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The Computer Is Not a Computer
Digital and electronic games take a multitude of forms and appear on many different computer platforms. These include games for personal computers or TV-attached game consoles such as the Sony Playstation or Microsoft XBox; handheld game devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy Advance or specialized handhelds that only play one game; games for PDAs or cell phones; and games for arcades or amusement parks. Digital and electronic games can be designed for a single player, for a small group of players, or for a large community. For simplicity's sake, we will refer to all of these game forms as digital games.
Digital games are systems, just like every other game discussed so far. The physical medium of the computer is one element that makes up the system of the game, but it does not represent the entire game.The computer hardware and software are merely the materials of which the game is composed. One would not say that a deck of UNO cards is the same thing as the game of UNO. But people often fall into this kind of thinking when it comes to describing digital games. Take a straightforward example of a digital game: the game title Tetris for the Nintendo Game Boy handheld platform. Is the system of the game constituted entirely by the Game Boy console and the Tetris game cartridge? As outlined in Systems, the four elements of a system are objects, attributes, relationships, and an environment. The identities assigned to these elements within a game depend on how the game is framed: as a formal system of rules, as an experiential system of play, or as a contextual system embedded within larger systems of culture. In order to see how this analysis functions within the present discussion of games and digital technology, we start with the widest frame-culture-and work our way in. If we view Tetris as a system of cultural context, the actual hardware and software of the game is a relevant component, but it hardly tells the whole story. In considering Tetris within the context of culture, we would need to include elements such as game fan magazines (Nintendo Power, for example), the marketing, manufacturing, and economics of the Game Boy console, the hybrid cultural identity of the game (Tetris' original designer, Russian Alexy Pajitnov and Japanese publisher Nintendo), the demographics of players, and so on. We would need to take each of these components into account. The exact elements to investigate depend on the specific cultural reading undertaken. In any case, culturally speaking the technological facet of Tetris is merely one element among many others. Now consider the experiential play of Tetris: the cognitive and psychological, physical and emotional relationships that emerge between a player and the game. In this case, the elements of the system are constituted by 1) the player and 2) the Game Boy Advance console. The circuit of interaction between player and game runs in a kind of loop as the player plays, responding to the game even as the game responds to the player. In this picture, the digital technology itself is a part of the system, but certainly does not constitute it entirely.
Narrowing the focus to the formal rules of Tetris, the mathematical system of the game that exists apart from the player, are we talking just about the technology? Yes and no. The rules are embedded in the hardware and the software, but they are also something separate from the code. For example, the enactment of the rules is contingent on the player. The rules determine, among other things, what happens when a player pushes a button at a certain moment in the game. In this way, the internal logic of the game is not something that can be completely severed from the ways that the game exchanges information with the outside world. Even here, in looking at Tetris as a formal system, considering the technology as an end in itself can be misleading. What is the point of these multiple framings? A game designer doesn't create technology. A game designer creates an experience. Computer and video game technology can be a part of that experience-it can even be the focal point of that experience-but in order to design meaningful play a designer has to consider the complete picture.
