composition – Understand. Think. Then write.

Paper #6: Scholarly Identity, or “Wait, You Can Get a Degree In That?!”

Shakespeare....because Shakespeare is fun, at least if you're me. — Shakespeare….because Shakespeare is fun, at least if you’re me.

My journey to becoming a PhD student in English focusing on Game Studies has been convoluted. As a Master’s student, I focused on Professional Writing because that was my career, and Renaissance Drama because…well, because I enjoyed it. After a successful career that included game development, web design, professional writing/editing, and corporate communications, I started teaching first-year composition. When the opportunity arose to start a PhD program, my thought was to combine my teaching experience with my background in game design to develop educational games that would teach critical thinking skills. My investigations into this field have complicated matters, but I believe there is still a path toward that goal. However, it is one no less convoluted than the one that has led me here.

“Game Studies,” specifically the study of video games, is a relatively new field, one that has attracted scholars from many different disciplines. Formal study as a coherent field is typically traced to Aarseth’s “Computer Game Studies: Year One” article, which stakes out a place for games as an “emerging, viable, international academic field.” As such, a knowledge of professional practices and theory, which served me well in professional writing, is not enough. Likewise, knowing theater, literature, theory, and history, which I used effectively in Renaissance drama studies, is of little help here. My particular flavor of game studies may require a knowledge of composition theory, theories of learning and development, literary theory, psychology, and education (especially common core and the politics thereof), but also game design theory as a whole, the “canon” of popular and niche games, computer programming, visual rhetoric, digital rhetoric, and a host of other fields. Of course, few if any people can claim mastery of all these things, and I don’t claim that I will in the next fifteen or so semesters. But as an interdisciplinary field, unless I am going to stay in one tiny corner (which many successful scholars admittedly do), I need to have at least a passing familiarity with the majority of those subjects.

Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace

There are many objects of study that can serve as a focus for game studies from an English studies perspective. My initial interest long before I applied for this program was the changing nature of “narrative,” in an environment where the reader/player/end-user is an active participant in the creation of the story. Janet Murray’s book Hamlet on the Holodeck (1999) is one of the works that kicked off Game Studies as a field of formal academic study, and it remains an area I am very interested in. The kind of skills I want to teach – research and critical thinking – benefit from an engaging, immersive narrative, where the player/student feels that their choices have real meaning and impact. Without narrative (and in some cases, even with it), we are left with little more than a low-stakes multiple choice test, the pedagogical utility of which is a subject of much debate and skepticism.
Other English/Game Studies scholars have focused on the role of writing in games, such as Dr. Kevin Moberly. However, as he rightly notes in his article, “

Other English/Game Studies scholars have focused on the role of writing in games, such as Dr. Kevin Moberly. However, as he rightly notes in his article, “Composition, Computer Games, and the Absence of Writing,” with the development and prevalence of more sophisticated VOIP technologies, the written word is becoming scarce in gameplay as players and designers alike rely more on the spoken word and sound design to convey messages among and to other players. There are many auxiliary texts to games, such as message boards, strategy guides, and player-created resources like wikis, and they may be useful subjects of analysis to see how players generate written content about gameplay, but it remains to be seen how relevant these informal documents are to gauging the average player’s skill with more formal writing or problem solving, since these tend to be created by only the most hardcore fans of a game.

Relatively late in this course, I discovered the world of Dr. Ian Bogost of Georgia Tech, through a mutual acquaintance. I confess to being more than a little embarrassed at having not been more familiar with his contributions to the field, and my only excuse is that I had been more laser-focused on articles than books. I have since remedied that, and found that his work on “procedural rhetoric” to be relevant to my own interests in a number of ways, not least of which is the way games have a rhetorical message to the player, whether intended or not. I believe that further study of his work may yield important insights into how educational games can be used to teach skills like critical thinking, and I look forward to delving further into this idea.

While I have encountered resistance to the idea of games in education in discussions with game developers, educators and game scholars alike, I see their objections more as obstacles to be overcome than brick walls. Gaming professionals have found it difficult to generate interest from schools or the general public in educational games beyond the preschool level, but I found in discussing this with developers at the SIEGE Atlanta ’16 conference that few of them had an understanding of core curriculum standards for different subjects and grade levels, and thus could not demonstrate and apples to apples correlation between the skills presented in their game and the skills students were required to master in particular classes. With an understanding of both game development and education, I believe that this is something that I can address more effectively than those who are only familiar with a single perspective.

