Winning and Losing in the Hall of Mirrors
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Winning and Losing in the Hall of Mirrors A study into the structural psychoanalytic interfaces arising during the video game situation A thesis submitted for the award of PhD Psychology Vanessa Abigail Long School of Social Sciences Brunel University June 2013 Abstract Who are we? Why do we do the things we do? These questions are constantly under scrutiny, forever unable to provide us with adequate answers, it seems. Yet, with the continuing rise in popularity of digital media, we are able to situate these questions in a different sphere and see aspects of the self that we were unable to perceive before. Digital media forms have provided us with the capacity to explore whole new worlds, as well as allowing for new and innovative methods of communication. These changes make a huge impact on the daily lives of individuals. This thesis presents a theoretical contribution to both psychoanalytic thinking and to the rapidly expanding field of games studies, with especial reference to avatar-based games. It considers the status of the bond formed between the individual at play (known here as the ‘user’) and the game itself. Furthermore, it presents this as a model which identifies the user’s relation to the game dynamic through an understanding of the key components of a video game, including aspects such as the control mechanism. Elements which cross the boundary between the user/game realities are also considered with relation to hyperreality, thus forming a more complete imagining of this framework. This also allows for an application of this dynamic to what we define as violent (and associated) acts within games. In turn, this allows for a more complete understanding of the game situation, and can be applied to our understanding of the user as well. This thesis provides a standalone framework which can also be utilised in other types of investigation in future. 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 5 Chapter One – Play and Games 13 Chapter Two – Play and Games in Contemporary Culture 55 Chapter Three – The Intermediate Ego 82 The Psychoanalytic Postmodern 105 Chapter Four – Refractions of an Object 121 Chapter Five – Understanding the Extreme 152 Conclusion 180 Appendix - The Future of Games 190 Bibliography 220 2 List of Figures (Sources referenced at end of bibliography) Screenshot from Project Zero 8 Senet board 20 Screenshot from Flower 27 Screenshot from Battle Royale 57 Screenshot from Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass 61 Own diagram: historical, avatar, and rule spaces 68 Screenshot from Black & White 70 Screenshot from Final Fantasy Tactics 72 Screenshot from Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, taken by V. Long 2010 75 Diagram from J. Jagodzinski’s 2004 book, Youth Fantasies 93 Diagram from J. Lacan’s The Four Fundamental Concepts… 94 Own diagram: subversion, double abstraction, and duplication 140 Screenshot from Pokémon 157 Screenshot from God of War 159 Screenshot from Playboy: The Mansion 168 Screenshot from Full Spectrum Warrior 175 Screenshot from Namco’s Pac-Man, taken by V. Long 2011 192 Promotional photograph of Emotiv headset 199 Screenshot from EyeToy: Play 201 Screenshot of manual for the Virtual Boy 206 Screenshot from A Shadow's Tale 210 3 Acknowledgements I would like to offer my most sincere gratitude to my PhD Supervisors Professor Dany Nobus and Professor Tanya Krzywinska for the time and assistance they have provided. I would also like to thank CeX Ltd., for support and occasional flexibility in working hours. Finally, I would like to thank my partner, my friends, and my family, for their unwavering encouragement during this endeavour. Vanessa Abigail Long 4 Introduction It has been stated that everything we do can be read as a performance. Furthermore, that performance should be acknowledged by others, even if it is known to be a performance by the individual conducting it. “They are asked to believe that the character they see actually possesses the attributes he appears to possess, that the task he performs will have the same consequences that are implicitly claimed for it, and that, in general, matters are what they appear to be.” (Goffman 1959:28). These are the words of sociologist Erving Goffman. Individuals put on social performances all the time, either knowingly or otherwise, and it is up to the spectator to interpret and react to said performance. Play has many performative aspects to it, as do games in general. This includes video games. Much of childhood play centres around a child imagining a role and playing it. Performance is even essential in many more structured games, for example in poker, where convincing others of one’s confidence in the cards becomes a method of winning the game. An individual at play will henceforth be known as a ‘user’. This differentiates the individual from other interpretations (‘player’, for example, is often utilised). I feel, however, that ‘player’ provides the individual at play with a sort of agency that I do not explore in this thesis. Here I address the individual at play as more of a structure fulfilling its purpose in a specific scenario: I do not address the individual’s specific requirements or thoughts with relation to said scenario. Therefore, the word ‘user’ is deemed a more appropriate term for the purpose of this research. The question of what the user is doing and where they are when they are at play in the context of a video game is an important one. Psychologically, the user and the character in the game seem somewhat connected, and this can be regarded as performative as the user appears to take on something of the character they play as. Calling the link performative may be simplifying what is actually occurring, however. In this thesis, I uncover this bond between the user and specific types of game. In doing so I present a clearer understanding of the level at which play takes place and where in relation to the play the user is actively situated. This thesis expresses the importance of the link between the user and character 5 on-screen, as well as the environment that surrounds it. Whilst I acknowledge that there are other types of video games and virtual play spaces that do not place such a central focus on a specific character, I feel that the expression of the bond defined within this thesis would be quite different, and thus out of the range covered here. Whilst this thesis deals with the importance of this centrality to the user, the dynamic of the 'intermediate ego' introduced in Chapter Three should be considered a bond that can be characterised in a different way to deal with games that do not meet this default specification. The types of games dealt with in this thesis should be defined as 'avatar-based'. Because I deal with them specifically, I present a means of understanding video games in general but not the specifics of how this bond works in all available types. Therefore some aspects mentioned within the thesis could be considered to apply to games in general, although I focus predominantly on a specific type. Furthermore, this thesis presents a means of understanding other active elements which surround the game situation. How do we understand familiar objects within the game situation? Should games be questioned in terms of their realism? Is there even anything approximating realism there? All of these questions situate the game in its own context and allow for a greater comprehension of both the user and the game itself. This work is representative of the human desire to understand the self. In video games, when the user is at play they are not the same self that they present to others. This means that there is something occurring between the user and the game that changes the presentation of self to the point that a user will speak in the personal tense when reminiscing about the events of the game. This is not to state that the user becomes the character they play on-screen, but it is a means of demonstrating the importance of the link between the two. Video games have surged in popularity in recent years, and have reached the point where what they are and what is occurring affects a much larger demographic. As we become increasingly reliant on machines in all aspects of our lives, it is going to become essential that we understand what manner of situation we are placing ourselves in when we interact with said machines. There is a great deal of research interest in video games from many different 6 disciplines, meaning that it is both an enriching and contested area of study. Presenting a structural way of representing the user’s relationship with the game adds another layer to this research and allows for a strong platform for other related research. This approach involves a multidisciplinary standpoint, which particularly marries theories from postmodernism and psychoanalysis together. The importance of doing so rests with the scope of the game, and the idea that we can gain an understanding of not just the game or the user, but the entire experience of interaction with a virtual world. This is further explored in the second section of Chapter Three. Video games create a situation whereby this user is situated before a screen with a controller of some variety, which they use to direct the action on the screen. Control is often centred on a singular character, represented within the perspective that is being played in. For example, in first person one would see only arms and legs. This representation is known as an avatar and can take many forms, some of which bear little resemblance to the user, to the point that one might adopt a mouse cursor as the point of control (which then becomes almost representative of the avatar, the implication being that said representation is at the point of the user).