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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