UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Realizing the Real: The Evolution of Immersion in Videogames

by

Theron Davis

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE

CALGARY, ALBERTA SEPTEMBER, 2011

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1*1 Canada Abstract:

Through the work of Jean Baudrillard this thesis proposes a poststructuralist argument to conceptualize and understand immersion in videogames. Looking towards areas that have been openly described by leading games scholars as underrepresented, the project engages in a thorough dissection of videogames as a unique medium with unique concerns. Tracing the medium's evolution, several critical junctures are identified and examined. These junctures are compared to BaudriUard's three orders of simulation and demonstrate that BaudriUard's work, in particular his work as a response to Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, exhibits interesting parallels with how videogames developed and function. The significance of BaudriUard's commentary on signs and simulation is most clear when conceptualizing new augmented reality videogames. These hyperreal videogames, incongruous with structuralist binaries of oppositional difference, reaffirm the need for a postructural exposition.

n Acknowledgements

I would like to extend many thanks to my supervisor Bart Beaty for allowing me the freedom to write my own project, the guidance to ensure it was well articulated, and for the friendly encouragement along the way.

I'm happy to thank my parents, Randy and Elaine Davis, for not only giving me a brain, but also for showing me how to use it... I won't say who was responsible for which.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to the friends and loved ones with whom I have shared this experience. I am indebted to them for their care and support.

in TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv List of Figures v

Introduction P.l Thesis Outline P.7 Chapter I - Literature Review P.10 Videogames P. 12 Immersion P. 17 Saussure & Baudrillard P.20 Conclusion P.30 Chapter II - Games, Realism, and Representation P.32 The Nature of Play P.36 Narratology vs. Ludology (a brief note) P.48 Genres & Aesthetic Qualities P.50 Representation & Realism P.61 Conclusion P.68 Chapter III - Three Orders P.69 A Brief Flirtation with Structuralism & Baudrillard P.76 First Order P.78 Second Order P.81 Third Order P.85 Revisiting Presence & Immersion P.89 Conclusion P.91 Chapter IV - Augmented Reality P.92 Augmented Reality P.95 Conclusion P. 105 Conclusion P. 106

References P.l 11

IV List of Figures:

Figure 1.1 - Call of Duty: Black Ops in Game Screen Shot (P.3 5)

Figure 1.2 -Angry Birds in game Screenshot (P.35)

Figure 2 - Alien Tripod looms over head in Half Life 2 (P.51)

Figure 3.1 -FIFA 2004 (P.53)

Figure 3.2 - Championship Manager 4 (P.53)

Figure 4.1 - In game screenshot of Grand Turismo 5 (P.57)

Figure 4.2 - Madden NFL 9 in game screenshot (P.58)

Figure 4.3 -Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (P.59)

Figure 4.4 - Classic Tetris on the Nintendo Gameboy (P. 59)

Figure 5.1 - Wacraft: Ores and Humans game play screen Shot (P.69)

Figure 5.2 - War craft II: Beyond the Dark Portal game play screen shot (P.71)

Figure 5.3 - War craft III game play screen shot (P. 72)

Figure 5.4 - Felquina, Level 85 Blood-Elf Hunter perched on a cliff in Strangle Thorn Vale (P.74)

Figure 6 - Quake (P.83)

Figure 7 - Picture of players congregating in Animal Crossing: City Folk (P.84)

Figure 8.1 - Fifth and Sixth-Generation Console Sales (P.92)

Figure 8.2 - Seventh-Generation Console Sales (P.94)

Figure 9 - WorkSnug Visual Interface (P.99)

Figure 10.1 - Mobile Computing System (P. 101)

Figure 10.2 - Game screenshot (P. 101)

v

1

Introduction

As this project was being written, a performance studies PhD graduate named Jane

McGonigal saw a short lived rise in popularity as her first book Reality Is Broken: Why

Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World was published. She seemed to have timed her publication on the crest of a wave of public interest: accolades rolled in from Oprah Winfrey's O magazine; she found herself on the Colbert Report in February,

2011, and only a month after her book had been released it landed on the New York Times best seller list. While her project sought to answer different questions, and went about doing so in an altogether different way, it drew my attention by starting from a point of great interest. The opening line of McGonigal's (2011) book reads as follows, "Gamers have had enough of reality. They are abandoning it in droves - a few hours here, an entire weekend there, sometimes every spare minute of every day for stretches at a time - in favour of simulated environments and online games" (p.5). As McGonigal continues it becomes apparent that her intention is not to reduce the amount of time gamers invest in games, but rather to refocus gaming so as to deal with real world problems. This kind of "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude ultimately shows an attempt at refurbishing the medium in such a way that it could solve problems that are "worth it." The part of

McGonigal's thinking that sticks out, and highlights a primary interest in this project, is the immediate assumption that videogames and simulated environments are separate from reality. McGonigal echoes the work of Edward Castranova's Exodus to the Virtual World:

How Online Fun is Changing Reality (2008) when she makes the sensational claim that gamers are "abandoning reality in droves." This alarming proclamation affirms little more, however, than a lack of consideration made in perceiving the medium. Whether it is fear or, 2 as McGonigal proposes, excitement this "exodus" is a concern that pervades many institutions in our contemporary society.

It is not my intention to deny McGonigal the righteous authority of her statistics. In fact reviewing some of them may serve to highlight the true significance of videogames in today's global community. For example, in the United states alone there are 183 million active gamers; individuals who, in surveys, report that they play computer or video games

"regularly" (Newzoo, 2010). In the global community there are more than "4 million gamers in the Middle East, 10 million in Russia, 105 million in India, 10 million in

Vietnam, 10 million in Mexico, 13 million in Central and South America, 15 million in

Australia, 17 million in South Korea, 100 million in Europe, and 200 million in China"

(McGonigal, 2011, p.4). These numbers are impressive, and speak to the seriousness of having a proper understanding of a medium being heavily invested in by so many people.

No matter how you conceive the situation, with so many people playing, there are an enormous number of hours being spent on, or in, videogames.

Moreover, the video game industry is growing at an exponential rate and has become a juggernaut in the marketplace; rivalling and even surpassing motion pictures in revenues. Even as early as 1999 videogames equalled motion pictures with domestic revenues of $7.4 billion (Graser 2000). The industry hasn't slowed down and continues to play a major part in the global economy. From 1998 to 2001, the videogame industry became "the fastest growing segment of the entertainment industry with a growth rate of 15 to 25 percent" (Williams, 2002). Today, the sales of major systems and games such as

Grand Theft Auto IV (developed by Rockstar Games), which took in over $500 million in sales during its opening week (Ritchell, 2008), produce some of the largest returns in the 3

entertainment world. In context, Grand Theft Auto IV s income was more than that of the

opening weekend of Spider-Man 3 (Associated Press, 2007).

To suggest, however, that videogames are inciting a mass exodus from reality

demonstrates a naivete that must be corrected. Any close examination of videogames will

reveal that as the medium has evolved it has not drawn gamers away from reality, but rather has begun to complicate the boundary between the experiential phenomenal world

and the virtual. It would be difficult to argue that this boundary was altered by videogames

alone, or even that those directing the evolution of the medium were entirely responsible.

As Jean BaudriUard (1976) suggests, "today everyday, political, social, historical,

economic, etc. reality has already incorporated the hyperrealist dimension of simulation so

that we are now living entirely within the 'aesthetic' hallucination of reality" (p.75).

Furthermore, BaudriUard reveals in tracing the vicissitudes of the subject in present-day

society that the individual is no longer a part of the real world as they once were. With

changes in communication, the world has changed in kind. As BaudriUard (1988) writes,

We will have to suffer this new state of things, this forced extroversion of all interiority, this forced injection of all exteriority that the categorical imperative of communication literally signifies. There also, one can perhaps make use of the old metaphors of pathology. If hysteria was the pathology of the exacerbated staging of the subject, a pathology of expression, of the body's theatrical and operatic conversion; and if paranoia was the pathology of organization, of the structuration of a rigid and jealous world; then with communication and information, with the immanent promiscuity of all these networks, with their continual connections we are now in a new form of schizophrenia. No more hysteria, no more projective paranoia, properly speaking, but this state of terror proper to the schizophrenic: too great a proximity of everything, the unclean promiscuity of everything which touches, invests and penetrates without resistance, with no halo of private protection, not even his own body, to protect him anymore, (p. 132) 4

Thus communication has exposed the subject to change. As communication technologies proliferated they altered the way the human subject was presented to and received the world that surrounds them.

It would be possible to suggest that in this postmodern context humanity is abandoning reality, but the more important observation would be to recognize that the way we conceive reality has changed. So it becomes questionable what "real" world McGonigal supposes gamers are leaving behind. The concept of reality, also described as the experiential phenomenal world, appears throughout this exploration. While fundamental, reality as a concept is not easily defined, rarely agreed upon, and regularly taken for granted. The majority of the authors cited do not explicitly qualify the term, McGonigal being no exception. This may in part be a side effect of the challenge that comes from attempting to thoroughly describe the complexities of "reality." To elucidate the concept exhaustively would require an extensive analysis of the many differing philosophies that have been posited over hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In an aim to focus this concept for the purposes of this exploration, and in seeking to avoid an unproductive foray into a highly complex issue, it would be logical to appeal to those theorists who are most fundamental to this study. Unfortunately, looking to Saussure and Baudrillard provides little help in identifying a clear and simple definition. Gary Genosko (1994) describes how

"in the Cours, Saussure paid virtually no attention to the status of the referent since it was an extra-linguistic entity" (p.51). So although the referent, that to which the sign refers, is critically important, Saussure made no effort to define it precisely.

Additionally, Baudrillard refers regularly to the real, and the referent, but always in such a way that they are inaccessible; ghost references that cannot be recovered. As will be 5 discussed further on, it is through this denial of the referent's privilege that Baudrillard suggests the real is realized. At this juncture, therefore, reality (or the referent) should be understood as the concrete physical/material world. This world is, according to Baudrillard however, entirely inaccessible. As Baudrillard writes in Why Hasn't Everything Already

Disappeared (2007)

By their exceptional faculty of knowledge, human beings, while giving meaning, value and reality to the world, at the same time begin a process of dissolution ('to analyse' literally means to 'dissolve')... By representing things to ourselves, by naming them and conceptualizing them, human beings call them into existence and at the same time hasten their doom... I shall stress the total ambiguity of our relation to the real and its disappearance. Behind every image, something disappeared. And that is the source of its fascination... According to the official version, we worship the real and the reality principle, but - and this is the source of all the current suspense - is it, in fact, the real we worship, or its disappearance? (pp. 11, 32)

Baudrillard never sought to qualify a concept that had, to him, already disappeared.

Furthermore, to suggest that reality should be understood only as the physical world is insufficient. The "real" world often includes a multitude of connotations and inferences to things beyond atoms and molecules. So let us turn briefly to Stephen Hawking (2010) in order that we may garner some succinct sense of what is commonly meant by the term reality:

Philosophers from Plato onward have argued over the years about the nature of reality. Classical science is based on the belief that there exists a real external world whose properties are definite and independent of the observer who perceives them. According to classical science, certain objects exist and have physical properties, such as speed and mass, that have well-defined values. In this view our theories are attempts to describe those objects and their properties, and our measurements and perceptions correspond to them. Both observer and observed are parts of a world that has an objective existence, and any distinction between them has no meaningful significance. (p.43) 6

Hawking provides a fair description of the reality, which is in this case, being referred to.

Additionally, it corresponds to the referent reality Saussure and Baudrillard discuss. This project will aim to develop this understanding further, however, through demonstrating how Saussure and Baudrillard's theories identify an alternate conception of reality wherein language and symbols are the source of meaning. Appealing, in particular, to how videogames have influenced our apprehension of what's real is precisely at the heart of this exploration. To suggest that reality is being abandoned, a reality that pertains only to what one can assume to be the concrete physical world, leaves little room for understanding how these simulations are responsible for constructing meaning about the world. And they are responsible for constructing meaning. It is, therefore, the primary aims of this research project to demonstrate, through tracing parallels between Baudrillard's history of the evolution of simulation and the evolution of videogames, how videogames have encouraged a dissolution of the boundary between the classical idea of reality and a new postmodern reality wherein virtual experiences have become real in and of themselves.

One way that reality has traditionally been ordered, through language, proves to bear some similarities to how videogames operate. Recognizing synergies in these thought processes will shed light on the way videogames function in our postmodern context. In seeking to enrich the discussion, therefore, this project will introduce the structuralist ideals that are at the core of the issue and challenge them. Identifying the heart of video-

"gameness" will also be significant. Gameplay should not be overlooked, as it often is.

Furthermore, it will be necessary that the discussion speak very specifically about videogames and find a means of separating them. All games are not alike. In essence, it will be the aims of this project to try and provide some insight into how videogames make 7 connections to the world, as well as how games immerse us, and what they are immersing us in.

Thesis Outline

The organization of this project is as follows:

Chapter I lays the foundations for the topics discussed. It starts at the beginning, describing the innovations made during the birth of the medium. The fundamentals of videogames are identified, with interactivity being paramount. Additionally, this chapter discusses the state of videogame scholarship and points towards areas which require further attention. While every medium develops its own systems of analysis and examination borrowing from other fields, it is vitally important to recognize the unique interactive nature of videogames and expand the discussion accordingly. In accordance with providing the interactive qualities of videogames their due, the gameplay element emerges as a significant and underrepresented topic. New theoretical tools are introduced as a potentially valuable point of departure for speaking about the nature of the medium. A brief survey of existing scholarship points towards some of the insufficiencies inherent to them. The interactions between Ferdinand de Saussure's and Jean Baudrillard's theories are highlighted in order to demonstrate that they offer up a line of reasoning that is useful for discussing the nature of videogames. Ultimately this chapter establishes that videogames provide some unique capacity for immersion. Lastly, and before moving on, a quick description of Baudrillard's three orders is provided.

Chapter II takes up the challenge of looking very specifically at the concepts established in the first chapter, and in so doing uncovers a number of other concerns. It 8 identifies that videogames offer up different kinds of immersion based on the degree to which they emulate realistic conventions, or alternatively, how they represent unrealistic conventions realistically. Essentially it draws attention to the importance of investigating how games represent reality, how they abstract reality, and how they represent fantasy realistically. In recognizing that games are capable of providing multiple levels of immersion it therefore becomes important to dissect the concept of game as well as finding some means of differentiating them. A hearty discussion surrounding the nature of play enlivens and enriches the concept of a videogame, and speaks to the nature of the gameplay element. Following this, a discussion surrounding the problem of adopting traditional genre theory' demonstrates that games must be understood based on their aesthetic qualities.

Aesthetic, however, is expanded beyond the visual to implicate everything the gamer experiences while playing. Last, but certainly not least, chapter II explores the concepts of representation and realism; core qualities in recognizing how videogames and Baudrillard's simulations interact.

Chapter III dives into Baudrillard's three orders after a brief review of some structuralist considerations. The theoretical challenge Baudrillard brings to the table not only emancipates the sign from needing to signify something, but also through my analogy offers videogames the same freedom. The sign becomes equivalent to the real in

Baudrillard's work, and thus it is proposed that videogames have followed a similar evolution. A comparison is drawn, therefore, between the three orders of simulacra and three pivotal stages in the development of videogames as a medium. From this, three orders of videogames are uncovered; each one indicative of a particular kind of immersion. 9

Tracing these historic junctures and explaining Baudrillard's work leads into the last chapter.

Chapter IV demonstrates through examples how augmented reality technologies have been incorporated into the medium. The combination of the fundamentally interactive videogame and augmented reality provides a powerful example of how third order videogames are being realized. Emerging from the heavily theoretical analysis of chapters

I, II, and III this chapter reveals some practical and easily observable instances of how videogames communicate an experience that is difficult to separate from the material phenomenal world. Drawing the project to its conclusion, chapter IV seeks to demonstrate the significance of this particular direction in the development of videogames. As augmented reality videogames become more immersive, contemporary understandings, like that of McGonigal and Castranova, will become increasingly antiquated.

The integration and synthesis of virtual and physical worlds is contributing to drastic and influential changes. As gamers eagerly continue to foot the bill, developers are creating technologies and innovations at such a rapid pace that it's nearly impossible to predict what these technologies might accomplish. Play, as a feature of our culture and our species, is a long lasting institution that is critical to our growth. What was once only possible in our imaginations is now becoming an integral and real part of our daily lives. It is the aim of this project, therefore, to match the innovation of game designers with an equally innovative way of understanding videogames. 10

Chapter I - Literature Review

On December 14, 1948 a patent was issued for the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement

Device.1 Inspired by radar displays used during World War II the amusement device had only one game. Players were able to control, through the manipulation of several knobs, the speed and the curve of a simulated missile being fired at a stationary target depicted on the screen (Winter, 1996). Designed by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann the amusement device is commonly understood to be the first computer game ever invented.

When initially conceived and introduced this game, and the others like it that followed, seemed little more than trivial experiments in a computer lab. Many of these early applications were primarily visual demonstrations, some without any way of manipulating the results. Most often they were a means by which to show off computational innovations.

It wasn't long, however, before it was clear that videogames had more to offer. In fact, in

1961 three institute fellows at MIT, Wayne Wiitanen, Stephen Russell, and J. Martin

Graetz, brought their creative minds together to produce a groundbreaking game called

Spacewar!. Beyond showing off contemporary computer processing, Spacewar! sought to provide an exciting and interactive gaming experience. In retelling how the trio initiated the project Graetz recalls that they had intended for Spacewar! to satisfy three criteria:

1. It should show off as many of the computer's resources as possible, and tax those resources to the limit. 2. Within a consistent framework, it should be interesting, which means, that every run should be different, [and] 3. It should make the viewer a participant - in other words, it should be an interactive game. (Burnham, 2001, p.45 italics added)

This marked a move away from videogames as experiments, and towards videogames as a new form of interactive entertainment. The designers incorporated elements from other

1 http://www,google.com/patents?vid=2455992 US Patent 2,455,992 11

"demonstration programs" of the time, but ultimately sought to develop something interesting and engaging for the user. In order to avoid confusion, a clear definition for the term interactivity needs to be established. There is some ambiguity in the concept for every medium requires a certain degree of interaction. A reader must read the words on a page and make sense of them as they do so. A spectator, similarly, must make sense of the moving images and sounds of a film. With videogames, however, there is a different kind of interactivity at play. Lev Manovich (2001) relates, when discussing how new media is interactive, that

In contrast to old media where the order of presentation is fixed, the user can now interact with a media object. In the process of interaction the user can choose which elements to display or which paths to follow, thus generating a unique work. In this way the user becomes the co-author of the work. (p.55)

As an integral component of any videogame, the birth of this new interactive model was a seminal idea; one that would have far greater consequences than any of the game designers had originally conceived. With the mechanics of the game taking precedence in the design process, and the player acting as a co-author in the work, the designers brought their love of science fiction from the 30s to life by translating it into an interactive, albeit primitive, videogame.

