لطفا منتظر باشید ...
Culture: A Framework
Games are designed objects that engage culture on several levels. As systems of representation they reflect culture, depicting images of gender (think of Barbie Fashion Designer, Duke Nukem', or Tomb Raider), as well as portrayals of race and class (Street Fighter II, State of Emergency, or Dope Wars). In this case, the cultural dimensions of a game are part of the game itself, reflecting values and ideologies of surrounding contexts. As interactive systems, on the other hand, games offer players forms of participation that extend the boundaries of play beyond the edges of the magic circle. From player-produced objects like skins, mods, or game patches, to role-playing games in which players explore and alter their personal identity, games have the potential to transform culture. These cultural transformations emerge from the game, to take on a life of their own outside the framework of game play. This ability of games to affect the contexts in which they are played represents a cultural instance of transformative play. As we noted in Defining Play, transformative play occurs when the free movement of play alters the more rigid structures in which it takes place. A mod that feminizes the gothic fictive world of DOOM by littering the space with objects from the Animé Sailor Moon is an example of transformative play. A Soccer match played between two rival nations that leads to international disputes or cultural alliances is also transformative play. So is the design of a game patch that fills the bitmapped spaces of Tempest with hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan. Each of these instances of transformative play occurs on formal and experiential levels. However, a significant feature of these examples is the way they reference, influence, and alter cultural contexts beyond the formal limits of the game.
These two ways of understanding games as culture, reflection and transformation, are not both universal to all games. We do believe that all games reflect culture to some degree, as they are objects produced and played within culture at large. But not all games manifest transformative cultural play to actually transform culture. Only certain games transgress the magic circle in such a way as to have a genuine effect on the cultural contexts in which they are created and played. Arriving at an understanding of how games can reflect and transform culture is the focus of this chapter. How can game designers explore the cultural dimensions of games in concert with their formal and experiential qualities? What are game design's reflective and transformative capabilities? How exactly are games culture? A point of view game designers rarely address, the connection between games and cultural contexts acknowledges the game designer's role in shaping the very cultures we inhabit.
