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Humanities & Social Sciences papers Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

September 2003

The diverse worlds project: narrative, style,characters and physical world in popular computerand video gamesJeffrey E. BrandBond University, jeffrey_brand@bond.edu.au

Scott J. KnightBond University, Scott_Knight@bond.edu.au

Follow this and additional works at: http://epublications.bond.edu.au/hss_pubs

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Recommended CitationJeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight. (2003) "The diverse worlds project: narrative, style, charactersand physical world in popular computer and video games".Sep. 2003.

http://epublications.bond.edu.au/hss_pubs/248

Diverse Worlds Project

Executive SummaryOverview

This study of 130 of the top-selling games for the first half of 2002 in Australia demonstrates that, across the five major platforms(including the PlayStation2, Xbox, Game Cube, Game Boy Advance and personal computer) computer and video games presentdiverse worlds of play. They do so in terms of their presentation of physical space and objects, characters, narrative and style.

Methods

Four objects of study for each game title were identified including

slick/cover/box,

the manual/handbook,

the introductory cinematics and

the first 10 minutes of game-play.

The researchers coders established an innovative coding scheme with coding definitions and pilot-tested it in August andSeptember 2002. Four researchers coded 130 games in the sample frame between October and November 2002. Over 80variables were used and over 400 measures were made of each game title.

Key Findings

General

The most frequently observed genres were action, platformer, sport and driving/racing.

The distinction between action games and platformers is technical with a focus on 3D versus 2D representation; this washighlighted by PC and console titles versus GBA titles.

Genres tended to be bound up with OFLC classification.

Platforms showed a relationship to OFLC classification.

On a subjective measure of implied danger, games were evenly split between “safe” and “unsafe.”

Slicks or box covers reveal that the heritage of CVGs is more one of the appeal to visual and play elements than one of complexnarrative.

The handbook or manual functions primarily as a cybernetic orientation and secondarily as a narrative introduction.

Physical Space and Objects

Contrary to the common stereotypes about CVGs (that they are simplistic, repetitive, formulaic worlds lacking in aestheticnuance and texture), the digital world of games is painted using a vast array of visible features and locations.

Interior and exterior locations were commonly used, building, trees, lights and water dominated the visible landscape and theaction was set in cities, forests and a wide range of landscapes in between.

The game worlds we studied featured a diversity of environmental and weather conditions.

The presentation of equipment in game cinematics and play is skewed toward objects that have utility to the player or the

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player’s character in the unfolding experience of the game.

Subjectively, for most games (60 percent), the population density was sparse.

Objectively, more than 20 active background characters share the game space as the primary character in over half of thegames.

Characters

The depiction of characters is dependent on the game genre.

Characters are predominantly human who serve the role of the independent, non-speaking hero.

The stereotypical representation of characters in traditional mainstream media also exists in game worlds. Yet games aredifferent from traditional mass media in that very often it is hard to “see” the character being played, the camera serves as theeyes of the character in the game, and thus the player.

Leading characters in video games are more often realistic and “normal” or “average”. More than half are of average height.More than two-thirds are of average weight. Two thirds have natural and realistic body types.

Visible characters are always clothed, unless they are anthropomorphised animals in which case clothing may not benecessary. Style of dress varied considerably with casual street clothes most commonly shown, followed by sports clothing.

Where a work role could be confirmed, athletes were most common, followed by soldiers.

Weapons were the tools used most frequently by characters. When they were used, weapons were restricted to FPS and actiongames and these were held within M15+ and MA15+ OFLC classifications.

Lead characters are active agents exhibiting a full range of behaviours. These behaviours run the gamut from standing to flyingand from eating to sleeping.

The emotions that were most commonly expressed by the characters were those that exhibited clear vocal counterparts;otherwise emotional expression is vague as a function primarily of technical limitations and use of “camera” in showing thecharacter.

Narrative

Better than one third of the games in the study exhibited an open-ended narrative structure. Games in which the player is “onrails”, that is in which the player has little control of the narrative progression tend to be platformers, FPS and action; games inwhich the player is “god” tend to be sport, driving/racing, RPG and sim titles.

Most games are situated in the present.

As with mainstream film, when a manipulation of story order occurs, it is most commonly in the form of a flashback; in gamesthis occurs in cinematics as a narrative tool and very rarely appears in game-play, which by definition, takes place in real time.

During the cinematic sequence, the player and audience knows more about the story than the character knows. However, inthe game-play, the player-as-character is provided with a restricted knowledge of the story to enhance the experience ofdramatic tension.

Like mainstream film, a majority of games is presented with objective depth of story information; the player, looking into thegame world has an omniscient perspective.

Good versus evil is a recurring theme in folklore, fairytales, mythology, contemporary drama and … CVGs. However, gamesdifferentiate themselves by their use of point accumulation as an objective.

Style

In both the cinematics and game-play, the tendency toward near photo-realistic expression is higher for the rendering ofenvironments than for characters but overall, graphic stylisation tends toward a mid-point between basic animation and photo-realism.

The aspect ratio remained at standard full screen Academy ratio of 1.33:1 for game-play, however it shifted to other ratiosapproximating the wide-screen cinema frames for cinematic sequences.

Cinematic sequences usually employ ‘cinematic’ camera, meaning the replication of traditional film. However, in game-play the

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fictional camera is spread across all categories and is generally bound to genre such as the first-person perspective in FPS.