Following Spacewar! it took approximately ten years for videogames to escape the university computer lab to become widely available to the public. Videogames became accessible to the public in two ways. With the launch of the Magnavox Odyssey and Atari home entertainment systems in 1972, videogames could be privately owned and operated by the average user. However, the original retail price of seventy-five dollars2 for a

2 http://www.computercloset.org/MagnavoxOdyssey.htm 12 personal system may have precluded some from having access to these new systems. The games were, therefore, also made available through coin operated arcade cabinets. In fact coin operated arcade games actually beat Magnavox and Atari to the punch when Nolan

Bushnell's Computer Space, which had been heavily influenced by the MIT project

Spacewar!, was produced and distributed in 1971. Common to both the public arcades and the private systems, however, was the idea of interactivity. Active engagement from the participant remained paramount, and unique to the medium. As a testament to the immediate popularity of this new phenomenon by 1981, a decade following the release of

Computer Space, the arcade game industry in the United States was worth $5 billion (Wolf,

2008, p.xviii).

Videogames

Videogames have, since these humble beginnings, become extremely prolific and drastically matured in sophistication. The arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technologies since the 80s has contributed greatly to the growth and increased functionality of videogames. As Graetz and his peers had anticipated, or perhaps encouraged, videogames continue to supersede their functions as benchmarks for the technological platforms which drive them forward, providing increasingly engaging levels of interaction.

Owing in part to a symbiotic relationship with innovations in computing technology, videogames have tended to evolve in sudden and drastic shifts. In response to the implications that accompanied these drastic shifts, academia has also demonstrated an interest in the topic, turning its attention to this rising phenomenon primarily in the 90s through the foundational work of Marsha Kinder's Playing with Power: Movies,

Television, and Video Games from Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1991), 13

Leonard Herman's Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Home Video Games (1994), Espen

Aarseth's Cybertext: Perspectives in Ergodic Literature (1997), and Janet Murray's

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (1997). Bernard Perron and Mark J.P. Wolf provide a concise analysis of the field as it was, and how it is, when they relate that "the definition of its object and the vindication of its examination are certainly representative of the first phase in the defining of a new field," however,

"videogame studies have since moved on to shed light on the cultural political, and ideological dimensions of videogames" (2009, p.4). Furthermore, Melanie Swalwell and

Jason Wilson recognize that "digital games are not just games: they circulate as commodities, new media technologies, and items of visual culture, and are embedded in complex social practices" (2008, p.2). Game studies have, therefore, matured to a point where the number of topics, approaches, problems, and questions under consideration are beyond enumeration. The field of videogame studies exists today intent on shoring up the progress it has made in vindicating the examination of its object; but borrowing from many disciplines it struggles, as does any interdisciplinary field, to establish a healthy balance between conventions and innovative thinking.

Perron and Wolf further elaborate that much of videogame literature demonstrates

"it is possible to apply existing terms, ideas, concepts, and methods to the video game in a useful and interesting manner," while pointing out that, "new theoretical tools are needed"

(2009, p.4). At this point in time studying videogames has, therefore, moved into a second phase. Now that it has its foundation as an academic field of study it must "articulate its exact nature and scope, codify its tools and terminology, and organize its findings into a coherent discipline" (Wolf, Perron, 2009, p.4). In order to usher in this new coherence new 14 modes of theoretical analyses must be expounded. This is confirmed in the work of Espen

Aarseth, Marku Eskelinen and Gonzalo Frasca as it is consistently indicated that traditional modes of interpretation from print narratology, hypertext theory, film, theatre, and drama studies are beneficial but not entirely sufficient in discussing videogames (Aarseth, 2001,

2002; Eskelinen, 2001; Frasca 2003).

In particular, as game studies seeks to articulate the critical issues, Swalwell and

Wilson point towards an area that deserves more attention,

As interactive media, the experience of playing digital games - 'that gameplay element' - is central to their significance. The highlighting of game-play here indicates the crucial importance of the experiential and the somatic in players' experiences and apprehension of games, an element that has not to date been accorded the prominence it deserves in the nascent field of game studies. (2008, p.7)

Attesting to the resonance of the criteria Spacewar! sought to satisfy, the importance of understanding games as fundamentally and most uniquely interactive media continues to be of primary concern. However, this "gameplay element" seems to have been overlooked in lieu of other concerns. As videogames fought for prominence and acceptance in the academic arena through the work of Murray, Aarseth, and others, they were inevitably also tied down to debates of positive and negative effect. When writing in 2009 Chris Evans,

Joseph Kahne, and Ellen Middaugh, maintain that the main areas of research considered to date in the field of video game studies have been for the most part interested in relating games to either aggressive behaviour in youth or methods of educating (p.2). Similarly

Patrick Williams and Jonas Smith (2007, p.3) suggest, some social scientists have for years searched for causal relationships between games and social psychological conditions such as aggressive behaviour (Anderson 2004; Anderson and Bushman 2001; Arriaga, Esteves,

Carneiro, and Monteiro 2006; Ulhmann and Swanson 2004) and addiction (Bellamy and 15

Hanewicz 2001; see also Griffiths and Davies 2005). It is in part due to the persistence of these perpetuated moral panics that the growth of game studies as a field was stunted, and restricted to a narrow range of topics. Videogames had become a culturally besieged phenomenon, largely understood in the context of a good or bad influence in the early

2000s. While the debate surrounding videogames and effects still rages (Przybylski, Rigby,

Ryan, 2009; Huesman, 2010) this project wishes to move beyond these narrow interests into something more expansive. This thesis aims to get to the heart of the gameplay element that Swalwell and Wilson discuss, and intends to do so through the proposition of new theoretical tools.

In order to begin proposing these new theoretical tools it is necessary to identify what videogames are, while keeping in mind that, as Joost van Dreunen reiterates, the need for unique perspectives is vital. In his article titled, "The Aesthetic Vocabulary of Video

Games" (2008), Dreunen suggests that tropes such as Murray's 'participatory narratives'

(Murray, 1997, pp.185), Aarseth's 'ergodic texts' (Aarseth, 1997, pp.1), or Frasca's focus on socio-political game mechanics (Frasca, 2001) provide a starting point, but that they do not provide a conclusive definition of videogames. As previously mentioned, it is a delicate process presenting new ideas in face of preserving conventions already established. Given the nature of videogames, and the myriad ways in which they are taken up and studied, providing an inclusive definition of videogames would not only be impossible, but also undesirable. Swalwell and Wilson confirm this when they describe that, "the 'purity' of any medium is constantly, gloriously sullied by the frenetic exchange of images, techniques, and concepts between media and the human beings that enact them" (2008, p.4). Furthermore, it has been shown in many other fields, such as Film Studies (Perkins, 16

1990; Carroll, 2003) that attempts to define a medium end up prescribing what it ought to be rather than reacting to what it is or has been. Videogames are a particularly sensitive case as even something as simple as the terminology with which they are referred to can be expressed multiple ways ("computer game," "video game," "arcade game," "digital game," etc.). For the purposes of a starting point, however, Frasca provides a definition in the broadest sense. Videogames are, therefore any "form of computer-based entertainment software, either textual or image-based, using any electronic platform such as personal computers or consoles and involving one or multiple players in a physical or networked environment" (Frasca, 2001, p.4). With this particularly sparse definition on hand the object of study can presumably be apprehended. This will serve only as a point of departure, however, and will bear exceptions before the project is done. Keeping in mind that this project seeks to embark upon an expansive exploration of the gameplay element, recognizing that care must be made in preserving the conventions of established literature, it should be stated also that fundamental to all videogames is interactivity. Videogames are not only fundamentally interactive but they also have cultural, political, and ideological dimensions. They are traded as commodities, new media technologies, and items of visual culture, and are embedded in complex social practices. Because of these qualities they also provide a unique way of incorporating the individual as an actor or participant. Through this incorporation of the individual, videogames are uniquely equipped to provide unprecedented kinds of immersion. Moving forward games and videogames will be explored further in Chapter II.

Coming back to the initial introduction of Spacewar!, it should be apparent that interactivity and engagement are fundamental to any exploration of videogames. This 17 fundamental quality sets it apart from other media and allows for the individual participant to become immersed in particular ways. Exploring interactivity and engagement requires that special attention be directed towards the medium's formal structures. This type of exploration will also necessarily provide a fruitful analysis of the gameplay element. It's at this juncture, therefore, that the discussion must navigate towards the concept of immersion, and present a theoretical model with which to expand existing literature.

Immersion

As B.J. Fogg, a Stanford University psychologist and behavioural scientist, argues

"a video game is very sneaky when it comes to persuasion. Our minds have a difficult time distinguishing between reality and simulation, especially when you suspend disbelief and your mind is absorbed in making sense of the game" (Quirk, 2008, pp.43-44). While this is true of many media, videogames seem to function, as Fogg suggests, in a particularly

"sneaky" way. Being actively engaged in driving the experience forward, or choosing to subvert its natural course, tends to engage the user/gamer in ways other media are unable to. To begin, therefore, it will serve to briefly identify the way immersion in virtual environments (videogames) is being taken up in academia currently and then suggest a theoretical perspective that could possibly expand the way in which we perceive these interactions. The selected series of paradigmatic exemplars in the following pages will seek to inform the discussion; but this will in no way be an attempt to provide an exhaustive overview.

With this in mind, an excellent point of departure is the work of Alison McMahan.

McMahan begins by identifying that when discussing immersion there is more going on than simply the sensation of "getting into" a game. In any gaming experience levels of 18 diegetic and non diegetic engagement exist. For example, playing a game and sympathizing with a non player character in the storyline may be considered a form of diegetic engagement. On the other hand the process of strategizing and showing off prowess to other players during and after the game are inherently non diegetic. The distinction between these two levels of engagement remains, according to McMahan (2003), unclear with no specific terminology yet proposed to clarify the issue (p. 68). This concept of diegetic and non diegetic engagement demonstrates an interesting anxiety in scholarship surrounding videogames. The dissolution of the boundary between the game experience and "the real world" seems to provoke an uncomfortable reaction, and thus the work of scholars like Murray is often relied upon to re-establish the conventional binary.

Murray (1997), in her book titled Hamlet on the Holodeck: the Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, affirms the traditional conception of immersion in virtual environments as being fundamentally a transportation of the individual's consciousness into "a completely other reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus" (pp. 98-99). Herein lies the most basic, and reoccurring, definition of immersion. A stirring narrative and an elaborately simulated reality provide the context for the eclipse of the world that surrounds us. It is not necessary that videogames present a total photo- or audio- realism in order for a virtual environment to produce, in the participant, a sense of immersion. It is, however, understood that the individual is absorbed into an illusory simulation which induces a false sense of being there. Here the discourse relies on the binary of reality and virtual reality as two opposite and incongruous concepts.

Identifying that immersion is understood to take place in a secondary space requires that the concept of presence be considered. Jonathan Steuer (1995) provides a preliminary 19 definition of presence when he describes it as "closely related to the phenomenon of distal attribution or externalization, which refers to the referencing of our perceptions to an external space beyond the limits of the sensory organs themselves" (p. 35). In other words: presence as the sense of being there. Thus, the gamer is transported by perceiving their presence in a secondary space beyond the limits of the sensory organs themselves. There remains, however, a clear distinction in Steuer's work between reality and the virtual spaces in which people extend themselves. As he suggests, the environment in which individuals perceive themselves can "either be a temporally or spatially distant 'real' environment (for instance, a distant space viewed through a camera), or an animated but nonexistent virtual world synthesized by a computer (e.g., the animated 'world' created in a video game)" (Steuer, 1995, p.36). This research, therefore, also relies on the binary of reality and non-reality.

One final consideration, that is more sympathetic to the new theoretical perspective

I propose, comes from Nobuyoshi Terashima who elaborates on immersive experiences by talking about them in relation to a hyperreality. In his book, HyperReality: Paradigm for the Third Millennium, Terashima (2003) suggests that a "HyperReality is a technological capability that makes possible the seamless integration of physical reality, human intelligence, and artificial intelligence" (p.8). This indicates that through the integration of technology and the participant, aspects of reality can be simulated and reproduced in order to induce a hyperreality. This conceptualization introduces a unique theoretical perspective.

Clearly drawing from Baudrillard's concept of hyperreality, Terashima's writing suggests that the integration of the real world with the imaginary and artificial life of a hyperworld is no longer a question of "how?" but "when?" Terashima, therefore, situates himself within a 20 post-structuralist framework. While he encourages the possibility of a seamless integration of physical and artificial reality, however, he nonetheless remains philosophically tied to privileging the (physical) real world and maintaining a distinction between the virtual world and that which it represents. Hence, it is still necessary to continue to explore alternative ideas.

Saussure & Baudrillard

When briefly surveying some of the existing literature that deals specifically with immersion, it becomes apparent that although these projects have presented interesting discussions they are ill-equipped to properly describe in full detail the intricacies of the gaming experience provided by contemporary videogames. It is the intention of this project, therefore, to refocus these efforts by introducing an alternative theoretical framework. The existing literature relies too heavily on structuralist binaries of oppositional difference. There is an attempt being made to explain immersive experiences by demonstrating the differences between the virtual experience and the "real" world.

While this has provided, as previously mentioned, a sufficient starting point, these structuralist accounts fail to capture the true complexity of immersion in videogames. Jean

Baudrillard provides an important ontological consideration that in short suggests that the possibility of rediscovering an absolute level of the real is no longer possible. "Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible" (Baudrillard, 1981, p. 19).

Borrowing from Saussurean structuralist terminology Baudrillard suggests that the object to which the sign refers has become inaccessible. Inspired by this, therefore, I would suggest that it may be possible to escape understanding videogame experiences as simply an immersion into an illusory and nonexistent reality. Through elucidating Baudrillard's 21 discussions on simulation, and the way it has been positioned in relation to Saussure, his theory may contribute to understanding immersive experiences and the gameplay element more intricately.

Structuralism provides a constructive framework within which to begin. Initially understood within the field of architecture the term structure evoked a similar meaning to its colloquial definition today. In an article from the Journal of Documentation, published in 2005, Gary and Marie Radford demonstrate that, "it [structuralism] referred to the

'action, practice, or process of building or construction' and 'the way in which an edifice, machine, implement, etc. is made or put together.'" This definition was broadened in the

17th and 18th century to refer to a variety of structures, including those within anatomy, geology, and mathematics. In biology, for example, structure was used to understand the way that the component parts of a body are mutually connected and independent of one another.

The connotations of structure, however, were also adopted and applied to the study of language. Gary and Marie Radford point to Ferdinand de Saussure for having built the bridge into linguistics. They note that, "the application of the notion of structure to language and the social sciences in general came from developments in the field of linguistics through the seminal Course in General Linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure"

(Radford & Radford, 2005). Radford and Radford (2005) go on to explain that Saussure was trying to propose "a scientific model of language as a closed system of elements and rules." Keep in mind that a mutually connected but independent system of elements and rules will sound familiar when exploring the proposed definitional work of Chapter II.

Most importantly at this point, however, is to note that Saussure's innovative thinking 22 brought structuralism to the social sciences generally and has consequently had an enormous impact through conceiving this theoretical paradigm.

Looking more closely at Saussure's formulation demonstrates that there is no natural order present in the construction of a language, but rather there is a shared system of relations, from which each individual draws, that is primarily important. As he affirms when he argues that, "for some a language, reduced to its essentials, is a nomenclature: a list of terms corresponding to a list of things. [This] leads one to assume that the link between a name and thing is something quite unproblematic, which is far from being the case" (Saussure, 1972, p.66). Language, according to Saussure, is not a nomenclature (a list of terms corresponding to a list of things). A language is a convention upon which a community of people have agreed. Saussure therefore complicates the way words are understood by suggesting that it is convention that provides meaning. Beyond complicating the way words are understood, Saussure is in effect making an ontological claim. By disassociating words and things from being intuitively connected Saussure is speaking to the way we access and formulate thoughts about reality.

In order to explore this conjecture consider how Saussure illustrates a series of linguistic principles. In expounding upon the system of language and its functions he proposes that we understand words as two things encompassed in one concept. A word, therefore, generally refers to the "combination of a concept and a sound pattern" (Saussure,

1972, p.67). The concept being the meaning we associate and the sound pattern being the actual signal with which the meaning can be derived. However, Saussure complicates the issue further choosing to rename concept and sound pattern respectively to signification and signal. Furthermore, Saussure's (1972) first principle is that "the link between signal 23 and signification is arbitrary" (p.67). Thus we cannot simply re-envisage the connection between the two as an unproblematic nomenclature. The simplest proof to defend that there is no internal link between signification and signal is the existence of different languages.

For example Saussure (1972) purports that there is no internal connection between "the idea of 'sister' and the French sequence of sounds s-o-r, which acts as its signal" (p.67).

The arbitrariness of the signal implies a semiotic connection. Saussure (1972) covers that signification "rests in principle upon a collective habit, or on convention" (p.68). Bringing this back to the task at hand, Saussure is proposing that we understand linguistics as providing meaning through a system of interrelation. The signal itself doesn't hold the meaning we associate to it. The signification, meaning we associate, is conveyed through collective habit or convention.

Saussure goes on to state that words derive meaning from their relation to one another. This becomes abundantly clear as he continues to describe his second principle.

Saussure establishes that the linguistic signal is necessarily presented in a temporal space and that this space is measured in one dimension. Put simply, words are arranged in a line.

In addition to the meaning assigned through convention comes the manner in which words are arranged. For Saussure, although this concept seems elementary, it is equally as important as the implications of the first principle. Consider for example how when discussing the linear character of the signal Saussure (1972) relates that,

The whole mechanism of linguistic structure depends upon it [the linear character of the signal]. Unlike visual signals (e.g. ships' flags) which can exploit more than one dimension simultaneously, auditory signals have available to them only the linearity of time. The elements of such signals are presented one after another: they form a chain. This feature appears immediately when they are represented in writing, and a spatial line of graphic signs is substituted for a succession of sounds in time, (p.70) 24

Therefore the relation that the words have to one another, across this linearity of time, provides structure to the whole mechanism of linguistics. The connection of these mutually independent parts is of critical importance. Systems of relationships, that are external to the individual, provide the basis for common apprehension.

