So, with that said, this first post about games arises from a recent re-reading of Espen Aarseth’s “Genre Trouble“  a key text in the ludologist vs. narratologist debates (as they have unfortunately become to be known). In particular the following quote spurred my thoughts:

Games are not “textual” or at least not primarily textual: where is the text in chess? We might say that the rules of chess constitute its “text,” but there is no recitation of the rules during gameplay, so that would reduce the textuality of chess to a subtextuality or a paratextuality. A central “text” does not exist — merely context. Any game consists of three aspects: (1) rules, (2) a material/semiotic system (a gameworld), and (3) gameplay (the events resulting from application of the rules to the gameworld). Of these three, the semiotic system is the most coincidental to the game. As the Danish theorist and game designer Jesper Juul has pointed out (Juul 2001b), games are eminently themeable: you can play chess with some rocks in the mud, or with pieces that look like the Simpson family rather than kings and queens. It would still be the same game. The “royal” theme of the traditional pieces is all but irrelevant to our understanding of chess. Likewise, the dimensions of Lara Croft’s body, already analyzed to death by film theorists, are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently. When I play, I don’t even see her body, but see through it and past it.

Thus, game studies would ideally focus on the rules and gameplay–though the latter would seemingly require some analysis of representation or the “semiotic system” given that gameplay emerges within the relationship between gameworld and rules. Though the example of Lara Croft is immediately intriguing (and has caught the eye of many others) what leap into my mind upon this rereading was the dismissal of semiotics and the use of the chess example, given that Ferdinand Saussure (founder of semiology) uses practically the same chess example to illustrate his rationale concerning the inauguration of semiotics. Of course, Aarseth’s use of the word “semiotic” is really a codeword for narratives and visual representations which frame the game system within a gameworld; less a reference to actual semiotics (and Saussure for that matter), the word is intended to indicate a certain brand of theory – perhaps of the poststructuralist flavor – and practitioners of this theory who mindlessly port their training (developed through the study of literature or media such as film and television) to the field of game studies. (Incidentally, Aarseth explicitly denies the privileged usefulness of semiotics proper to the study of electronic texts in his book Cybertexts). Nevertheless, Aarseth’s choice to frame the other of game studies as semiotics is intriguing given that the methods of the ludologists to create a stable foundation for game studies share traits with Ferdinand Saussure’s attempt to ground the field of semiology. Indeed, Saussure claims that “language must, to put it correctly, be studied in itself; heretofore language has almost always been studied in connection with something else, from other viewpoints.” If one replaces “language” with “games” one arrives at Aarseth’s basic qualms concerning the state of game studies and the unreflective porting of theories derived from literature & film to games. But, let’s look at the chess examples Saussure uses.

Ironically, Aarseth’s example of chess (through Juul) could have been directly supported with quotations from Saussure such as:

Take a knight, for instance. By itself is it an element in the game? Certainly not, for by its material make-up—outside its square and the other conditions of the game—it means nothing to the player; it becomes a real, concrete element only when endowed with value and wedded to it. Suppose that the piece happens to be destroyed or lost during a game. Can it be replaced by an equivalent piece? Certainly. Not only another knight but even a figure shorn of any resemblance to a knight can be declared identical provided the same value is attributed to it (110).

For Saussure, of course, the unimportant representational qualities of the chess pieces relates to the concept of the arbitrariness of the signifier where the materiality of the signifier has no positive relationship to the signified. Saussure’s dismissal of writing as an external representation of speech, a signifier of a signifier, and non-essential to studying the system of language could be compared with the externality and arbitrariness of representation that Aarseth posits in relation to the formal system of the game. One could perhaps continue thinking about “the arbitrariness of the signifier” in terms of game systems – i.e. treating games as semiological systems – where rules of the game become the differential values (in the Saussurean sense) that make up the “language” of the game, but this is not my intent; honestly it is difficult to see how such a comparison would become significant  (though I do not outright dismiss the potential usefulness of this comparison). The point I want to make is simply about method: whereas Saussure attempts to uncover the general rules (not the grammar) that govern the signifying function of language (thus arriving at useful concepts such as arbitrariness, the syntagmatic versus paradigmatic axis, differences without positive terms, etc.) one might characterize the approach of the ludologists as attempting to uncover the general rules which govern certain collections of games (not the “rules” of individual games, but the rules which govern formal systems of games as such or genres of particular game structures; Aarseth’s delineation of “user functions” in his analysis of cybertexts might be akin to the useful concepts that Saussure extrapolates: i.e. interpretative, configurative, etc.).

At first glance, game studies as envisioned by the ludologists would seem intent on analyzing games as synchronic system of rules, for example, looking at contemporary chess in terms of its rule structure at a particular instance in time, as a temporal slice removed from the historical changes which have influenced its development. This was also the proclivity of Saussure (or, at least, his academic reception which often teaches his thoughts on the synchronic axis of linguistics, not the diachronic). The following from Saussure will illustrate:

Language is a system that has its own arrangement. Comparison with chess will bring out the point. In chess, what is external can be separated relatively easily from what is internal. The fact that the games passed from Persia to Europe is external; against that, everything having to do with its system and rules is internal. If I use ivory chessmen instead of wooden ones, the change has no effect on the system, but if I decrease or increase the number of chessmen, this change has a profound effect on the “grammar” of the game (22-23).