Variety of presentation was found in games’ tonality of lighting. In addition to the traditional video game high contrast lightingaesthetic, there was plenty of evidence of low contrast lighting and warm and cold tones.

The Hollywood Illusionistic convention of motivated lighting as a source predominated in both cinematic and game-play.

A majority of the cinematic sequences employ the continuity system of ‘invisible’ editing; the remainder use the ‘montagesequence’ type.

Text and iconography whether diegetic or non-diegetic, whether in cinematics or game-play, tended to be informational, savefor a significant proportion of instructional non-diegetic text.

Most speech emanates from within the story space and is simultaneous with image.

Music mainly came from outside the story space and sound effects from within the game world.

Conclusions

CVGs present audiences diverse worlds of play. These worlds are as much about fun and safe digital playgrounds as they areabout the traditional devices of story-telling; that is, of confrontation and conflict. The results presented in this report have policyimplications, commercial value and academic merit. The policy implications centre on the popular debate about violence andclassification. The commercial value exists in the analytical tool and potential variations of it that we used to examine game contentin relation to market popularity of key titles. The academic merit comes from the blending of two distinct styles of research into anew method of observation and analysis.

Introduction

Not one published, credible study exists to document the wider nature of contemporary computer and video games (CVGs). Thisstudy seeks to fill the gap. However, questions come quickly to mind that challenge the study’s purpose:

Why is understanding CVGs important?

Does this gap need to be filled?

Is this academic?

What is the commercial value of such knowledge?

We believe this report answers these and other questions. In the end we conclude: CVGs present their diverse audiences withdiverse worlds of digital play. That they do so is profoundly important because play is the foundation of culture. Germanphilosopher Johan Huizinga wrote in 1939 that culture is determined by play. He noted that without play, there would be no greatcultures, no great civilisations, no … humanity. He argued that rather than calling ourselves homo sapiens (man the thinker) weshould call ourselves homo ludens, man the player.

In 2003, computer and video games represent our current “state of play.” That is, CVGs set the rules by which so many of us play.Presumably, by extension of Huizinga’s argument, CVGs are culture-makers. Indeed, if CVGs underpin so much of our play andemergent culture, knowing the nature of their world seems of self evident importance.

This study of 130 of the top-selling games in the first half of 2002 in Australia (a country which is arguably a nexus of European,American and Japanese market tastes), demonstrates that, across the five major platforms, computer and video games presentdiverse worlds of play. They do so in terms of…

Physical space and objects

Characters

Narrative, and

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Style.

The purpose of our study was to conduct a quantitative content analysis of the portrayal of the variety of physical spaces andcharacters in CVGs while at the same time assessing narrative and style features. Moreover, we wanted to include rich qualitativeanalyses of the narrative in two presumably different games to demonstrate the distinction between non-narrative and narrativegame forms.

To achieve these goals, we examined games in the five popular platforms for CVGs in early 2002 including the PlayStation2, Xbox,Game Cube, Game Boy Advance and personal computer. Figure one demonstrates the near equal representation in this study ofeach of the five dominant CVG platforms in 2002.

Underlying much of our interest was our view that CVGs are increasingly popular as entertainment media. The growth rate of 32per cent in the value of Australian retail games hardware and software sales in 2001 over 2000 is just one indicator. In 2002, thesales of CVG hardware and software has been estimated at $(AU)55 billion which represents a 12 percent increase world-wideover 2001 figures. In Australia for the 12 months to June 2002, the CVG market was including $315 million in software.

Figure 1: Platforms Represented in the Sample

Moreover, the target audience for CVGs is no longer an adolescent one. In Australia and other developed western countries,CVGs are played by children and adults with the median age range being adults 18 to 35 years of age. As a function of a morediverse audience for CVGs, we believe that producers of these are depicting more representations of society and culture in CVGcontent to elaborate the story of more complex plots, scenarios and characters that serve as the backdrop against whichgame-play takes place. Not only are the representations and stories of these CVGs intended for increasingly diverse audiences,but they may better represent the diversity of society by virtue of their appeal both to broader and to narrower audience tastes.

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

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Diverse Worlds Project

LiteratureThe first stage in the Diverse Worlds project was to examine the relevant literature, particularly previous content studies of CVGs.

The primary limitation of the five content analytic studies we found, each of which is discussed in detail below, is their narrowscope. Generally, CVGs were only analysed in terms of the presence and scope of violence and the presence and role of femalecharacters. One study also looked at the presence and roles of ethnic groups.

All of this, however, adds up to a relatively narrow range of content, with many aspects of the game remaining unanalysed. Forthis reason, our literature review also examines a range of other works that deal with other aspects of CVGs, and in particular thequestion of game narrative. Several game scholars have argued that narrative is essentially incompatible with game-play. This isan argument especially worth addressing considering that narrative is one of the elements we examined in this project.

Although the subjects broached in this review are significant areas of study, the objective here is not so much to answer specifichypothetical questions, but rather to provide summary background information relevant to the Diverse Worlds project. A secondarypurpose will be to identify areas that call for future study.

Two additional areas of study that we have covered but will not report except for in a cursory fashion here (for brevity and space)include genre theory and style.