The games I have enjoyed as a player, and have worked on as a developer, are highly immersive and require a significant investment of time on the part of the player. This time can be shortened to some degree with good design, but to achieve genuine engagement with the game itself requires more time than is typically available in a grade 6-12 class period, and educators might be understandably concerned about assigning hours of gameplay as homework. I think this can be overcome, however, especially as more content is delivered electronically and expectations for screen time as part of education continue to expand. To set up an interesting scenario takes time, and

Telltale Games' — Telltale Games’ “The Walking Dead” takes an average of 12.5 hours to complete

if the game is not enjoyable, at least to some degree, playing it will be just another rote exercise that students do not want to do. But perhaps that is part of the disconnect between designers and educators – the relationship between time invested willingly vs. unwillingly, engaged or obliged. In “The Motivation of Gameplay,” Marc Prensky states, “Remember, game designers focus primarily on motivation; educators don’t. The most important thing that educators can learn from game designers is how they keep the player engaged.” And that may be the area in which I can contribute the most.

I think ODU’s program is uniquely suited to the subjects I need to learn more about to pursue this path as a scholar, allowing me to delve deeply into both the composition pedagogy and new media areas I need to learn more about. However, I am going to have to do significant work above and beyond my coursework – learning Unity and/or Unreal, getting familiar with the “canon” of games, and learning as much as I can about the business and development of games, as well as the scholarly literature. The good news is that, as a game designer myself as well as a scholar, I already have some degree of credibility with both sides of that divide, and a significant network of contacts to draw on. There is a lot of work to do, but I feel like I have both a plan for how to get there, and more importantly, a real contribution that I can make to both scholarship and industry. I know there are frustrating times ahead, and more work than I have ever had in my academic career. But I have now what I have lacked in other programs: a genuine purpose, and a calling.

Aarseth, Espen. “Computer Game Studies – Year One.” Game Studies, vol. 1, issue 1, 2001. Web. 20 Sept. 2016.

Moberly, Kevin. “Composition, Computer Games, and the Absence of Writing.” Computers and Composition 25.3 (2008): 284–299. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

Prensky, Marc. “The motivation of gameplay or, the REAL 21st-century learning revolution.” On The Horizon, vol. 10, no. 1 (2002). Web. 14 Dec. 2016.

PAB #7: From Counter-Strike to Counter-Statement: Using Burke’s Pentad to Analyse Video Games

Bourgonjon, Jeroen et al. “From Counter-Strike to Counter-Statement: Using Burke’s Pentad as a Tool for Analysing Video Games.” Digital Creativity 22.2 (2011): 91–102. Web.

In From Counter-Strike to Counter-Statement: Using Burke’s Pentad to Analyse Video Games, Jeroen Bourgonjon et. al. use rhetorical theory, and

Burke's Dramatic Pentad: Act-Agency-Scene-Purpose-Agent — Burke’s Dramatic Pentad:
Act-Age-Scene-Purpose-Intent

specifically Burke’s concept of the pentad as a methodological tool for the analysis of video games. Rhetorica.net describes the pentad as a series of questions, stating that “Burke believed that all of life was drama (in the sense of fiction), and we may discover the motives of actors (people) by looking for their particular type of motivation in action and discourse.” From the perspective of narratology, then, this provides a useful way of looking at the reasons behind the actions people take in video games. The authors also explain that utilizing the pentad can help the researcher to understand the game from multiple perspectives, including that of the designer (author) and the player (reader).

The authors also use what Ian Bogost terms procedural rhetoric, which they define as, “based on meaning making through the selective simulation of speciﬁc rules. Games do not as much persuade players by telling them things (games as representations), but rather by confronting them with the results of their actions through the game rules” (91). Published in 2011, this shows one of the ways the field has moved past narratology and ludology into a methodology that uses game mechanics, or rules, as a way of communicating meaning, which in turn is given context through the narrative being told by the game.