There are truthfully two external elements of language that Saussure rejects here: historical change and the material, visual representation of the pieces. It is the latter which ultimately becomes the true external to linguistics as Saussure patently denies the relevance of both phonetic materiality and visual materiality of language (terming them arbitrary) while extensively analyzing the former in terms of language in the less studied and acknowledged second portion of his Course in General Linguistics, “Diachronic Linguistics.” Even in this section though Saussure is bent upon both dismissing phonetic changes as important to the synchronic study of language (i.e. having a determined effect on transformations in the “meaning” of words) while also dismissing, though not outright, potential determinants of phonetic change over time such as historical disturbances (times of political, economic and social unrest), race, fashion, nature and climate, childhood inaccuracies in language acquisition, etc..

But, what does all this have to do with games and their study? Well, even though there is seemingly a simplistic parallel between Saussure’s founding of semiotics and certain attempts to ground game studies, it is clear that games are not language. First and foremost, games and their rules are not arbitrary, at least not to the same extent as “living language.” Saussure’s principle of arbitrariness means simply that language evolves without firm, direct control over its temporal changes: individuals cannot affect its course, and even the determinants he articulates in the section on diachronic linguistics are seen as suspect, unsatisfying and ultimately untenable given that even in the absence of these determinants change still occurs. Yet, it seems to me that games and their rules are cultural articulations to some extent existing outside language (as Aarseth’s quote above suggests); they are created by humans, changed by humans and (possibly) ultimately determined by historical forces and situations. Rules are motivated. This is not to say that they are motivated completely, but more so than language and its relatively uncontrollable flux.

Now, it also seems to me that game studies could be pursued in both a synchronic and diachronic fashion–the latter being a path that has not been followed as much as the former. While synchronic game studies would isolate rule systems at a particular time (or generalize about a set or genre of games and their rules in order to make theoretical arguments) diachronic game studies would study the development and changes in rules or game systems over time attempting to locate historical determinants that might have shaped these changes and thus have shaped how games are played, formed, and enjoyed. Indeed, sometimes transformations in games might be akin to language change…say, for example, children playing a traditional game with a slightly different–perhaps local–adaption of rules which then becomes more culturally widespread. In this (obviously vague) example perhaps the change in rules was spontaneous creating a mutation in rules over time that is hard to pinpoint and explain. Yet, other temporal changes in rules might be explained more forcefully by historical determinants–be these cultural, political, technological, etc.. Those studying games diachronically might isolate changes in rules in order to describe and theorize changes in particular historical periods (when the changes occurred), or they might even pursue general laws which illuminate changes over larger periods of time.

In contemporary computer and video games one vector of change would surely be technological mutations–thus changes in rules (or “innovations” as the industry might say) could be linked to developments in hardware, software, programming, etc.. which allow for systems that were not previously possible. Yet, diachronic game studies would seek other determinants as well, using changes in rules to diagnose cultural changes. Would changes in the formal system of games and rules over time (say, for example in the evolution of Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid) illuminate cultural changes beyond the forces of the technological? Whatever the answer such an inquiry stands as an intriguing possibility.

Although to my knowledge there are not many studies that would fit within diachronic game studies, one could mention a few examples. Jesper Juul’s paper “The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness” might fit as an example of studying the forces of technological determinants in games, tracing as it does differences in a classical game model versus the imapct of computerization on gaming. More interesting in reference to Aarseth’s quote above might be Marilyn Yalom’s Birth of a Chess Queen where the historical appearance and subsequent development of the queen within the game of chess is delineated and diachronically outlined. For example, the development of modern “queen’s chess”–where the queen becomes the most powerful piece in the game through a shifting of the rules governing the movement of the queen piece (from a short diagonal movement to her modern, extended range of movement)–is linked to the influential role of Queen Isabella of Spain.  Diachronic game studies might pursue a similar course of analysis in terms of other games.

One point that emerges–directly in reference to Aarseth’s quote above–is that in the diachronic analysis of games representation becomes a stronger force, not readily dismissed such as Aarseth’s move to ignore the representation of Lara Croft. Take chess again. Raph Koster wrote that, “It’s very likely that chess would not have its long term appeal if the pieces all represented different kinds of snot.” This is Koster’s way of saying that representation does matter (though he is quick to point out that it does not matter as much as other aspects of that game). My point is simply that, for example, the representation of the queen in chess was likely a key component of the radical change in rules that the system of the game underwent; the link of this representation to actual social/political functions in the historical period of the change would likely be a factor in the sedimentation of the new rule and the change in the “system” of chess. I am not saying that representation is the only determinant in this change, but that it  shares a determining role in the mutation of the system of chess. Afterall, if the pieces where not “royally themed” (or thought of in terms of this representational schematic) would the transformation of chess in terms of a more powerful queen have occurred?