PLAYING WITH REALITY Jeff Watson, PhD Assistant Professor, OCAD University, Digital Futures Director, Situation Lab http://remotedevice.net @remotedevice

ACTION

How games “play with reality”

Two touchstones: Environment and

Situation

Two touchstones: Environment and

Situation

Georges-Eugène Haussmann Urban Planner Boulevards of Paris, “Haussmannization”

Situationist International Revolutionary Group Psychogeography, the construction of “Situations” Guy Debord, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Rauol Vaneigem, et al. c. 1957 - 1972

“[Only] play can deconsecrate, open up the possibilities of total

freedom . . . the freedom, for example, to turn Chartres Cathedral

into a fun-fair, into a labyrinth, into a

shooting-range, into a dream landscape.”

Raoul Vaneigem, quoted

in Plant, The Most Radical Gesture, 129.

Theory of the Dérive Guy Debord, 1958.

Environmental Game Design The practice of designing games with and around the physical, digital, social, and emotional environment of players so as to manifest an impact on the way in which that environment is used

Environmental Games and Direct Action The transformative potential of environmental games lies in the fact that they can be more than just a call to action -- they can meaningfully be the action itself

Gaston Bachelard – The Poetics of Space, Topoanalysis

Gone Home

Erving Goffman Sociologist Dramaturgical Analysis The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)

DRAMATURGICAL CODES

PERFORMANCE

Action: Macon Money (2010) Impact mandates: build personal connections, support local business

Game actions: build personal connections, support local business

Action: Reality Ends Here (2011-present) Impact mandates: collaboration, peer discovery, media experimentation

Game actions: collaboration, peer discovery, media experimentation

Situation

Situation (noun) a set of circumstances in which one finds oneself; a state of affairs. synonyms: circumstances, (state of) affairs, state, condition

Situation (via Sartre) “The situation is an appeal: it surrounds us, offering us solutions which it’s up to us to choose.” (Theater of Situations) “Thus we begin to catch a glimpse of the paradox of freedom: there is freedom only in a situation, and there is a situation only through freedom.” (Being And Nothingness)

The writer is in a situation in their epoch.

Jean-Paul Sartre Editorial in Les Temps Modernes, Issue 1 (1945)

An opportunity to act

“We’ve got ourselves a situation…”

Eudaimonia & Eupraxis

Games are Situations

Games ∈ Situations

What do you do?

Super Hexagon

What do you do?

Chess Boxing

What do you do?

Myst

No game is an island

Star Trek: TNG

Go

Team Fortress 2/Oculus Rift

Defining Game

I perceive four common factors: representation ["a closed formal system that subjectively represents a subset of reality"], interaction, conflict, and safety ["the results of a game are always less harsh than the situations the game models"].

Chris Crawford, 1981

A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.

Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, 2003

[An] activity which is essentially: Free (voluntary), separate [in time and space], uncertain, unproductive, governed by rules, make-believe.

Roger Caillois, 1961

A game is a rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable.

Jesper Juul, 2003

“Not this, but…”

Games are permeable regulated situations that unfold over time and resolve or conclude based in whole or in part on the creative participation of one or more players.

Jeff Watson, just now

Games are permeable regulated situations that unfold over time and resolve based on the creative participation of one or more players.

Jeff Watson, just now-er

Games are semi-regulated situations that unfold over time and resolve based on the creative participation of one or more players.

Jeff Watson, just now-est

Permeability

“Not this, but…”

LudicParaludic

LudicParaludic

Ludic Paraludic

Ludic Paraludic

Shrovetide

Mario Kart

Nidhogg

Hidden in Plain Sight

Spaceteam

JS Joust

Journey

The Castle Doctrine

Metal Gear Solid

Candy Box

Flappy Bird

PLAYING WITH REALITY Jeff Watson, PhD Assistant Professor, OCAD University, Digital Futures Director, Situation Lab http://remotedevice.net @remotedevice