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Establishing a Critical Discourse
One way to describe the project of this book is to say that we are working to establish a critical discourse for game design. We agree with veteran game designer Warren Spector that "It is absolutely vital that we start to build a vocabulary that allows us to examine, with some degree of precision, how games evoke emotional-intellectual responses in players".[2] As a nascent field of inquiry, there are not yet well-developed ways of talking about games and how they function. What is the point of establishing a critical discourse? Simply put, a critical vocabulary lets us talk to each other. It lets us share ideas and knowledge, and in doing so, expands the borders of our emerging field. Media theorist and game scholar Henry Jenkins identifies four ways that building a critical discourse around games can assist not just game designers, but the field as a whole:
Training: A common language facilitates the education of game designers, letting them explore their medium in more variety and depth.
Generational Transfer: Within the field, a disciplinary vocabulary lets game designers and developers pass on skills and knowledge, rather than solving the same problems over and over in isolation.
Audience-building: In finding a way to speak about them, games can be reviewed, critiqued, and advertised to the public in more sophisticated ways.
Buffer Against Criticism: There are many factions that would seek to censor and regu late the content and contexts for gaming, particularly computer and video games. A critical discourse gives us the vocabulary and understanding to defend against these attacks.[3]
Creating a critical discourse requires that we look at games and the game design process from the ground up, proposing methods for the analysis of games, assessing what makes a great game great, and asking questions about what games are and how they function. The result is a deeper understanding of game design that can lead to genuine innovation in the practice of making games. Part of creating a critical discourse is defining concepts, but arriving at such a vocabulary is no simple task, for it involves creating definitions for words that often thread their way through multiple and contradictory contexts. One challenge of our project has been formulating a set of definitions for terms such as "game," "design," "interactivity," "system," "play," and "culture," terms that form the foundation of our critical vocabulary. As we explore the largely uncharted terrain of game design, definitions stake out boundaries, the way a set of points define a plane in space. Practically speaking, defining terms is useful. But an overemphasis on definitions can be dangerous. Held in too orthodox a manner, definitions become a way of shutting down communication and insight. For us, a definition is not a closed or scientific representation of "reality." For a designer, the value of a definition is its ability to serve as a critical tool for understanding and solving design problems. In other words, by including definitions, our intention is not to exclude other definitions that might complement or contradict our own. We wholeheartedly acknowledge that our definitions, concepts, and models leave some things out and work better in some circumstances than others. But this doesn't lessen their overall utility. It is often along the seams and cracks formed when competing definitions bump up against one another that new ideas are born. Our hope for game design is that it becomes a field as rich as any other, filled with vibrant discussion and dialogue as well as virulent debate and disagreement. [2]RE:PLAY: Game Design + Game Culture. Online conference, 2000. <www.eyebeam.org.replay> [3]"Computer and Video Games Come of Age. A National Conference to Explore the Current State of an Entertainment Medium." February 10-11, 2000. Comparative Media Studies Department, MIT. Transcripts. Henry Jenkins.
