Cameron, D., & Carroll, J. (2004). The story so far... The researcher as a player in games analysis. Media International Australia, 110, 62-72.
DRAFT version. This is a preprint copy.
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“The story so far …”: the researcher as a player in game
analysis
David Cameron, John Carroll
Charles Sturt University
Abstract
This article outlines some preliminary research into the learning
discourses of computer and video games, as expressed through the
printed materials that accompany games, and the instructional
elements built into game narratives. This leads to discussion of an
interesting methodological dilemma - how does the interpretative
ethnographic researcher analyse this content when he or she
becomes part of the playing process? How do you analyse the
learning mechanisms of games when you are being reflexively
engaged in the training materials and systems mapped into the text
by the games designers? This article examines this “crisis of
representation” in interpretive ethnographic research approaches
to games research.
Introduction
To borrow a sporting truism, this is a paper of two halves. Our
initial project was to examine the nature of learning discourses
evident in computer and video games, and we start by discussing
our preliminary observations in this area. As we progressed in that
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work we became aware of a fundamental methodological issue –
how best to analyse the content of computer and video games when
we were part of the playing process? This apparent dilemma in the
interpretive ethnographic research approach to games forms the
second half of this article.
Challenge versus failure
The ability of computer and video games to capture and maintain
player interest - their special ‘holding power or addictive quality’
(Haddon 1999: 319) - seems to stem from a mix of challenge and
ability that can easily tip towards boredom and dissatisfaction if the
game becomes too hard. Some psychologists refer to “optimal
experience”, or more commonly “flow”, as that moment when skill
levels allow players to engage with a challenge without feeling too
anxious about failure, or too bored with success (Csikszentmihalyi
1990).
Clearly an entertainment product like a computer or video game
that gets the balance wrong, that frustrates and challenges too
much or too early, runs the risk of putting players off. In a multi-
billion dollar industry that relies heavily on word-of-mouth to
generate sales this could be a disaster. The designers of computer
and video games are therefore faced with a fundamental problem:
‘if no one can learn their games, no one will buy them’ (Gee 2003:
114). As a result these products incorporate a range of teaching
and information strategies to ensure new players can quickly
engage with the game content.
These can include:
printed documentation;
in-game help screens;
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tutorial modes of play separate to the game itself;
episodic gameplay with simplified or instructive early stages;
and
game characters that coach (or inveigle) the player.
In addition, sources of information external to the game package
itself may be available such as telephone support lines, printed or
online player guides, cheat lists and walkthroughs. In many cases
this supplementary help material is produced or collated by players
rather than publishers, and is then distributed via fan networks,
specialist magazines, or online games forums and Websites.
Going (digital) native
Katz argues that new forms of popular culture, mostly involving
computers, have developed so quickly that there has evolved
‘perhaps the widest gap - informational, cultural and factual -
between the young and the old in human history’ (Katz 2000).
Evidence of these changes surfaces in the literature as an
expression of frustration from educators about how students use
technology. Laird (2003: 42) describes how her online students
prefer to randomly access course components rather than follow a
sequential order, expect fast information delivery, and demand
immediate feedback - all characteristics of the cognitive changes
evident in the “games generation” (Prensky 2001).
Prensky (2002) also talks of a chasm between a younger generation
of “digital natives” who have not known a world without computer
games, and an older generation of “digital immigrants” forced to
adapt to rapid changes in digital technology. This raises a
fundamental problem for would-be games researchers - are you a
digital native or a digital immigrant? Prensky (2002) carries the
metaphor further to suggest that many educators (and by
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implication, researchers) are digital immigrants who speak with an
“accent” that some natives find difficult to understand. Examples of
this accent include not using the Internet at all, or printing out
emails before reading them. Prensky claims that this generational
chasm manifests itself in education via ten basic cognitive changes
as illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1: Ten learning preferences of Prensky’s “Digital Natives” (from Cameron 2003).
Digital natives prefer:
Traditional training provides:
Learning implications:
1 “Twitch” speed Conventional speed
Students desire faster interaction with information (game speed).
2 Parallel processing
Linear processing
Students desire multitasking, processing multiple data simultaneously.
