University of • Bedfordshire Title: “If it's in the Game, it's in the Game”: An Analysis of the Football Digital Game and its Players Name: Steven Craig Conway This is a digitised version of a dissertation submitted to the University of Bedfordshire. It is available to view only. This item is subject to copyright. 1 “If it's in the Game, it's in the Game”: An Analysis of the Football Digital Game and its Players by Steven Craig Conway PhD University of Bedfordshire A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) September 2010 2 “If it's in the Game, it's in the Game”: An Analysis of the Football Digital Game and its Players Steven Craig Conway Abstract The focus of this thesis is the representation of football, as sport and culture, within the medium of the digital game. Analysing its three sub-genres - the televisual, the extreme and the management genre. This dissertation outlines how each configures, incorporates, rejects or ignores certain conventions, values and practices connected to the socio-cultural system of the sport, and the wider sport-media complex in its representational and ludic system. Though the marketing literature surrounding these games often makes claims to their simulational quality, these products will be shown to present very particular, dissimilar, and above all ideologically loaded versions of the sport they claim to impartially represent. In an evolution of Baudrillard's (1983) concept of the simulacrum, these digital games will be revealed as euphemisms for sport, as inoffensive representations of something that may in reality be considered too offensive, or too harsh for inclusion into a marketable product. Also central to this thesis is the increasingly trans-medial nature of sport consumption, as the post-modern consumer does not simply distinguish between the various media he or she consumes and the 'reality' of the mediated object; indeed it is the mediation of the sport that now constitutes the dominant interpretation of its conventions and values. To quote John Fiske, the media no longer supply 'secondary representations of reality; they affect and produce the reality they mediate' (1994: p.xv). 3 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own unaided work. It is being submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Bedfordshire. It has not been submitted before for any examination in any other University. Name of Candidate: Signature: Steven Craig Conway Date: 4 List of Contents Abstract p.2 Declaration p.3 List of Contents p.4 Acknowledgements p.7 Introduction p.8 The Thesis Structure p.30 Literature Review p.37 Methodologies p.77 The Football Digital Game –A History p.87 Chapter One – Flow Junkies: A Case Study p.97 of the Player of Football Videogames 1.1 – Introduction p.97 1.2 – Methodology p.101 1.3 – Dress p.105 1.4 – Customs p.107 1.5 – Body Language and Proxemics p.123 1.6 – Argot p.133 1.7 – Themes of Discussion p.137 1.8 – Chapter Summary p.147 Chapter Two – Game On: Starting at the p.151 'START' 2.1 – Introduction p.151 2.2 – FIFA 08 p.153 2.3 – Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 p.159 2.4 – FIFA Street 2 p.164 2.5 – Football Manager 2007 p.167 2.6 – Chapter Summary p.169 Chapter Three – Sanitized Sound p.166 3.1 – Introduction p.166 3.2 – Affect p.169 3.3 – Interface p.173 3.4 – Zone p.174 3.5 – Effect p.178 3.6 – Excessive Noise p.180 3.7 – Chapter Summary p.182 Chapter Four - Virtual Motson: p.190 Commentary in Football Videogames 4.1 – Introduction p.190 4.2 – The Televisual Genre p.195 4.3 – The Management Genre p.202 4.4 – The Extreme Genre p.204 4.5 – Chapter Summary p.205 Chapter Five –The Neutrality of the p.206 5 Machine 5.1 – Introduction p.206 5.2 – The Management Genre p.208 5.3 – The Televisual Genre p.210 5.4 – The Extreme Genre p.213 5.5 – Chapter Summary p.214 Chapter Six – The Cybernetic System p.215 6.1 – Introduction p.215 6.2 – The Cybernetic System p.217 6.3 – The Televisual Genre p.219 6.4 – The Extreme Genre p.224 6.5 – The Management Genre p.226 6.6 – Chapter Summary p.228 Chapter Seven - ‘The Beautiful Game’: p.232 Contra-Ludicity and Hyper-Ludicity 7.1 – Introduction p.232 7.2 – The Televisual Genre p.235 7.3 – The Extreme Genre p.240 7.4 – The Management Genre p.243 7.5 – Chapter Summary p.246 Chapter Eight –The Avatar p.249 8.1 – Introduction p.249 8.2 – The Televisual Genre p.250 8.3 – The Extreme Genre p.255 8.4 – The Management Genre p.257 8.5 – Chapter Summary p.261 Chapter Nine –The Hyper-Ludic Celebrity p.263 9.1 – Introduction p.263 9.2 – A Star is Born p.264 9.3 – Pieces