Being Virtual: Embodiment and Experience in Interactive Computer Game Play
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Being Virtual: Embodiment and Experience in Interactive Computer Game Play Hanna Mathilde Sommerseth PhD The University of Edinburgh January 2010 1 Declaration My signature certifies that this thesis represents my own original work, the results of my own original research, and that I have clearly cited all sources and that this work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. Hanna Mathilde Sommerseth 2 Acknowledgements I am grateful to my supervisor Ella Chmielewska for her continued support throughout the past four years. I could not have gotten to where I am today without her encouragement and belief in my ability to do well. I am also deeply thankful also to a number of other mentors, official and unofficial for their advice and help: Richard Coyne, John Frow, Brian McNair, Jane Sillars, and most especially thank you to Nick Prior for his continued friendship and support. I am thankful for the Higher Education Funding Council in Scotland and the University of Edinburgh for the granting of an Overseas Research Student award allowing me to undertake this thesis in the first place, as well as to the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund for maintenance grants allowing me to live while doing it. In the category of financial gratefulness, I must also thank my parents for their continued help over these four years when times have been difficult. Rumour has it that the process of writing a thesis of this kind can be a lonely endeavour. But in the years I have spent writing I have found a great community of emerging scholars and friends at the university and beyond that have supported and challenged me in ways too many to mention. I am grateful to my friends that have helped me not only write a thesis, but become an academic: Lisa Otty, Jack David Burton, Ana Salzberg, Clare Bielby, Silvia Villa, Kim Richmond, Gesine Strenge, Keith Brown, Leonidas Koutsumpos, Lara Day, Jonathan Benjamin, Lizelle Bischoff, Melissa Trachtenberg. My parents, Randi Sommerseth and Kjell Sommerseth, made me who I am, and I would not have been able to do this without their love and support. My brother, Eyvin, shares my love of games, and my memories of how it all began. I am forever thankful to him for everything we have done together, and if anything, this thesis is dedicated to him. Finally, I am thankful to Robert. I could say I am thankful for keeping me sane, for bringing me tea, or for the proof-reading, but that does not even begin to cover it. Compared to meeting you, completing a thesis is but a triviality. 3 Abstract This thesis argues that the notion of player experience in relation to computer games is intrinsically linked to the body. Taking the idea of aesthetic experience, or sensuous experience, in computer game play as its starting point, my thesis considers computer games from within an interdisciplinary cross section of phenomenology, cultural studies and visual culture. Computer games have in a reasonably short amount of time reached a stage where they are an integral part of contemporary society: historically, economically and culturally. The current field of computer games comprises a vast array of genres, styles, stories, experiments and media. Because computer games are interactive objects, I argue that an analysis should begin with a discussion of player experience, and that this experience is inherently embodied. The embodied and temporal nature of game play means it is problematic to simply transfer established frameworks of meaning making in other audiovisual media onto computer games. The thesis attempts to understand the notion of player experience through a phenomenological reading of the interactive experience, and as such I argue that the individual, temporal and iterative aspect of this experience means computer games should not necessarily be squeezed into already established categories of earlier forms of entertainment media. Through three main chapters I explore the role of the body and embodied experience from three different points of view, roughly divided into the three aspects that make up the feedback loop of game play; hardware, software and interface. Each chapter considers the unique role and importance of the body at each point in the game play process. 4 Contents Table of Contents Introductory Chapter – The Medium of the Computer Game......................................9 An anecdote..............................................................................................................9 The culture of computer games..............................................................................11 A history of computer games..................................................................................19 The art of computer games....................................................................................22 The problem with interactivity...............................................................................28 The experience of computer games........................................................................31 A question regarding reality...................................................................................39 Thesis outline.........................................................................................................41 Chapter 1 – Studying Computer Games.....................................................................47 Game Studies.........................................................................................................49 A snapshot of an emerging field.............................................................................55 Defining play and games.......................................................................................60 Player experience..................................................................................................66 Phenomenology and computer games...................................................................70 Theorising the Virtual............................................................................................78 Chapter 2 – The Body as Hardware............................................................................84 Rez -immersion and interactivity...........................................................................86 Virtual Reality........................................................................................................94 The Senses..............................................................................................................97 Virtual Experiences..............................................................................................101 The cyborg player................................................................................................108 Summary: the body as hardware..........................................................................117 Chapter 3 – The Body as Software...........................................................................121 5 The Active player.................................................................................................123 The Player as Actor ............................................................................................131 Player, perspective and body...............................................................................138 Avatar and identity...............................................................................................145 Summary: The body as software..........................................................................153 Chapter 4 – Virtual environments and embodied experience...................................156 The Computer Medium........................................................................................159 Image and illusion...............................................................................................162 Physics and behaviour.........................................................................................169 Simulation and representation.............................................................................176 Computer Game Space........................................................................................181 Summary: The body in virtual space...................................................................190 Concluding Chapter - Questioning Embodiment......................................................193 The recurrent question: But Is It Art?..................................................................196 What is a game?...................................................................................................203 The problem regarding 'the body'........................................................................210 Summary: Being Virtual: Embodiment and Experience in Interactive Computer Game Play ...........................................................................................................216 Bibliography.............................................................................................................220 Websites....................................................................................................................231 List of Games............................................................................................................234 6 Frames The final image after end credits of The adventures of Lolo 2. Two blobs watching the sunset....................................................................................................................10