Game studies, or ludology, is the study of games, the act of playing them, and the players and cultures surrounding them. It is a field of cultural studies that deals with all types of games throughout history. This field of research utilizes the tactics of, at least, folkloristics and cultural heritage, sociology and psychology, while examining aspects of the design of the game,
the players in the game, and the role the game plays in its society or
culture. Game studies is oftentimes confused with the study of video games, but this is only one area of focus; in reality game studies encompasses all types of gaming, including sports, board games, etc.
Before video games, game studies was rooted primarily in anthropology. However, with the development and spread of video games, games studies has diversified methodologically, to include approaches from sociology, psychology, and other fields.
There are now a number of strands within game studies: social science approaches explore how games function in society, and their interactions with human psychology, often using empirical methods such as surveys and controlled lab experiments. Humanities approaches emphasise how games generate meanings and reflect or subvert wider social and cultural discourses. These often use more interpretative methods, such as close reading, textual analysis, and audience theory, methods shared with other media disciplines such as television and film studies. Social sciences and humanities approaches can cross over, for example in the case of ethnographic or folkloristic studies, where fieldwork may involve patiently observing games to try to understand their social and cultural meanings. Game design approaches are closely related to creative practice, analysing game mechanics and aesthetics in order to inform the development of new games. Finally, industrial and engineering approaches apply mostly to video games and less to games in general, and examine things such as computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and networking.
Before video games, game studies was rooted primarily in anthropology. However, with the development and spread of video games, games studies has diversified methodologically, to include approaches from sociology, psychology, and other fields.
There are now a number of strands within game studies: social science approaches explore how games function in society, and their interactions with human psychology, often using empirical methods such as surveys and controlled lab experiments. Humanities approaches emphasise how games generate meanings and reflect or subvert wider social and cultural discourses. These often use more interpretative methods, such as close reading, textual analysis, and audience theory, methods shared with other media disciplines such as television and film studies. Social sciences and humanities approaches can cross over, for example in the case of ethnographic or folkloristic studies, where fieldwork may involve patiently observing games to try to understand their social and cultural meanings. Game design approaches are closely related to creative practice, analysing game mechanics and aesthetics in order to inform the development of new games. Finally, industrial and engineering approaches apply mostly to video games and less to games in general, and examine things such as computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and networking.
History
It wasn't until Irving Finkel organized a colloquium in 1990 that grew into the International Board Game Studies Association, Gonzalo Frasca popularized the term ludology (from the Latin word for game, ludus) in 1999, the publication of the first issues of academic journals like Board Game Studies in 1998 and Game Studies in 2001, and the creation of the Digital Games Research Association
in 2003, that scholars began to get the sense that the study of games
could (and should) be considered a field in its own right. As a young
field, it gathers scholars from different disciplines that had been
broadly studying games, such as psychology, anthropology, economy,
education, and sociology. The earliest known use of the term "ludology"
occurred in 1982, in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's “Does Being Human Matter – On Some Interpretive Problems of Comparative Ludology.”
Social science
One of the earliest social science theories (1971) about the role of video games in society involved violence
in video games, later becoming known as the catharsis theory. The
theory suggests that playing video games in which you perform violent
acts might actually channel latent aggression, resulting in less
aggression in the players real lives. However, a meta-study
performed by Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman, in 2001, examined
data starting from the 1980s up until the article was published. The
purpose of this study was to examine whether or not playing violent
video games led to an increase in aggressive behaviors.
They concluded that exposure to violence in video games did indeed
cause an increase in aggression. However, it has been pointed out, and
even stressed, by psychologist Jonathan Freedman that this research was
very limited and even problematic since overly strong claims were made
and the authors themselves seemed extremely biased in their writings.
More recent studies, such as the one performed by Christopher J.
Ferguson at Texas A&M International University
have come to drastically different conclusions. In this study,
individuals were either randomly assigned a game, or allowed to choose a
game, in both the randomized and the choice conditions exposure to
violent video games caused no difference in aggression. A later study
(performed by the same people) looked for correlations between trait
aggression, violent crimes, and exposure to both real life violence and
violence in video games, this study suggests that while family violence
and trait aggression are highly correlated with violent crime, exposure
to video game violence was not a good predictor of violent crime, having
little to no correlation, unless also paired with the above traits that
had a much higher correlation. Over the past 15 years, a large number of meta-studies
have been applied to this issue, each coming to its own conclusion,
resulting in little consensus in the ludology community. It is also
thought that even nonviolent video games may lead to aggressive and
violent behaviour. Anderson and Dill seem to believe that it may be due
to the frustration of playing video games that could in turn result in
violent, aggressive behaviour.
