Criticality in Game Design Practice A Master Thesis presented by Enric Granzotto Llagostera CPR 100287-3865 [email protected] For the Master of Science in Games, Game Analysis track IT University of Copenhagen June 2012 THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Supervisor Professor Dr. Τ. L. Taylor External Examiner Dr. Kjetil Sandvik Acknowledgement First, I would like to thank my supervisor T.L. Taylor for her patience and guidance throughout the making of this thesis. I also want to thank Miguel Sicart for his supervision during the thesis preparation, and my friend Isaac Lenhart for his helpful comments, revisions, and discussions along the making of this thesis. This thesis would not have been possible without the immense support from my family, who were always there for me, on the other side of the ocean. Finally, I want to thank my wife Carol, for all her courage, patience, and strength: I would never finish this thesis without her, and there are no words to make justice to her contribution. 1 2 Abstract Games and play are currently seen as having relevant impacts in changing a variety of spheres of people's lives, such as work, education, and political action. However, many times games and play are uncritically deployed, as if they existed in a social and political vacuum, ready to be used whenever appropriate. The present research explores the concept of criticality as a productive perspective for problematizing such efforts of changing the world through games and play, with a special focus on game design, bringing to the discussion views from outside the game studies and design domain. Criticality in game design is two-fold. First, it can mean creating games and play centered on the idea of performing critique and challenging dominant hegemonic values, beliefs and conventions, maybe supporting or creating spaces for change. With that in mind, I investigate existing formulations of criticality in play and games, analyzing the most important elements of that relationship that can affect game design. Secondly, criticality in game design can refer to taking it as a guiding principle or stance during the design practice of game designers, informing design goals, processes and other aspects of game design, turning it into a critical activity itself. In order to understand how criticality can affect design practice, I review and analyze a diversity of critical approaches to design and game design. Finally, a synthesis of the more relevant elements and themes raised in these detailed analysis is produced, aimed at providing insight and productive questions to the practice of game designers engaged in critical efforts. 3 4 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 3 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 7 2. On criticality, play, and design ........................................................................................ 15 The first domain: criticality ........................................................................................ 16 The second domain: play ........................................................................................... 23 The third domain: design ........................................................................................... 29 Summary .................................................................................................................... 37 3. Criticality and Play .......................................................................................................... 39 Analyzing critical play ............................................................................................... 39 Games of multitude .................................................................................................... 55 Critical consciousness and play ................................................................................. 59 Summary .................................................................................................................... 66 4. Criticality in Design and Game Design ........................................................................... 69 Critical perspectives in design ................................................................................... 69 Critical perspectives in game design .......................................................................... 78 Design goals and criticality ........................................................................................ 86 Design processes and criticality ................................................................................. 90 Summary .................................................................................................................. 100 5. Critical Game Design .................................................................................................... 103 Context ..................................................................................................................... 104 Subversion ................................................................................................................ 109 Action ....................................................................................................................... 114 Towards critical consciousness ................................................................................ 117 6. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 121 References ......................................................................................................................... 125 5 6 1. Introduction In recent years, a lot of attention has been placed on what games can do to affect the world and our everyday lives. The rise of serious games, educational games, and gamification exemplify this. Discussions on how games can revolutionize the work place or political and social action have gained recognition and are being investigated and pursued by game makers, the academy, corporations, and other institutions, such as NGOs and social movements. People engaged in overcoming perceived faults and problems of our contemporary times are paying more attention to the domain of games and play, viewing them as viable platforms for their efforts, and there is a widespread growing belief in their potential to affect change. Many times, this potential is traced to ideas of games as great platforms for motivating or engaging people. On other occasions, the learning involved in play is also summoned as a tool for change. According to this view, if only people learned better about or were motivated to engage more with their surrounding reality, the world might become a better place. In the talks of the more enthusiastic advocates of such ideas, engagement and learning through games seems to be a key concept for the future of work place productivity (Reeves & Read, 2009), action upon urgent social issues (McGonigal, 2011), and for learning the skills needed to be a good citizen and person, in schools structured around “game-based learning” (Quest to Learn, 2012). These qualities appear as instruments of the new and better, as a toolset of a future-friendly, socially responsible, and well-adapted contemporary subject. I also subscribe to the core idea that games have a part to play in changing the world we live in. However, there are a variety of caveats that need to be addressed, and the general lack of discussion around them is problematic: games and play do not constitute a 7 neutral domain which can simply be deployed to save the world. They exist within the same broad contexts, the same larger pictures as the rest of society, and are very much produced and influenced by them. Several scholars have problematized the relationship between games and contemporary capitalism, both from macro socio-cultural (Henricks, 2006; Sutton-Smith, 1997) or political (Dyer-Witheford & Peuter, 2009) perspectives and micro, expression focused ones (Bogost, 2007, 2008; Frasca, 2001a). Ideology and hegemony are not alien to games, and this needs to be acknowledged and taken into consideration when proposing their potential as arenas for change. Furthermore, actively trying to make the world a better place is an inherently political undertaking, one that requires radical consideration of current state of affairs. To change the world “for the better” implies analyzing what needs to be changed in contemporary society: when working towards a desired future, people are posing a critique to that which is the present. To problematize the present is a requirement for this visionary effort, and it is also a condition for acting. From this, I argue that the notion of criticality might be a productive approach to how games and play can challenge and change societies. To engage in a progressive political effort is a critical endeavor. Criticality, here, is taken to mean the capacity to perform critique and to analytically examine and understand the importance of the varying elements configuring a certain situation. It is also connected to a degree of skepticism regarding underlying assumptions and values. In political action, both meanings of the critical are essential: critique of the present state of affairs, and the ability to find what is radical within it, that which stands at the root of the problems being faced. In the present research,