3 Graphics first Text first Students desire graphic information with a text backup.
4 Random access Step-by-step Students prefer hyperlinking through materials, rather than reading from beginning to end.
5 Connectivity Stand alone Students prefer networking, and high level of electronic communication.
6 Activity Passivity Less tolerance for passive instructional situations - learn by doing.
7 Play Work Students see computers as toys as well as tools; prefer to learn in a fun environment.
8 Payoff Patience Expect immediate and clear feedback or reward in return for efforts.
9 Fantasy Reality Fantasy and play elements are an accepted
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part of “serious” work, e.g. informal work settings.
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Technology-as-friend
Technology-as-foe
See technology as empowering and necessary.
This summary of the generational differences between the teaching
and learning generations is supported by Fromme (2001: 2), who
also argues that ‘parents and teachers tend to address the media
cultures of the younger from their own generational perspective’
while ignoring the digital media literacy of children and young
adults. Table 1 also clearly illustrates potential pitfalls for games
researchers who do not account for generational differences in
changing media cultures.
From manuals to manga
Traditionally, most computer and video game products are shipped
with an external player guide or manual. These can range in
complexity from a brief printed insert designed to slip into a CD-
ROM jewel case, to an expanded version with gameplay tips and
background narrative, perhaps reaching the level of a substantial
book with dozens of pages explaining complex controls and screen
features (Hendrick, 1999). Some budget-conscious titles dispense
with printed material completely, but provide an electronic version
of the document that can be viewed or printed by the user.
Possibly like most software support products, these instruction
manuals ‘are frequently given short shrift by just about everybody
associated with computer games’ (Crawford, 1982). Hendrick
(1999) suggests that manuals written too early or too late in the
production process, or produced by inexperienced writers, result in
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texts that are ‘frequently reviled as overblown, badly worded,
uninformative dross that provide little or no help.’
However part of the reason instruction manuals may be ignored
until a problem arises is that ‘they do not make a lot of sense unless
one has already experienced and lived in the game world for a
while’ (Gee 102: 102). Experienced players may be able to
recognise or make educated guesses about controls and goals,
particularly if the game falls into a familiar genre. In this way many
players prefer to start playing after only a cursory glance at the
instructions, and then return to a manual or help system only when
they become stuck, frustrated or want to see if they’ve missed any
game features. The tendency for people to jump into new software
before reading the instructions is reflected in a common acronym
found in responses to new users’ questions posted to online
message boards and forums - “RTFM” (“Read The Fucking
Manual”).
Printed materials that accompany games can stretch beyond
technical instructions to be narrative texts in their own right.
Hendrick (1999) notes that this can simply be the result of a lazy
writer opting to produce ‘bad fiction’ instead of a useful manual.
Yet most games have a suggested narrative frame: ‘a story on the
package, in the manual, or somewhere else, placing the game in a
larger story’ (Juul 1999: 40).
Some of these texts are an interesting narrative supplement to the
games they support, moving beyond a simple “the story so far”
account of narrative background.
The PlayStation 2 version of Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of
Liberty for example eschews the model of a training manual, and
explicitly adopts the title of “Training Manga”. Game controls and
tactics are described in the Japanese manga comic-book form.
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Interestingly although generally thought of by Western observers
as entertainment, nearly one in every three books published in
Japan is a manga and can cover a broad spectrum including
technical manuals and educational content (Sales 2003).
Nevertheless, the images within the “Training Manga” produce an
emotional orientation to the game and its stealth strategy rather
than providing explicit instructions.
Clearly, a games researcher must decide whether to consider the
accompanying instructions as part of the game being studied. Our
interest in the instructional elements of games suggested that the
manuals should be part of the research subject, but should we read
them before, during, or after tackling the software itself? How
would this impact on our understanding of the game?
For example, one of the authors starting playing Rockstar Games’
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City without reference to the paper manual.
Although familiar with the game milieu (organised crime in a
Miami-like city) from reviews, word-of-mouth and the opening
credits of the game itself, he had not seen or played the game
before.