Ian Bogost, researcher and author of "Persuasive Games" — Ian Bogost, researcher and author of “Persuasive Games”

What is most fascinating about this article is the way in which it applies traditional English studies methodologies and theories as a way of analyzing games. The statements made by early game researchers that games were too important to be left to scholars of other disciplines is squarely put to rest by this, as the authors utilize traditional rhetorical theory, dramatic analysis theory first applied to literature, and Bogost’s procedural rhetoric notion, which was first explained in Persuasive Games: the Expressive Power of Video Games (MIT Press, 2007), which is considered seminal in modern video game scholarship. Procedural rhetoric, as applied to this situation, addresses gameplay as a form of procedure, that can then be applied for rhetorical purposes.

I also found their recap of other existing methodologies (all aligned with the ludology side of the force) for analyzing games especially helpful, as they reference Aarseth, with whom I was already familiar, but also works by Konzack, whose approach focused on the analysis of, “hardware; program code; functionality; gameplay; meaning; referentiality; and socio-cultural aspects,” (98), as well as Maillet who suggested that the analysis of a game may include more than just gameplay, such as walkthroughs, cut scenes, and forum postings, thereby expanding the scope of games as objects of study.

Bioshock, the popular first-person shooter with overtones of Ayn Rand and George Orwell

The authors utilize Burke’s pentad as a way of seeing “ratios,” or relations between different aspects of a game – in this case, Bioshock. In their conclusion, they show how this kind of analysis can be used in education, and to connect the analysis to curricular goals.

Ultimately, this article provides an analysis model that includes both rhetorical theory and traditional literary theory to analyze gameplay and storytelling, using the tools of multiple sub-fields within English studies to better understand one of the most popular games of the last decade.

Additional Readings:

Professor Andrew Cline’s site, Rhetorica.net, defines a number of useful concepts, including “Burke’s Pentad: Dramatism.”

Bioshock is the primary focus of the article, and this wiki entry covers the basics of the game.

Ian Bogost’s website, covering his books, games, and research.

Paper #1 – History of Game Studies

The academic study of video game design has deep roots in many disciplines, stretching across the humanities, the social sciences, and computer science. Since it is a truly interdisciplinary field, there are as many claims to being the “first” to study them as there are subspecialties within it. Although my own area of interest draws strongly from composition studies and pedagogy as well as game studies, it is dependent on the idea of computer games having the potential to be immersive stories, and as such, much of the seminal work on this dates to the late 1990s.

Aarseth's Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature — Aarseth’s Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature

In Volume 1, issue 1 of Game Studies, Espen Aarseth states “2001 can be seen as the Year One of Computer Game Studies as an emerging, viable, international, academic field.” His book, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature predates his “year one” by four years, as does Janet Murray’s seminal Hamlet on the Holodeck. While not the first works to ever explore the interactive potential for fiction, their work is among the most influential long-form explorations, which laid thegroundwork for more widespread acceptance and formalized study.

Two of the first universities to begin interdisciplinary programs to study computer games were, unsurprisingly, MIT and Georgia Tech. Hamlet on the Holodeck was written while Murray was at MIT, where she began teaching “interactive fiction” in 1992 (Murray, Hamlet ix). She later went on to lead the Information Design and Technology program at Georgia Tech, among the first graduate programs of its kind (Murray “From Game-Story…” 6). Both these schools, sharing both a rigorous program of study in fields that fed into game studies and a student body with a passion for roleplaying games (live and tabletop) as well as computer games, proved fertile ground for new research programs. Over time, degrees in “Game Design” have sprung up at colleges and universities at all levels. However, most focus primarily on the art and technology that go into the creation of games, with analysis being pragmatic and not theoretical.

The high level of interest on the part of students, and the increasing demand for highly skilled workers in the ever-expanding field of video game design and production, has led to the development of these programs as a means of credentialing and training students to fill these roles. Beyond the notion of filling a market demand on the part of students and industry, Aarseth states a more philosophical imperative for the establishment of formalized video game studies, stating, “Today…we have a billion dollar industry with almost no basic research, we have the most fascinating cultural material to appear in a very long time, and we have the chance of uniting aesthetic, cultural and technical design aspects in a single discipline.”
However, some designers, like “Extra Credits” James Portnow, argue that game design programs often fail to provide the broad humanities base necessary to prepare students to be professional designers (Extra Credits). Turf wars over the disciplinary relationship between game studies and more established departments must take into account the primary purpose of schools, after all – the teaching of students. There exists a potential conflict between what is best for students (broad-based undergraduate programs with a strong liberal arts component, and more specialized, in-depth graduate study of games) and what may be best for career academics, who have a career imperative to carve out their own niche and identity as researchers.