It requires little effort to make the case that Saussure was an innovator in structuralist thought; the concepts of signal and signification are extremely prolific. The significance of his treatise, however, is that Saussure encouraged the understanding that language is a social institution, with no real connection to the objective perception of the senses. The connection between signification and signal is entirely arbitrary, depending on the community that has defined them. Further to this point, the sign and the referent are also connected arbitrarily. In many respects this challenges the empiricist construct of how it is possible to gather and obtain knowledge about the world. Saussure didn't, however, go as far as to discount the importance of the material world. Bear in mind that his formulation of the signal still includes a sound pattern, an external physical indicator. Paul J. Thibault

(1997), in his book Re-reading Saussure: the Dynamics of Signs in Social Life, confirms this by reminding the reader that,

In rejecting the view of language as nomenclature, Saussure does not go to the other extreme. Saussure does not deny the existence of the material- phenomenal world, as his discussion of thought and sound clearly shows. (P. 198).

The point remains, however, that although Saussure didn't disavow materiality entirely, his linguistics promoted a semiotic construction of the world. Baudrillard adopts and complicates Saussure's ontological considerations by drawing out the fact that it was never clear how the sign and the referent were meant to be connected. In fact Baudrillard 25 exaggerates this lack of a connection in order to demonstrate that accessing reality has become a fool's errand in our postmodern context. Baudrillard posits a model wherein the sign replaces the referent as the ultimate end of meaning as such; and that in so doing it becomes equivalent to the real.

To begin, therefore, it should be understood that while Baudrillard is commonly associated with post-structuralism, he did adopt Saussure's semiological interpretation of language in much of his work. In Symbolic Exchange and Death, Baudrillard bases his theory on the "emancipation of the sign, liberated of the 'archaic' obligation to signify something" (Santrac, 2005, p.29). He argued that the sphere of the real could no longer be exchanged for the sphere of the sign. In essence what he was establishing in this work, and what is a theme present in other works of his also, was a separation between the sign and that to which it refers. Through doing this, Baudrillard challenged the traditional understanding of reality, something that the sign had indicated. This demonstrates that

Baudrillard's work was, at many different times in his career, both influenced by and a response to Saussure's linguistics.

Furthermore, in discussing simulation Baudrillard regularly straddles the divide between structuralism and post-structuralism by extrapolating from many of Saussure's structuralist tendencies, but as I postulate, complicating them. Throughout his work

Baudrillard is dealing with the essential connection between Saussure's sign and that to which it refers (the referent). As was apparent in the immersion scholarship considered, most understand videogames (simulations) to be a form of illusion, a means of replacing the world with an image so that it cannot be experienced originally but only as a copy of something else. As it was unclear in Saussure's work how the sign (both signification and 26 signal) was inevitably connected to the referent, BaudriUard supposes in For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1972) that the exclusion of the referent, which occurs in the separation of the sign from the world, involves a metaphysical representation of the referent (Genosko, 1994, p.35). In other words, this essentially means that the real is necessarily always being simulated through the metaphysical representation of the referent.

Thus, the main premise of his discussion in Simulacra and Simulation emerges. BaudriUard proposes that the sign, the metaphysical representation of the referent, is separate from the real. He then goes on to explain how "simulation, on the contrary, stems from the Utopia of the principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of sign as value, from the sign as the reversion and death sentence of every reference"' (BaudriUard, 1981, p.6). Through

BaudriUard's idea of simulation, different from representation, the sign becomes a reality in and of itself, equivalent to the real. The illusion is no longer possible, because the reality is no longer accessible. Understanding that he saw no real connection between sign and referent means that we access reality itself as an illusion. There is no way to distinguish between what is real and what is a simulation of that reality. His interpretation and application of Saussure removes the sign from having any real connection to the referent, and clearly challenges the preconceptions of understanding videogames as entirely illusory.

Moreover, BaudriUard understands that "the aim of simulation is not to do away with reality, but on the contrary to realize it, make it real. Simulation in this sense is not a form of illusion, but opposed to illusion, a way of getting rid of the fundamental illusionality of the world" (Butler, 1999, pp. 24-25). Bear in mind that by making the sign real, the things with which we access reality become real. The sign, the conduit through which we understand reality, escapes being understood as an illusion. Simulation, 27 according to Baudrillard, therefore, encourages the 'real-ization' of the world.

Fundamentally, Baudrillard suggests that postmodern society has arrived at a point where simulation is no longer referential but real in and of itself. There is no clearer affirmation of this intention than when he starts his book Simulacra and Simulation (1981) with a quote from Ecclesiastes: "The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true" (p.l). Therefore, Baudrillard encourages the dissolution of the real and not real binary present in understanding the sign and its connection to the referent. Furthermore, this offers a metaphorical line of thinking that has the potential to encourage post-structuralist perspectives in considering videogames, where the real - not real binary of those projects can also be blurred.

Looking more closely at Baudrillard's work on simulation it becomes apparent that there is further sophistication to his account, and for the purposes of this exploration, that his theories can help further reinvigorate videogame scholarship. To begin, therefore, consider the essay The Orders of Simulacra, which at first appeared in English as The

Precession of Simulacra in the volume Simulations (1983), but is also a chapter from

Baudrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976). This chapter was an attempt on

Baudrillard's behalf to provide a history of simulation. Baudrillard describes simulacrum as

"objects of the world of simulation, just as real things and events are objects of the real world" (Santrac, 2005, p.58). Therefore, it is acceptable to understand simulacra and simulation to be somewhat analogous. In elaborating on this concept he refers specifically to three successive orders or stages of simulation. These three orders of simulacra were introduced early in his career and were a fundamental part of his work. These three orders serve as the organizing principle for chapter III of this project. They provide an outline of 28 the fundamental stages in the evolution of simulation, and consequently mirror fundamental stages in the evolution of videogames.

Describing the orders of simulacra Baudrillard associates each with a historical period. The first order, he identifies, is that of counterfeit. Dominant from the period of the

Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution it is associated with imitation. In this order, "signs only refer to the real, we might say, through their difference from it" (Butler, 1999, p.36).

Examples of this include trompe l'oeil, an aesthetic expression of the time where illusion at first convinces us, but a slight change of perspectives reveals the reality. What we admire in these instances is not only the simulation's resemblance to the real, but precisely its difference from it. The automaton also serves as an excellent example of this order of simulacra because it "charms or moves us not because it imitates humans or is meant to be mistaken for them, but because of the uncanny difference between it and humans" (Butler,

1999, p.37). Simulations within this first order recognized their difference from the real, and sought to maintain that difference. Images in this order are described as, "the reflection of a profound reality" (Baudrillard, 1981, p.6).

The second order of simulacra is associated with the industrial revolution, when the connection between the sign and reality began to breakdown due to the proliferation of mass produced objects. This stage is a transitional phase. The second order is the process of gradually loosing the difference between sign and referent, copy and original, that instead become equivalent. As Rex Butler (1999) explains, "The sign does not merely allude to the real via its difference from it, but wants to be the same as it - and at this point no longer resembles the real at all" (p. 38). By suggesting that the sign no longer resembles the real at all, Butler is implying that it has become the real. For if two things begin to resemble each 29 other too closely, they no longer resemble each other at all, but rather are the same. To illustrate this point, the assembly line provides a functional explanation. With the mass production of objects on the assembly line there was a break down between the difference of the model and the series. Because every object would be the same, there was no longer any original and no longer any counterfeit. Objects all became equally unoriginal. The image in this order, referred to as productive, "masks and denatures a profound reality"

(Baudrillard, 1981, p.6). Essentially while the sign still holds some association to the referent, the line between copy and original blurs the distinction between them.

The third order is paired with the postmodern age and is the dominant order of simulacra currently. In this phase "the sign itself has become the ultimate end of meaning as such" (Santrac, 2005, p.59). Baudrillard (1981) describes that the image, in this order, serves to "mask the absence of a profound reality" (p.6). Essentially in this order of simulation a code is established in order to account for minor differences. This code intends to reintegrate some of the contingencies and fluctuations of the real lost in the second order. The code itself, however, is a simulation. This system, therefore, creates the illusion of reality and therefore replaces it entirely, reinforcing that the sign is the ultimate end of meaning as such. Baudrillard provides the example of a survey when discussing this stage. A survey attempts to account for differences by asking questions with multiple answers. In the end, however, these answers are predictable and only ever provide the option of a pre-selected outcome. Therefore, there is a difference in the results, because these differences are constructed and manipulated. Thus reality becomes a simulated construction, and therefore the simulation becomes the ultimate reality itself. This kind of language obviously lends itself well to understanding videogames. Understanding that the 30 world in general exists in this state of simulation should undeniably give more impetus to viewing immersive experiences in videogames as more equivalent to the real than previously expected.

Lastly and in addition to what the third order accomplishes, is the concept of hyperreality. The third order of simulation privileges the sign and thus Baudrillard (1990) describes this stage further as "the fractal (viral, or radiant) stage" where "there is no point of reference at all" (p.5). It is this order that most conclusively drives home Baudrillard's earlier descriptions of a reality without reference to the real. Images in this phase have "no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacra" (Baudrillard, 1981, p.6).

Simulation therefore, is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance, "it is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal" (Baudrillard,

1981, p. 1). Thus, we arrive at the point in Baudrillard's discussion where simulation is understood as a self-referential reality. This concept provides the final theoretical piece. It opens the possibility for the immersive experience to exist entirely outside the realm of reference and inside Baudrillard's idea of simulation.

Conclusion

It will serve now to move into looking very specifically at those ideas that have been introduced herein. It's clear that a need exists for new means of talking about and understanding the medium of videogames. The nature of play, the ways in which players are immersed, and how gaming mechanics encourage engagement are critical issues moving forward. Saussure and Baudrillard provide a discourse rife with valuable inspiration for reconceptualising the discussion as it stands. 31

Through examining game structures and aesthetics carefully it should be possible to open up space to breathe new life into understanding this ever evolving medium. 32

Chapter II - Games, Realism, and Representation

In 1984 William Hawkins founded the videogame entertainment company

Electronic Arts. Hawkins, recently having left his position as director of strategy and marketing at Apple Computer, was seeking endorsement for a new sports simulation game he intended to design. Fortuitously Hawkins was able to meet with John Madden, renowned NFL coach, commentator, and now pro football hall of famer, on a train ride en route from Denver to Oakland. During the meeting Madden immediately picked up on an opportunity to help direct the development of what could have potentially become a useful coaching tool; a computer simulator allowing the execution of plays and strategies without a scrimmage. While Hawkins and Madden talked strategy, Madden purportedly scribbling plays and strategies right there on the spot, it became clear that Hawkins and his team had intended to only program seven players a side. The standard eleven players per side that was customary in American football seemed too technologically taxing to implement. It was at this point that John Madden affirmed a fundamental quality often unknowingly ascribed to videogames, and one that would leave an indelible mark on the direction of the

John Madden Football franchise. "If it isn't 11 on 11, it isn't real football," Madden declared, "I'm not putting my name on it if it's not real" (Fahs, 2008). Madden was in effect suggesting that the videogame, and those developing it, had a responsibility to represent reality accurately. That it wouldn't be "real" if it didn't emulate the appropriate conventions. Furthermore, Madden highlighted the way videogames seem to distort the assumed distinction between simulation and reality. That in some respect the game would have a relation to being real football. The logic that Madden was promoting, and the subtle 33 expectations of the gaming experience he reinforced, became a prolific model in the development of many videogames across many genres to follow.

Videogames seeking to represent reality as accurately as possible demonstrate an underlying desire to integrate the gamer in a unique way. By emulating the conventions of reality videogames are able to encourage a particular kind of immersion into the virtual experience. Alison McMahan (2003) suggests that there are three conditions which encourage immersion, each relating to the user's expectations and the way these conventions are realized in the virtual space:

(1) the user's expectations of the game or environment must match the environment's conventions fairly closely; (2) the user's actions must have a non-trivial impact on the environment; and (3) the conventions of the world must be consistent, even if they don't match those of 'meatspace3.' (pp.68- 69)

McMahan's account provides a basic framework for conceptualizing how immersion can be encouraged universally in all games. Meeting the user's expectations, providing them a non-trivial impact on the environment and remaining consistent allow an individual to participate fully in the virtual space. As discussed previously in chapter I participating fully, or being immersed, allows for the gamer's attention to be entirely consumed, with their whole perceptual apparatus engaged. In considering McMahan's three conditions, therefore, it's possible to suggest that by recreating expectations that are most in line with the user's natural expectations, which are accumulated from experiences outside the game like playing football with 11 players per side, there would be an easier adoption of, and engagement in, the experience. If the first condition requires that the gamer's expectations

3 McMahan refers to the real world as 'meatspace,' a synonym for reality that originated in cyberpunk science fiction literature that was later adopted into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2000. 34 of the game match the conventions of the game's design, it only seems logical that the clearest and simplest way to achieve harmony would be to emulate reality.

McMahan does also suggest, however, that the conventions of the virtual world must be consistent, but not necessarily consistent with those of the "real" world. While this point may seem to contradict the idea that emulating reality more closely encourages immersive experiences more effectively, it is actually pointing towards two complications.

First of all there are different levels of immersion, with different games encouraging immersion in different ways. McMahan is making an effort to account for the difference between games that are like Tetris, Brick Breaker, and Angry Birds see (see figure 1.2) and other games that stand in contrast like World of War craft, Call of Duty: Black Ops (see figure 1.1), and America's Army. Clearly games like Angry Birds are unlike reality, but through their consistency and the provision of a non-trivial impact on the environment they continue to offer a sense of immersion. Interestingly, despite being unrealistic, games like

Angry Birds do continue to incorporate certain expectations from the real world. For example, in Angry Birds when a player launches a chicken into the air they expect that gravity will pull it back down to earth, providing the challenge in finding the correct trajectory. However, and most important to this point, McMahan suggests that the conventions of the virtual world don't have to necessarily be consistent with those of the real world because she is accounting for immersion in non-reality based games, such as

Angry Birds or Tetris. 35

Figure 1.1- Call of Duty: Black Ops in game screen shot

Figure 1.2 - Angry Birds in game screenshot mmmmm The second complication is ^S ®

that McMahan realizes

games often deal with an

invented/fictitious subject

matter. She therefore

suggests that the user's

expectations must be met, but she does not say that the environment need necessarily be a mimetic representation of the real world. If a gamer suspects that Harry Potter needs a wand to cast a spell, then the

Harry Potter videogame franchise will certainly endeavour to meet that expectation.

Clearly the understanding that wizards need wands to cast spells doesn't come from observing wizards in the "real" world, but it is still a concern born outside the game that infiltrates the design in order to properly align the gamer's expectations with the game's 36 conventions. It is feasible therefore to suggest that in order to encourage immersion a game must seek to match the expectations of the gamer, but furthermore, emulating an individual's natural experiences encourages a different kind of immersion all together.

The argument proposed here, therefore, is that there are different levels of immersion; neither being particularly "more" immersive than the other but rather each having distinct qualities and characteristics which lead to a unique mode of interaction. The way in which games represent reality, how they abstract reality, and how they represent fantasy realistically, is a primary concern in learning to speak more effectively about the medium. Moreover, as previously explored at the core of the medium is this yet to be defined game-play element. It is clear, therefore, that before getting into a discussion of how games encourage different kinds of immersion, it will be necessary to distinguish more specifically the terms in play. As Gonzalo Frasca (2001) suggested, "in order to understand videogame[s], we first need to understand games." A more precise discussion about the nature of play, the different kinds of games that exist, and how they can be distinguished from one another is needed in order to launch into proposing a means of understanding how they encourage different levels of immersion.

The Nature of Play

Recognizing that games have a tendency towards realism, in some but not in all cases, brings to light the need to identify some way of separating them formally.

Furthermore, by proposing that there are different levels of immersion it becomes increasingly vital to identify what common structures exist within certain types of games.

To begin, therefore, it is necessary to briefly introduce the precedents set by scholars before the birth of videogames who spoke to the nature of play. Primarily through the work of 37

Roger Caillois and John Huizinga it will be possible to garner some sense of where game theory began.

In speaking to the nature of play in Man, Play, and Games (1958), Roger Caillois suggests that, "Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill and often of money" (pp.5-6). This is not to say that play, and the games people play, should be taken lightly. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, playing games is an essential part of human social and spiritual development. Often games become part of daily life, and consequently contribute some of the most characteristic customs and institutions of our culture. Games are especially influential in our contemporary culture as they have become, for many, an extremely dominant pastime. Identifying what a game is may be intuitive, but defining them can be exceptionally difficult. While early scholarship about games is admittedly sparse, any attempt at defining them inherits the concise introductory words of

John Huizinga; who, while speaking to the nature of play in his book Homo Ludens (1938), provided this definition: "Play is a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and consciousness that it is different from ordinary life" (p.28). This selection demonstrates the significance of

Huizinga's contribution, as it suggests the idea that games construct a space apart.

Conceptualizing this space apart was a defining factor in understanding games for

Huizinga, and many others that followed. Huizinga (1938) explains further as he relates that,

All play moves and has its being within a playground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally... The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of 38

justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart. (Italics added, p. 10)

While Huizinga referred to the magic circle as an example of the separation between game space and ordinary space, it has since been taken up in game studies to refer to the general concept that games take place outside the traditional understanding of the regular world.

Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman in their book Rules of Play (2004) epitomize this position when they express, "Although the magic circle is merely one of the examples in Huizinga's list of 'play-grounds,' the term is used here as a short-hand for the idea of a special place in time and space created by a game... As a closed circle, the space it circumscribes is enclosed and separate from the real world" (p.95). Games, therefore, are often understood to be special instances of extraneous interaction; within which a set of rules defines the parameters and the experience that will take place.

In considering Huizinga's definition, and his provision of the "magic circle" hypothesis, the difficulty in settling on any one definition becomes immediately apparent.

