Rationalization and Instrumentality in Play

This post is written together with Maura Bouca as part of the case study assignment.

This week we were invited to discuss rationalization and instrumentality in play, inspired by readings about: a general notion of “rationalization of play”, by Henricks; an analysis of the Dragon Kill Points ‘feature’ as seen through a foucauldian perspective; and, finally, achievements in the Xbox Live.
It was inevitable, in the context of “rationalization and instrumentality” to speak of Gamification. So, to bring this discussion into the table, we suggested 3 case studies: the mini video, the ‘piano stairs’ video and Foursquare. The other case studies are tightly related to some concepts founds in the readings. To illustrate the issue of work as opposite to play, we present a Minecraft video and the case of the mcDonalds employee motivation system. And finally, we suggest Farmville as a problematic example of the panoptic control.

Presenting the case studies “the Piano Stairs” and “the Mini Getaway”, we wanted to show how two major car companies are trying to communicate to /interact with potential costumers using different types of engagement in play. During the discussion, interesting observations in context to restrictions of the games within time and space - and in reflections on the concepts of instrumentality occurred.
Both games are physically placed in the public space of the city of Stockholm - and both games underlie the limitation of a short lifespan. The Mini Getaway has natural time and space limitations in the construction of the game. Players have one week to capture the virtual Mini within city borders and hold on to it by running away from competitors. This concept carries strong references to the “Getaway in Stockholm” underground street race videos. By engaging players with the promise of a brand new Mini, users will go to great length racing through the city streets to protect their car, a rather predictable - but not sophisticated - game interaction.
The Piano stairs concept is, on the other hand, more blurry, as it is tied up with the novelty factor - that probably runs out within a week (for frequent transients). Placed in a busy train station ,a toy piano is embedded in a stairway in order to direct people to the physical stairs instead of the escalator. Unfortunately, in choosing the Piano Stairs, people created a new problem, clotting in the daily flow of people. Therefore, the notion of instrumental play is questioned in the Piano Stairs video. People engaged did not go straight up the stairs (as would have been the preferred social behavior) but playfully ran up and down, creating chaos, some even jumping on one note repeatedly. The promoted healthy lifestyle presented in both videos does not only seem a bit hypocritical having the sender in mind, but also seems unfulfilled, as the games do not seem to have left any lasting change in the behavior of their users.

The point made in the Dragon Kill Points text underlies a distinction between work and play. To question this distinction, we look at Minecraft, more specifically to one of the most famous fan videos uploaded to youtube - “Building Megaobjects in Minecraft”. In this video, a Minecraft player is showing one of his in-game constructions, a 1:1 scale model of Star Trek’s Enterprise, and asking for help to build some of its parts. It is clear that this player spent a lot of hours playing the game, and that he has put a lot of effort and planning into this task. This kind of endeavour looks very much like work.
As employee at mcDonalds, you are the subject of different achievement systems and gaming mechanics as part of the employee motivational system. Starting you carrier, you are obligated to set six month goals for your time of employment. When this happens, employees do not know that the system is very rewarding and that advancement in the mcDonalds hierarchy happens rappidly. Although, almost every employee succeeds in personal progress within the time period and is, of course, rewarded in doing so. Another game mechanic at play is the “Super Size” sales system that encouraged employees to persuade costumers into going larger when buying menus - this sales behaviour is rewarded by points that transfer into prizes at a later point.
These examples show how the line between work and play can be very thin. It’s also a current trend to try to bring ‘playfulness’ into work environments and bring fun to usual work-related tasks. But how is this intrumentality of play removing meaning from it?