First, the application of genre theory. The basic problem in this particular area of study is that genres, as we understand themfrom film studies, do not apply to computer games, where the generic form of game-play is much more significant than thegeneric aspects of the storyline. In other words, it is usually more convenient to group together games in which one races a carthan games with aspects of the science fiction film genre. Dividing games into genres along such lines, however, is not as simpleas it may appear. Our literature review will attempt to present some of the more significant problems associated with such asystem.

The other element of CVG content needing exploration is style but not discussed below is style. Here we explore whether stylisticfactors associated with other screen-based media apply to CVGs such as lighting, aspect ratio of the frame, “camera” angles andso on. Certainly for cinematic sequences, we would expect stylistic elements of film to transfer well to the game package.However, we expect some things to get lost in the translation of film and television style to actual game-play.

Content analyses

One of the first content analysis studies of CVGs was Braun and Giroux (1989). In this study, Braun and Giroux examine arcadegames, with five basic objectives: to determine the psychological complexity, and reinforcement characteristics of games, toexamine human-to-human interaction and sex differences in the arcade, and to examine the games’ content in terms of violence.As such, the analysis of content was rather limited, but other aspects, such as the examination of the skills required to play eachgame, make the study significant in spite of its limitations and age.

Braun and Giroux’ study examined 21 of the most popular arcade CVGs, and observed their players in a number of 30-45 minutesessions over a period of two months. Ultimately, the number of players observed was 55 girls and 443 boys.

The study found, firstly, that CVGs generally require the player to continually process multiple modes of perceptual information,with a wide range of visual and aural feedback. The players had to constantly evaluate the feedback, plan their actions, and thenexecute them quickly and efficiently.

A second aspect of the study had been reinforcement measures in CVGs. Here, the study found that all the games in the sampleused continuous forms of (usually positive) reinforcement, including explicit types like verbal encouragement, and implicit, likeexplosions.

The study found that males dominated the arcade, both in the number of clients and in the aural and visual representation of

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humans in the games themselves.

The study’s fourth finding was that while a majority of the arcade clientele came alone, about 40% came in groups of varioussizes. Girls usually came in groups. While most games had two-player options (either sequential or simultaneous), it was foundthat cooperative game-play was nonexistent. Furthermore, fully half of the clients played alone anyway.

Finally, it was found that 71% of the games included violence, primarily in four genres: war, sports, ingestion, and criminal themedgames.

Overall, the study is significant because it is one of the first to examine the content of CVGs. Its examination of the skills requiredto play CVGs is especially important, because most studies ignore this question.

However, the study has several limitations. The first and most important of these is its age – published in 1989 and conducted in1987, its findings are really only useful for historical comparison, because computer games have moved a great way since then.

A second limitation lies in its analysis of violence in games. No definition of violence is provided; it is thus unclear what exactlyqualifies as violence. An example of the problems associated with this is the question of sports – as the other studies in this reviewwill show, violence in sports is generally not classified the same way as other violence.

A more recent study of CVG content is Dietz (1998). This study discusses the effect of mass media and video games in particularin the process of socialisation in children. It then goes on to describe Dietz’ study of a sample of video games, focusing on theportrayals therein of women and violence.

The sample of games in the study is non-random. The titles are limited to the Nintendo and Sega Genesis consoles, and furtherlimited to the most popular titles of early 1995. The most popular titles are chosen because they are the most likely to be playedby customers. The reasons for limiting the sample to the Nintendo and Sega Genesis, however, are not specified. It is alsounclear what portions of the games were observed.

The features studied in the games include the presence and roles of women, and the presence (but not context) of violence.Dietz’ results indicate that about 70% of the sample included female representation; however, only in 5 games (15%) werefemales presented as heroines or action characters. Furthermore, 79% of the games contain violence, though only 52% containcriminally violent themes (the remaining 27% are sports games). About 49% include violence against characters, and 21% includeviolence specifically against women. 9% depict women as evil. Also, women are frequently depicted as sex objects. Dietz claimsthat video games thus encourage a stereotypical view of women, as well as the view that violence is “an effective and preferablemethod of problem-solving” in life.

However, Dietz’ results themselves are inconsistent, suggesting inadequate analysis of the games being studied. She notes thatMortal Kombat 2 (1994) has female heroines, but features violence committed specifically against women. However, MortalKombat 2 is a fighting game. If a female heroine is played, there must be violence against women. Meanwhile, the fact that womenfight men on even footing goes against a stereotypical presentation of women.

The claim that only 15% of the games present females as heroines is also questionable. Dietz defines the heroine category asplayable female characters. Thus, any non-playable female character, no matter how heroic, would be considered secondary.Furthermore, games with female antagonists are criticised for portraying women as evil, leading to the conclusion that only malescan be antagonists.

Finally, Dietz’ conclusions about violence being portrayed in video games as an effective problem-solving method appear to be acase of taking her results too far. The presence of violence in half of the sample does not by itself indicate that the games glorifyviolence. Dietz merely establishes the presence of violence in games. The context in which violent acts are committed is notexplained; neither is what constitutes violence. Overall, while the study’s results are worth noting, they are somewhat general andinconsistent.

The third content analysis study is Lachlan, Smith and Tamborini (2001) This study examines the content of 60 games from threeplatforms (Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, and Sega DreamCast – once again, the personal computer is ignored). For eachplatform, the games were chosen on the basis of popularity in the year 1999. 10 minutes of game-play were recorded from eachgame, and the recordings were then analysed.

