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Comprehensive summary of Play & Game (including articles)
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Comprehensive Play & Game summary including all articles
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Play and gameLecture 1 (chapter 2)
40% final exam (focused on insight)
20% essay (2-4 pages)
40% group assignment (design a game or an add-on)
Classic model of games (Juul):
- Rules
- Outcome
- Goals (and conflict)
- Interaction
- Different from normal life (not productive, artificial: made to provide challenge and give a
feeling of achievement but no stress as it would do in real life)
- Does not feel like work, voluntary, relaxation
- Social
- Fiction (fictional story and interactions can be fantasy-like)
Games tend to be autotelic: you play for the sake of playing, not to reach external goals. It is not
always the case actually, because games can become a profession like e-sport. They don’t get the
fulfillment from playing only, but it is becoming more like work for them.
Juul’s classic model of games:
Borderline cases = are seen as games by some people, but do not meet all the earlier mentioned
criteria (f.e. city building game)
Storytelling is seen as no game, but when it comes to interactive storytelling there is some
discussion.
Four types of games (caillois):
- Agon (competition) how good you are determines whether you reach the goals
- Alea (chance) luck and randomness determines (partly) whether you reach the goals
- Mimicry (imitation) you can take on the role of something/someone else (story games)
, - Ilinx (vertigo) emphasis on movement/speed, the goals being to get an enjoyable feeling
(VR/rollercoaster simulator)
Games versus ‘play’ (caillois):
Full pretend play is mostly seen with young children that f.e. act like they are a doctor or teacher.
Games can be played as games or as play. F.e. Grand Theft Auto is a game but you can do what you
want in that game.
Play can also take place if there is no game (like young children play doctor or acting very playful)
Stenros (2017) the definition of juul’s is not clear enough, but is a big deal as there is no concrete
definition. He commented on the existing definition, f.e. on the relationship with the real world. The
relationship you have with someone you are going to game with, can also influence your view on that
person, so it is always connected to the real world.
Perspectives on games
- Game: structure and technology, how these determine the player experience
- Players: how games are used in the real world, effects on players
- Culture: how culture affect games and vice versa, subcultures related to games (looking at
the bigger picture)
Groups of researches
Not strict, a researcher can be mix of these. The key is to look at a game from the different angels.
- Formalists: focus on the games themselves or related philosophical questions (film studies) –
categorization, reasoning
o Narratology: games as a way to tell stories
o Ludology: games as a collection of rules (gameplay)
- Situationalists: focus on the players and culture (context and variation, ‘real’ experiences’)
Players perspective
Chapter 2
Left hemisphere of the brain is relatively better at words/grammar
Right hemisphere of the brain is relatively better at speech intonation/prosody
These are connected through the corpus callosum (= a large pathway of nerves that allows left and
right to share information)
,The average female brain is not exactly the same as the average male brain. However, they are more
similar than different. There is usually a greater difference in the same sex as between different
sexes. Most of the cognitive differences are due to practice/skill/environment/social pressure the
person develops in.
False brain myths:
- We only use 10% of the brain
- Right-brained people are more creative than left-brained people
- Men and women have different brains
- Video games are rewiring your brain (every environment and interaction can cause your
neural network to rearrange)
Issues with the concept of learning styles:
- It is not easy to measure someone’s preferred learning style
- Criteria determining a sort of learning style are all over the place
- No solid scientific evidence that you will learn better if the teaching style matches your
learning style preference
Teaching is made meaningful by repeating the teaching in different contexts and activities.
Some people state that ‘digital natives’ (= millennials) are wired differently compared to digital
immigrants (= older generations). This is not true, but what is true is that every generation has
different expectations and a different mental model for interactions.
Cognitive biases are patterns of thought that bias our judgement and our decision-making.
Kahneman and Tversky demonstrated that the human mind uses shortcuts of intuitive thinking
(heuristics) that result in making predictable mistakes in our reasoning.
Dan Ariely went deeper in to how cognitive biases impact our daily lives. Anchoring is f.e. a cognitive
bias that describes that we have a tendency to rely on previous information (the anchor) to make a
judgement about a new piece of information by comparing. Marketeers use this by displaying the
before price when there is a discount.
We are mostly unaware of being influenced by these biases.
Kahneman describes that our brain has two modes: system 1 and system 2. System 1 is fast,
instinctive and emotional thinking. System 2 is slower, deliberate and logical. It involves effortful
mental activities such as complex computations. Both systems are active when we are awake and
influence one another. Cognitive biases mostly occur in system 1 as it is automatically fast and
therefore prone to errors.
Lecture 2
To play a game you have to define rules, such as:
Also you need to facilitate goals, progress/development, challenge.
- Space (soccer field / forest)
- Passage of time (middle ages / real time / future)
- Consequences (small; CRTL+A is jumping or big; you deserve points if you help people)
Types of rules:
- Operational rules
Required to be able to play the game.
, - Basic constitutive rules
Underlying, often logical/mathematical rules
- Rules of conduct
Unwritten, such as no cheating
There is a difference between ‘’real’’ rules and artificial rules. Real = real world / artificial = rules to
play such as card games
Goals are:
- The reason for players to play the game
- Achievable but challenging
- Can be determined by the game (e.g., with support from the story), or by the player
themselves
There can be several types of goals, such as:
- Conquering
- Defeating
- Chasing
- Racing
- Building
- Exploring
- Solving (puzzle)
- Etc.
Challenges/conflicts:
- Stand in the way of the goal
- Often based on rules that limit the player’s actions
- It takes effort to overcome them
Types of challenges:
- Obstacles (physical/mental)
- Enemies
- Dilemmas (choices)
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