Elements of Infrastructure Demand in Multiplayer Video Games
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Media and Communication (ISSN: 2183–2439) 2019, Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages 237–246 DOI: 10.17645/mac.v7i4.2337 Article Elements of Infrastructure Demand in Multiplayer Video Games Alexander Mirowski * and Brian P. Harper Department of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA; E-Mails: [email protected] (A.M.), [email protected] (B.P.H.) * Corresponding author Submitted: 30 June 2019 | Accepted: 18 October 2019 | Published: 20 December 2019 Abstract With the advent of organized eSports, game streaming, and always-online video games, there exist new and more pro- nounced demands on players, developers, publishers, spectators, and other video game actors. By identifying and explor- ing elements of infrastructure in multiplayer games, this paper augments Bowman’s (2018) conceptualization of demands in video games by introducing a new category of ‘infrastructure demand’ of games. This article describes how the in- frastructure increasingly built around video games creates demands upon those interacting with these games, either as players, spectators, or facilitators of multiplayer video game play. We follow the method described by Susan Leigh Star (1999), who writes that infrastructure is as mundane as it is a critical part of society and as such is particularly deserving of academic study. When infrastructure works properly it fades from view, but in doing so loses none of its importance to human endeavor. This work therefore helps to make visible the invisible elements of infrastructure present in and around multiplayer video games and explicates the demands these elements create on people interacting with those games. Keywords eSports; infrastructure; infrastructure demand; multiplayer video games; video games Issue This article is part of the issue “Video Games as Demanding Technologies” edited by Nicholas David Bowman (Texas Tech University, USA). © 2019 by the authors; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). 1. Introduction naments represents an evolution of multiplayer video game play. The excitement of players and fans in inter- Video games have long been sites of interaction and acting with favorite games still exists, as does their dedi- competition. A decade after the creation of one of the cation to mastering those games. However, the nature of first video games—SpaceWar! (completed in 1962)— contemporary multiplayer video games produces an aug- devoted fans gathered to participate in an Intergalactic mented set of requirements for players, developers, pub- SpaceWar Olympics intended to prove whose skill with lishers, spectators, and other video game actors, due in the prolific game was greatest (Brand, 1972, p. 1). large part to the infrastructure required to support what Popular games such as Space Invaders and Tetris also have become massive, multi-million-dollar global prod- saw tournaments spring up around them after their re- ucts, events, and experiences. Examining the elements leases, mostly organized by enthusiasts in celebration of of infrastructure in such games provides an opportunity those games. Bowman’s (2018, p. 16) four dimensions of to augment Bowman’s (2018) conceptualization of de- demand in video games—cognitive, emotional, physical, mand in video games by identifying and exploring a new and social—are readily visible in these early communal and complementary category of ‘infrastructure demand’ gaming spaces. of games. The advent of larger multiplayer environments in This article thus describes how the infrastructure in- always-online games as well as organized eSports tour- creasingly built around video games creates demands Media and Communication, 2019, Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages 237–246 237 upon those interacting with these games—as players, the gravitational well present in the arena. Some players spectators, facilitators, and developers, among others— in the Spacewar Olympics used mind games directed at and we argue that these demands are particularly visi- their opponents to get the upper hand rather than supe- ble, and thus productively explicable, in contemporary rior mechanical skill, a fact that captures the social de- multiplayer games. We follow the method described by mand evident at the event, wherein the “system triggers Susan Leigh Star (1999, p. 380), who writes that infras- an implicit or explicit response in the user to the pres- tructure is as mundane as it is a critical part of society ence of other social actors” (Bowman, 2018, p. 13). In and as such is particularly deserving of academic study. the two-on-two event, Brand provides a rich account of When infrastructure works properly it fades from view, team banter, ranging from “Good work” to evidence of but in doing so loses none of its importance to human en- sudden and perhaps inevitable betrayal—“NO! You killed deavor. This work therefore helps to make visible the in- me!” and the response, “Being partners means never visible