The specific purpose of this content analysis is to assess the amount and context of violence in CVGs, with the main researchquestion being whether the prevalence and context of violence in CVGs varies with the games’ rating. In a way, this studycontinues Dietz’ work. The study cites various studies claiming a positive relationship between CVG playing and aggressivebehaviour as the justification for the relevance of examining violence in CVGs.

In analysis, each game was coded for a range of variables. Where a variable could produce a range of different results, the results

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were collapsed into two or three categories in the final analysis for the sake of simplification.

Overall the study has found less violence than the previous studies – 68% of the sample included violence, compared to Dietz’79%. One of the reasons suggested for the lower percentage here is a more conservative definition of violence.

It is also pointed out that only 10% of all the games studied included ‘attractive’ perpetrators of violence. Since it is claimed thatchildren are more likely to imitate attractive role models, the authors claim that in this aspect, CVGs are less ‘risky’ than TV shows.

Unsurprisingly, the study found that games targeted at an older audience feature more violence, and blood and gore. The studyfinds that mature games feature more human perpetrators of violence, and especially young or female perpetrators. It is alsonoted that conventional weapons (guns, knives, etc., as opposed to improvised weapons) appear more often in games for matureaudiences than in games for children, which often featured robotic characters using ‘natural means’ to fight. Most games analysedfeature no punishment for perpetrating violence – only 2% of the games studied punish the perpetrator.

Finally, the study points out that the amount of violence in the sample may be limited by the fact that only the first 10 minutes ofgame-play were studied, and there may be more violence later on. It is worth noting, however, that this argument would also applyto their claim that perpetrators of violence aren’t punished – in a typical action film, for example, the violent antagonist is onlypunished at the end of the film. The same probably applies here.

Overall, the study paints a comprehensive picture of violence and its perpetrators in computer games. The picture would havebeen more complete, however, had personal computer games been taken into account.

The next study is Thompson & Haninger (2001). This study is one of the more in-depth content analyses of CVGs. Although it isnarrower in scope than most (it examines only games rated E – games suitable for persons 6 years or older), it nonethelessexamines a large sample (55 games), and in each case, 90 minutes of game-play were recorded.

The objective of the study was to compare the ratings descriptions (which denote the presence of violence, adult themes, etc. ingames) with the actual content of the games in order to determine the accuracy of the ratings system. The specific type of contentthat was looked at included violence, alcohol, tobacco, and sex themes. A

violent act was defined as an intentional action (or attempted act) to injure/kill another character.

In order to select the sample, the study performed a survey of all E-rated games available in the US by April 1 2001. A total of 672such games was found. Of these, a sample of 55 was chosen. This sample included both best-selling and less popular games.For two long-running game series (the Mario Bros. and Zelda series), multiple games were taken from each series in order tostudy trends over time.

It is worth noting that the study divided the games into 11 different genres (although the definition of the genres is not explained),including the following – action, adventure, casino, fighting, puzzle, racing, role-playing, shooting, simulation, sports, andstrategy.

The study found that 63.6% of the sample included intentional violence, with an average 30.7% of the game duration representingviolent game-play. Of the 32 games in the sample that did not include a rating descriptor for violence, 44% included violence. Inthe action, adventure, fighting, shooting, strategy and simulation genres, all the games included violence. On the other hand, inthe sports and racing genres, only 17% and 22%, respectively, included violence.

It is however notable, that the percentage of action genre games in the sample was higher than in the total 672 games, while thepercentage of sports and racing games was lower. It is therefore possible that the percentage of violent games in the sample wasartificially higher than it would be in the total collection.

In regards to sex themes, no games received an ESRB content descriptor for ‘suggestive themes’, but 2 games were found toinclude such themes. As for tobacco and alcohol, one game included alcohol, and had received the appropriate ratings descriptor.

All in all, this study extensively describes violence, sexual themes, alcohol and tobacco in E-rated computer games. With its90-minute recordings of contents, it is only a pity that no other aspects of game-play were analysed.

The final study to be examined is Heintz-Knowles et al (2001). This study analyses the top selling games for the seven mostimportant platforms (including the personal computer and the portable Game Boy & Game Boy Advance consoles). The study isparticularly notable because it goes beyond an analysis of violence and gender roles – it also examines questions of race andethnicity.

For each gaming platform, 10 top-selling games (for the period of January to May 2001) are examined. Each game was playedthrough the first level using each playable character. Information was also drawn from the player manuals and from playerexperience. In the case of sports games, where the number of characters is far greater than in other genres, a representative

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sample of characters was examined. It is unclear what was done in games not divided into levels.

The study found that 87% of the sampled games included violent content. 48% of the sample included ‘serious violence’. 15% ofthe violence was sports-related, and 47% was significant to the plot of the game. Characters were never punished for killing(although, once again, limiting the study to an early section of the game could limit the presence of such punishment).

In terms of gender, it was found that 64% of the sampled characters were male, 17% were female, and 19% were non-human (inwhich case, the gender was apparently not recorded). For playable characters, the percentage of males was 73%, females, 12%and non-humans were 15%. The primary role for male characters was a competitor (47%), while female characters most oftenappeared as props (32%) or bystanders (18%). It was also found that both genders frequently engaged in stereotypical behaviour– physical aggression for males and screaming for females. Many female characters had exposed breasts (21%) or buttocks(13%).

