Download The Cultural Study of Games: More than Just Games | THTR 101 and more Papers Acting in PDF only on Docsity!
The Cultural Study of Games: More
Than Just Games
by Matthew Southern
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.
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:
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:
McRobbie, Angela (1991), 'The Moral Panic in the Age of the Postmodern Mass Media', Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen, Macmillan Education, London. Pilger, John (1998), Hidden Agendas, Vintage, London. Provenzo, Eugene (1991), Video Kids - Making Sense of Nintendo, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts. Sheff, David (1990), Game Over: Nintendo's Battle to Dominate an Industry, Hodder and Stoughton, London. Turkle, Sherry (1984), The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Simon and Shuster, London. Turkle, Sherry (1995), Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, Wiedenfield and Nicholson, London. ___(1999), 'Censored! The Games They Wouldn't Let You See', Arcade, n4, March, Pp. 80-