elements of infrastructure present in multiplayer having to say you’re sorry.” (Brand, 1972, p. 1). Emotional video games, explicates the demands these elements cre- demand—“the extent to which a video game causes the ate on people interacting with those games, and suggests user to have an implicit or explicit affective response to the scholarly value of conducting such a deep dive into the game”—is perhaps less visible as directly originating the infrastructural elements of multiplayer video games. from the game rather than from the tournament envi- ronment itself (Bowman, 2018, p. 8). However, the game- 2. Demand in Early Multiplayer Games play of Spacewar! was evocative, and we readily see this fourth category of demand in the tension, exultation, The First Intergalactic SpaceWar Olympics, a small gath- and frustration elicited by the Olympic competition itself ering of around two dozen enthusiasts, was held on as players interact with each other. October 19th, 1972, at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence The Spacewar! Olympics were sponsored—by Rolling Laboratory, and is emblematic of multiplayer video game Stone—but only to the extent that Brand wanted to make play organized for the love of the game. The SpaceWar sure the event was successful. In practice this meant pro- Olympics have been claimed as both the first video viding beer and light snacks and funding the grand prize— game tournament and the first eSports tournament ever a year’s free subscription to Rolling Stone. The reason held, but it is more defensible to say that it was the Brand organized Rolling Stone’s involvement, however, first well-documented video game tournament. The de- was not primarily to celebrate the game, but rather to tailed account that we have of the event comes from highlight the wide-reaching technological change that he a Rolling Stone article—“Spacewar: Fanatic Life and saw beginning to happen on university campuses and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums”, written by in government research labs across the United States— the prolific Stewart Brand (1972), founder of the Whole the laying of the groundwork of a new class of com- Earth Catalog, its digital counterpart the Whole Earth puter infrastructure (Baker, 2016). “Ready or not,” he be- ‘Lectronic Link, and more recently co-founder of the Long gins his article, “computers are coming to the people” Now Foundation. Though well-known for a variety of rea- (Brand, 1972, p. 1). Video games, Brand thought, were sons, this chronicle of the SpaceWar Olympics serves for a particularly good case with which to see the benefits our purposes to highlight Bowman’s (2018) four dimen- of this infrastructure: “They manifested so many amaz- sions of demand—cognitive, emotional, physical, and ing things about what was becoming possible with com- social—as they are visible in small-scale communal video puters” (Baker, 2016), and competitive multiplayer video game play. games even more so. How might this type of video game Bowman (2018, p. 11) describes physical demand as play, then, make visible a fifth demand of video games— “the extent to which a system requires the user to ex- infrastructure? ert discrete or holistic physical effort.” This physical de- mand upon players of SpaceWar! and its Olympians is 3. Infrastructure Demand perhaps most apparent, with Brand (1972, p. 50) writing of their experience “locked in life-or-death space com- To illustrate the potential form and applications of the bat computer-projected onto cathode ray tube display category of infrastructure demand, we turn to the work screens, for hours at a time, ruining their eyes, numb- of Susan Leigh Star and others disentangling a differ- ing their fingers in frenzied mashing of control buttons”; ent class of demanding technologies—the infrastructure there need be no debate that video game play is phys- that makes up our built world. There is much scholarship iologically engaging, whether in 1972 or 2019. The cog- on the centrality of infrastructural concerns to organized nitive demand upon players—“the extent to which the video game play. Taylor and Witkowski (2010) explore user is required to implicitly or explicitly rationalize or the realm of LAN-enabled video game play—LAN stand- understand the game” (Bowman, 2018, p. 5)—is also evi- ing for local area network—by examining LAN parties, dent, as Brand recounts the highly diverse strategies em- gatherings of players to experience networked local mul- ployed by each of the five players in one match, some tak- tiplayer play; LAN parties are a prime example of the lay- ing advantage of mechanical firing techniques they de- ered infrastructures, digital and not, that support video veloped and others leaning in to intimate knowledge of game play, and through participant observation they pro- Media and Communication, 2019, Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages 237–246 238 vide rich accounts of how those infrastructures function lieve it can be productively augmented with the follow- together to support complex gaming spaces.