This study also examined race. The findings here indicate that 52% of male player-controlled characters are white, 37% areAfrican-American, 5% Latino, 3% Asian/Pacific islander, and 3% other. For female player-controlled characters, 78% was white,10% African-American, 7% Asian/Pacific islander, 4% multiracial/other, and 1% Native American. Overall, 56% of all characters inthe study were white, 22% African-American, 9% Asian/Pacific islander, 2% Latino, and 0.2% were Native Americans or multiracialcharacters.

It was also found that 89% of the hero character-type was white. By contrast, Latino characters were always sports athletes, whileAfrican-Americans were sports athletes in 83% of cases. Asian/Pacific characters were usually wrestlers or fighters (69%).

With its examination of race and ethnicity, this study overall presents a wider range of findings than the earlier studies.Nonetheless, like the other four studies discussed here, it remains primarily concerned with aspects of CVGs that could bepotentially harmful to the socialisation of children and teenagers. While this is certainly an important area of study, it does ignoremany other significant aspects of CVGs, including the presentation of physical space, style, and narrative. We will now examinesome of these factors.

Game-play and narrative – game-play versus narrative?

There are, fortunately, increasingly numerous studies and essays that treat computer games not merely as a potential source ofanti-social messages for players, but as an expressive and artistic medium, with its own unique problems and benefits.

The primary problem in this field, however, is that scholars are really still looking for an appropriate way to approach computergames. The interactive nature of games means that approaches from other mediums will not work without at least someadaptation. One reason for this is that the value of computer games as a storytelling medium (as opposed to an unconventional,technologically advanced toy) is somewhat questionable.

Several scholars have in fact argued that computer games simply cannot tell a good story, because game and narrative are twoseparate phenomena. Thus, ultimately, there is always going to be a conflict between narrative and interactivity in games – a goodnarrative, this argument claims, requires a strong authorial signature, which is difficult to achieve with an interactive ‘text’. Thus,what would be considered an especially interesting work when analysed in the same manner as a book, would probably not be agood game, and vice-versa – a good game analysed in the same manner as a book, would most likely not seem especiallyinteresting. In other words, narration combined with interaction will always be an unsatisfactory experience.

In the face of puzzle games like Tetris (1985), and simple action games like Space Invaders (1977) or Pac Man (1980), thisargument certainly carries a great deal of validity. Although such simple games do occasionally try to create a narrative frameworkto explain the game (indeed, in the case of Space Invaders, the title itself goes a long way to establish the narrative), this is prettymuch unnecessary. In Tetris, the player faces abstract blocks falling from above. The player’s job is to rotate and maneuver theblocks to create unbroken horizontal lines across the playing area (at which point, the line disappears, making room for moreblocks from above). The game-play, thus, would not be significantly influenced by the presence of a stronger narrative. Indeed,trying to wrap such a simple game in a complex narrative would probably result in a flawed experience – the charm of Pac Man isnot the exciting story, but the fact that you can play it as many times as you like, and every time, the game will be different,though it will still operate within the same recognisable framework.

However, such an argument, while valid for a game as simple as Tetris or Pac Man, seems weaker when applied to later, morecomplex games. As Henry Jenkins and Mary Fuller point out, a direct parallel can be drawn between the narrative experience ingames like Super Mario Brothers (1985) and the narratives presented in New World travel writing – the diaries of the explorers in

16th and 17th century America. The distinguishing characteristic of such literature was that, although there was an objective thatthe traveler was pushing towards or searching for, it became largely irrelevant to the narrative once the traveler got on the way. Itwas the exploration and discoveries in an unknown country that mattered – the landscapes, the problems along the way, and theencounters with local inhabitants. Whether the objective was reached at the end of the voyage did not make much of a difference

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to the readers of the diaries and journals published afterwards.

This is similar to what happens in just about any game that has more than one screen’s worth of contents. There is an objective,but once you begin the game, you are not concerned about reaching it. It’s the journey that matters, as you try to overcome all theobstacles that the games designers have thrown in your way. Yet, listening to a player report his or her experience of playing thegame, it is indeed a narrative. Halfway through his journey through the Aztec Empire, Hernando Cortez would have probablyreported his difficulties in a manner similar to that of a player unable to get past a level of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002). In thismanner, the player’s exploration in a game conjures up a spatial narrative, driven by places rather than events.

But what about more conventional narratives, driven by events and characters other than the player? Jesper Juul, one of the keyproponents of the argument that game-play and narrative will always clash, points out that when it comes to conventionalnarrative works (like books or films), we as a society value work the ‘endless’ text –

works that you can read repeatedly and still find interesting. But in computer games, he claims, games without a plot are muchcloser to such an ‘endless’ work. Thus, you can play the essentially story-less Quake (1996) again and again, each time enjoyinga higher sense of mastery, but once you have completed a narrative game like Myst (1993), there is no point returning to it.

Carrying on a pre-determined narrative in an interactive environment is difficult. While, in the early years of computer games,much emphasis had been placed on the attempts to create so-called interactive stories in which the narrative would be shaped bythe player’s decisions, this has largely proven to be unattainable (thus far). Games have not reached the point where the narrativecould be shaped in real-time – therefore, all decision making by the player is limited to the options pre-determined by thedesigner.