Two of Foucaul’s concepts used in Silverman and Simon’s text are control and disciplinary power. The panopticon comparison is used to explain the community control made possible by the Dragon Kill Points system and its effects in ranking and power structure maintenance. In Facebook Games, namely Farmville, neighbors are of key-importance to progress in the game. These neighbors - people who are playing the same game and who accepted to become neighbors - have an active role in one’s game. They can visit each other’s farms, help each other and send each other gifts. The more a player interacts with her neighbors, the more she will benefit - progression, game money, and useful gifts. Community control is necessary for progression, giving it a role that is different from the role of dragon kill points in Everquest. In the case of Farmville, control doesn’t have a power-structure maintenance function, but it is necessary. Friends and friend-control is necessary for the progression in the game and it doesn’t have major ranking-consequences - it is a game rule.

The Foursquare example appears to illustrate Jacobsson’s text on Achievements. It was chosen because we considered it would be the ultimate example of a design whose core is achievements. Interestingly, the discussion in class brought a new question: “are badges the same as achievements?” Foursquare rewards its users with badges when they complete certain ‘goals’ - checking-in for the first time, being in the same local more than 3 times in one week, being in a boat, etc. When we first brought the case to class, we were seeing these as achievements, motivated by the argument that old Activision badges could be seen as achievements found in Jacobsson’s text. the interpretation of the difficulty or effort put into obtaining that achievement is, though, an interesting point. We would argue, though, that the way in which Foursquare implements badges resembles achievements in the sense that they motivate users/players in the struggle to reach a goal - become the mayor of a certain place. These badges are side-goals, they seem to have been thought of just as achievements. The fact that “less” effort is put into getting those badges or a certain game’s achievements relates to the nature of the game itself. If we consider foursquare a game, we can argue that it being a game that is ‘easy to play’ explains why its beadges/achievements are also ‘easy to get’. We can, inclusively, predict the existence of players who approach foursquare badges differently, maybe in ways that meet Jacobssson’s “approaches to achievements” - casuals, hunters and completists.

/ Anette and Maura

Readings:
Hendricks, "Play Reconsidered"
Jakobsson, "The Achievement Machine"
Silverman and Simon, "Dragon Kill Points in the Online Power Game"

Emergent Play and Control

Emergent play occurs when players explore creative ways of playing the game, thereby adding new dimensions to the game experience. If considering the game rules and game design as a three dimensional box wherein the game is taking place. Players would be either choose games with loose structures that posses flexibility to individual and emergent play - or seek the corners of the games structure for holes /glitches allowing them to bend the rules into emergent play. An example of emergence of glitch based strategic play in computer games is seen when players perform "Rocket Jumping" in Quake; the rocket blast allow the player to jump higher and further than normally - this is by many appreciated as creative problem solving in a virtual environment. And wether playing the glitches are the borderline to cheating is truly in the eye of the beholder, but human nature often accept when playing "the machine" anything goes - ei shooting through walls at your opponent in Wolfenstein - Whereas in PvP games same gaming behavior may not be accepted as fair gameplay...

Steinkuehler, "The Mangle of Play"

Jakobsson, "Playing with the Rules"

Chen, "Communication, Coordination, and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft"

Montola, "The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing"

Race and Sexuality

As games often are designed implicit for the main targeting group - "the white heterosexual male" - esthetics of character design and options within the game often evolve solely around this key users preferences, leaving development of broader gameplay choices behind. This off course boils down to the fact that creating and developing games are multi billion dollar business - and in the race to constantly create new games within budget and timeline for contemporary technology and design, development teams prioritize solutions that are are more likely make the game gross as expected.

This makes the mirroring of self harder for minorities within the gaming community; such as females, african americans and homosexuals. Earlier in class, during the discussion of Gender and Games, the example of the female gamer that felt both disconnected to and distracted by the over sexualized design of her female character that was, as she herself put it "the game was designed for teen boys". Same goes when choosing to play a black character, where the overall game design is not financially prioritized and therefore executed poorly lowering the overall game experience and connection to character. There are examples of how lighting design (or lack there off) make black characters disappear completely into shadows - and only few cases of how storytelling support or interact with the characters ethnicity.

Discussion is to wether game studios should work towards creating a brought variety of well executed games - as oppose to force the option of poorly executed broad variety into one game.

