Tuesday 2nd October: The Game Design Reader A Rules of Play Anthology

We read through a section of an anthology called 'Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon' by Johan Huizinga and after reading it had to write up a brief summary of what the book is about/ what its trying to portray. 

Johan Huizinga is trying to say that: 

• Play is more than just mechanics 
• Play is hard to define as there are so many aspects to it 
• If we were to quantify play against other aspects in society they would never measure up to it 
• Play is chaotic as opposed to ordered
• Play is a universal concept 
• Play is a learning tool
• Its not something we do by nature but not something we feel that we have to do 
• Humans haven't really influenced play 
• Its not just mental or physical 
• It's not a material object (more like something we feel, like love)

(http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/127853-johan-huizingas-homo-ludens/)

I decided to do my own research on the theory of play and the serious by looking at an article written by Hector Rodriguez on the subject. The article puts across Huizinga & Caillois and Salen & Zimmerman's argument by looking into several aspects which they explored. These are Player experience, Methodology, Play and human nature, Play and culture, Serious games, Community Formation and the Magic Circle, Play and life, Performance and Exploratory Learning and their conclusions. As the article is very drawn out i have picked out a piece of text from each subsection which i found to be particularly interesting and discussed it by expressing my own views on the matter. 

(reference: http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/rodriges)

Player experience

'The consciousness of risk, for instance, presupposes that the player cannot confidently anticipate the result of an action; this unpredictability largely determines the intensity of many games, particularly those involving chance and competition. To experience this sort of tension is to become invested in an outcome that has not yet been settled. It is always possible to ask: How will the game come out? The intensity of our investment in many games essentially depends on our consciousness that their outcome is not fixed in advance.'

(http://mattbrett.com/blog/videogames/2010/heavy-rain-is-just-barely-a-video-game/)

I think that the point which is raised here is particularly true of decision making games such as Heavy Rain, in that the player has to make a decision in order to progress in the game. Every decision which the player makes drives the storyline forward and the outcome of the decisions which they make are very ambiguous. For example if you kill off a character then they will not return, this impacts the storyline as like in real-life, the characters stories are intertwined. Each character has their own ending and these vary depending on the choices the player makes when they play as that character. One of the possible endings which the player can experience is the killer walking completely free without getting caught, they might not necessarily have attempted to get this ending.  

Players enjoy twists within games, it shocks them and makes them feel more involved in the storyline as the game designer has outsmarted them in a sense. If the player was able to guess the ending of a game at the very start they would start to wonder what the point of playing the game is as they already know what's going to happen. 

Play and Human Nature

(http://playfulplace.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/167/)

'Most modern nation-states, for instance, make sports training an integral part of the compulsory school curriculum. Psychologists utilize games to enhance social adaptation and regulate human conduct. Play thus becomes a tool to engineer docile citizens in the service of hierarchical institutions. Corporations sometimes introduce play techniques to enhance the motivation and productivity of their workers. Treated as a mechanism of social engineering, play is subordinated to such functional goals as the cohesiveness of the state, the socialization of the child, or the success of a commercial firm. Playing becomes a tool and an obligation.'

'According to Huizinga's critique of functionalism, people do not typically play because they have rationally inferred that playing is good for them. Those who emphasize the function of play often assume that playing is motivated by a rational assessment of its potential benefits. But play does not characteristically rest on utilitarian calculations. Players are typically motivated by the quality of experience that playing affords, not by the expectation of some future utility.'

I agree with Rodriguez's point in that play is not about improving functionality but the journey which players are taken on when playing. For example, in regards to video games, players don't necessarily play a game because they want to be able to improve in a skill which can be applied to other activities/jobs in every day life but so that they can become involved in a story which takes them on an emotional roller coaster, challenges their ideas/perceptions of the world, their beliefs and allows them to problem solve. 

Serious Games

'The second approach, in contrast, sets out from the conviction that many manifestations of serious culture intrinsically possess playful aspects. The connection between learning and playing is no longer contingent but essential. This is the core argument I am advancing in this essay: Playing can be part of the learning process because the subject to be learnt is, at least in some respects, essentially playful. The use of serious games in the learning process therefore illuminates the fundamental nature of the subject being taught.'

In other words using play as a tool to teach attempts to make what could be considered to be a mundane subject more entertaining/exciting. I think that using play as a tool for learning is more effective as we've grown up developing the idea that play is fun and something which we want to do, therefore we're more motivated to engage in play, making it efficient for learning.