I would argue, however, that for a well-rounded understanding of the field, study – whether formal or informal – of multiple disciplines is necessary. Individual disciplines may provide a theoretical framework for analysis, as well as their own rich traditions of the many elements that make up game design. And while Aarseth allows that “games should also be studied within existing fields and departments, such as Media Studies, Sociology and English,” he then goes on to say that “games are too important to be left to these fields.”

The demand on the part of students and industry for game design programs means that departments will continue to exist at least as long as the tuition dollars are there, and they have an important research contribution to make to the university community as well. There will be scholars who identify with these departments exclusively, and see researchers from related disciplines as interlopers. Such is the nature of interdisciplinary studies and departments, and Game Studies is not the first, nor will it be the last, to experience this conflict.

In the case of English Studies, studies of game design and game narrative open up new possibilities to explore issues underlying writing pedagogy, as well as an evolving definition of narrative that allows for agency on the part of the “reader” as well as the writer. Scholars of English Studies have much that they can contribute, and much that they can learn as well from this burgeoning field…if disputes over who has the “right” to study games do not get in the way.

Aarseth, Espen. “Computer Game Studies, Year One”. Game Studies. July 2001. http://gamestudies.org/0101/editorial.html.

Extra Credits. “Educating Game Designers – Too Much “Game” at Game Schools – Extra Credits.” YouTube. YouTube, 20 Apr. 2016. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Murray, Janet. Hamlet on the Holodeck. MIT P, 1997.

Murray, Janet. “From Game-Story to Cyberdrama” in First Person, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan. MIT P, 2004, p. 2-11.

PAB Entry #2 – “Gaming, Student Literacies, and the Composition Classroom: Some Possibilities for Transformation”

Alexander, Jonathan. “Gaming, Student Literacies, and the Composition Classroom: Some Possibilities for Transformation.” College Composition and Communication 61.1 (2009): 35–63. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

In “Gaming, Student Literacies, and the Composition Classroom: Some Possibilities for Transformation,” Alexander examines the experiences of two gamers as a way to explore multiple literacies, as well as utilizing games for analysis and as a mode of student writing in the composition classroom. Although much of the article consists of a recap of existing scholarship on the topic, and his incredulity at his subjects ability to juggle multiple technologies at once may strike a technologically savvy reader as quaint, he addresses writing as a means of knowledge production in contexts related to the game but not a part of actual gameplay. The artifacts produced as a result constitute an important paratextual resource for understanding and interacting with the game world.

Alexander’s analysis addressed the many ancillary texts outside of gameplay that are created by World of Warcraft players, which include reading and writing message board posts, strategy guides, and wikis. Students who may balk at a three-page paper for school will often churn out thousands of words for these ancillary texts as a component of their overall gaming experience. It should also be noted that these texts are often highly collaborative, with many people participating in the conversation, and even editing, adding to or subtracting from texts created by others. Alexander describes the planning of a guild raid as an argumentative text, not unlike what students are called on to create in Freshman Composition classes, that these written conversations “are taking place as students are collaboratively working on one text. Again, such collaboration is not uncommon in many professional fields, but I wonder to what extent we in our writing courses are teaching students not just to write but to write collaboratively“.

He cites examples of establishing the credibility of the author, suiting the tone and diction to the writer’s audience, and other elements that we strive to impart to students in basic composition classes, and demonstrates the ways in which students are using them in creating these ancillary game texts.

While I agree with his assertions, and have seen many examples of people who did tremendous research, and even mastered complex skills only tangentially related to a game they were playing, I don’t feel that Alexander drew a clear enough line between what is occurring in games, and how to apply that as part of composition pedagogy. Knowing that it happens is interesting in understanding process and the ways in which students reflect on their writing outside a classroom setting. But how does that impact how we teach? Without the many, many hours it takes to become immersed in a game setting and form a strong bond with characters, and to become effectively subject matter experts, how are these skills transferable?