When playing japanese "Shit Games" like Cho Aniki gamers are offered to experience virtual worlds designed primarily on male homosexual esthetics. To especially western gamers these games portray homosexuality in a way not found elsewhere, and offer an opportunity to connect to a stereotyped male gay sexuality. However japanese pop culture tend to cultivate extreme cartoonish characters - and therefore sexualized stereotypes like "the kawaii lolita-ish schoolgirl" and "the hysterical gay man" are found as a natural extension of this youth culture in games and other genres of entertainment. However the japanese market contain a widely diverse spectra of games - these may be considered narrow in story/ game play/ design - as they often are loyal to the style japanese pop culture - and obviously do not have the same financial backing for game development as major studios. The notion that players will have to compromise in choosing between the design + gameplay of MMOs and the daring personality niche games, is to me a bit odd considering computer game entertainment is an industry seemingly big enough for broader diversity and greater "risk taking" in computer game development.

Japanese TV phenomenon "Hard Gay" is an example of the stereotypical asian pop culture gay superstar

Readings:

Hall, "The Whites of Their Eyes"

Leonard, "Virtual Gangstars Coming to a Suburban House Near You"

Shaw, "Putting the Gay in Games"

Gender and Gaming II

Gender is a significant driving factor when talking about access and use of computers. The readings and discussions this week elaborates how females (of any age) are expected to have primarily domestic interests and take greater responsibility for prioritizing leisure time than males. Gender role are taught to kids from early adolescent - and shape the ways we interact with technology, how we play sports - and interact with the opposite and our own gender in different social contexts.

Growing up I often experienced how being "the girl" made it a little more difficult for me getting access to parties, computer games, etc. than my brothers. I had to earn the privilege of playing computer games by doing my chores and homework first - And I often had to hand over my turn while playing to my younger brother, as I was expected to be the mature sensible older sister - Truth is I was not. When not supervised our own system of taking turns playing went smoother, than using the one forced upon us by the adults. By age we were only separated by a few years, he was always my equal and we were very likeminded. We never distinguished between boys' and girls' games as we never saw any of the marketing campaigns and we preferred the same games; Zelda for SEGA and Bubble Bobble for PC were the absolute favorites. We never knew that there were boys and girls games - we only distinguished between platform, combat and strategy games.

Design and marketing of computer games targeting adolescents have two target groups: The child and the adult who purchases the game. In "Pink Games" we refer to games that are directly designed for younger girls - these games are interpretations of the stereotypical girly world in which these girls are grown up. The critique of these games are that they are designed the way we expect little girls to prefer them, maybe not the way girls actually would want. A critique not only limited to little girls video games but to products for women all ages.

Currently trending in Scandinavia women age in their twenties and thirties are becoming frequent consumers of male targeted brands. They choose these masculine brands over the intended similar feminine product lines from the same supplier; Like Cola Zero (instead of Cola Light) and Gillette Mac III (instead of the Gillette Venus). Private research suggests that it is due to the same devaluation in design and branding for females that Pink Games presents to costumers. When asked women answer that these masculine brands "seem more honest" and "represents higher quality" oppose to the female targeted brands that are described as "offensive to women's intelligence" in marketing and communication. I wonder if these women rather would purchase age appropriate games that are marketed "gender neutral" for their own daughters in the future to come...

Readings:

Yee, "Maps of Digital Desires"

Lin, "Body, Space and Gendered Gaming Experiences"

Jenkins, "Complete Freedom of Movement"

Performance & Audience

As I unfortunately missed class - my reflection on this week's case study will be based on secondhand spectatorship (through conversations with my fellow students), personal experiences as game spectator and weekly the reedings.