While Huizinga draws out significant qualities of "play," it appears to be impossible for him to capture entirely the essence of the concept. Even as Huizinga goes on to explore play it continues to be apparent that any definition will necessarily be contradicted by exceptions in practice. Bearing in mind that Huizinga was writing in the 30s, therefore not discrediting his work but simply applying it to modern standards, it's not difficult to imagine games today, particularly videogames, which blur the boundaries of the magic circle. 39

For example, while the exchanges that take place on the battlefield in Call of Duty:

Black Ops don't regularly extend directly into our daily lives, it's not unusual that these experiences have real world consequences. Consider the way Call of Duty: Black Ops, easily the most popular videogame in contemporary markets,4 may challenge the definitive separation of game world and real world. First, and in direct contradiction to Huizinga, playing a game can evoke much the same feelings of tension, joy, and consciousness as in ordinary life. To that end, playing a game can lead to the "temporary world" of the game influencing the player's ordinary world; whether frustration or jubilation games rarely remain an "act apart." Admittedly there may be some gamers who are able to keep these feelings of tension and joy entirely separate from their "real" lives, but consider that there are many pro-gamers that make their living entirely off of playing Call of Duty. In the

American pro circuit, known as Major League Gaming (MLG), first place prize winnings are upwards of $20,000.5 With five regular season tournaments, and a sixth national competition with higher stakes winnings, players and teams can make a healthy living off competing. Not to mention that many interested companies sponsor teams eliminating the necessity to take first in order to survive financially. So in the case of professional Call of

Duty players the game is not being restricted to this materially defined other space that

Huizinga suspects exists. Further to this point, in the end both the pro gamer and the casual

4 Call of Duty: Black Ops, the seventh installment in the Call of Duty series, was developed by American based videogame company Treyarch and published by Activision. It was officially released on November 9£, 2010 and within six weeks had made over $1 billion in sales ($650 million of which was sold in the first five days). By December 21st, 2010 Activision released that over 600 million hours had been logged playing the game since it went on sale. There are few examples, in any arena of entertainment, where such financial success has ever been achieved. Furthermore, it's almost unfathomable how much time has been spent cumulatively enjoying the game. (http7/investor activision.com/releasedetail cfm?ReleaselD=538246) 5 http //pro maiorleaguegaming com/competitions/16#event 32 prizes 40 disinterested gamer are still playing the same game, making it difficult to accept that the game itself is existing within the confines of the magic circle.

Another thing to consider is that it is not even necessary that a player compete at these extreme levels in order for the boundaries of the game and the world to be complicated. Another example of the dissolution of the magic circle can be seen in Diablo

II. During the height of its popularity Diablo II spawned a host of websites offering up in game equipment for real world money. In fact there are still a number of operational websites today that continue to sell in game items for real money.6 Any player, therefore, can experience firsthand the integration of the real world and the virtual space. In some instances, in fact, players resort to using real world money to enhance their playing experience because it simply makes more sense. If you get paid twenty dollars an hour at your job, and it only costs twenty dollars to buy an item that would otherwise require that you invest upwards of five or six hours to acquire in game, it's simply more cost/time effective to purchase the virtual object with real money and enjoy using it. Thus, the game experience now hinges on the outside contribution of the gamer's job/income. If the player is fired it could affect and change the way they play the game. Conversely, if the player loses in game objects it could translate to massive real world loses. Consider for example what is understood to have been the largest in-game heist ever. An article published in PC

Gamer (UK) in September 2005 explained the events in detail.

In Eve Online, a massively multiplayer online game where players are responsible for managing intergalactic fleets, the primary goal is to collect and manage resources. One player, "Mirial," had built up a massive empire through establishing a corporation known

6 http://d21eRit.com/?gclid=CMPN2tD77KYCFSdtgwodkz 2HQ 41 as Ubiqua Seraph. The corporation was essentially an in game bank, taking investments and giving a quarterly return. Mirial was the CEO of the company and held in game assets worth over $16,500 US (Francis, 2005). A group of rogue agents known as the Guiding

Hand Social Club (GHSC) banded together to infiltrate Mirial's network, waiting almost a year to secure themselves in trusted and powerful positions within the corporation. On

April 18, 2005 the GHSC executed its plan to assassinate Mirial and steal the corporations assets. The plan was a complete success, and under the End User Licence Agreement

(EULA) of the game was entirely legitimate. Mirial's loss was, therefore, not restricted to the digital online space of the game, the player lost something of "real" value. Eve Online has, for a long time, had a currency with real world trade value. This is not unique to Even

Online alone. In the case of this game however, corporate espionage and in game politics have become paramount to the gameplay. This, of course, is all heavily reliant on the combination of in game assets and the extra-game currency that is invested. Hence, this another clear example of a game that does not exist in some materially marked off other space.

A final consideration on this point is that a game may not evoke any great response from the player at all. If a player fails to experience feelings of tension or joy while they play it doesn't fundamentally change the game. This is not to say that games don't function within a kind of magic circle, but the same can be said for many other contexts. Egenfeldt-

Nielsen, Smith, and Tosca (2008) raise this line of reasoning by bringing to light that,

Games are special contexts where particular rules apply, but we can apply this definition to a wide array of utterly different activities: work, family life, university classes, weddings, the nightlife of a big city. All of these situations are governed by special rules and norms that do not entirely - indeed, could not always - apply in other contexts. Games, then, are not 42

entirely different from the remainder of our lives, and should not necessarily be treated as an aberration, (italics added, p.24)

It's therefore unfeasible to understand play, and the world of games, as entirely separate either materially or ideally. The definitive lines that Huizinga sought to draw in his work, and the subsequent adoption of the magic circle by games theorists, fails to appreciate the entire situation. It would seem unnatural to treat the experiences of home life, or the classroom, as being entirely 'temporary worlds, dedicated to the performance of an act apart' despite the fact that they, similar to games, are contexts with certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding7. Essentially this is all to say that game spaces and real world spaces are integrated and interrelated to a much higher degree than Huizinga and certain other contemporary scholars give them credit. It is important to recognize the porous boundary of the magic circle and is also necessary, therefore, to acknowledge that while Huizinga offers up many key insights, some of which will resurface in other works, his work alone cannot define videogames.

7 Bear in mind that while it may seem objectionable to suggest that the rules of everyday life are 'absolutely binding' it's my intention to relate how they can be understood similarly to the rules of a game. Essentially the issue hinges around the individual's desire to achieve a particular outcome. Bernard Suits (1978) suggests that "to play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means, and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity" (P.55). Suits implies that the rules of a game are fundamental to its definition. Therefore, to play a round of Counter Strike 1.6 (a first person shooter where two opposing teams seek to eliminate one other while accomplishing a set of tasks particular to the arena in which they fight) with an aimbot (a program that corrects the users aim to ensure near 100% accuracy) would break away from the purpose of playing the game all together. While the other players were adhering to the standard set of rules the 'cheater' would essentially be excluding herself from legitimate participation in the game all together. To bring this back to understanding life's rules and game rules as being absolutely binding, the comparison can easily be made by looking at the rules of a university class room. While the most efficient means of 'succeeding' in a course would be for students to cheat, forgoing the rules of the institution would in effect prevent the student from learning the material they were being tested on. If the ultimate goal of an education is to teach the student, cheating therefore inherently defeats the purpose of going to university at all and excludes the student from legitimate participation in what the other students are doing. It is therefore necessary for the student to adopt a set of rules that encourage 'less efficient' means in order to make such an activity possible at all. So while a student, or a player, can cheat; by doing so they are removing themselves from accomplishing the activity as such and therefore participation requires that the rules be absolutely binding in many of life's arenas as well as those of the game. 43

Following Caillois and Huizinga several authors opened up the discussion around play to discuss more specifically games themselves, and inevitably a specific focus on videogames emerged. Interestingly these works reveal a number of contributors with many of the same fundamental concerns. They also demonstrate a keen appeal to the past as they often relate closely to one another. The following definitions, therefore, serve to clarify and through their exploration identify the fundamental concepts needed to demonstrate this project's ultimate goal. Narrowing the list through the work of Salen and Zimmerman in their book Rules of Play, as well as that of Jesper Juul in his article "The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness," demonstrates that following the work of

Huizinga and Caillois the most important contributions came from Bernard Suits (1978),

Chris Crawford (1982), and Elliot Avedon and Brian Sutton-Smith (1971).

Suits brings into the equation a keen sense of the way rules create meaning in games. An adoption of the rules encourages the participants to ignore the most efficient means of resolving a specific state of affairs in favour of adhering to a challenging set of regulations. In the end Suits most succinctly suggests that "playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" (Suits, 1978, P.55). His work suggests that there are three main elements in any game. There is the prelusory goal, the constitutive rules of the game, and the lusory attitude. The prelusory goal is the ultimate end goal of the game. A perfect example of this would be saving Princess Peach from the evil clutches of

Bowser in the Mario games. The constitutive rules of the game are therefore the rules which contribute the challenge, for example the fact that Mario must overcome multiple levels swarming with hoards of koopa troopas, shy guys, and goombas amongst other challenges rather than simply fighting Bowser directly. The lusory attitude is, therefore, 44 that acceptance and adherence to the rules in order to achieve the prelusory goal in a particular way, hence fundamentally the reason why the activity becomes a game. While

Suits may not say it directly he is describing the way the gamer/player inherits and assigns a sense of significance onto these unnecessary obstacles through an adoption of the constitutive rules of the game. He understands the significance of the lusory attitude as he states it "is the element which unifies the other elements into a single formula which successfully states the necessary and sufficient conditions for any activity to be an instance of game playing" (Suits, 1978, p.50). The idea that rules provide meaning, and that the meaning changes the activity into a game is a critical part of describing, identifying, and defining a game.

Building from this Chris Crawford, a prominent game designer in the 1980s, identified four qualities that define games as a category. So while Suits provides a feasible way of distinguishing when an activity becomes a game, Crawford expands on the activity itself. According to Crawford there are essentially four common factors amongst all games: representation, interaction, conflict, and safety. Returning to a concept introduced early in this chapter, Crawford identifies firstly that games are representations, or more concisely they are, "closed formal system[s] that subjectively represent a subset of reality"

(Crawford, 1982, p.7). He ventures onwards to suggest that representation is a coin with two faces, one subjective and another objective. While his treatment of what is a primary concern of this project is relatively insufficient, it is fruitful to identify that even as early as the 80s the 'reality' of the gaming experience was problematic. Crawford believes it sufficient to say that the subjective representation of the game feeds off of and is intertwined with objective reality, but fails to go further. In order to obviate the degradation 45 that "pop psychological analyses" would contribute to his work Crawford (1982) closes this brief flirtation with the significance of representation by suggesting that "the agent that transforms an objectively unreal situation into a subjectively real one is human fantasy" (p. 8). After affirming that he is uninterested in looking at what psychological analyses may contribute to his own lack of qualification for objectivity, subjectivity, and reality he moves on. Crawford's book The Art of Computer Game Design was fundamentally that; a book intentionally oriented towards a discussion about designing games. It is understandable, therefore, that he would account for this set of fundamental theoretical issues as being a product of mere fantasy. The relation between the objectivity and subjectivity of representation'is a critical issue,, however, and not only returns to the core of Maddens logic but is also significant in understanding how the medium communicates. The work of Fredric Jameson in his book Signatures of the Visible will be discussed later in order to investigate these issues further. For now, it is best to finish

Crawford's train of thought in discussing interaction, conflict, and safety.

Crawford's work praises that "the highest and most complete form of representation is interactive representation" (1982, p. 9). The intricate network of cause and effect present in games is what instigates interest and excitement in the minds of the participants. Again, however, Crawford fails to truly explore the significance of his own thought as he avoids a discussion of what, in his opinion, makes representation in games fundamentally better than other forms of representation. While he clearly points towards interaction as being a part of what makes games so unique, he fails to contribute anything beyond the obvious.

There is little point, therefore, in belabouring Crawford's addition of interactivity as a fundamental quality of games further. In correspondence with interactivity comes conflict, 46 and from conflict follows a need for safety. While Suits' most significant contribution may have been the introduction of how significant constitutive rules are to playing a game,

Crawford introduces explicitly that there is always a conflict present. There are obstacles in the way of the player resolving a particular challenge and thus it follows that a conflict arises. The consequences inherent to a game, however, are always necessarily less harsh than the situation they model. In Missile Command, for example, failing to defend one of your cities from the onslaught of missiles hurtling towards the ground does not in reality result in the destruction of an entire city. Crawford (1982) says it best, "In short, a game is a safe way to experience reality" (p. 12).

One final consideration, before settling on perhaps the most suitable definitions for videogames, is the work of Elliot Avedon and Brian Sutton-Smith. In The Study of Games

(1971) they provide an exceptionally concise definition: "Games are an exercise of voluntary control systems, in which there is a contest between powers confined by rules in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome" (p.405). This final consideration therefore demonstrates that games are a voluntarily engagement, involve systems of control or rules, always have a conflict, and result in a quantifiable outcome that is necessarily unequal.

While elements of the discussion as far back as Huizinga are present herein, there are two specificities that are particularly significant, making this worth mentioning. First of all understanding a game as a system strikes an important chord, as later it will become increasingly important to remember when the discussion turns to Saussure's Course in

General Linguistics. The word system in and of itself tends to be readily misused and often misunderstood. Suffice it to say at this juncture, therefore, that a system is a series of component parts that function communally to achieve a greater function as a whole. The 47 concept of a system is echoed in Suits' definition, and further provides substance to games specifically. Where games had previously been described as "voluntary activities" or

"special contexts" they are now formally conceived of as systems.

Secondly, understanding that games necessarily have a disequilibrial outcome is unique to this work and not an insignificant detail. Games must provide a situation where there will necessarily be a winner and a loser. Mind you some games offer varying degrees of winning and losing. For example Heroes of Newer th, an action real time strategy game developed by S2 Games and released in May 2010, gives players the opportunity to have many minor victories throughout a single match. Some players may score very highly individually while their team may still lose the overall task of destroying the enemies' base.

A disequilibrial outcome can provide varying degrees of success within a complicated framework of rules, however, there cannot be a zero sum gain in these circumstances.

In summation, the work of Salen, Zimmerman, and Juul offer up two of the most insightful and inclusive definitions. In seeking to capture the essence of a videogame these contributions, with their tendency to build on the work that has come before them, provide the sharpest conclusion. Salen and Zimmerman (2004) suggest, therefore, that a "game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome." To complement this Juul (2003) offers a slightly more elaborate definition,

A game is a rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable. 48

These salient definitions demonstrate a culmination of past theories, and respond in kind to videogames today. Moving forward these words will set the foundation for speaking accurately about videogames, and also offer up a strong infrastructure from which to encourage an expansion of the discussion.

Narratology vs. Ludology (a brief note)

Throughout the definitions posited in this section there has been a clear focus on stressing the idea that games are systems of rules. It is necessary, therefore, in the service of self-awareness that this project admit to a fundamental bias. There is an existing fissure in the literature surrounding videogames wherein one camp promotes the significance of narrative (narratology) and the other promotes the significance of perceiving these "texts" as games (ludology). Primarily narratology was conceived in the early to mid 90s. As mentioned in chapter I the work of Espen Aarseth's Cybertext: Perspectives in Ergodic

Literature (1997), and Janet Murray's Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in

Cyberspace (1997) were critical in establishing the legitimacy of videogames as an object of study but were, unsurprisingly, heavily reliant and built off of traditional narrative analyses. In so being, these texts provide an exceptionally clear presentation of how videogames and narrative relate. This is not, therefore, to suggest that these landmarks didn't bring forward a creative perspective in their own right, but simply to demonstrate that narratology was born out of a toolset established previously for another medium. There would be little point in reiterating the entirety of the narratological tradition when this project seeks to accomplish other goals. What has been said about narrative and videogames is valuable and worthwhile, but there is more to be said. This project seeks to discuss that less represented tradition of ludology. 49

Ludology, is a term originally coined by Gonzalo Frasca in 1999. Derived from the

Latin word ludus, which translates to "game," ludology is essentially the opposing faction of academics who hold that videogames cannot be understood as narratives. In his seminal article Frasca (1999) suggests that the study of videogames could benefit from supplementing existing approaches with a focus on cybertexts (borrowed from Aarseth) as games primarily and narratives secondarily,

Some authors see cybertexts and videogames as a new form of or as an expansion of traditional narrative or drama. The fact is that these computer programs share many elements with stories: characters, chained actions, endings, settings. However, there is another dimension that has been usually almost ignored when studying this kind of computer software: to analyze them as games.

Since Frasca's original provocation, encouraging a re-evaluation of how to study videogames, the battle fronts have been shored up and are often defended more vehemently. While it's clear that many analyses have moved towards understanding videogames as games, take as an example the definitional work previously mentioned, the separation between camps has become exclusive. Consider how only two years after its inception ludology had become the self proclaimed "discipline that studies games," and through the fervent words of Frasca (2001) even went on to assure that, "representation is about signs, while simulation is about signs and behaviour. This is the ontological difference that makes me claim that games cannot be understood through theories derived from narrative." So the division had grown from allowing each approach to exist and complement one another to being fundamentally opposed. This is clearly an untenable conclusion upon which to rely. Narratives and videogames have too much in common to suggest that neither can be understood in similar ways. 50

While it's extraneous to the aims of this project to engage in a hearty discussion surrounding the nature of narrative, and how videogames differ, suffice it to say that they are similar in so far as:

1) The player can tell stories of a game session. 2) Many computer games contain narrative elements, and in many cases the player may play to see a cut-scene or realise a narrative sequence, [and] 3) Games and narratives share some structural traits. (Juul, 2001)

Ultimately, however, this project holds with those who would favour the importance of videogames as games, not narratives. While players may tell stories about a game they played, translation of a game into other media doesn't work. For example a movie and a novel may follow a comparable narrative arc. Contrarily a given gaming session is flush with contingencies and alternative outcomes. Even if a game follows a story line, the way in which the player achieves this progression is necessarily different every time. Following this it must be understood that "there is an inherent conflict between the now of the interaction and the past or "prior" of the narrative. You can't have narration and interactivity at the same time; there is no such thing as a continuously interactive story"

(Juul, 2001). Lastly, and to conclude on this matter, the relation between player and reader/viewer are entirely different. A player exists within a limenal space, somewhere outside the game but also somewhere within where they play a role. A reader simply observes.

Genres & Aesthetic Qualities

As play and games have been explored, through examining the evolution of the concepts and a demonstration of the key thinkers, the task of explaining how games can be differentiated remains. Bear in mind that when analyzing videogames it is clear that there 51 are some that adopt realism and others that do not, but that realism is not essential to encouraging immersion. Furthermore, while some games reject the need to serve as recreations of reality, other games seek to represent impossible experiences in a real way

(see figure 2). It will become increasingly important therefore, at this juncture, to discuss fundamentally what categories games can be separated into in order to properly attenuate the issues of immersion to come. It would be insufficient to begin to explore the way videogames incorporate the player, and the way they encourage immersion, without first identifying if there are any commonalities in game structures. Doing so would be comparable to an art historian failing to elucidate the difference between a fresco and an oil painting. A brief look at game theory has provided the necessary context for speaking about games, now it is necessary to classify the different types of videogames that exist.

