CHOICE IN DIGITAL GAMES: A TAXONOMY OF CHOICE TYPES APPLIED TO PLAYER AGENCY AND IDENTITY by Michael Thomas Andreen APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ___________________________________________ Monica Evans, Chair ___________________________________________ Frank Dufour ___________________________________________ Todd Fechter ___________________________________________ Robert Xavier Rodriguez Copyright 2017 Michael Thomas Andreen All Rights Reserved For Alli, for all we’ve done and all that’s to come CHOICE IN DIGITAL GAMES: A TAXONOMY OF CHOICE TYPES APPLIED TO PLAYER AGENCY AND IDENTITY by MICHAEL THOMAS ANDREEN, BA, MFA DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS MAY 2017 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my committee I offer my deepest thanks for supporting me in this endeavor. Monica Evans has dedicated seemingly endless energy to my growth and well-being as both a scholar and an instructor. The example she set has inspired me to push myself harder. Frank Dufour helped me to realize my love of sound in ways I had never considered, and then introduced deep philosophical challenges to me that have fueled not only my perspective on video games, but my approaches to a variety of other topics. Todd Fechter has been a supportive force behind my role as an instructor, and graciously stepped forward to assist me in my research in a time when I needed it most. Robert Xavier Rodriguez has helped me to contextualize my work alongside more traditional artistic fields through his wealth of knowledge and our conversations. I could not have come this far without the encouragement of my family. Mom, Dad, and Anna, you have always been there to take interest in what I do whether we’re joking around, arguing, or just sitting around playing games. My love of research, information, and education comes from the examples you all set. Gayle, Bob, and Lars, you all played a part in encouraging the interests that led me here from watching odd movies to solving obscure puzzles in adventure games. Rick, Bruce, Mimi, Pop, and Gran Betty, you were all there when I began this adventure, and though it pains me that you aren’t here to see me finish, the lessons I’ve learned from you all and the experiences you’ve given me are in every word I write. Finally, thank you Alli for having been by my side this whole way. You put up with me the entire time and even said yes. I couldn’t ask for more. March 2017 v CHOICE IN DIGITAL GAMES: A TAXONOMY OF CHOICE TYPES APPLIED TO PLAYER AGENCY AND IDENTITY Michael Thomas Andreen, PhD The University of Texas at Dallas, 2017 ABSTRACT Supervising Professor: Dr. Monica Evans Choice has always played an important part in video games, but its role in recent times has become complicated. As technology has grown more efficient, once narrow game genres have expanded and hybridized. Action games such as platformers have adopted complex statistical systems for players to manipulate, first-person-perspective games that were once primarily shooters have gained complex stories with multiple narrative paths, and some games have even pushed into the realm of interactive cinema experiences. With such rich variation, the current manner in which academia and the development industry discusses choice is too broad. It is thus my goal in this research to create a taxonomic categorization of choice types in video games, as well as to demonstrate application of the taxonomy as it pertains to agency and player identity in gaming experiences. I believe that, as engineered objects, games must be viewed as objects of representation and simulation by observers and creators alike. Through interpretation and reduction of real-world analogues, designers create and implement in-game systems of varying fidelity to provide choices to players. The consequences in games that lead to feelings of agency and identity are vi likewise designed just as the choices that lead to them. This research will demonstrate these principles of choice and consequence by drawing examples from games across five decades of game development and critically analyzing them. I will present a taxonomy of choice types derived from these observations and relate it to agency and identity in game experiences. Finally, I will apply the taxonomy to three case studies weighing Heavy Rain against The Last of Us, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim against Dark Souls, and Shadow of the Colossus against The Stanley Parable. The case studies will deal with choice as it relates to agency, choice as it relates to identity, and the subversion of player choice as a major narrative technique respectively. It is ultimately the goal of this research to provide a template that better illustrates not only the types of choice available in video games, but how the relationship between the different types can impact player experience. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………….v ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………...vi LIST OF FIGURES...…………………………………………………………………………….ix INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………….1 CHAPTER 1 SIMULATION AND REPRESENTATION...