Spectators at the Arcade

The gaming experience does not limit itself between the gamer and the screen - or the amongst the players within the virtual world. Spectators also enjoy a strong gaming experience and their mere presence contributes to the attitude of the performing players plus his/ hers decisions and performance level in the game. This gamer-spectator relationship is accessible for public view and study in the arcades, where common interest in games - and not personal ties - links the players and bystanders together as a group. In arcades we find that some individuals are pure spectators (coming only to see others play the games) but none mere gamers; As the players have to wait their turn there is a fluid shift in character; in the latency players become the audience at the chosen gaming machine. I particularly find this rotation of roles interesting; In the intermere the spectator's anticipation builds up to release in ultimate climax as a performing player him/ herself - the time waiting represents an excitement curve similar to ones seen within individual sports and other real life performances. This is the time to check out other players' style, skill level, get inspired, learn new tricks or combos and mentally prepare "to enter the stage" themselves. Motion-sensing games like Dance Dance Revolution are particularly exposing the player as control of the game leaves the private sphere and enters the public space of the arcade for everyone to see. Skillful players differentiate themselves, purposely to the less skillful. They incorporate showmanship into dancing routines that are frequently practiced both at the arcade and at home. And this, of course, naturally create a gap in attitude amongst different levels of players at the arcade; Here skillful confident players are claiming territory by acting like being in their own homes (both while gaming and waiting), where as the rookie players constantly are showing signs of awareness that this is in fact a public place and they may be watched while gaming. They use the time between games as an opportunity to see hardcore gamers in action - They do not have the confidence to leave their things unattended and they do their upmost efforts to avoid embarrassment by performing lesser in front of the local gaming superstars. Using Dance Dance Revolution as study Lin and Sun found that the hardcore gamers tend to make an effort to a) Not seemingly care about the audience when gaming, and b) Not wanting to blend in to the crowd as just an other onlooker while waiting. Even playing top levels perfectly these gamers still secretly noticed the crowd with probably a desire for praise and acceptance. This concludes with out a doubt at the social game of playing the arcades has equal importance to the actual virtual game - and few of both players and spectators focus only on thrill of the game taking place in the virtual world.

Readings:

McCrea, "Watching Starcraft Strategy and South Korea"

Lin and Sun, "The Role of Onlookers"

Lowood, "It's Not Easy Beeing green"

Embodied and Material Play

Technology is without a doubt merging with the human organism when inserting devices like pacemakers or hearing aids into the body - the foreign technological object actively contribute to the bodily functions and are therefore socially accepted almost as a "natural" part of the body. Turning to body mod upgrades like incorporating screens, chips or magnets into limbs are typically not understood by the majority but praised within technological advancing groups. These seemingly random and radical body modifications may prove to be an important experimental step towards a technological leap within medical care and our physical interaction with software.

When a routined gamer is playing a MMO game, his or hers focus is often fixed far within the virtual world and controlling the game turns to pure bodily reflexes target at activities happening on screen. One may say that hand /mouse /keyboard becomes connecting cords between the mental consciousness of the player and the virtual body of the in-game character. As the player experiences no gap between the physical- and the virtual world, the melt between physical body and technological circuit may be considered complete. However this example is very dependent on the gamers perception of this fluid connection between self and the game. As less experienced gamers often struggle with functionality and directing view perspective while moving, game experience turns fragmented, attention is directed to hand/ mouse/ keyboard and activities within the game distanced from self with the growing conscious of the presence of technology.

On the other hand when playing Wii or Connect skills within the game are not influential on perception of bodily interaction with technology. In short movement of the physical body is controlling the game and in doing so emphasizes our bodily consciousness and pulls some of the game experience back into the physical offline world.

The discussing of the merge between human and game controllers, led my thoughts to the movie "Gamer" that tells us, set as a drama of ethics, the story about how advancement of games and controller technology challenges the basic virtues of human nature, as we are able to control real people within physical gaming worlds. A classic image of how we humans fear the progress of the unknow technological leap ahead.

Readings:

Dovey & Kennedy, "Bodies and Machines"

Simon, "Geek Chic"

Kirkpatrick, "Controller, Hand, Screen"

Game. Is. On.