Because of this, most narrative games have given the player no choice at all – you can do whatever you like during a level ofOddworld: Munch’s Oddyssee (2001), but the narrative presented after the level will be the same regardless. Indeed, such gamesare divided into two different parts that seem to exist independently of each other – one part, almost completely passive, is thenarrative, while the other, interactive, is the game-play. Thus, in Myst, completing a puzzle will result in the temporary suspensionof the game-play, at which point we will see a pre-determined animation showing the results of our actions. This division can bequite problematic – as Steven Poole writes, it is as though, while reading a book, you were forced to play a game of ping pong atthe end of every chapter in order to continue, or vice-versa – every time you wanted another game of ping pong, you were forcedto read another chapter of a book first.

Thus, Juul’s claim is quite true in some ways. Myst does not have very sophisticated game-play, and therefore, something will belost in the second game. Essentially, you will know exactly what to do, and – unlike Pac Man – it will all happen exactly the sameas last time, because the narrative of the game requires the designers to limit the player’s options. Thus, if a player is onlyinterested in enjoyable game-play, playing Myst a second time will probably not be enjoyable, and certainly not as enjoyable asthe first time.

However, there is a certain sense of arbitrariness about Juul’s argument – the implication is that we should separate a game’spassive (narrative) segments from the interactive (game-play) segments, and that we should place a higher value on the activesegments. There is, however, no basis for such a division, because in narrative games, the designers’ objective is to create asingle object including both a passive and a narrative element. Thus, studying a game like Myst without looking at its storylinewould be akin to trying to analyse a traditional board game like Monopoly without examining the board itself.

On the other hand, if one assumes that the passive and interactive elements must be looked at simultaneously, we can reappraiseMyst from a different angle – if we can repeatedly enjoy a traditional, passive narrative in a book without being bothered by its lackof interactivity, can Myst’s storyline give it greater replayability in spite of its

limited game-play? This question could only be answered with a detailed examination of the positive and negative attributes of thestoryline in question. However, it seems reasonable to assume that even if Myst failed this test, a game whose storyline canwithstand repeated consumption is possible, at least theoretically.

Juul’s argument is that we should not look down on games because of their weak narratives, because their strength lies in theirinteractivity. This does make sense, since narrative-poor games can provide an extremely fun experience. At the same time, itwould not make sense to assume that games that do not have a good game-play but do have a good storyline should beconsidered bad. As Poole writes, pre-scripted story segments interspersed throughout the game-play can work very well, providedthat they are well made.

As games advance technologically, it becomes possible to blur the division between game-play and narrative. Wing Commander(1990) and its sequels, for example, have offered the player the possibility of making choices during the video segments thatconstitute the narrative, resulting in a somewhat more interactive experience; at the same time, portions of the narrative also occurduring game-play, and can be directly influenced by the player’s actions. What’s more, increasingly, such games offer storylines

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with quality on par with other forms of narrative media. Games with narrative, it would seem, can be as interesting as conventionalnarrative media and non-narrative computer games – the two media types of which they are a hybrid.

Summary

The study of computer and video games has taken very significant steps forward in the past five or six years – although this reviewhas cited games from as far back as 1977, it is significant to note that most items cited in the bibliography only appeared in thelate 1990s. It is clear that this is a developing field – and that it is a field that desperately needs development.

At this point, it is still easier to assess what research hasn’t been done on computer games, rather than what has been done. Forexample, this review has summarised some of the most important analyses of computer game content. Yet, although the resultsof these analyses are certainly worthy of note, they dealt with a very narrow range of content – violence, gender, and (in one)race. We have some idea about the people and relationships (or at least, negative relationships, since violence is just one type ofinter-personal relationship present in games) that appear in CVGs, but other aspects of content, such as the landscapes in whichthe games take place, have not been catalogued or described.

Similarly, the work on game narrative has only begun the debate about the value of narrative in games – much more analysis willbe needed before a conclusive answer can be given in this question.

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

4/12/2008 1:05 PM

Diverse Worlds Project

MethodsOur goals for this study were to perform exhaustive and detailed quantitative analyses of representations of the world in the top150 games, 30 each in the five dominant platforms operating in the first half (January to June) of 2002, as determined by unitsales in Australia. The five platforms were the PlayStation2 (PS2), Xbox (XB), Game Cube (GC), Game Boy Advance (GBA) andpersonal computer (PC). We also sought to undertake two detailed formal textual analysis of two titles, one that we believedrepresented a narrative system and one that represented a non-narrative system.

Australian technology and media market research firm, Inform provided us with an exhaustive list of all games sold in Australiaduring the study period ranked by unit sales. We extracted the top 30 in each platform and established our sample frame.

We approached the CVG industry group, the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) asking for their materialcontribution to the research by provision of the top 30 titles in each platform.

Four objects of study for each game title were identified including the slick/cover/box, the manual/handbook, the introductorycinematics and the first 10 minutes of game-play. Our view was that a typical player’s experience with the game is determined byexposure to each of these elements and that each of these established familiarity with the game world and with the extent andnature of the game narrative.

Four representational elements of game content were identified for detailed study including the physical and object-orientedworld, the leading characters, narrative and style.

Sample

We were able to obtain a total of 130 of the most popular titles with nearly equal representation across all platforms as presentedin Figure 1 above and detailed in the Appendix which presents a list of all titles included in the study. We observed gamecinematics and play by recording the introductory cinematic sequence and the first 10 minutes of experienced game-play on videotape for later playback. We used a team of players in addition to ourselves who had played or had skilled up in the play of eachgame before we recorded the game-play.