……………………………..……..8 CHAPTER 2 THE ACADEMIC AND INDUSTRY DIVIDE REGARDING CHOICE....…...37 CHAPTER 3 A TAXONOMY OF CHOICE IN VIDEO GAMES...………………………….52 CHAPTER 4 ENGINEERING CONSEQUENCE TO PRODUCE AGENCY..………………78 CHAPTER 5 IDENTITY AND PLAY..………………………………………………………102 CASE STUDIES INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………..133 CHAPTER 6 AGENCY CASE STUDY: HEAVY RAIN AND THE LAST OF US...……...134 CHAPTER 7 IDENTITY CASE STUDY: SKYRIM AND DARK SOULS..……………….159 CHAPTER 8 CASE STUDY: THE STANLEY PARABLE AND SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS……….……………………………………………………………………………183 CONCLUSION….……………………………………………………………………………...206 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………211 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...…………………………………………………………………219 CURRICULUM VITAE viii LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Kanisza’s Triangle and visual pattern recognition...…………………………………………15 4.1 The unique ‘bad’ ending to Breath of Fire 2………………………………………………...95 5.1 The dragon claw puzzle in Skyrim………………………………………………………….114 5.2 Samus finding an upgrade in Metroid……………………………………………………....121 5.3 A low intelligence playthrough of Fallout 2……………………………………………….124 5.4 Bartle’s player types per Bart Stewart……………………………………………………...126 5.5 Nick Yee’s play motivators………………………………………………………………...127 7.1 Normal values for a potion in Skyrim………………………………………………………167 7.2 Values for a potion in Skyrim through game manipulation………………………………...168 8.1 The third colossus…………………………………………………………………………..191 8.2 The thirteenth colossus……………………………………………………………………..191 ix INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY Choice as a concept is a defining characteristic of human behavior and self-image. Freedom occupies human thought and behavior constantly—the freedom to eat, to speak, to create, to act. The freedom to choose precedes all other action. I must choose to engage in creating before I begin, and then subsequently I choose how to create. Media depictions of story and character necessarily show us the process of other people choosing how to act, or at least the illusion of choice. An action hero on the movie screen appears to choose to fight or run from his enemies, but in every viewing of such a film, the hero will make the same choice every time. The media object is an artifact locked in the time of its creations that depicts the illusion of choice, perhaps even serving the viewer’s projection of choices she might wish to make. Even more dynamic performance such as a play or symphony creates a divide between audience and performer (though there are exceptions), especially during the performance itself. In video games, the act of playing and exercising choice is part of the object—part of the performance—itself. The capacity to choose a course of action sets video games apart from most forms of traditional media. Author of Hamlet on the Holodeck Janet Murray points out that “just as the primary representational property of the movie camera and projector is the photographic rendering of action over time, the primary representational property of the computer is the codified rendering of responsive behaviors” (74). Films, novels, and music all create spaces of observation and experience for the audience, but ultimately, outside of some experimental cases, only allow one direct, binary form of interaction: engage or do not engage. A computer, by contrast, responds to user input based on the purpose of its system. Video games—games that happen within and are governed by the confines of a computer system—by extension provide 1 scenarios that respond to player input, thus expanding the possibilities of player experience and even providing for experiences unintended by the developer. Key in Murray’s description is the word ‘codified’ which expresses that the responses to player choice are systemic, engineered outcomes in a game’s code that react to equally engineered inputs. Choice exists within the system, impacts the system, and thus creates new system states in which players can act. In his book A Theory of Fun for Game Design, game designer Raph Koster says that “when we describe a game, we almost never do so in terms of the formal abstract system alone— we describe it in terms of the overall experience” (162). In this view, the formal systems of the game—the math and algorithms that drive everything players see on the screen—simply create the aggregate experience. Koster’s statement, however, is sweepingly broad, and even his subsequent discussion of the topic leaves room for expansion. He likens the creation of a video game to a production of the ballet Swan Lake, rightly pointing out that there are many factors contributing to the production—lighting, choreography, costuming, etc.—but that no one of those things is the spirit of the “dance,” which he emphasizes to indicate the whole experience of the presentation. Using a hypothetical film to further his stance, he says that “the very fact that the art of the film fails if any of its constituent arts fail elevates each and every one to primacy” (168).