Open AccessBook
Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that can be used to analyze particular videogames and argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.Abstract:
In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that can be used to analyze particular videogames. Moreover, this approach can be applied beyond videogames: Bogost suggests that any medium -- from videogames to poetry, literature, cinema, or art -- can be read as a configurative system of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and he illustrates this method of analysis with examples from all these fields. The marriage of literary theory and information technology, he argues, will help humanists take technology more seriously and hep technologists better understand software and videogames as cultural artifacts. This approach is especially useful for the comparative analysis of digital and nondigital artifacts and allows scholars from other fields who are interested in studying videogames to avoid the esoteric isolation of "game studies." The richness of Bogost's comparative approach can be seen in his discussions of works by such philosophers and theorists as Plato, Badiou, Zizek, and McLuhan, and in his analysis of numerous videogames including Pong, Half-Life, and Star Wars Galaxies. Bogost draws on object technology and complex adaptive systems theory for his method of unit analysis, underscoring the configurative aspects of a wide variety of human processes. His extended analysis of freedom in large virtual spaces examines Grand Theft Auto 3, The Legend of Zelda, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Joyce's Ulysses. In Unit Operations, Bogost not only offers a new methodology for videogame criticism but argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.read more
Citations
More filters
Proceedings ArticleDOI
The Reward for Luck: Understanding the Effect of Random Reward Mechanisms in Video Games on Player Experience
Mi Yin,Robert Xiao +1 more
TL;DR: The relationship between RRM implementations and user experience, and the relationship between auditory, visual, and gameplay design decisions and player expectations for RRM reward presentations are investigated, finding that the resources required to obtain the reward and the relative value of the reward impact its expected presentation.
Dissertation
Encoding Through Procedure:Unexpected Meaning in Serious Game Design
TL;DR: The primary argument is that rules have an agency that complicates current models of procedural rhetoric, and there is no method to date for considering how designers might produce a work which reliably creates emergent results.
Proceedings Article
The winner takes all: Standardization and console games
TL;DR: This paper will provide a critical reading of the blockbuster video game by drawing on media economics and critical theory and political economy for a particular mode of cultural production and circulation affecting all aspects of the video game's cultural form.
Journal Article
Reconfiguring Localization Quality Assessment for Video Games
TL;DR: It is argued that LQA on video games requires reconstruction from eco-criticism perspectives, because electronic waste of video games has been a serious concern since the legalization of European Union 2003 on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.
Journal ArticleDOI
Playing it Cool: Considering McLuhan’s Hot and Cool taxonomy for Game Studies:
Steven Conway,Marc A. Ouellette +1 more
TL;DR: While Marshall McLuhan is often acknowledged as an influential theorist for game studies, there is very little work currently available that directly attempts to apply the theoretical framewo....
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The Strength of Weak Ties
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another, and the impact of this principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored.
Journal ArticleDOI
Handbook of Qualitative Research
TL;DR: The discipline and practice of qualitative research have been extensively studied in the literature as discussed by the authors, including the work of Denzin and Denzin, and their history in sociology and anthropology, as well as the role of women in qualitative research.
Book
Being and Time
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an interpretation of Dasein in terms of temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of Being.
Book
The Practice of Everyday Life
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a very different view of the arts of practice in a very diverse culture, focusing on the use of ordinary language and making do in the art of practice.
Book
The postmodern condition : a report on knowledge
TL;DR: In this article, the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and how the flow of information is controlled in the Western world are discussed.