Figure 2 -Alien Tripod looms over head in Half Life 2 It is important that this portion of the discussion be carefully delineated. Videogames are as diverse as the human mind is creative, and because of this games function in many different capacities. Often in seeking to formalize categories academia has relied on genres. Mark J.P. Wolf, in his book

The Medium of the Videogame (2001), tackles the application of genres in videogames head on. His conclusions, however, are that videogames cannot rely on traditional systems of genre classification. As he relates metaphorically, "different forms of dance (fox-trot, waltz, ballet, jazz) are defined by how the dancers move rather than how they look, an 52 examination of the variety and range of videogames reveals the inadequacy of classification by iconography, even for narrative-based games" (Wolf, 2001, p. 115).

Essentially because games have movement, action, and interactivity they should not be qualified based on their iconography. Iconography being a series of recurring settings or objects, or more generally symbolic images, that carry meaning from text to text (Bordwell

& Thompson, 2008, p.320). When referring to iconography in this instance Wolf is drawing specifically from the work of Ed Buscombe. In his article "The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema," written in 1970, Buscombe proposes that genre can be adjudicated based on three elements: iconography, structure, and theme. Wolf suggests in his work that for videogames, however, interactivity subverts the transplantation of these categories.

A perfect example to demonstrate the insufficiencies of relying on iconography and theme comes from explaining FIFA 2004 and Championship Manager 4. FIFA 2004 (see figure 3.1), developed by EA Canada, is a sports game where the players, through the quick and fevered mashing of a controller, try to outscore the opposing team in a traditional simulation of soccer; where the gamer plays the role of the athlete. Championship Manager

4 (see figure 3.2), developed by Sports Interactive, on the other hand is a game where players focus heavily on inter-league politics and work towards trading players and managing the team on its way to the finals. Both games are obviously based around soccer, sharing much of the same iconography and many of the same themes, but due to the nature of the gameplay they are indubitably different types of games. Sorting games based on a system of similarities and difference seems only natural, however the criteria upon which games can be sorted demonstrates another unique challenge in understanding the medium.

In light of this, Wolfs (2001) proposition followed that games should be distinguished 53 based on the game's objective and the player's interaction therein (p. 115). Seemingly a manageable point of departure, Wolf went on to describe forty-three genres. Making this system, while inspirational in its keen analysis of how genre must diverge from tradition in being applied to videogames, is in the end rather unmanageable.

Figure 3.1 - FIFA 2004 Figure 3.2 - Championship Manager 4

Returning briefly to Wolfs proclamation that Buscombe's three elements required to classify a text as a particular genre are incongruous with the medium, there is one detail that has been overlooked. Specifically Buscombe outlined that a film can be defined as a particular genre based on its iconography, structure, and theme. Wolf, and the example previously described, demonstrate that systems of classification for videogames that rely on iconography and theme are impractical and dysfunctional. While Wolf does suggest that interactively oriented criteria, i.e. the goal of the player, can be fruitful in categorizing games he concludes with a rather obtuse classification system. It also appears that Wolf avoids dealing with the role a game's structure could play in being a legitimate feature for differentiation. Admittedly when Buscombe was writing he was invoking the idea of structure to refer more specifically to plot structure, however, if given licence to take a 54 minor creative liberty the structure of games could be an important feature in separating them.

Wolfs metaphor of dance is eloquent and thought provoking. Videogames, like a dance, involve a movement and an action. Dances are defined by how the dancer moves, and similarly videogames involve a movement and an action. While neither can, therefore, be defined and categorized simply by how they look, any well performed dance can be differentiated and indentified by those watching. The aesthetic qualities of a dance, however, are inseparable from the steps taken and movements made. When applying this to videogames, it means that a player is always simultaneously acting and perceiving as she participates in a game. It is posited here; therefore, that fundamentally games cannot be separated by theme, or by their iconography. However, a game's "aesthetics" should not be limited to simply how a game looks or sounds, although those are both valuable indicators.

Opening the concept of aesthetics to incorporate the structure of games and by "referring to all aspects of videogames which are experienced by the player, whether directly - such as audio and graphics - or indirectly - such as rules" (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith, Tosca, 2008, p. 97) incorporates Wolfs interactive criteria and also allows the visual and audio qualities of a game to continue to speak to its nature.

Aesthetic qualities, therefore, must be redefined to signify rules, geography, representation, and number of players (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith, Tosca, 2008); but each of these categories has other subcategories as well. Geography and representation, for example, pertains to perspective (first person, behind the shoulder, top down, etc.), dimensions (2D or 3D), space type (including off-screen space), scroll (how the game chooses to reveal new game space), exploration (open environment or on a rail), and time 55

(real time, turn based, user controlled). Additionally videogames can be almost infinitely creative in how they combine these features. They often function, after all, as interactive simulations of the world that surrounds us. Trying to separate each based on a permutation of even the limited number of design choices just listed would result in a system of classification similar to, if not longer than, Wolfs forty-three genres. To refocus this effort, therefore, it is necessary to recognize that all of these aesthetic structures do influence the way games are separated. They can be recognized by more colloquial terms such as role playing game (RPG), first person shooter (FPS), and real time strategy (RTS) to name a few. In moving forward, and in seeking to try and distinguish between levels of immersion it should be most valuable to allow the concept of aesthetics to remain open to incorporating all of these qualities, but to look specifically at the audio and visual styles that the gamer experiences.

Let's explore how a games graphical style may contribute to understanding it better.

Generally games can be separated into three major categories. Based on the graphical styles that have been predominant in videogames since their inception Aki Jarvinen (2002) states that games can be photorealist, caricaturist, or abstractionist. Jarvinen suggests that the goal of his project is a simple effort at studying the audiovisual style of games in a rigorous way. From his work, however, can be derived an important layer of classification that takes into account aesthetic qualities. Albeit relatively broad, understanding and qualifying a game within one of these categories speaks volumes towards the way it seeks to incorporate the individual and what kind of gaming experience it will therefore facilitate.

Jarvinen (2002) provides a concise explanation of the power behind introducing these audiovisual styles as a concept. 56

It can be used to name and categorize games from an aesthetic perspective - in a similar manner the field of visual arts has been categorized into different historical stylistic periods, such as impressionism, realism, cubism, and so on. (p. 115)

So this system provides firstly the opportunity to categorize games from an aesthetic perspective, and while Jarvinen doesn't go as far as to include the way rules and structures interact and influence the game he does understand that aesthetics need to go beyond simply audio and visual elements. Secondly, Jarvinen's classification relates to the field of visual arts and makes an appeal to historical periods. As will be explored in Chapter III, this appreciation for historical significance is particularly helpful. To that end, this project will buttress Jarvinen's lack of appeal to structures with the addition of three seminal formal developments in the structure of games that led to a shift in the kind of immersive experience provided.

Before moving on, however, it is still necessary to briefly describe Jarvinen's three audiovisual styles and finally provide a basic model for organizing games. Three distinct styles can be identified from the history of videogames. The first two are photorealism and caricaturism, which have subcategories televisualism and illusionism. The third is abstractionism, which has a solid foundation in early videogames but became increasingly less popular as technology evolved to allow for other modes of expression.

To begin, the first audiovisual style, and perhaps most important, is photorealism

(see figure 4.1). Photorealism, is an audiovisual style where there is an effort made to recreate a likeness to reality. "In order to achieve fine-grained, life-like photorealism, one needs thousands and thousands of polygons. This has been one of the goals of photorealism, which has largely been technologically orientated and has led to a particular 57 kind of aesthetic" (Jarvinen, 2002, p. 121). While photorealism requires little explanation

Jarvinen introduces two sub-styles that attend to complications postulated earlier in this discussion. Televisualism is therefore a sub-style of photorealism that is especially apparent in emulating the way television mediates sporting events. Sporting games like

FIFA 2004, or as a primitive example early version of John Madden Football, are designed in a way that they recreate the experience the player would expect to observe from watching sports broadcasts (see figure 4.2).

The second sub-style is illusionism. Illusionist games seek to present impossible realities in a realistic way. "Illusionism in games has its counterparts in visual arts and early film (e.g., the special effects movies of Georges Melies)" (Jarvinen, 2002, p. 122).

Thus, games that represent reality as accurately as possible, and games that seek to represent surreal things realistically have a name. Under the headings of photorealism one can find a way to classify these kinds of games.

Figure 4.1 - In game screenshot of Grand Turismo 5 58

Figure 4.2 - Madden NFL 9 in game screenshot

Caricaturism is also relatively self explanatory. This audiovisual style involves presenting the aesthetic of the game through the use of cartoons or caricatures. Elements are described in terms of only their most characteristics features, much like the sketches of a caricaturist. "As an audiovisual style of games, caricaturism is about simplifying and non-photographic simulation" (Jarvinen, 2002, p. 122). Early instances of this audiovisual style were born of necessity, computer processors were insufficiently equipped to provide the thousands upon thousands of polygons that a photorealist representation would require.

As the medium has evolved, however, many contemporary games have returned to this audiovisual style for its alternative offerings. Popular examples include Valve

Corporation's Team Fortress Classic 2, Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (see figure 4.3), or Titan Studio's Fat Princess. As with photorealism, caricaturism also has its two sub-styles: televisualism and illusionism. Televisualism is again oriented towards recreating the aesthetic conventions of a television broadcast, while illusionism presents surreal environments and characters as if they were real. 59

Figure 4.3 -Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker Lastly, and perhaps most unique to videogames is abstractionism.

Abstractionism is one of the few styles of representation in any medium of entertainment that is easy to engage with but that doesn't have any human characters, environments, or rely on anthropomorphism. Essentially abstractionism does away entirely with narrative and context and provides a simple expression of form. The perfect example of a purely abstractionist game is Alexey Pajitnov's Tetris (see figure 4.4). Tetris consists solely of a set of rules and game play mechanics, audiovisual forms, and the game's interface.

Abstractionism has become rare, but is still adopted on occasion.

Figure 4.4 - Classic Tetris on the Nintendo Gameboy

To conclude this section, videogames

can be organized based on their

aesthetic qualities, but only in so far as

these aesthetic qualities are being

understood as all of the things the user

experiences. Looking to these three

audiovisual styles, and the list of game

For an example, observe the game play footage of the 2001 Sega Dreamcast title Rez at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwWWkgx2Stc. 60 structures (rules, geography, representation, and number of players) is not simply a way of revisiting iconography, structure, and theme. These are characteristics that define and separate games. In fact, it's critically important to recognize the aesthetic conventions a game employs in order to appreciate what kind of an experience is being conveyed.

Granted, and in support of Wolf s discussion, the player's actions are a fundamental feature of any game's definition. Moreover, the design choices and formal structures are also vital in differentiating games. Because of this, it is necessary to expand the definition of aesthetics to include everything the player experiences. The proposed expansion of aesthetics to incorporate the significance of the player's experience epitomizes postmodern aesthetics. It is reminiscent of the figural, explained here by Keith Crome and James

Williams when they discuss Jean-Francois Lyotard's Discours Figure.

For Lyotard, a painting is figural in the way it always goes beyond descriptions of it and theories about it. It is neither an objective figure or shape, nor a figure in a language; it is a process between the two. The figural is the association of the intensity of desires and feelings with the openness of ambiguity of matter; where matter is not defined according to the physical sciences, but in terms of a special interaction with sensations. (Crome & Williams, 2006, p. 15)

Understanding and separating videogames through this postmodern conception of aesthetics is important for tying it in with Baudrillard. Videogames incorporate this interaction with the senses and, as will be seen, the highest order of videogames affirm the ambiguity of matter as Lyotard saw it. The evolution of simulation was, and is a postmodern commentary. It is necessary, therefore, that videogames be separated through privileging the figural over the discursive.

While this section has focused primarily on the audiovisual styles a player may be exposed to, chapter III will continue to explore game structures and seminal departures in 61 the facilitation of immersion. Before moving on to chapter three, however, it is necessary that the discussion return to what Chris Crawford introduced earlier about the nature of games. Crawford affirmed that videogames are representations, closed formal systems that subjectively represent reality. It has also been suggested that photorealist games offer up some unique kind of immersion, and that the boundary between real and simulation can at times be misconstrued. Furthermore, we've shown that games cannot be understood to exist entirely as an act apart in a separate magic circle. All of this suggests that there are significant intricacies in how to approach speaking about objective and subjective realities, especially when considering interactive representations. This final stage in the discussion will segue into the next chapter where Baudrillard, fundamental game structures, and systems will be explored. In theory, this will provide a suitable spring board to identifying different levels of immersion in gaming as well as get to the heart of the game-play element. Therefore, onwards to "the highest and most complete form of representation," interactive representation.

Representation & Realism

All media and art forms, in seeking to offer up representations of the world, have at one point or another indulged in realism. Realism is both a result of the advancement of technology, as well as the discovery of new stylistic choices. Painting is a perfect example.

Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti epitomized the birth of new artistic conventions when they focused on perspective, foreshortening and treated the canvas as a window into space in order to achieve a more realistic representation of the human figure. To demonstrate the influence of technology, the

American photorealist movement of the 60s and 70s provides another, and perhaps more 62 accessible, example of a medium seeking to provide as absolute a recreation of the real world as possible. Through working with cameras this movement was characterized by a mode of expression that, although painted, was practically indistinguishable from the original photographs. Examples need not be drawn solely from painting however; there are many instances of realism in film as well. The work of noted Italian neo-realist

Michelangelo Antonioni and Roberto Rossellini also serve to demonstrate the desire for the

same outcome. Both directors pioneered the use of non professional actors, on site filming, and limited editing amongst other techniques in an attempt to present a more realistic filmic moment. The list could go on, but suffice it to say that realism in modes of representation is a common phenomenon.

Realism is also obviously connected to the concept of reality. Hawking provided our initial and most succinct definition for "reality," and also provides insight towards understanding realism. While Hawking provided a description of "reality" as the objective observable world that classical science believes surrounds us, the philosophy of realism is the belief that those observers who look upon the world will all measure the same properties. As Hawking (2010) relates quite comically:

In other words, if you see a herd of zebras fighting for a spot in the parking garage, it is because there really is a herd of zebras fighting for a spot in the parking garage. All other observers who look will measure the same properties, and the herd will have those properties whether anyone observes them or not. In philosophy that belief is called realism, (p.44)

The belief system "realism" and realism as a mode of representation are clearly two different things. Take from Hawking that realists believe all observers will measure the same properties, then apply that to how an observer might measure the difference between a realistic painting and the actual vantage point and it is possible to suggest a definition for 63 realism (the aesthetic convention). If an observer were able to observe a painting of, or read a story about, swimming in a pond and then somehow found the experience to be indistinguishable from the "reality," the painting and the story would be exceptionally realistic. Realism, therefore, is the capacity for a mode of expression to closely reproduce the observable world.

Perhaps no other medium, however, has striven as arduously towards realism as videogames have. As Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jones Smith, and Susana Tosca (2008)

suggest, "we could argue that video games have attempted to depict reality from their beginnings, but were long hampered by insufficient technology" (p. 122). To further this argument they remind us of a particularly candid moment in gaming history during the early to mid- 1990s when a plethora of "interactive movies" were popularized and hit the entertainment world by surprise. Known as full motion videos (FMVs) games like The 7th

Guest, The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery, and Under a Killing Moon featured

sequences of pre-recorded video with live actors. The gamer was meant to interact with the videos in multiple ways, including solving puzzles, pressing buttons at certain key moments, and in searching out clues in limited intermediary environments (often still photos) in order to initiate the next recorded sequence. Although the trend was never particularly successful, it demonstrates a concentrated effort towards inculcating reality into the gaming experience despite technological limitations.

The significance of the visual/aesthetic and perceptual qualities of a game are, as previously discussed, paramount in identifying how the medium communicates. As representations, videogames have many similarities to other visual media but, yet again, are complicated by their inherently interactive nature. Thus, while the process of representation 64 is not unique to videogames, it merits renewed discussion. As Alexander R. Galloway

(2004) suggests,

So far, debates about representation have focused on whether images (or language, or what have you) are a faithful, mimetic mirror of reality thereby offering some unmediated truth about the world, or conversely whether images are a separate, constructed medium thereby standing apart from the world in a separate semantic zone. Games inherit this same debate. But because games are not merely watched, they are played, they supplement this debate with the phenomenon of action.

Madden Football in the 80s, with its insistence on a realistically simulated field of players and its inherently participatory nature, is a prime example of how representation and the phenomenon of action converge. As always, the game is driven forward via the players' actions, and even the earliest productions of Madden Football by EA Games demonstrate an attempt towards being real; as the quote from John Madden suggests. Hence, representation in videogames is not easily qualified. Firstly, the videogame inherits the traditional conundrum of judging the degree to which it is a faithful representation, or an entirely separate and constructed entity. Secondly, because it requires that the gamer drive the action forward, it is drawn into some tangible reality thus complicating how the videogame can be properly appraised. Madden Football is only one game, but it serves as an example of how videogames have been particularly drawn towards the pursuit of realism, and what additional complications they add to it.

Sports simulators, and in particular the Madden series, serve as a good example for other reasons as well. As previously stated they demonstrate that videogames have been attracted towards realistic simulation, however, they also demonstrate that through this pursuit franchises have been rewarded with a loyal fan base and considerable economic recompense. Consider that EA has published an annual Madden Football title since 1988 65 by essentially reproducing the same game with minor tweaks aimed at increasing its likeness to reality. The most obvious difference between yearly productions is usually understood to be the team rosters and players with whom the gamer can build a team. It wasn't until Madden NFL '94, however, that EA was legally allowed to use actual team names, and it took until the following year to receive the Players' Association licence in order to add in actual player names and likenesses. That left six years of simply reproducing a game with occasionally better graphics and minor innovations in perspective and player control. This is not to say, however, that over such a long history the games haven't come a long way.

Especially when considering the modern Madden NFL games being produced it's clear that every minute detail is considered when trying to enhance the gamers' experience.

On the EA website the newest and most polished version, Madden NFL 12, boasts that players can "experience NFL Sundays like never before with team-specific run-outs featuring mascots and cheerleaders, authentic broadcast cameras, lifelike 3D grass, and dynamic time-of-day" (EA, 2011). This extravagant attention to detail not only demonstrates that the series has made every effort to approximate the real experience of watching an NFL game, but also speaks to the popularity and success of improving realism in videogames. Furthermore, the Madden series is no exception, it's the rule. There are many other sports simulation games, such as EA's NHL and FIFA series', that have followed similar patterns of development and shared similar levels of success.

This push towards realistic representation in the medium has been, and continues to be, a driving force in the evolution of many games. Furthermore, representation in videogames, the creation of meaning through images, is complicated by the participatory 66 nature of videogames, and as Galloway (2004) goes on to explain, "One of the most central theoretical issues in gaming is how and in what way one can make connections between the

gaming world and the real world, both from the inside outward in the form of affective

action, and from the outside inward in the form of realistic representation." In continuing

to build towards an understanding immersion in videogames it will be imperative, therefore, to consider the new complications videogames have brought to the discussion of representation and how and in what way videogames make connections between the game

and the world.

