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The Poetics of Reflection in Digital Games

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The Poetics of Reflection in Digital Games © Copyright 2019 Terrence E. Schenold The Poetics of Reflection in Digital Games Terrence E. Schenold A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2019 Reading Committee: Brian M. Reed, Chair Leroy F. Searle Phillip S. Thurtle Program Authorized to Offer Degree: English University of Washington Abstract The Poetics of Reflection in Digital Games Terrence E. Schenold Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Brian Reed, Professor English The Poetics of Reflection in Digital Games explores the complex relationship between digital games and the activity of reflection in the context of the contemporary media ecology. The general aim of the project is to create a critical perspective on digital games that recovers aesthetic concerns for game studies, thereby enabling new discussions of their significance as mediations of thought and perception. The arguments advanced about digital games draw on philosophical aesthetics, media theory, and game studies to develop a critical perspective on gameplay as an aesthetic experience, enabling analysis of how particular games strategically educe and organize reflective modes of thought and perception by design, and do so for the purposes of generating meaning and supporting expressive or artistic goals beyond amusement. The project also provides critical discussion of two important contexts relevant to understanding the significance of this poetic strategy in the field of digital games: the dynamics of the contemporary media ecology, and the technological and cultural forces informing game design thinking in the ludic century. The project begins with a critique of limiting conceptions of gameplay in game studies grounded in a close reading of Bethesda's Morrowind, arguing for a new a "phaneroscopical perspective" that accounts for the significance of a "noematic" layer in the gameplay experience that accounts for dynamics of player reflection on diegetic information and its integral relation to ergodic activity. The next two chapters zoom out to consider systemic challenges to reflective thought and perception in the contemporary media ecology generally, and the ludic century particularly. Synthesizing Hartmut Rosa's theory of social acceleration with critical discourses on the digital in the humanities, I identify a general problem of speed in the digital media ecology resulting from its increasing synergy with historical processes of social acceleration, arguing for the development of an idea of "slow media" to supplement the existing cultural and technological strategies of deceleration. Returning to the domain of digital games, I criticize Eric Zimmerman's characterization of the "ludic century" through expansion of Paolo Pedercini's argument that "videogames are the aesthetic form of rationalization," using close reading of Molleindustria's Every Day the Same Dream to discuss critical aesthetic strategies in game design as necessary supplements to the existing critical developments of the ludic century. The final chapter develops the poetics of reflection in a technical direction through close readings of four exemplars: Giant Squid's ABZÛ, The Chinese Room's Dear Esther, Richard Hofmeier's Cart Life, and Playdead's INSIDE. These readings identify specific design strategies, such as design for musement or an aesthetic of slowness, that educe and develop reflective activity in gameplay and actively disrupt habitual and instrumentalized modes of attention and perception. The project concludes with reflection on the significance of the "videogame avant-garde" identified by Brian Schrank. i Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iii Introduction: On the Transformation of Digital Games into "Thought-Things" .......................... 1 §0.1 | Digital Games and Reflection ........................................................................................... 1 §0.2 | The "Obsolescence" of Discourse on Digital Games ........................................................ 2 §0.3 | Contemporary Technogenesis and the Challenge to Reflection ....................................... 5 §0.4 | "Anti-Environments" of the Ludic Century ...................................................................... 7 §0.5 | "AA" Games ................................................................................................................... 11 §0.6 | Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 1: After Ergodics: Noematic Work and the Function of Diegetic Information in Computer Roleplaying Games ...................................................................................................... 14 §1.1 | Introduction: Ergodics and Noematic Work ................................................................... 14 §1.2 | From Ergodics to Actionism ........................................................................................... 20 §1.3 | The "Brutal Simplifiers" of Actionism ........................................................................... 27 §1.4 | The Problematic Figure of the CRPG ............................................................................. 31 §1.5 | Diegetic Information and Noematic Work in Morrowind .............................................. 34 §1.6 | Questing as Inquiry in Morrowind .................................................................................. 39 §1.7 | Rethinking Gameplay ..................................................................................................... 44 Chapter 2: Slow Media and the Problem of Reflection in the Contemporary Media Ecology .... 51 §2.1 | Introduction: A “Slow Hunch” About Human Thinking ................................................ 52 §2.2 | The Contemporary Media Ecology and the Macro-Critical Perspective ........................ 60 ii §2.3 | The Contemporary Media Ecology and the Problem of Speed ...................................... 67 §2.4 | Slowness and Aesthetic Experience of Media ................................................................ 82 §2.5 | Deceleration Strategies and the Problem of Reflection .................................................. 92 §2.6 | The Idea of Slow Media ................................................................................................ 107 §2.7 | Artworks as "Machines to Slow Down" ....................................................................... 117 Chapter 3: The Ludic Century and the Problem of Rationalization in Digital Games ............... 120 §3.1 | Introduction: A Critical Look at the "Ludic Century" .................................................. 121 §3.2 | The Softwarization of Digital Games and Rise of Metamediums ................................ 125 §3.3 | The Ideologies of the Gameful World .......................................................................... 132 §3.4 | The Abstraction from Poetics and Aesthetic Experiences of Actual Games ................ 139 §3.5 | Ludosophia, Aesthetics, and the Problem of Rationalization ....................................... 143 §3.6 | The Aesthetics of Problem-Making in Every Day the Same Dream ............................ 156 §3.7 | Critical Developments of the Ludic Century and the Experimentalist Model .............. 168 Chapter 4: Musement and the Aesthetics of Slowness in Digital Games ................................... 179 §4.1 | Introduction: Musement as Counter to the Problem of Rationalization ....................... 180 §4.2 | Musement and Methexis in ABZÛ ................................................................................ 188 §4.3 | Musement and Metaphorical Resonance in Dear Esther.............................................. 200 §4.4 | The Aesthetics of Slowness and the Feeling of Failure in Cart Life ............................ 212 §4.5 | Aesthetics of Slowness and the Spectre of Cybernetic Control in INSIDE .................. 226 §4.6 | Coda: Neglected Argument for the Surreality of the Avant-garde ............................... 252 References ................................................................................................................................... 261 Ludography ................................................................................................................................. 271 iii List of Figures Figure 1 - Aarseth's User Functions ................................................................................ 16 Figure 2 - Two Analytical Emphases of Gameplay ........................................................ 18 Figure 3 - Alexander Galloway's "Gamic Action" ......................................................... 21 Figure 4 - Acquiring "Spirea" Seed in Quest for Glory .................................................. 24 Figure 5 - Acquiring "Flying Water" in Quest for Glory ................................................ 25 Figure 6 - Upton's Models of Interactivity ...................................................................... 29 Figure 7 - Schematization of Limit Cases....................................................................... 32 Figure 8 - Slavery in Morrowind .................................................................................... 41 Figure 9 - Modes of Interactivity and the Phaneroscopical Perspective ......................... 49 Figure 10 - Molleindustria's
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