Game designers Amy Jo Kim and Jane McGonigal have suggested that platforms which leverage the powerful qualities of video games in non-game contexts can maximize learning. Known as the gamification of learning,
using game elements in non-game contexts extracts the properties of
games from within the game context, and applies them to a learning
context such as the classroom.
Another positive aspect of video games is its conducive character
towards the involvement of a person in other cultural activities. The
probability of game playing increases with the consumption of other
cultural goods (e.g., listening to music or watching television) or
active involvement in artistic activities (e.g., writing or visual arts
production).
Video games by being complementary towards more traditional forms of
cultural consumption, inhibit thus value from a cultural perspective.
More sociologically-informed research has sought to move away
from simplistic ideas of gaming as either 'negative' or 'positive', but
rather seeking to understand its role and location in the complexities
of everyday life.
For example, it has been suggested that the very popular MMO World of Warcraft could be used to study the dissemination of infectious diseases because of the accidental spread of a plague-like disease in the gameworld.
"Ludology" vs "narratology"
A major focus in game studies is the debate surrounding narratology and ludology. Many ludologists believe that the two are unable to exist together,
while others believe that the two fields are similar but should be
studied separately. Many narratologists believe that games should be
looked at for their stories, like movies or novels. The ludological
perspective says that games are not like these other mediums due to the
fact that a player is actively taking part in the experience and should
therefore be understood on their own terms. The idea that a videogame is
"radically different to narratives as a cognitive and communicative structure"
has led the development of new approaches to criticism that are focused
on videogames as well as adapting, repurposing and proposing new ways
of studying and theorizing about videogames. A recent approach towards game studies starts with an analysis of interface structures and challenges the keyboard-mouse paradigm with what is called a "ludic interface".
Academics across both fields provide scholarly insight into the
different sides of this debate. Gonzalo Frasca, a notable ludologist due
to his many publications regarding game studies, argues that while
games share many similar elements with narrative stories, that should
not prevent games to be studied as games. He seeks not "to replace the narratologic approach, but to complement it."
Jesper Juul,
another notable ludologist, argues for a stricter separation of
ludology and narratology. Juul argues that games "for all practicality can not tell stories."
This argument holds that narratology and ludology cannot exist together
because they are inherently different. Juul claims that the most
significant difference between the two is that in a narrative, events
"have to" follow each other, whereas in a game the player has control
over what happens.
Garry Crawford
and Victoria K. Gosling argue in favor of narratives being an essential
part of games as "it is impossible to isolate play from the social
influences of everyday life, and in turn, play will have both intended
and unintended consequences for the individual and society." The Last of Us is a video game released in 2013 that has been referred to as a narrative "masterpiece." Proponents of the narratology side of game studies argue that The Last of Us and similar games that have followed it and preceded it, serve as examples that games can in fact tell stories.
Janet Murray, in support of the Narratologist method of video game argues that "stories can be participatory." In
this argument, Murray is linking the characteristics of video games to
narratives to further her point that video games should be analyzed
through narratology.
Michalis Kokonis argues in favor of Gonzalo Frasca's article
entitled "Ludologists love stories too: notes from a debate that never
took place," which aimed to list and explain the misunderstandings,
mistakes, and prejudices surrounding the narratology vs. ludology
debate.
Kokonis noted that "endorsing his [Frasca] constructivist spirit we
will have to agree that the so-called Narratology vs. Ludology Dilemma
is a false one and that this debate will have to be resolved, as it is
of no help to the cause of establishing Computer Games Study as an
autonomous and independent academic field."
Other areas of research
As is common with most academic disciplines, there are a number of more specialized areas or sub-domains of study.
Video game pre-history
An
emerging field of study looks at the "pre-history" of video games,
suggesting that the origins of modern digital games lie in: fairground attractions and sideshows such as shooting games; early "Coney Island"-style pleasure parks with elements such as large roller-coasters and "haunted house" simulations; nineteenth century landscape simulations such as dioramas, panoramas, planetariums, and stereographs; and amusement arcades that had mechanical game machines and also peep-show film machines.
Games and aging
In light of population ageing,
there has been an interest into the use of games to improve the overall
health and social connectedness of ageing players. For example, Adam Gazzaley and his team have designed NeuroRacer (a game that improves cognitive tasks outside of the game among its 60+ year old participants), while the AARP has organized a game jam to improve older people's social connections.