Thus we return to the issue with which we started, the way that games complicate the boundary between reality and simulation. It's been shown how videogames should not

necessarily be understood as clearly an act apart, existing within a magic circle that is

entirely separate from ordinary life. They require an adoption of a lusory attitude, and in so

doing create meaning for the player. It has been established that they are interactive

systems of representation and the player functions within some undefined limenal space

between "objective" reality and subjective representation. Accordingly representation, realism, and interactivity are paramount qualities that surface over and over again. While

Chris Crawford suggests that these connections are merely a product of individual fantasy, this project postulates that there is more to be said. That in fact identifying an objective reality is an absurd pursuit in the first place. Conceptualizing a "representation of reality"

deserves more attention. Fredric Jameson (1990), from his important essay The Existence of Italy, provides a concise synopsis of the concepts.

'Realism' is, however, a particularly unstable concept owing to its simultaneous, yet incompatible, aesthetic and epistemological claims, as the two terms of the slogan, 'representation of reality,' suggest. These two 67

claims then seem contradictory: the emphasis on this or that type of truth content will clearly be undermined by any intensified awareness of the technical means or representational artifice of the work itself. Meanwhile, the attempt to reinforce and to shore up the epistemological vocation of the work generally involves the suppression of the formal properties of the realistic 'text' and promotes an increasingly naive and unmediated or reflective conception of aesthetic construction and reception. Thus, where the epistemological claim succeeds, it fails; and if realism validates its claim to being a correct or true representation of the world, it thereby ceases to be an aesthetic mode of representation and falls out of art altogether. (Jameson, 1990, p. 158)

Jameson suggests that a representation of reality is necessarily contradictory in essence. To focus in particular on the artifice that conveys the medium, the videogame itself, would reveal in effect that any apparent realism is a mere illusion. Furthermore, to accept that a representation is realistic requires the suppression of any understanding in how the effect is being produced. What is most interesting in this selection, however, is that Jameson suggests that if a representation somehow becomes a correct or true representation of the world it ceases to be an aesthetic mode of representation. Recognizing that videogames are inherently interactive, and in so being complicate traditional modes of representation, allows the possibility that they may fall out of art altogether. In other words, videogames, through their unique capacity to integrate the player, and their ability to achieve exceptional levels of photorealism may have the capacity to validate their claim to being a true representation of the world. If nothing else, they clearly approximate the point at which they would cease to be aesthetic modes of representation and become something else altogether. 68

Conclusion

With this in mind, therefore, the discussion has finally been primed to launch into examining how immersive experiences in videogames have evolved. It was posited that by recreating reality more accurately games encourage a particular kind of immersion, though immersion does not rely entirely on realistic representation. It follows, therefore, that there are different kinds of immersion with different games encouraging immersion in different ways. A survey of play and games was undertaken in order to account for the fundamentally interactive nature of videogames, and furthermore, to attend to the heart of the game-play element. An introductory mode of differentiating games has been established, and points towards the difference in how players are immersed. Photorealism, caricaturism, and abstractionism each speak, to a degree, to the nature of the game function. Caricaturist and abstractionist games clearly offer an experience that is naturally disassociated from the real world, while the photorealistic videogame, with its judicious recreation of reality, draws the user in through a cunning approximation. The challenge of classifying the proposed levels of immersion remains. As will be explored in Chapter III, there were three fundamental developments in the formal structure of games that have complemented these audiovisual styles in encouraging an evolution of immersion. 69

Chapter III - Three Orders

In 1994 Blizzard Entertainment released the real-time strategy (RTS) game

War craft. Ores and Humans. The game situated the player in a top down, bird's eye view, as they managed and ordered one of two opposing factions. As the title suggests, the player was given the opportunity to play either as an Ore or a Human. The game-play involved collecting resources in order that the player may expand and develop an infrastructure with which to amass an army large enough to destroy her opponent. In addition to the standard

"build base, build army, destroy enemy" style of game play Warcraft: Ores and Humans also featured a number of creative mission types including managing a limited army, destroying neutral creeps on a given map, or rescuing allies. Another unique feature of the

LUMBER

SPEARMAN

ELECT TARGET Figure 5.1 - Wacraft: Ores and Humans Game Play Screen Shot 70 game was the ability for players to connect via modem, or local area network (LAN), to play in head to head matches. In the single player missions, where the player would square off against the AI, maps were premade and designed specifically by the developers, but the multiplayer games supported a random map generator. The rudimentary 2D graphics (see figure 5.1) seem chaotic and disjointed by today's standards, but were none the less capable of delivering the appropriate information for the game play to be consistent and engaging.

In 1995, following the success of the first, Blizzard Entertainment produced a

sequel called Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. Then again in 1996 Blizzard released an expansion to the Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness called Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark

Portal. With marginally improved graphics (see figure 5.2) Warcraft II and its expansion reproduced a similar play style to the original. There were a number of improved features,

such as having the capacity to select multiple units (soldiers for example) at once, but the multiplayer and campaign modes remained the same. In 1999, however, Blizzard released a

Battle.net edition of the game. This included both versions of Warcraft II, as well as the capacity for players to access one another through Battle.net.

Battle.net was launched originally in 1996 with another of Blizzard's popular releases, Diablo. It was the first in game online networking solution that allowed players to connect to one another without the need for external software. Where connecting to play with other players had traditionally required membership fees to third party services if you didn't know personally who you were trying to connect with, Battle.net allowed players to network instantly with strangers for free. The number of players allowed in a particular game at the same time, however, remained limited to a maximum of four in Diablo and 71 eight in Warcraft II. With the ability for players to gather in chat channels and search through game lobbies, Warcraft II became extremely popular.

Figure 5.2 - Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal Game Play Screen Shot

Unsurprisingly Blizzard released yet another Warcraft in 2002, followed by its expansion in 2003. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the expansion Frozen Throne presented a marked difference in one of the games' most fundamental mechanics. Whereas

Warcraft I & II had been two dimensional, Warcraft III launched the franchise into the third dimension. The camera was now given the freedom to zoom in and out, as well as pan left to right. Every unit and structure in the game came alive with intricate detail (see figure

5.3). While Warcraft III was in no way on the leading edge of implementing 3D graphics, it 72 delivered a refined and elegant execution of the aesthetic. Furthermore, it fundamentally altered the game experience, bringing it to life.

Figure 5.3 - Warcraft ///game play screen shot.

The last stage of development in the history of this franchise hardly needs introduction. World of Warcraft (WoW) was released in November 2004, with three additional expansions released to date. WoW took a drastic step away from the traditional

RTS model and moved towards a massively multiplayer online role playing infrastructure.

As Diane Carr explains, "World of Warcraft is a game, a place, a journey, a fiction and a stage shared by millions of subscribers." (Carr, 2007, pp.172) To play the game a player creates a character that they will control and embody. Each player has access to a variety of 73 classes and races which all have their individual strengths, weaknesses and roles. The object of the game is to accomplish tasks and gain experience. The tasks can be accomplished alone or in a group, but by gaining experience the player advances in power, receiving access to more difficult and more rewarding content. The most challenging, and therefore most rewarding, content always requires that the player team up with others in order to succeed. As of December 8, 2008 WoW had reached 11.5 million active subscribers, each paying fifteen American dollars a month to play (Cavalli, 2008).

WoW is a graphically rendered and persistent world (see figure 5.4). While players log off and'on the game world remains constant. The game world itself contains within it a complex infrastructure that provides for the possibility of many different ways of organizing, communicating and interacting. In addition to these in game interactions exist a plethora of "off world" networks. As Carr suggests, "this colourful and inhabited world floats on a sea of user-generated content" (Carr, 2007, pp.172). The game itself provides a spring from which heated debate, extensive tutorials guiding team management, exhaustive analysis, custom programs that modify and enhance game play, and community flow. Due to the highly co-operative, or in some cases highly competitive, nature of the game very little is left within the confines of the game world. Instead the issues, challenges, and relationships formed in game spill out into the other channels available. WoW players take advantage of web forums and discussion boards, blogging and vlogging, email, texting, twitter and arrange to meet in the real world in order to discuss game dynamics. In effect these "off world" communications direct the evolution of the game itself. As an article in the International Journal of Learning and Media by Douglas Thomas and John Brown 74

(2009) suggests, "between message forums, databases, player-created add-on modules, and wikis, MMOGs produce a social space around the game that has a profound impact on the game's evolution" (p.39). This demonstrates, yet again, that games often escape the parameters of the separate space some would confine them to.

Figure 5.4 - Felquina, Level 85 Blood-Elf Hunter perched on a cliff in Strangle Thorn Vale

WoW provides the player access to an enormous 3D environment with different regions, cultures, and politics. This world is structured in a way that the player must necessarily immerse him or herself to accomplish their goals. The sheer multitude of human interactions within the game, however, creates a flowing and unique reality that exists outside the confines of the programmed quests. As Talmadge Wright (2007) suggests in a chapter titled Themed Environments and Virtual Spaces,

The meanings that game players make of their experience come not only from their interactions with already established scripts chosen by the developer and the state of artificial intelligence of the computer controlled 75

characters, but also emerge from their personal and social understandings of those scripted representations, (p.250)

Meaning is made in this virtual space in a reflexive manner, depending largely on the player's personal point of view. In game experience is driven predominantly by player-to- player interactions. The individual is incorporated into the experience and contributes meaning depending on their personal reaction and interaction. The combination of experiences a particular individual could have in game are therefore seemingly limitless.

Compounded with the elaborate system of off world interactions that come along with the game it becomes apparent how immersive the experience can become. The meanings derived from 3D environments are however limited and directed in part by the structure the programmers and developers have established.

In considering the evolution of this franchise, therefore, the work done in chapter II of separating videogames into categories becomes increasingly important. It's clear that in addition to user oriented goals, aesthetic qualities are also significant indicators in understanding how these games encourage immersion differently. Aesthetic signifying, of course, everything the player sees and experiences; including structures and rules. Thus, this chapter explores three significant junctures in the evolution of the medium. There are three important developments where aesthetic structures encouraged a transformation in the way the medium communicates immersion. The Warcraft from 1994, through to the World of Warcraft of today, demonstrate clearly that there have been leaps taken. Furthermore, this chapter re-examines the ontological claims brought forward by Saussure from which

Baudrillard builds, and demonstrates how videogames are particularly well suited to be 76 interacting with these theories. Following this the proposed three orders of videogames are compared to Baudrillard's three orders of simulacra.

A Brief Flirtation with Structuralism & Baudrillard

Christian Wolff, a contemporary of Immanuel Kant, advanced the idea that "a sign is 'an entity from which the present or future or past existence of another being is inferred'" (Eco, 1984, p. 16). A sign, therefore, has obviously been understood to convey meaning before Saussure introduced signal and signification. By doing so, however, he revealed an internal arbitrariness in how the sign acquires meaning. In essence, he revealed that the connection between sign and referent has always been arbitrary. The sign bears no natural connection to the material-phenomenal world. Thus, in Baudrillard's construction it is the sign that prescribes meaning to the referent. Gary Genosko (1994) eloquently captures this when he explains that,

In Baudrillard's terms, every time there is signification, there is lying, for the reason that what is real is an effect of the sign, and thus, every referent is an alibi: Signification stimulates reference to a real state because no real states correspond to the sign. (P.40)

The referent (reality) does not naturally relate to a given sign (signal & signification) because, as was discussed, language is not a list of terms connected to a list of things. The sign and the referent are arbitrarily connected. Hence, when signification happens it stimulates reference to a real state but no real connection exists. Baudrillard's emancipation of the sign from having to signify 'something,' and his reversal of the sign-referent relationship, makes his theoretical perspective exceptionally liberating for game studies.

Understanding that videogames function both as closed systems of elements and rules, similar to language, and also simulations, suggests that they too can be conceptualized in 77 similar ways. Further to the point, as languages are systems wherein meaning is derived by the individual based on communally adopted conventions, so too do games encourage the creation of meaning for the player through an adoption of a unique set of rules. The similarities between these two formal constructs are extensive, accepting the plausibility of

Baudrillard's metaphysics opens up the discussion around videogames in such a way that it becomes possible to relate how and why videogames complicate the divide between simulation and reality so effectively. Ultimately it is possible to suggest that videogames, as simulations, function in a similar capacity to language. So while games are obviously simulations, they are also primarily interactive; making the medium of the videogame uniquely situated to provide a realistic experience. In order to develop this proposition it should serve to demonstrate how videogames have evolved formally, and how they mirror the three orders of simulation that Baudrillard discusses.

Before moving into a description of each order, supplemented with a practical example outlining a specific aesthetic innovation, it is necessary to clear up one final detail.

Up until this point videogames have been described through the work of others as representations. Baudrillard, however, develops his theories through the invocation of the term simulation, and in fact advances an interesting discussion surrounding the difference between simulations and representations. Principally Baudrillard holds that simulation subsumes the entire process of representation, and in so doing obviates it. Representations seek to draw a direct connection between the sign and the referent, they function as "the visible and intelligible mediation of the Real" (Baudrillard, 1981, p.5). As Jameson alluded to in Chapter II, however, this is fundamentally problematic. When a representation makes a claim to having a legitimate connection to the Real it necessarily reveals that it is in effect 78 not real at all. In order to accept that it is real requires a naive and unreflective perception of the aesthetic construction. Thus,

Such is simulation, insofar as it is opposed to representation. Representation stems from the principle of the equivalence of the sign and of the real (even if this equivalence is Utopian, it is a fundamental axiom). Simulation, on the contrary, stems from the Utopia of the principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value, from the sign as the reversion and death sentence of every reference. Whereas representation attempts to absorb simulation by interpreting it as a false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation itself as a simulacrum. (Baudrillard, 1981, p.6)

Hence, simulations are not exchanged for the real. Simulations are understood to be the ultimate end of meaning as such. It is the sign that prescribes meaning to the referent, the simulation that structures understanding and access to the Real. This project, therefore, in recognizing that other discussions were not making this very specific distinction will honour their original lexicon. Representation and simulation have often been used interchangeably. By appropriating the distinction Baudrillard draws out it will become possible to escape the problematic of representation alluded to by Crawford and confirmed by Jameson. Simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation and affirms that fundamentally the sign has meaning in and of itself.

First Order

We begin, therefore, with first order simulacra. As the first order these simulations are most strikingly understood to be a reflection of the real, but always demonstrate a marked difference from it. As Baudrillard traces the history of simulation he posits that it began during the Renaissance, with the fall of the feudal order and the rise of the bourgeois order. When this occurred there was a competition on the level of the distinctive signs between classes. In feudal societies there are a limited number of signs, each of which is 79 bound by obligation to maintain caste. "The signs, therefore, are anything but arbitrary.

The arbitrary sign begins when, instead of linking two persons in an unbreakable reciprocity, the signifier starts referring back to the disenchanted universe of the signified"

(Baudrillard, 1983, p.84). Thus first order simulacra were born when signs were emancipated from their necessity to unequivocally refer to a status. Moving from a limited number of signs into an arena of competition, wherein signs of prestige were passed from one class to another, brought about the advent of the counterfeit. For "the sign multiplied no longer resembles in the slightest the obliged sign of limited diffusion: it is its counterfeit, not by corruption of an "original" but by extension of a material whose very clarity depended on the restriction by which it was bound" (Baudrillard, 1-983', p.85). With the proliferation of signs of status, and the competition for establishing new meaning, first order simulacra were born.

Following this, and in addition to the introductory words on first order simulacra in the Chapter I, come first order videogames. Based on the early 2D arcade games of the 80s these games demonstrate remarkable affinities to Baudrillard's first order simulacra. These games' audiovisual styles clearly fit within the caricaturist/abstractionist categories. Their appeal came precisely from how unlike reality they were. Take, for example, Donkey

Kong. Developed by Nintendo and released in 1980 Donkey Kong was designed by Shigeru

Miyamoto. Miyamoto, at the time a new hire, was asked to package the game as a conversion kit to be installed on a series of unsold cabinets originally produced to play

Radar scope. Donkey Kong featured a simple plot and innovative game play including climbing ladders, jumping over barrels, and avoiding fireballs. The story, although difficult to deduce solely from the game, follows an ape that has escaped his owner and stolen his 80 girlfriend. The owner, later known as Mario, pursues the ape through a series of challenges in order to save her. These 2D arcade games from the 80s approximate first order simulacra in that they do not abolish difference, instead they maintain "an always detectable alteration between semblance and reality" (Baudrillard, 1983, pp.94-95) and are therefore in effect counterfeits.

As first order simulacra instigated the emancipation of the sign and the advent of simulation, so too have videogames offered a comparable release in opening up competition on the level of signs in contemporary media. Amongst existing media of communication in the 80s, videogames were the first authentically interactive mass medium. When these games emerged in the 80s they broke the sign free from being bound to a text, and allowed the player to act as the creator of meaning. Without forgetting the lessons that Roland Barthes (1968) offered in his essay The Death of the Author, I propose that videogames offer a simultaneously orchestrated and open mode of meaning making that is different from other text based media. Videogames are orchestrated in that rules govern the process of engagement, but open in so far as the player drives the experience forward. In characterizing meaning in texts it's clear that the birth of the reader was at the cost of the death of the Author, and thus, no text holds an ultimate meaning as such, and no meaning can be prescribed by the critic or informed by the author. This is not to say, therefore, that pre-videogame media were bound to having only one valid meaning, however, any engagement with a text necessarily involves a found meaning. While the reader is born to discover his/her own meaning in a text, it is inescapable that the meaning resides within the existing work. When videogames gave birth to the player, something altogether different from the reader, they freed the sign from being bound within a text to 81 being produced in the moment. As Juul (2001) suggested in Chapter II, videogames do not follow a prescribed sequence of events as "there is an inherent conflict between the now of the interaction and the past or "prior" of the narrative." Through interaction games gave birth to the player, and subsequently further opened up competition on the level of signs.

Consider, for example, how an average player might find getting past the third level on Donkey Kong extremely challenging, if not impossible. While the player plays the game's first three levels over and over the game plays out differently every time, and never to completion. The player has still played the game but, unlike a movie or a book where there is a single linear progression, the game has no such structure. In fact, it is impossible to complete Donkey Kong as the hardware inevitably crashes when the game gets to the last level. Videogames, therefore, emancipate the sign from being bound within a text. No matter who interviews the material, and no matter how many meanings they may draw from it, the text none the less remains a static body; the sign necessarily constricted within one linearity of time. While a reader may find personal meaning they cannot rewrite a text, for a text is a material whose very clarity depends on the restriction by which it was bound.

