Tavinor, Grant (2009). The Art of Videogames. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Tavinor looks at games using tool-set from the analytical philosophy of art,using especially the philosophy of fiction.

As the book is drawing on analytical philosophy, the discussion of the definition of videogame is inevitable. Fortunately, Tavinor does not just start a definition project, but discuss the different kinds of definitions and their uses. Definition offered is well-developed, but it trust the idea of intended use that makes skeptical (this is not fully though-out, but a hunch).

A big part of the book deals with games as fiction and character-based games. Again, the treatment of fiction start with a closer look of concepts used in game research. Aarseth’s argument that functional game objects are virtual, not fictional, is rejected. Tavinor present a compelling argument why the game objects are fictional and videogames are usually virtual fictions (I have criticized  Aarserth’s fictional–virtual–real dichotomy earlier, see http://mlab.taik.fi/~plankosk/blog/?p=6). After that Tavinor discusses what kind of fiction games are using Walton¹ theory as a stepping stone:

Modern, fictively rich video games … allow their players to step into a visuospatial fictional world in the guise of a player-character. The player character is the player’s epistemic and behavioral  proxy in the game world, allowing them to discover the many facts of the fictional world, and to act in the world. (p. 84.)

Tavinor also discusses narrative in, emotions in, and ethics of videogames, as well as games as art. Tavinor’s emotion theory seems rather close to what I have proposed in my paper Goals, Affects, Empathy in Games.  Tavinor writes:

Big Daddies in BioShock are so threatening that the players must steel themselves before encounter. … This is because, fictionally, the player-character and the BigDaddy do “exist” in the same ontological game world. (p. 142.)

I partly agree with this, but I see that BigDaddy can be frightening, because it threatens the players real goals at the same time BigDaddy fictionally threatens the  player-character.

This is a book worth of reading. The arguments are well-presented, and hopefully we will see this same kind of rigor in argumentation more in game research.

References

1. Walton, Kendal (1990). Mimesis as Make-Believe. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

The Digra Conference 2009 Proceedings, Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Play, Practice and Theory, is now available at digra digital library.

Methods seminar at University of Tampere, 8-9 April, 2010:

What are the approaches and methods that are useful while studying games, play and related phenomena? The dynamic nature of interactive game form, the changing strategies adopted during actual play, as well as the multiple research questions that surround the design, implementation, distribution as well as the social uses of games all present their distinctive requirements for the methods that are suitable for their study.

Full CFP is available at http://gamesmethods.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/call-for-papers-games-research-methods-seminar/

Now, after handling in the dissertation manuscript, I have really started to read and seek new things. Now on my table is following books:

• Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten, The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design (Lone Eagle Publishing Company, 2007). The book, so far, is a very practical and though-provoking look at writing and designing  action games.
• Wendy Despain (ed.), Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing (AK Peters, 2008). I have read seven first chapters and found them bit shallow.
• Pernard Berron & Mark J.P. Wolf, The Video Game Theory Reader (Routledge, 2009).  16 essays looking at video games on various perspectives.
• Grant Tavinor, The Art of Video Games (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Tavinor, using the framework of analytical philosopohy, studies video games. The content of the book (by looking at the table of contents and Tavinor’s presentation at the Philosophy of Computer Games conference) ranges from defining video games to relations between fiction and games, as well as emotions in games.

There are at two of books I like to get:

• Miguel Sigart, The Ethics of Computer Games (The MIT Press, 2009).
• Alva Noe, Out of Our Heads (Hill and Wang, 2009).