Dunciad

Bryan-Mitchell Young over at Popular Culture Gaming links to an article in Gamespot (of all places) called Redefining Games: How Academia is Reshaping Games of the Future. It's about studying games design, not actually games design itself but the study of how games are designed, specifically computer games. They even have a word for it: Ludology.

This seems like one of those great areas of research, you get to play games, or watch people play games, and then talk about it afterwards. It's more rigourous than that, though being a study in it's infancy it seems you can get away with quite a lot of stating the obvious. For instance, I can't find it at the moment, but, somewhere on the Game Studies site I think, there's an article that points out the world Lara Croft inhabits is designed specifically for her alone and that the objects in that world are bound by the games rules to be certain sizes and certain distances apart. As an insight I find this logical, deep and yet trivial. It's something you know, but never think to articulate. Once you do, though, you do tend to notice it in games. Return to Castle Wolfenstein tries hard to look like a place that could be real, but, even ignoring the placing of switches, barrels, extra ammo, etc, the spaces within it are designed to provide balanced gameplay. As real world architectural spaces they probably don't work or if they do it is a secondary consideration to the primary one of providing just enough cover.

I hope Ludology progresses to become a more recognised and respected discipline as I think it can be capable of providing some interesting ways of looking at how and why we play computer games. The Gamespot piece is a better introduction to this than I have space for, but manages to have one of its interviewees shoot himself in the foot.

Still, Frasca, all practical notions aside, agrees on the importance of developing more game research departments, such as Stanford's and Georgia Tech's, in other universities. "Many gamers may think that university professors studying games should get a life, but I have a challenge for these players: Wouldn't it have been much nicer if you spent hours in college discussing Zelda rather than a boringly long story about ancient Greeks? Would it be great to spend hours in school dealing with an art form that truly speaks to you, such as games, and less about paintings or sculptures that are hundreds of years old?" Frasca considers the importance of studying the classics but asserts that today, "Will Wright and Miyamoto have more cultural influence than Shakespeare and Homer, because they are alive and well, and because they speak to us."

Let's look at Frasca's first question: "Wouldn't it have been much nicer if you spent hours in college discussing Zelda rather than a boringly long story about ancient Greeks?" Skipping lightly past the loaded "boringly long", I'd still have to answer "no". Or, at least, "Nicer, perhaps. More interesting or useful? Definitely not." The Illiad is a story that's lasted for centuries and has recently been made into a movie. It may be long and it certainly has its boring parts (the endless lists of the leaders and their men and how many ships they brought isn't exactly riveting) but it still has things to say about rage and pride and ideas about manliness and all that sort of thing that means it is still relevant today (along with being satisfyingly bloody in the non-listy parts). Zelda, I don't know about because I had a PC, a Playstation and then an X-box, plus, as far as I can tell, not having the right hardware to test it, Zelda seems to be an incredibly cute role-playing game. Two things that would put me off even trying it.

What Zelda has to say about the great themes of mankind, I'm not sure, but the walkthrough for The Legend of Zelda includes such stirring quests as "Get the Wooden Sword" "Purchase the Blue Candle" and "Buy Bait".

Then there's Keats who had this to say about Chapman's translation of Homer:

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer:

Much have I travel'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
-- Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific -- and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise --
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

There is poetry about Zelda on the Internet but, as yet, I've not been brave enough to read it.

Frasca goes on to say "Will Wright and Miyamoto have more cultural influence than Shakespeare and Homer, because they are alive and well, and because they speak to us." He also complains later that people have trouble taking games studies seriously. To quote Mal Reynolds: "My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle". According to About Bernard Levin has this to say about Shakespeare's influence on language (not theatre or storytelling or plots just the language):

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise - why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I were dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! for goodness' sake! what the dickens! but me no buts - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare. (Bernard Levin. From The Story of English. Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil. Viking: 1986).

But, I guess, on the face of it Wil's still alive and putting out expansion packs for The Sims so I guess he's having more influence.