Data Collection

Four coders established the coding scheme, coding definitions and pilot-tested the instrument on eight games in August andSeptember 2002. All four coders coded the games in the sample frame between October and November 2002. Coding progressedthrough stages to ensure parallel coding from one to the next coder. The first four titles were coded conjointly by the entire groupof four coders. The next four titles were coded by pairs of coders followed by an additional four coded by changing the codingpairs. Finally, the remaining 118 titles were coded by individual coders with one of those coded by all four coders at the midpointof the coding process to check for coding consistency.

Variables and Instrument

Over 80 variables and 400 measures were made of each game title. Picture 1 shows one of the eight pages of the codinginstrument.

Picture 1: Instrument Sample Page

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Physical Space Measures

Nine variables guided our exploration of physical space and objects:

Main Location: The main area in space in which the game is set.

Setting: Whether the action portrayed is inside a shelter, outside in the main location, or both.

Interior Features: Any of the objects shown in the interior space.

Exterior Features: Any of the objects shown in the exterior space.

Environmentals: The weather and atmospheric conditions of the space.

Equipment: Tools shown, independent of characters, in the game environment.

Locale: Further detail on the location and setting.

Apparent Danger Level: The implied risk of the environment to the beings in that environment.

Populatedness: The degree to which the physical space of the game is populated by beings.

Character Numbers: Number of differentially important characters portrayed.

Primary/Leading: Named, presented lead characters (playable and not playable).

Secondary/Supporting: Named characters. shown at medium distance, not playable.

Active Background: Characters who appear in the frame, are clearly moving and beings with whom the player’s character mayinteract but are usually at a distance.

Non-active Background: Characters at a great distance including large collections of characters that appear relatively staticsuch as a spectating crowd.

Leading Characters

We identified 24 variables for studying two lead characters in each game. Using a systematic random sample, we selected thefour and seventh lead characters for the first and second lead character respectively in each game. Where the number ofcharacters available in the game set-up was smaller than four, for example, then the count would loop until a character waschosen. The variables we used were:

Character Name: Name, number or identifying designation of the character.

Control: Whether the character is controllable by the player or whether it is programmed and not controllable by the player.

Depiction: Extent to which the character is visually revealed to the player and/or to which the character is an individual or ateam.

Character Form: When visually revealed, what the character looks like.

Gender: The biological and socially represented sex of the character.

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Body Height: Simply an estimate of the relative height of the character.

Body Weight: An estimate of the relative weight of the character.

Body Type: Whether the character’s body is represented as realistic or unrealistic.

Approximate Age: An estimate of the relative age of the character.

Racial/Ethnic Origin: An estimate of the racial/continental heritage of the character.

Apparent Nationality: The explicit or implied (e.g., by dialect) nationality of the character.

Religious Affiliation: The indicated or implied (e.g., by prayer) religion of the character.

Dress: The extent to which the character is clothed.

Style of Dress: The type, kind or general nature of the clothing worn.

Speaking Frequency: Generally, how often does the character speak, if at all?

Speaking Voice: In relative terms, what does the pitch of the voice sound like?

Speaking Language: The one language in which the character seems to speak most fluently.

Story Role: This is the role of the character in the Vladimir Propp model.

Work Role: The job, work or professional responsibility of the character, if any.

Group Relations: The relationship the character has with other characters.

Special Skills: Special abilities of the character outside those which occur naturally.

Tools Used: Objects used by the character or in which the character has possession.

Behaviours/Actions: Activities the character can be seen/heard doing in the portrayal.

Physical Prowess: The action-associated abilities of the character environment.

Emotional Expression: Physically expressed (Izard, 1973), visibly/audibly observable emotion.

Style Factors

We used 23 variables to examine the stylistic features and characteristics of CVGs including:

Perspective / Camera: The perspective of the frame.

Level of stylisation of environment: A continuum of stylisation from basic animation to photo-realism.

Level of stylisation of character: A continuum of stylisation from basic animation to photo-realism.

Aspect Ratio: The ratio of the width to the height of the frame.

Image Tonality: The degree of tonal variation in the frame.

Lighting Quality: The degree of contrast variation in the frame.

Lighting Source: Whether the light source comes logically from inside the story.

Lighting Colour: The use of a particular colour of light.

Crosscutting: Absence or presence of cutting from one line of action to another.

Use of continuity system: The game employs classical rules of editing.

Use of alternative editing techniques: The game breaks from the traditions of the continuity system.

Diegetic Text: Text appears in the world of the game.

Level of Criticality of Diegetic Text: How important is text to the overall game-play?

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Non-diegetic Text: Text appears only outside of the game world.

Level of Criticality of Non-diegetic Text: How important is text to the overall game-play?

Diegetic Iconography: Iconography that appears in the world of the game.

Level of Criticality of iconography: How important is iconography to the overall game-play?

Non-diegetic Iconography: Iconography that appears only outside the game world.

Level of Criticality of Non-diegetic Iconography: How important is iconography to the overall game-play?

Speech: Whether speech is simultaneous and diegetic.

Music: Whether music is simultaneous and diegetic.

Dynamic Music: Is it possible to alter the musical sound track during the game?

Sound Effects: Whether speech is simultaneous and diegetic.

Narrative Factors

In addition to the textual analyses for two titles, we used 10 variables to study the narrative elements of CVGs:

Broad Causal Events: Major events determining the trajectory of the game’s story.