He was able to determine by trial and error the basic mechanics of
moving his character around and interacting with the game world
(primarily fighting and driving skills). Within a few minutes he was
armed with a handgun and on the prowl, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Soon he was involved in street fights, shootouts with criminal
gangs and police, car theft, and even a joyflight in a stolen
helicopter.
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Figure 1: Loud guns, and even louder shirts, are basic tools of the trade in Grand Theft Auto - Vice City (source: www.rockstargames.com).
He spent the best part of two hours enjoying a chaotic rampage
through Vice City before even realising there were specific goals
and missions built into the game. At that point the manual, framed
as a tourist pamphlet and blending game instructions with “facts”
about the world within the game, became required reading.
Learn to play / play to learn
Learning strategies are often an implicit part of the game
narrative. Non-player characters may be positioned as coaches.
There may be a “boot camp” or training scenario separate to the
game, or early levels of a game can be designed to introduce
players to basic skills and functions within the game realm. For
example, the authors starting playing Capcom’s Resident Evil -
Code: Veronica X without recourse to the manual. After a lengthy
cinematic introductory sequence the player character, named
Claire Redfield, regained consciousness in a darkened cellblock.
The following text appeared on the screen:
“If I were equipped with a lighter, I could see outside…”
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Taking that internal monologue as a clue to our next step, an
experimental press of control buttons soon brought up a control
screen that indicated that Claire was in possession of a lighter, and
this was quickly brought into use. The control screen also included
a rudimentary help system to describe basic functions, a map to
show the location of key game features as we progressed, and
tactics for solving puzzles in the games. The internal monologue
cue system appeared again as we progressed into the next room of
the game maze and discovered a manual typewriter:
“An old typewriter. I could save my progress if I had an ink ribbon.”
Thus we were introduced to the game’s mechanism for saving
progress at key checkpoints in the game maze. The language of the
monologue also illustrates the curious blend between story and
game mechanics that occurs when instructive elements are
introduced into a narrative. Not only is the Claire character
describing her surroundings (“an old typewriter”), but also she is
explicitly aware of progressing through a game maze (“I could save
my progress”).
Clearly there is learning happening here, but just what is being
learnt is the issue if players are ignoring the manuals designed to
introduce them to the game. Obviously there is learning based on
the computer game concept of mastery of the interface, such as the
onscreen help and the internal monologue clues in Resident Evil.
But by initially ignoring the manuals most players appear to have a
learning experience that closely mirrors the process of experiential
learning that occurs in role based process drama (Carroll &
Cameron 2003). Of particular interest is how the learning concepts
drawn from process drama such as understanding role distance
and dramatic protection (Carroll 1986) apply to games learning.
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For example, while under the control of novice researchers/players
the main character in Resident Evil was continually being killed
before they worked out how to defend against the zombie
attackers; yet their avatar Claire Redfield existed in a penalty-free
learning zone with nothing to lose. This allows the players to
indulge in high-risk behaviour while at the same time being
protected by their role distance from deep identification with the
character so that her potential danger becomes a learning
experience. Describing her experience playing the same game,
Tosca notes:
‘actual gameplay is full of trial and error actions, specially at the beginning of the game when we are not familiar with the interface or the story’ (Tosca 2003: 202).
Drawing on Goffman’s (1974) explication of Frame Analysis - this
concept of the dramatic frame, where the player is operating “as if”
the situation is real - there are a range of conventions that can be
engaged that vary the levels of protection required within the
game. In the initial stages of playing Resident Evil the role distance
for the player is a long way from being an involved participant in
the event. It is distanced from identification with the central
character, and instead becomes the observer/learner who needs to
know how to navigate within the new environment. The one
obvious way to discover the resources of the environment is to push
the limits. Within Resident Evil this may frequently involve
unpleasant deaths for Claire, the character representation of the
player. The authors were quite willing to repeatedly send Claire,
shown in Figure 2, into flaming wreckage or zombie-infested
corridors to discover how to find useful objects and overcome
obstacles.
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Figure 2: Claire Redfield met repeated horrible deaths in Resident Evil - Code: Veronica X, until the authors discovered she had firepower at her fingertips (source: www.capcom.com).