A player, however, is constantly creating through action, and in so doing offers up a sign multiplied. Thus, first order videogames demonstrate a similar instigation to first order simulacra in freeing the sign.

Second Order

While first order simulacra maintain the difference between semblance and reality, second order simulacra challenge that distinction. Baudrillard posited that second order simulacra emerged with the dawn of the industrial revolution. First order simulacra could be epitomized by the automaton, a fictional clock-like mechanical human that was 82

whimsically similar. Second order simulacra, on the other hand, are epitomized by the robot, which becomes man's equivalent. As the robot and the machine are synonymous, the

machine "annexes him [man] to itself in the unity of its operational process" (Baudrillard,

1983, p.93). So the industrial revolution replaced man's labour power with machines, and

in so doing over came the recognition that man and machine were separate. Further to this

point, as was explained in Chapter I, the introduction of the assembly line destroyed the

difference between prototype and product, which brought about the introduction of an

indistinguishable copy of the original into the world of signs.

Accordingly, second order videogames are marked by the jump to 3D.

Incorporating a spatial paradigm that approximates that of the real world demonstrates an

attempt to approximate reality and do away with the difference maintained in the first

order. Identifying the first fully 3D videogame released to the public can be challenging as

it has been an evolutionary process in and of itself. Wolfenstein 3D, created by id Software

and released in 1992, is popularly known for being the first 3D videogame. Interestingly, it

was a first person shooter, meaning that the player is given the direct point of view as if they themselves were navigating the environment and holding a gun. So while it was an

innovator in 3D graphics, obviously a reflection of a desire to simulate reality more

accurately than its 2D predecessors, it also placed the gamer in an 'unmediated' point of view. To be entirely accurate, however, Wolfenstein 3D, was actually done in pseudo-3D.

The game engine was programmed primarily by John Carmack and uses ray casting to

create the illusion of a 3D environment, when in reality it is fundamentally an assemblage

of 2D images being carefully rendered in real time. Carmack, who went on to program

Doom (1993) and Shadow Caster (1993), amongst other titles, created the first true 3D 83 game engine for Quake (1996). A first person shooter, Quake featured pre-rendered 'maps' or 3D environments in order to allow for processors at the time to manage the taxing software. Figure 6 - Quake

Although seemingly incongruous, due to the limited capacity for graphics to emulate photorealist environments at the time (see figure 6), the concept of three dimensional space in videogames follows very much the same line of reasoning as

Baudrillard's second order simulacra. Videogames were clearly unable, at the time, to entirely efface the distinction between copy and original. It wouldn't be difficult to differentiate a screen capture from a 3D videogame in the late 90s when compared to a real life recreation of the same space. Second order simulacra, however, are produced when the copy and the original slowly become more alike until they are the same. When this happens, the sign becomes free of its tether to signify something. The sign itself begins to 84 inherit more significance as the referent object multiplies. So in considering second order simulacra one must recognize that videogames continue to approximate the reality that they represent, encouraging the ever increasing significance of the sign (or simulation).

Furthermore, Baudrillard uses the example of the machine and how it figuratively duplicates humankind by performing a similar task. Machines assume humanity's role as labourer. Looking then towards online environments like that of Nintendo's Animal

Crossing City Folk for the Wii a similar argument can be made. While the robot is not actually an exact copy of a human, it serves a similar purpose and therefore becomes its functional duplicate. Animal Crossing, a game wherein players spend time establishing themselves in small virtual communities, functions as a place for individuals to meet and talk. It is clearly not an exact duplicate of some real space (see figure 7), but it serves none the less as a space for people to meet and interact in a social environment. The incorporation of the Wii Speak peripheral in this title, a simple mic that allows for voice

Figure 7 - Picture of players congregating in Animal Crossing. City Folk 85 chat, meant that many gamers could use Animal Crossing: City Folk as a virtual meeting space. Many other games have adopted this same functionality, not the least of which is

Second Life, famous for facilitating business meetings in place of a real life board room.

Point being, that while it may seem initially difficult to accept that a simple, and at the time rudimentary, jump to three dimensionality brought about a similar transition in videogames as second order simulacra did to the world of signs, a closer look reveals they both follow a similar logic and achieve a similar purpose.

Third Order

Next are third order simulacra, inspired by the advent of postmodernism this order produces the hyperreal: the generation of models of a real without origin in reality (Lane,

2000, p.86). It is also in this order that the code was born. The code seeks to integrate the contingencies and fluctuations of reality into simulations. Thus, while second order simulacra introduce the production of exact duplicates, the logic of third order simulacra is disjunctive. Baudrillard uses DNA, fundamentally a biological code, as an example how the code impacts third order simulacra. He suggests that DNA, the information system from which all life originates, is a "black box" from which our being emanates

(Baudrillard, 1983, p. 104). By using DNA as an analogy for third the code, Baudrillard demonstrates how the contingencies and fluctuations of reality are reintegrated into simulation. Second order simulacra, after all, with the advent of machines, produced only

"crude, dull, industrial, repetitive, echoless, operational, and efficacious" signs

(Baudrillard, 1983, P. 104). Third order simulacra adopt a system that simulates reality's tendency towards difference. 86

To further these points consider how humans develop biologically based on a given combination of just over 3 billion DNA base pairs present in the human genome. The DNA molecule therefore is an information structure, from which all human life originates, and represents a kind of platonic form from which humanness is understood. Despite that humans come from this universal model, the human genome, they are each individually realized in different ways depending on the finite (albeit extremely complex) combination of hereditary information stored or encoded within their DNA. In establishing this universal model from which humanness emanates, however, means that there is a model of human that no human could ever actually embody. The human genome is in effect a model of the real without origin in reality, because the concept of humanness it indicates precedes the reality of human. Third order simulacra, similarly, originate from models and through the implementation of the code are simulated to demonstrate minor individual differences.

Thus third order simulacra confirm what Jameson supposed in the second chapter. Once a representation (simulation according to Baudrillard) approximates reality too closely it falls out of art all together and becomes the thing itself.

Third order videogames, therefore, must demonstrate two qualities. First they must have a similar function as that of the code, and second they must serve to generate models of a real without origin in reality. Because of this, these games are characterized by two things. First, third order videogames are characterized by a movement towards massively multiplayer interfaces, and second, they are marked by a more recent trend towards augmented reality. To begin, consider the online massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Ultima Online (UO). Released in 1997 by Origin Systems, UO is credited with popularizing the genre. Admittedly the existence of massively multiplayer 87 games started as early as the 70s with multi-user dungeon (MUD) games. These MUDs incorporated multiple players in a single game, as the games themselves were text based and therefore did not strain computer processors. UO, however, epitomizes many

MMORPG conventions that are still in play today, and is therefore the best example of a starting point for this particular feature of third order videogames.

In UO players create and navigate the virtual world with an avatar that they customize. The game's open architecture provides the player with a multitude of opportunities in how to play out the game. Players increase in power and skill by practicing and performing tasks. Some of the tasks a player can choose from are producing industrial goods (like furniture and clothes), training in the art of combat (either magic or physical combat), or simply learning to play an instrument. The game was online only, and amongst the first titles to create a persistent online world. By allowing for thousands of players to interact simultaneously within this online environment the game demonstrated a capacity to incorporate some of the contingencies and fluctuations of reality. As opposed to predictable artificial intelligence (AI) the other actors in this arena were real humans. Unpredictable and free to engage as they so please the incorporation of multiple human players gave the game a seemingly organic operation. Just as the code in third order simulacra seeks to integrate the minute differences of reality, so too did adding multiple human players in one persistent environment create a plethora of differences. These differences, however, were still confined within a given set of options. Any game requires that it function within a set of rules that are absolutely binding. So while a player may choose to kill other players, or simply chop wood, he must still go about doing it according to how the game allows for 88 those things to happen. Thus, these contingencies and fluctuations remain simulated, as there are only so many options available.

The integration of multiple human players demonstrates how this game structure achieves a similar goal to the code of third order simulacra. Looking towards how videogames have realized, or are working towards realizing, the hyperreal comes most prominently in the form of augmented reality games. While augmented reality currently hasn't achieved a complete synthesis of virtual and physical realities, it points towards innovations that may in the future encourage just that. Looking at how a hyperreality might be realized in gaming will be the topic of consideration for the fourth and final chapter of this project. At this point in time, therefore, consider simply that third order simulacra remove any point of reference to a reality whatsoever, and become a reality in and of themselves. To integrate seamlessly, therefore, the material-phenomenal world and the world of signs-simulations would effectively be the ultimate realization of a hyperreality.

One final thought that is particularly poignant in considering the similarities between videogames and Baudrillard's (1976) simulacra is that "each configuration of value is seized by the next in a higher order of simulacra. And each phase of value integrates the prior into its own as a phantom reference a puppet reference, a simulated reference" (p.2). Hence, each order of simulacra is carried forward as a component part of the next. This can be seen to happen in games, as many games demonstrate a self reflective outlook in recognizing the games that came before them. Look for example at StarCraft II, developed by Blizzard entertainment and released in 2011. StarCraft II is a real time strategy game where the player commands armies from an omnipotent sandbox perspective. In between missions, however, there is an alternative spatial dynamic where 89 the player has access to a series of rooms on board Jim Raynor's (the commander) ship. In one of said rooms there is an old arcade game, which features the mini game "Lost

Viking." Players can take time to play this 2D space shooter arcade game, which is clearly a first order videogame, despite the fact that it has little to no bearing on the primary goals of the game itself. Interestingly, therefore, this demonstrates that each configuration of videogame can also be seized by the next higher order.

Revisiting Presence & Immersion

There has been an intentional effort made to avoid qualifying immersion in the three orders of videogames up until this point. For fear of establishing some kind of hierarchy in "immersiveness," which has been understood from the beginning as being extraneous to the aims of this project, it has been left to now. Each order brings with it a different immersive experience. Distinguishing between them relies upon the degree to which they promote a sense of presence. Bear in mind that immersion engages the entire perceptual apparatus, that it encourages the sensation of distal attribution, and requires that

Allison McMahan's three criteria be met: meeting the user's expectations, providing them a non-trivial impact on the environment, and remaining consistent. It has been suggested also that the most efficient way of immersing a player is by recreating realistic conventions. After all, it's difficult to think of anything more immersive than the "real" world. Depending, therefore, on how closely the game approximates reality (it's audiosvisual style) and which order of videogame it is, will speak to level at which the player feels present in the experience. A player who is entirely present in the experience, entirely unaware of any mediation, would ultimately be unable to distinguish the 90 experience from the Real world, and the experience would have finally become the ultimate end of meaning in and of itself.

In briefly exploring the concepts of immersion and presence in Chapter I it was suggested that most theories of immersion are heavily indebted to structuralist binaries of oppositional difference. In other words that these theories define immersive experiences by what they are not, and in so doing establish a binary between what is real and what is not real, which clearly stands in the way of ever recognizing that third order videogames are possible. This line of reasoning can be attributed to the work of Saussure in the Course in

General Linguistics. After all,

Another way of putting Saussure's point about the differential nature of meaning is to say that meaning is always the result of a division or 'articulation' of signs. The signifier 'boat' gives us the concept or signified 'boat' because it divides itself from the signifier 'moat'. The signified, that is to say, is the product of the difference between a lot of other signifiers: 'coat', 'boar', 'bolt' and so on. (Eagleton, 2008, p.l 10)

In essence, Eagleton (2008) relates that "every sign would seem to be made up of a potentially infinite tissue of differences" (p.l 10). As we've explored three critical junctures in the development of simulation, and how they've led to a complication of the real - not real binary, it should be apparent that it's no longer feasible to accept this structuralist divide. Videogames cannot be understood as entirely illusory.

There has been a steady development of the belief that games that emulate reality more closely, through their aesthetic and formal structures, offer up a unique kind of immersion. In addition to closely resembling the reality that we are accustomed to, a reality that we access and make meaning of through signs, videogames have a privileged function in that they incorporate the player as an actor. It is proposed here, therefore, that the most 91 fundamental factor in differentiating immersive experiences is the degree to which a game may be confused with reality. The three distinct audiovisual styles from Chapter II demonstrate an introductory means of separating games, and in particular speak to the significance of how games may be perceived aesthetically. A photorealist videogame, for example, will clearly encourage a different sense of presence than an abstractionist videogame. These considerations, combined with the three orders of videogames, suggest that ultimately immersion comes down to the way the game communicates the player's presence in the experience. Moving into Chapter IV this idea will be taken to the limit in exploring augmented reality.

Conclusion

Games function as systems in a similar capacity to language. Just as language is an edifice through which we access information about reality, so too do games provide a similar kind of access to information. The challenge herein is to conceptualize how games have evolved to challenge the boundary between real and simulated. While it is difficult to separate oneself from the empirical materiality of the phenomenal world, it is becoming more and more necessary as videogames move into the postmodern stage of development.

As the gaming industry inculcates "objective" reality directly into the gaming experience through augmented reality the definitive real - not real binary continues to blur. The plausibility of a hyperreal videogame will therefore be the focus of Chapter IV. 92

Chapter IV - Augmented Reality

On November 18th, 2001 Nintendo released its sixth-generation console, the

GameCube, in the hopes of recapturing its market share. The GameCube's predecessor, the fifth-generation Nintendo 64 (N64), celebrated only mediocre success with 32.9 million units sold worldwide (Nintendo, 2010). The N64 was the last, and most technologically advanced, of the fifth-generation consoles to be released; widely available in North

America a little over a year after the Sony Playstation. Despite the N64's technological edge the wildly successful Sony Playstation sold 102 million units worldwide in its lifetime, dwarfing Nintendo's efforts (Alexander, 2010). When the GameCube was released it continued a long history of promoting Nintendo's standard intellectual property

(IP), and demonstrated a predictable jump in processing power and improved storage capacity; meaning more complex, longer games. Sadly, Nintendo failed yet again to emancipate itself from what had now become a sloppy third place. Of the sixth-generation consoles the GameCube sold only 21.74 million copies worldwide (Nintendo, 2010), the

Playstation 2 sold a whopping 150 million copies (Sony, 2011a), and the new contender from Microsoft, the Xbox, sold 24 million copies in only four years (Microsoft, 2006).

Fifth-Generation Sixth-Generation Console Sales Console Sales 120 200 150 -H 100 l Sales 50 l Sales Worldwide 0 Worldwide (million) ^£ (million) ~o+ •^ Nintendo Playstation ' # S 6< 64 <4?^ Figure - 8.1 Fifth and Sixth-Generation Console Sales 93

Having been a foundational part of the industry from the beginning, and recognizing that the repercussions of contending with the Sony colossus were dire,

Nintendo recognized it was time for a change. Perhaps for fear of being forced out of the hardware industry entirely, as Sega had been, Nintendo switched gears. The GameCube had failed, from the beginning, to vindicate Nintendo's traditional model of progress. An interview with the esteemed game designer Shigeru Miyamoto in 2006 reveals that a new concept had been conceived only months after the GameCube's release,

We started work on the Wii around the time the GameCube went on sale in 2001. We started with the idea that we wanted to come up with a unique game interface. The consensus was that power isn't everything for a console. Too many powerful consoles can't coexist. It's like having only ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten their own extinction. (Bloomberg)

Thus, Nintendo set out to develop a unique game interface. The project was initiated under the code name "Revolution." The reinvention of the controller was paramount in moving the console forward, and relied upon infrared technologies to mimic 3D space recognition.

The Nintendo Wii established a new paradigm in console gaming and ushered in the integration of physical and virtual causality. The previously unnecessary bobbing and weaving of a controller during tense moments of play became the new standard in manipulating and controlling the game.

When Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata revealed the Wii-mote and console in action for the first time, at the Tokyo Game Show in 2005, "he was hardly prepared for the stunned silence that followed" (Bloomberg, 2006). The Wii caught the world by surprise, but it wasn't long before the world caught on. The system, released in November 2006, collected a slew of awards starting with the Game Critics Awards for Best of Show and Best

Hardware at E3 2006 and continuing well into 2007 when it received a Golden Joystick for 94

Innovation at the Golden Joystick Awards. In addition to the industry's spirited reception of Nintendo's innovative console, the gaming community responded in kind. Nintendo propelled itself from lagging behind with GameCube sales to soaring above the competition. The Wii has sold, to date, an estimated 84.6 million units worldwide

(Nintendo, 2011), compared to a paltry 50 million units each for both the Playstation 3

(Sony 2011b) and the Xbox 360 (Thorson, 2011). The explosion in sales of Nintendo's products can be attributed to a plethora of operational changes, including new IP and redefining the gaming market. It is no secret that the Wii managed to break barriers by getting previously unimaginable demographics stepping up to purchase and play videogames.

Figure - 8.2 Seventh-Generation Console Sales Seventh-Generation Console Sales

• Sales Worldwide (million)

Playstation 3 Xbox 360

Aside from the commercial successes of the Nintendo Wii, and the intriguing history of the console wars, most important in all of this is recognizing a new innovation in videogames. The Wii fuses the experiential phenomenal world and the virtual world together in an intuitive and easily accessible package. This has marked a transition in gaming, where it is now entirely possible to access and experience a synthesis of physical and virtual spaces. The barrier of a separate virtual 3D space has been even further 95 destabilized from where it had been at the end of chapter III. This new construction of space is, however, only one example of how augmented realities have inculcated themselves into videogames. Hence, this chapter will explore a series of examples to flesh out the way that these kinds of technologies have influenced the medium; as they have had an impact on the way in which it is possible to understand videogames, and relates directly back to chapter III and third order videogames.

Augmented Reality (AR)

As was previously suggested, owing in part to their relationship with technology, videogames tend to grow in sudden and dramatic shifts. The Nintendo Wii provides a shining example of this phenomenon. What started as a secret project known as

"revolution" has revolutionized the way videogames are being designed and experienced.

It's unavoidable that this jump in technology would bring about a change to the heart of the gameplay element. We set out with the basic understanding that videogames, as an object, are "computer-based entertainment software, either textual or image-based, using any electronic platform such as personal computers or consoles and involving one or multiple players in a physical or networked environment" (Frasca, 2001, p.4). Throughout our exploration, however, it became clear that videogames cannot be so easily qualified and defined. Videogames exist beyond the limits of a prescribed other space, while the boundaries of the magic circle tend to be porous in nature. Videogames regularly extend from virtual spaces into having real world consequences even without making consideration for augmented reality technologies. Furthermore, it has been posited that different orders of videogames provide different levels of immersion in the medium, and ultimately third order simulacra approximate our postmodern reality to such a degree that 96 the structuralist binaries of real and not real are complicated if not dissolved. Moving into this fourth and final chapter, therefore, it stands to recognize the capacity for videogames to integrate themselves into and onto reality. Following a survey of augmented realities in theory, and in practice, it will serve to reinvestigate third order simulacra and decide whether it is possible to realize this project's theoretical work in practice.

