globalised culture and research methods.
Matthew can be reached at: m.southern@livjm.ac.uk
The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the IGDA.