In learning terms, Eskelinen (2001) makes a critical distinction
between this sort of risk-based learning and that of engaging in
traditional text based learning. He makes the point that the
dominant mode of learning in literature, mainstream theatre, and
film is interpretative, while in games and process drama it is
configurative. He says:
‘…. in art we might have to configure in order to able to interpret whereas in games we have to interpret in order to configure, and proceed from the beginning to the winning of some other situation’ (Eskelinen 2001: 2).
This type of learning is directly applicable to the ergodic learning
pathwork that Aarseth describes in Cybertext (1997). During the
process of playing Resident Evil the researchers/players were
engaged in the construction of an individual and unique screen-
based semiotic structure. This consisted of a selective configuration
of the game elements and their own player choices. The wide
ranging variable expression of meaning built into a non-linear game
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text should not be confused with the semantic ambiguity of a linear
print based text. The game world of Resident Evil is constructed
through an individual player’s work and hence is an ergodic text as
Aarseth defines it.
The playing of Resident Evil demanded strategy and experiential
repetition that was based on the frustration of a difficult interface
and a deliberately confusing scenario. This led to extreme levels of
high-risk experiential learning that exploited the “no penalty”
learning zone that death and rebirth of player characters can
provide. Of course, applications of this successful learning strategy
outside the dramatic frame can have far more serious
consequences. There is no penalty free zone in real life social
interaction, and the results are often worse than a bite on the neck
from a zombie (although sometimes that’s what it feels like).
A performance narrative approach to games research
Our research approach was based on playing games in order to
observe the learning mechanisms and discourses in these texts. A
fundamental problem is apparent when the researcher becomes a
participant in the process being observed. The indeterminancy that
Heisenberg so clearly articulated in relation to quantum physics
(see for example http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p01.htm)
also applies to the world of games research.
Norman Denzin asserts that researchers in the human disciplines
face a crisis in both representation and legitimation when it comes
to qualitative studies (1997a: 350). The crisis of representation
reflects the inherent misrepresentation of experience that can
occur when a lived experience (e.g. learning to play a video
game) is interpreted through research. Researchers that stand
outside the process itself will have vastly inferior understanding of
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the research material, compared to the learner/player. This is the
digital native/digital immigrant gap described earlier. One obvious
way to deal with this is to place the researcher within the learning
environment and creatively interpret this experience as a
performance narrative, while interpreting observation and
interview data as a performance text.
For our initial examination of game learning mechanisms we
adopted a process of recording both the onscreen gameplay and
the researcher/player motivations and observations in real-time.
This was afforded by the simple step of connecting the games
console hardware to a video tape recorder to record the screen
action, while an audio tape recorder recorded a spoken
commentary. While one researcher played the game, the other was
able to prompt observations by asking questions about the
motivation behind player actions. The observations, assumptions,
strategies, and experiences of both researchers were recorded as a
direct stream of consciousness response to the game. In this
manner the authors were creating a performance narrative (the
gameplay) while generating an audiovisual record that could later
be interrogated as a performance text itself (a commentary on the
gameplay).
Within video game research based on the performance text model,
two forms of textual product can be distinguished. One is the
complex interpretive product or the original text produced by the
player as they learn to play the game and attempt to articulate a
set of understandings about a particular cultural product and social
process. This text then becomes the site for new interpretive work
by the researcher. The second form is the researchers’ text, (also a
critical/interpretive text) which now inserts itself inside the original
process, offering new interpretations and readings of what has
been presented. When playing Resident Evil as a specific textual
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video game experience this produces a multileveled, multi-method
approach to interpretation. The favouring of such an interpretive
ethnographic writing style requires that the project simultaneously
question/establish the credibility of its use of facts and fictions in
the story that is both told and played/performed (Denzin 1997a).
The audiovisual text generated during our first encounter with
Resident Evil demonstrated the multi-level data generated when
considering a new game text. The video of the gameplay shows in
real-time how awkward the gameplay was at first, as the player
continually struggled to find the right button to complete actions.