It is impossible to escape the fact that a large part of understanding augmented realities revolves around the technological specificities of these processes. It is also no mystery that these technologies are mired in a constant battle to escape being understood as science fiction. This rather uncomfortable dichotomy can therefore pose a problem in approaching them from a humanities perspective. While technical information is often relied upon as proof of plausibility, the hardware and software specifications, code fragments and algorithms are of little use here. This kind of information is vital, in so far as it demonstrates an open community of researchers willing to share progress and encourage the rapid development and specialization of these technologies. It is, however, somewhat extraneous to the aims of this project to become bogged down in technical jargon. Thus, the augmented reality technologies explored here will be intentionally black boxed; a term borrowed from science and technology studies. The social process of "black boxing" is based on the abstract notion of a black box: a system or device that is viewed solely in terms of its input and output, but never by its internal workings. To cite Bruno Latour

(1999) black boxing is,

...the way scientific and technical work is made invisible by its own success. When a machine runs efficiently, when a matter of fact is settled, one need focus only on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. Thus, 97

paradoxically, the more science and technology succeed the more opaque and obscure they become, (p.304)

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately depending on your disposition, this leads to many of the simplest explanations coming by way of reference to science fiction; something that many would suggest risks trivializing the discussion. A prime example of how this happens comes from explaining the work of researchers at CASALA9, an advanced research center based at the Dundalk Institute of Technology in Ireland. By appropriating the functionality of the Microsoft Kinect to track participant movement they have perhaps most closely recreated a holodeck like interface. Through tracking the participant it is possible to navigate virtual spaces free of any controller. This "3D Cave" consists of a room with three walls surrounding the participant, each having the appropriate visual information projected upon them. Head movement and particular gestures allows for the navigation of 3D spaces.

Currently, while in testing, the team of researches is using the technology to enable remote walkthroughs of existing condos. This application is only one of many imaginable uses.

This highlights, however, that it is clearly unfeasible to rely on science fiction references to properly explain the objects and processes under consideration. There is no better proof than the fact that while many qualities of the 3D cave at CASALA approximate the holodeck, it is severely limited in comparison.

Furthermore, wishing to create a room in which anything could be simulated to such a degree that it would look and feel as if it were real has been popular and sought after for decades. The idea of a holodeck had been described long before Star Trek: the Next

Generation debuted in 1987. It was Ivan Sutherland who first elaborated on such a display

9 http://kinecthacks.net/usinR-kinect-to-naviRate-a-3d-cave-at-casala/ 98 during the International Federation for Information Processing conference in 1965. He suggested that,

The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming, such a display could literally be the Wonderland in which Alice walked. (Sutherland, 1965)

The reality of constructing the 3D Cave at CASALA borrowed little, if any, from the television series Star Trek. Nor was it necessarily influenced by Sutherland. In other words, there may have been any number of influences that encouraged the development and realization of such adventurous ideas; but to point to the exact degree that franchises like

Star Trek, or scientists like Sutherland, have impacted the research community is clearly outside the purview of this exercise. Alternatively, spending time to try and unpack the dense technical jargon that opposes the facile comparisons to science fiction would also be counterintuitive.

To conclude on this point, therefore, while computer scientists like Ivan Sutherland, or those at CASALA, may predict the foundations of the ultimate display it is the popularity of science fiction that circulates these concepts widely. On that note, science fiction shouldn't be disparaged as a negative force in discrediting the legitimacy of AR technologies. It should be seen instead as a tool for nourishing creativity and drumming up interest. Regardless of whether it is the scientist or the writer who dreams up the ideas behind contemporary AR technologies, they continue to be realized. This project, therefore, seeks to avoid privileging either side. Hence, despite the lack of technical information that 99 might be present in other examinations, this project recognizes the highly complex nature of these technologies; though it may not endeavour to explain them.

Figure 9 - WorkSnug Visual Interface

With this in mind, it is obvious that the holodeck, and Sutherland's ultimate display, are clearly still out of reach in many ways. There are other technologies, however, that have been ported almost directly from the special effects laboratories of the entertainment industry into common use. For example, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) the cyborg sent from the past to save John Connor, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, has a visual overlay of information on everything he sees. While in search of clothing, the viewer gets a quick glimpse at the world through the cyborg's eyes. Information is quickly populated and measurements are made in real time overtop of the cyborg's vision. These kinds of visual overlays have become quite common now with hardware such as the Apple iPhone providing easy access to mobile data. Consider for example the iPhone application 100

WorkSnug. This application identifies wi-fi hot spots and potential work spaces for anyone looking to sit down with their laptop. From coffee shops to professional "rent-a-desk" businesses this app displays information on top of the phone's screen (see figure 9). So while some science fiction remains unattainable, other ideas are already upon us.

Another important consideration to be made is that augmented realities have not only begun to be realized since the release of the Nintendo Wii in 2006, or the iPhone in

2007. As far back as the mid 70s there were innovators like Myron Krueger developing interactive environments. Krueger, a computer scientist who applied his craft towards interactive computer art, designed what he called at the time an artificial reality laboratory.

Named "Videoplace," this facility attempted to surround the users in an artificial reality that would respond to movements and actions without the need for controllers or goggles.

Interaction was encouraged between users through the use of projectors and video cameras.

By having their silhouettes transcribed into other spaces users were able to experience a sense of interaction with others despite the lack of tactile feedback (Krueger, 1983;

Rheingold, 1991). Although primitive, this technology demonstrates that augmented realities have been in development for decades. The more recent adoption of these technologies into widely accessible platforms simply reaffirms that they are continuing to become popular. In seeking to draw connections between AR and videogames it is worthwhile to mention another example of early AR technologies initially implemented by a group of honours students at the University of South Australia.

Particularly poignant in recognizing these first intersections is ARQuake, a project that Benjamin Close, John Donoghue, John Squires, and Philip DeBondi implemented in

2000. ARQuake is an augmented reality version of the game Quake produced by id 101

Software in 1996. By creating a portable computing system, complete with head mounted display, mobile computer, head tracker, and GPS system, the students were able to provide a player with the controls necessary to play Quake in the real world (see figures 10.1 and

10.2).1 The prototype was never commercialized and has remained, for the most part, in the same state since 2000. The team of students involved have, however, moved into developing and refining the technology. In 2006 the Tinmith mobile outdoor augmented reality project was established, building largely off the work that had been accomplished for ARQuake. This project continues with the aims of providing improved finesse in overlaying virtual interfaces onto the physical world.

Figure 10.1 - Mobile Computing System Figure 10.2 - Game Screenshot

It should be clear, therefore, that while these technologies remain cutting edge they are not new. Over the years as they have grown, so too have the number of ways they are applied. Even within this very short introduction to AR there have been many different kinds of interfaces described. ARQuake demonstrates an overlay of computer-generated

10 http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/proiects/arquake/ 11 http://www.tinmith.net/ 102 information onto the physical world. WorkSnug performs a similar task, but involves far

less engagement in manipulating and affecting the way the information behaves. Moreover, the Wii demonstrates a physical means of manipulating a virtual world that is separate from physical space. Thus, it becomes important to return to some brief definitional work in

order to find a means of qualifying what it is that these technologies have in common.

William R. Sherman and Alan B. Craig provide a concise discussion around the

differences and similarities of the many terms for computer-mediated interfaces in their book Understanding Virtual Reality. Affirming the predominant description, Sherman and

Craig (2003) explain that augmented reality "mixes the physical world with computer

generated information... [where] the user is able to interact and affect the remote

environment by their actions " (p.22). The fundamental principal of augmented reality is thus that the virtual supplements reality, rather than completely replacing it (Azuma, 1997, p.356; Bimber & Raskar, 2005, p.2). This should sound immediately familiar in so far as it

approximates the nature of the relationship between the sign and the referent. While

Saussure was ambiguous about their connection, Baudrillard posited that they were equivalent. Neither proposed that the sign would efface reality entirely, but Baudrillard was

clear in establishing a reversal of the traditional referent-sign relationship, and thought it was necessary that the sign be recognized as real in and of itself. Thus, the argument returns full circle. In recognizing that the sign is real in and of itself, equivalent to that which refers, opens up the possibility of recognizing computer-mediated interfaces as equal to the physical reality in which they are integrated.

Signs stimulate reference to a real state, because no real state corresponds to the sign. Reality is, in effect, an alibi for every sign. Baudrillard understood that from the 103 exclusion of the referent, which occurs at the separation of the sign from the world, comes a metaphysical representation of reality. It is this metaphysical representation of reality that we understand and access. The sign orders the referent, not the other way around. Hence, the lack of any real connection between referent and sign means that we access and order the world through signs. Establishing that the sign therefore is equivalent to the referent allows reality to be "real-ized." Baudrillard traced three critical junctures in the evolution of simulation to show how it became equivalent to the real. Similarly, it has been shown how videogames have followed a comparable trajectory in approximating reality.

Videogames are simulations, and they convey significance and meaning much the same way signs do. It is particularly apparent in viewing augmented reality applications that videogames are approximating, if they have not already become, equivalent to the reality which they supplement.

Further to this point, third order simulacra brought about the code. The code seeks to reintegrate the contingencies and fluctuations of the real world into simulations, in an effort to encourage that these simulations become indistinguishable from reality.

Augmented realities, therefore, demonstrate these very same goals in practice. Mixing the physical world with computer generated information (simulation) integrates the contingencies of the real world directly into the virtual. Neither the virtual nor the real are privileged here, but rather both exist in a symbiotic relationship.

So, before reviewing one final example let us return to chapter II when it was proposed that games seeking to represent reality accurately demonstrate a desire to incorporate the gamer in a unique way. These hyper realistic games were described as third order videogames later in chapter III. Through the combination of physical spaces and 104 virtual information, augmented reality videogames demonstrate a significant and unique capacity to immerse the gamer. Thus third order videogames that incorporate augmented reality technologies demonstrate the ultimate capacity for a game to be immersive. In summation consider this one last simple example.

Gunman is an app currently available for the iPhone. The way it works is that the players (maximum of five currently) initiate the game by each selecting a shirt colour.

Through the phones camera the players register the exact colour of each player's shirt and the game begins. Once started, the camera becomes the scope of each player's gun. With a crosshair overlaying the video feed, players must shoot one another to score points. The camera registers points based on recognizing when you pressed fire with the appropriate colour in your crosshairs. When a player is hit, their phone vibrates letting them now.

Additionally, a player can "reload" their gun by shaking their iPhone. The game can be played in any setting, providing the players can access one another. While an interesting app, and a creative idea, this is particularly powerful example in so far as the technical mediation is really the least significant part of this game. The interaction between players differs little from a game of hide and seek mixed with tag. It would also be hard, however, to deny that Gunman is a videogame. It meets all the requirements and fits into any of the definitions posited in chapter II. While gamers in Gunman are not "shooting" each other with real bullets, the experience they are sharing is very much real. Videogames are, now that they have begun to incorporate the experiential phenomenal world, becoming very difficult to distinguish from reality. 105

Conclusion

As a final caveat to this section on augmented realities, it must be said that while these technologies are popular, growing exponentially, and incorporating all sorts of new players into the experience; augmented reality games will never replace traditional representational 3D games. The allure of escaping the world to exist within the confines of a simulated space is too powerful for some to ever abandon. Many players will be forever bound to a spot on their couch and a controller in their hand. The physicality of augmented realities will inevitably always turn off the community of hard core gamers who are accustomed to escaping themselves through a customized avatar and mastering a game through the strategic twitches of their uber micro. The project holds, however, that even these virtual spaces are approximating a point where in they have become equivalent to the real. So while augmented realities provide a tight conclusion to an otherwise challenging theoretical project, it is still reasonable that the philosophies herein support the claim that third order videogames have become real in and of themselves; that they have become hyppereal. 106

Conclusion

Videogames have become heavily integrated into the world that surrounds us. They are a cultural phenomenon that challenges our legal institutions and our social fabric, an exercise that stimulates our population, a financial commodity that drives our markets, and a creative endeavour that inspires artistry, to name only a few. Videogames are being accessed by a global community, and through videogames a global community has access to each other. The mercurial creativity of game designers continues to encourage the viral proliferation of many different kinds of games, each relying on formal aesthetics to encourage a different experience. Games have a complex history with a number of critical junctures. It has been the aim of this project, from the beginning, to indulge a creative examination of the medium. Situated between remembering a time before computers were

common to every household, and having spent many years plied to a screen, I have tried diligently to address issues otherwise overlooked or underappreciated. In order to keep pace with the maturation of videogames as a medium it will be necessary that these kinds of explorations continue. Looking at videogames earnestly and with an open mind is vital.

This project has been able to provide an overview of what makes a videogame a game. It has paid close attention to preserving gameplay as an important part of any close look at videogames. This gave rise to the reoccurring concepts of interactivity and the multiple levels of immersion. It's clear that all videogames are fundamentally and inseparably interactive. It is precisely this quality that separates them most distinctly from other media. It is also this interactivity that complicates the way videogames represent and interact with reality. They are separated from other forms of representation in that the gamer's participation drags the videogame experience into some limenal space between the 107 constructed ethereal simulation and the now of the experiential phenomenal world. To speak to this complication it was proposed that Baudrillard's post modern scrutiny of

Saussure's structuralism might offer up a philosophical line of flight.

The edifice of language, therefore, was compared to videogames in order that they might be considered analogous in certain respects. Language, a system of signs that correlate in some arbitrary manner to a referent reality, still necessarily has some undefined connection to the physical world while also holding meaning in and of itself. Saussure was unwilling to go as far as to denounce the referent in his theories, and thus there was some experiential nature to the construct of language systems. Baudrillard, however, saw that at the separation of the sign and referent a metaphysical representation of the referent was constructed; and that in fact it was the sign therefore that ordered the referent. By drawing a parallel argument with videogames it was proposed that they are particularly attuned to the theoretical challenges Baudrillard brings to Saussaurean ontology. The experiential and phenomenal world continue to exist but videogames, functioning similarly to the sign, have become hyperreal. They have, after all, evolved in a similar pattern to Baudrillard's three orders of simulacra and now, in particular when considering augmented reality, have become equivalent to the real. Immersion and realism have also come hand in hand with this realization of third order videogames. From their symbiotic relationship, starting with first order simulations that maintained their difference from reality and moving on to third order simulations that through the implementation of the code produce models of a real without origin in reality, immersion and realism have incorporated gamers into the world.

While a materialist may disagree, understanding our reality as a concrete physical construct alone is simply unfeasible. Technologies and advances in communication have as 108

Baudrillard (1976) posited, left us "living entirely within the 'aesthetic' hallucination of reality" (P.75). Videogames are not, therefore, encouraging an exodus from reality. They are instead ushering in new means of interacting with the world.

This project has been unable, however, to access the core of the user's experience.

It has pointed towards how conventions and formal aesthetics might encourage particular kinds of immersion but has not, and could not have, made any attempt at seeking out the individual's personal understandings. While this kind of information may be valuable, it is my belief that recording and appealing to individual experiences is inevitably volatile. This is not to say that I don't put great faith in the fact that the future of videogame development is inevitably directed by those who play them, not by those who design or pontificate about them. It is undeniably true that those of the collective gaming community are the most rigorous critics and, in the end, the ones who will fund future projects. This thesis has at its core, however, a touch of a Cartesian distrust for the senses. If nothing else the adoption of

Baudrillard requires that the reader suspend the natural tendency to privilege the referent over the sign. For this reason, and in seeking to expand the discussion in an unorthodox way, it was necessary to engage in something of a cerebral debate. Although an abstruse distinction, it was critical to the aims of this project that the difference between the individual's personal experience and the way the medium influences personal experience be maintained.

It would be of greatest interest to me to see this project move, in the future, towards analyzing more games in greater individual detail. Dissecting games based on the introductory system of classification within this project would provide an interesting point of departure in continuing to develop an inclusive understanding of what makes 109 videogames immersive. This would also be particularly challenging to the validity of the theoretical project present. It is always rewarding to see if theory can be applied in practice.

Furthermore, as is the plight of all theory, this project has been reactive. This project has been forced to respond to what the medium has done, and can only guess at where it might go next. Moving forward it would be exhilarating to seek out proactive opportunities. This would be an interesting experiment beyond the parameters of videogames alone. I have often been curious to know if theory can prescribe and inform practice effectively, or if theory is best left responding in placid contemplation.

Supposing that the theoretical project in this thesis stands to reason, it would also be interesting to explore the ramifications of how videogames might change if the tendency towards realism and augmented reality continues. As much as it was shown that games already spill out into everyday "real" life there would come a certain point where, if the mediation was totally unrecognizable, videogames may no longer be separate at all.

Especially if authors like Jane McGonigal are able to impress their agenda upon the world, videogames could become a part of every facet of our lives. A job could award

"achievement points" similar to those offered on Xbox Live accounts for accomplishing difficult and quirky in game tasks. Going for a jog could earn fitness points to spend towards cheaper health care rates. The examples could go on, but the really crucial implication would be how this would change the way we understand games and gameplay.

There are no signs that videogames, in their commercial success or in their popularity, will be slowing down in the years to come. As things move forward the task will be to continue to think creatively, as Baudrillard did in his time, so that the next levels of immersion can be properly explored and elucidated. Looking at videogames, but also the 110 reality in which we are situated, will be important in understanding what these artefacts have to offer. The most important thing of all, however, will be to keep playing! Bibliography: Aarseth, E. (1997) Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. London: John Hopkins University Press. Aarseth, E. (2001) "Computer game studies, year one." Games Studies, Volume 1, issue 1. Retrieved October 28, 2010 from http://www.gariiesludies.ora/0101/editorial.litiTil Aarseth, E. (2002) "The Dungeon and the Ivory Tower: Vive La Difference ou Liaison Dangereuse?" Games Studies, Volume 1, issue 1. Retrieved October 28, 2010 from http://\v\vw.gamestudies.org/0102/editorial.hlml Alexander, Leigh (2010). "On PlayStation's 15th Birthday, Platform Claims 349 Million Consoles Sold." Gamasutra. Retrieved from http://www.aamasutra.com/view/ncws/30313/Oti PlayStations 15th Birthday Plat fonn Claims 377 Million Consoles Sold.php on April 15, 2011.

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