Researchers such as Sarah Mosberg Iversen have argued that most of the
academic work on games and ageing has been informed by notions of
economical productivity, while Bob De Schutter
and Vero Vanden Abeele have suggested a game design approach that is
not focused on age-related decline but instead is rooted in the positive
aspects of older age.
Virtual economies in gaming
Massive multiplayer online games can give economists clues about the
real world. Markets based on digital information can be fully tracked as
they are used by players, and thus real problems in the economy, such
as inflation, deflation and even recession. The solutions the game
designers come up with can therefore be studied with full information,
and experiments can be performed where the economy can be studied as a
whole. These games allow the economists to be omniscient, they can find
every piece of information they need to study the economy, while in the
real world they have to work with presumptions.
Former Finance Minister of Greece and Valve's in-house economist Yanis Varoufakis studied EVE Online and argued that video game communities give economists a venue for experimenting and simulating the economies of the future. Edward Castronova has studied virtual economies within a variety of games including Everquest and World of Warcraft.
Cognitive benefits
The
psychological research into games has yielded theories on how playing
video games may be advantageous for both children and for adults. Some
theories claim that video games in fact help improve cognitive abilities
rather than impede their development. These improvement theories
include the improvement of visual contrast sensitivity.
Other developments include the ability to locate something specific
among various impediments. This is primarily done in first-person
shooter games where the protagonist must look at everything in a first
person view while playing. By doing this they increase their spatial
attention due to having to locate something among an area of diversions.
These games place the player in a high intensity environment where the
player must remain observant of their surroundings in order to achieve
their goal, e.g., shooting an enemy player, while impediments obstruct
their gameplay in the virtual world.
Another cognitive enhancement provided by playing video games
would be the improvement of brain functioning speed. This happens as the
player is immersed in an unendingly changing environment where they are
required to constantly think and problem solve while playing in order
to do well in the game. This constant problem solving forces the brain
to constantly run and so the speed of thought is sharpened greatly,
because the need to think quickly is required to succeed.
The attention span of the player is also benefited. High action video
games, such as fighting or racing games, require the user's constant
attention and in the process the skill of concentration is sharpened.
The overcoming of the condition known as dyslexia is also
considered an improvement due to the continuous utilization of
controllers for the video games. This continuous process helps to train
the users to overcome their condition which impedes in their abilities
of interpretation.
The ability of hand-eye coordination is also improved thanks in part to
video games, due to the need to operate the controller and view the
screen displaying the content all at the same time.
The coordination of the player is enhanced due the playing and
continuous observation of a video game since the game gives high mental
stimulation and coordination is important and therefore enhanced due to
the constant visual and physical movement that is produced from the
playing of the video game.
The playing of video games can also help increase a player's
social skills. This is done by playing online multiplayer games which
can require constant communication, this leads to socialization between
players in order to achieve the goal within the game they may be
playing. In addition it can help the users to meet new friends over
their online games and at the same time communicate with friends they
have already made in the past; those playing together online would only
strengthen their already established bond through constant cooperation.
Some video games are specifically designed to aid in learning, because
of this another benefit of playing video games could be the educational
value provided with the entertainment. Some video games present problem
solving questions that the player must think on in order to properly
solve, while action orientated video games require strategy in order to
successfully complete. This process of being forced to think critically
helps to sharpen the mind of the player.
Game culture
One
aspect of game studies is the study of gaming culture. People who play
video games are a subculture of their own. Gamers will often form
communities with their own languages, attend conventions where they will
dress up as their favorite characters, and have gaming competitions.
One of these conventions, Gamescom 2018, had a record attendance with an
estimated 370,000 attendees.
eSports is making a significant impact in gaming culture. In
2018, Newzoo, a marketing analytics company reported that 380 million
people will watch eSports that year. Many
gamers seek to form communities to meet new people and share their love
of games. In 2014, Newzoo reported that 81% of gamers attend eSport to
be a part of the gaming community. "61% of gamers attend live events and
tournaments to connect with friends that they've met and played with
online."
Throughout the years, there has been much research on the topic
of game culture, specifically focusing on video games in relation to
thinking, learning, gender, children, and war. When looking at game
culture, multiplayer online games are usually the base for many
research.
Demographics of Gamers (in the USA)
- 75% of households have a gamer.
- 65% of adults play video games.
- 60% of adults play on smartphones, 52% play on a personal computer, and 49% play on a dedicated game console.
- 32 is the average age of male gamers.
- 34 is the average age of female gamers.
- 54% of gamers are men. 46% are women.