This problem decreases as the controls are learnt, but then the
viewer is struck by the amount of backtracking and aimless
wandering as the researcher/player discovered how to progress
through the game maze by trial and error. If playing the game was
at times frustrating and awkward, watching the video reveals a
deeper tedium and a tendency to repeat actions that have already
proven fruitless or fatal. On the other hand, the video recording of
a first attempt at Grand Theft Auto - Vice City illustrates the speed
with which game controls were learnt, and the freedom afforded
the researcher/player to explore the game world. This video reveals
the cinematic quality of the gameplay, and is at times more like
watching an action TV show than a game.
The audio commentary adds several layers to the research
narrative. Comments recorded include observations on the design
aesthetics, the genre, the difficulty of gameplay, and the
motivations for player actions. The narrative position constantly
toggles between observing researcher and participatory game
player, providing different levels of understanding to be teased out
by later reflection. Watching the gameplay video while listening to
the audio narrative (like listening to a director’s commentary on a
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DVD movie) provides yet another level of critical interpretation of
the experience.
Reading the social sciences dramaturgically (Denzin 2001; Carlson
2001) involves understanding that playing video games exist as a
continuum of performances modes that exhibit constantly shifting
dramatic role positions between being a participant through to
spectator. Fieldwork can then be seen as a collaborative
undertaking that revolves around the meanings brought to the
videotext, performers and performances (Silko 1981). By moving
back and forth through a narrative collage of gaming experience an
unstable relationship is generated between the investigator,
cultural text, ethnographic text and electronic and archival
representations. Rather than turning a story told into a story
analysed (using traditional functionalist narrative methods) the
goal becomes hearing and reading the gameplay as it happens
(Trinh 1989; 1991 p.143).
If video games are performed as ergodic texts then according to
Denzin (2001) this calls for new forms of qualitative research that
embrace the performance interview, performative writing and
ethnodrama. Building on the concepts of the cinematic society
(Denzin 1995), where accounts of lived experience are based on
cinematic/televisual/ethnographic representations and an interview
society (Denzin 2001) of spectacle and professional confession,
Denzin (2001) re-theorises a cinematic-interview game society
where lived experience is turned into narrative. Video game
narrative is also part of this lived experience; the personal becomes
public, and experience is made a consumable commodity that can
be bought and sold in the media and academic marketplace.
(Carroll 2002)
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The idea of the reflexive interview in video game research also
requires a shift from a functionalist theoretical perspective to
ethnoperformance. For Denzin the interview is not a mirror of the
external world or a window into the inner life of the gamer, but it
functions as a narrative device that allows the researchers to tell
stories about themselves. Reflexive interview texts about video
games selectively reconstruct that world by telling and performing
a story according to their own version of narrative logic (Denzin
2001: 26; Trinh 1989; 1992) built into the ergodic game structure.
In these ways both visual and narrative collage and montage allow
the writer/interviewer/performer to create a meaningful
examination of the text.
By going digital native, the reflexive interviews on learning to play
video games reflect the postmodern and post-experimental
moments of qualitative research (Denzin & Lincoln 2000). Writing
up interviews as game descriptions allows for pauses, repetitions,
narrative strategies and the rhythms of twitch and run. By moving
between the game role positions of participant and spectator the
players and their projects are located within a newly developing
digital culture (as a set of interpretive practices) as performers
within it.
An equally important consideration, and one that follows the crisis
of representation, is one of legitimacy. Denzin (1997b) argues that
the validity of a research project does not rely on a set of external
rules and procedures imposed from the world beyond the research
subject, but rather that the text being studied can assert its own
authority over the reader. Thus, use of the training manuals
themselves and the initial experience of playing the game will
shape any study of the learning discourses of video games.
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In reading contemporary game texts in this way the new
ethnography radically subverts the functionalist agenda, because
the real world is no longer the referent for analysis. Gaming is
simultaneously an ergodic text and an interpretative process
(Strine et al 1990: 184) The original textual product, the unique
gameplay becomes the site for new interpretative work, and the
researcher as gamer is now inserted into the ergodic nature of the
text and becomes part of it. Objectivity is never an option; you kill
the zombies because you must - the world is just structured that
way.
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