Alexander states that, “in particular, literacy reflectivity, trans-literacy connections, collaborative writing, multicultural literacy awareness” can be developed through gaming. I agree, and his suggestion of the creation of multimedia texts, for example, can provide students with skills that will serve them beyond the classroom. But most of his suggestions and example deal with students creating these writing assignments and then reflectively drawing out lessons from them that can be applied to other kinds of writing. This is great…if you have a class full of gamers. The time requirement to develop subject matter expertise and passion for the subject matter make the application of what has been learned in this study problematic for the composition teacher. Furthermore, for this to work as Alexander suggests would require a sea change in the way that we approach composition courses – the “transformation” that he alludes to in the article’s title. While this is arguably a laudable goal to work toward, it may not help professors now who have to teach to a set curriculum with little flexibility.
Additional Resources:

Gaming the First-Year Composition Course is a blog posting that is less focused on abstract theory or recapping scholarly literature, but one that echoes some of the same themes. It is more pragmatic, however, in their application.

It’s About the Game Design and the Learning – “In the case of education, it’s about the game and the learning, but the point is lost if the game isn’t fun.”

A nonscholarly post on “4 Things I Learned About Writing from Playing World of Warcraft” for novice professional writers.

PAB Entry #1 – “Composition, Computer Games, and the Absence of Writing”

Moberly, Kevin. “Composition, Computer Games, and the Absence of Writing.” Computers and Composition 25.3 (2008): 284–299. Web. 15 Sept. 2016. Reading Games: Composition, Literacy, and Video Gaming.

Moberly’s article, written in 2008, begins with the idea that in games like World of Warcraft and Second Life, the written word was becoming scarce. As player communication moved from text-based to voice based, and given that game content was delivered primarily through sound and visuals, it seemed that writing (and reading) were becoming obsolete.

Text from a World of Warcraft chat window

However, Moberly states that, “If writing appears to be absent from these games, however, it is not because the games have evolved to the point where writing is not useful or relevant but because, in order to appear magical, the games must disguise the degree to which their technology is dependent on writing.” Certainly, the writing of design documents and dialogue as part of the game’s design and production is vital, though it is largely invisible to players. But while actual written words may be scarce on the page, the player goes through many of the same processes that a writer does.

Composition is occurring, in that the thought processes required to define a character visually using the symbolic language of the game is much the same as choosing words to describe something to an intended audience. An important lesson that can be applied to the composition classroom, is that “whether reading and writing takes place in the context of a computer game or a research paper, its effects are ultimately not manifested on the screen or on paper, but on the individuals who, in expressing themselves through the surrogate of the screen or paper, produce the discourse communities in which they are involved.”

Rhetoric and communication are happening in MMORPGs, even if they are being done through symbols and game mechanics. The choices players make in crafting identity can be applied as lessons on audience and tone, as well as relation to a discourse community. What impression do you want to give to your reader, or in this case, other players? A scantily clad Night Elf sorceress is going to send a very different message than a stout Dwarven warrior – one which can be deconstructed in terms of gender, race, social standing, and a host of other factors. As a player, are you going to make choices based on that character’s cultural background, or just do what feels fun? How much will you roleplay the character, through your words or actions?

The — Sometimes player dialogue choices are limited

Ultimately, Moberly is addressing one of the elements I feel is fertile ground for study – the ways in which games can help students learn the underlying elements that have to be in place before effective, fruitful writing can be created. In the case of World of Warcraft, issues of discourse community, relation to an audience, and finding a unique voice from which to write from are all inherent in game play. From a pedagogical standpoint, though, students will not necessarily absorb these lessons in a conscious sense – for a game to be applied in a practical way to composition studies, there has to be a teacher to act as a catalyst for students, to see these applications.

Additional Resources:
“Extra Credits” is a web series on game design. In their episode “Symbolism 101,” they discuss uses of symbolism from a design standpoint, and address issues including player identity.

“Narrative Mechanics” addresses how a story can be told through the mechanics – the way that a game works, the rules that govern gameplay.