of Flair p.266 9.4 – Chapter Summary p.269 Chapter Ten –The Celebration p.270 10.1 – Introduction p.270 10.2 – The Televisual Genre p.270 10.3 – The Extreme Genre p.273 10.4 – The Management Genre p.274 10.5 – Chapter Summary p.276 Chapter Eleven –The Single Player-Single p.279 Player 11.1 – Introduction p.279 11.2 – Astronomy p.280 11.3 – The Makings of a Star p.281 11.4 – The Scientific Athlete p.283 11.5 – The 'I' in Team p.284 6 11.6 – Chapter Summary p.286 Conclusion p.289 Bibliography p.315 Software and Media p.358 7 Acknowledgements I wish firstly to thank my supervisor Garry Whannel for his constant enthusiasm, generosity and wisdom. I would like to thank all of my friends, colleagues and former colleagues at the University of Bedfordshire for their continuing support and advice. In particular I owe a debt of gratitude to Alec Charles, Peter Dean, Luke Hockley, Gavin Stewart, Alexis Weedon and Jason Wilson. I also wish to thank the many academics who have given generously of their time and expertise over the past three years; in particular Andrew Baerg, Garry Crawford, Daniel Griffin, Tanya Krzywinska, Ken McAllister, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Ryan Moeller, Judd Ruggill and David Surman. 8 Introduction Good or bad, a play always includes an image of the world... There is no play and no theatrical performance which does not in some way affect the dispositions and conceptions of the audience. Art is never without consequences. (Brecht, 1978: p.150-1) The sports digital game is fiction. Yet it is a fiction full of verisimilitude, a fiction that chafes in discomfort at such labelling. It wants, and indeed attempts, to present itself as non-fiction, as accurate, holistic representation of the sport as game and industry; as EA Sports' motto proudly proclaims, 'If it's in the game, it's in the game'. It does not claim to provide its own 'image of the world', instead it markets the product as a reflection of the existing one, evident in the promotion of such games as not game but 'simulation'. This thesis is concerned with the consequences of such a culture of production, in terms of both design (the text) and consumption (the player and sub-culture). On Wednesday the 18th November, 2009, the Republic of Ireland lost to France in the play-off stage to reach the finals of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This defeat gained instant notoriety, firstly because the French player Thierry Henry had obviously 'cheated' in the build-up to the winning goal by handballing the football twice, and secondly, because the sports media used this event as an anchor for further discussions on sport regulation and culture, which quickly spiralled into a political issue and gained a similarly intense focus from many mainstream media outlets, an instance of ‘vortextuality’ as Whannel (2010) defines it. 9 Demands were made by the media, certain players, and the FAI (Football Association of Ireland) to replay the match, in the spirit of sportsmanship. In an interview with French football magazine L’Equipe, French defender Patrice Evra responded, “The replay, I'll do it when you want on a PlayStation” (21st November, Daily Mail, 2009). Following Arsenal's elimination from the Champion's League by Barcelona on the 6th of April 2010, Arsene Wenger was quoted in The Guardian, praising Barcelona player Lionel Messi as “like a Playstation”; this waspart of an entire article by Keith Stuart where he asks 'Who's better: the real Messi or the virtual one?' (8th April, 2010: p.2), playing a variety of digital games to re-enact Messi's goals from the match. In 2008, Everton Football Club announced they had officially paid for the rights to use the Football Manager (Sports Interactive, 2004-present) digital game database as a scouting tool, allowing Everton manager David Moyes to search the records of 380,000 players compiled by 1500 researchers across the globe, whilst Northern Ireland manager Lawrie Sanchez contacted Sports Interactive (developers of the Football Manager videogame series) for scouting advice on lower league players eligible for the national team (Macaskill, 2009). Simply put, various boundaries, between entertainment and politics, fiction and non-fiction, technology and society, virtual and physical, are merging, moving, and perhaps even eroding. Football has a long history of being both entertainment and political expression, but it is no longer a sport understood simply through live spectatorship, or supported by local communities living in close proximity to the team ground.