Degree of Player Causal Influence: Relative influence of the player to the game’s story.

Temporal Setting: Setting of the events of the game’s story.

Manipulation of Story Order: The movement of the story forward or backward in time.

Manipulation of Story Duration: How the plot manipulates story in terms of duration.

Manipulation of Story Frequency: Whether a story event is repeated in the game.

Range of Story Information: A continuum of narrational knowledge from unrestricted (player knows all, or near all) to restricted(only what the character knows).

Depth of Story Information: The level of subjectivity of narrative events ranging from relatively objective presentation to therepresentation of the world within the character’s mind.

Strategic Objective: The grand ambition of the player.

Game Synopsis: Outline the game story.

In addition to these variables, we also explored descriptive elements of the slick and handbook. We examined seven variabledimensions of the slick to determine whether the slick included:

Description of Narrative.

Description of Characters.

Indication of Genre.

Description of Game-play.

Information about Game Features.

Screen Shots of Game-play.

Screen Shots of Cinematics.

Ten variable dimensions of the handbook were explored including whether it included:

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Digital or print format or both.

Backstory detail.

Game world detail.

Control information.

Character profiles.

Maps of the game world.

An install guide.

Troubleshooting advice.

Credits.

In-box extras.

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

4/12/2008 1:05 PM

Diverse Worlds Project

ResultsDetermining the genre of CVGs is problematic, as discussed in the literature review. Some genres represent a large range ofgame-play and story-telling fused into one category where perhaps they should be separated; others that are considered to bedistinct seem to cover game-play and story-telling techniques that overlap. In other words, sometimes the brush is too broad andsometimes it is too narrow. Industry and popular press designations reflect this point with some calling a game “action” whenothers would refer to it as a platformer. Clearly this is a function of marketing and journalistic imperatives. In film, genredesignations have emerged via a complex negotiation between industry, text and audience. That process is playing out now forCVGs. The primary difference between film and video game genre designation will be the inclusion of interactivity and game-playfactors for video games in addition to the text which has been the only element under evaluation in film. For our purposes, weexamined the range of genre designations used by industry and popular press and used a common-sense approach to establishthe categories shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Genres Represented in the Sample

Genre f %

Action 24 19

Platformer 19 15

Sport 18 14

Driving/Racing 16 12

FPS 13 10

Strategy 11 9

RPG 9 7

Sim 7 5

Adventure 4 3

Other 9 7

Total N=130

101

Note: Percentages may fall above or below 100 due to rounding.

Recalling that this study uses the most popular games for early 2002, we see that the market favours action and platform gamesas well as sport and driving/racing games the sum of which constitutes 60 percent of the games in our study. Yet the dominanceof these genres bears scrutiny.

Platformers were dominated by GBA titles with 11 of the 19 coming from the hand-held. This suggests that recognisingplatformers is a function of technology. For example, both platformers and action games are characterised by the same type ofgame-play which can be described as “running-jumping-climbing-exploring-combating.” However, the 16-bit architecture of GBAgames, compared with the

128-bit architecture of other consoles clearly limits the depth of representation that is possible in the game world. For this reason,we hypothesise that there is no discernable difference between platformers and action games except their representation; platformgames use a 2-dimensional representation and action games use a 3-dimensional representation. This finding suggests that asimilar analysis for other genres would be fruitful for industry and the academy in terms of better understanding the evolution ofgenres in CVGs.

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An examination of genres in relation to Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) ratings also sheds light on theaesthetic, dimensional and representational factors involved in establishing game genres across the platforms. Figures 2 and 3show the classification of games by genre and platform respectively.

Figure 2: Classification by Genre

Figure 2: Classification by Genre

Figure 2 highlights the stark thematic and aesthetic contrasts that can be divined from existing genre designations. A number ofexamples make this point. First, sports games, by virtue of utilisation of television coverage aesthetics, tend to be limited to ratingsthat television coverage itself would attract: that is, most sport is for general audiences. Boxing and wrestling would be theexception to this rule and those games tended to fall in our “other” category because combat was central to the overall game-play.A second example is evident in an examination of the 13 FPS games in our study. As the obvious source of popular media scorn,this 3-dimensional, complex and often atmospheric genre of game-play makes FPS games, by proportion, the genre that receivesthe most restrictive classifications by the OFLC. By comparison, platformers, in part by virtue of their limited technical anddimensional characteristics (meaning tendency to be 2-dimensional) receive the least restrictive OFLC ratings, relative to othergenres.

This point brings us to Figure 3 and the classifications of games in our study examined by platform. Clearly, the GBA is positionedto the youngest segment of the games market; the vast majority of GBA titles fall within G or G8+ classifications. Our glibobservation, not missed by the popular press is that Nintendo is positioned at the youngest end of the market. By comparison, PCtitles (the dominant platform for FPS games), and PlayStation2 titles (dominated by action games) appear to be concentrated onthe most mature audience segments overall. Xbox stands out as attempting to attract all segments of the market in relatively equalproportion.

Figure 3: Classification by Platform

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The foregoing discussion of genre and classification leads to our analysis of implied danger in the different elements of the gamepackage and experience. If genre is a negotiation between the industry, text and consumer for expectations about the nature ofcontent and classification is designed in part to inform the consumer in more detail about the appropriateness of content fordifferent audience segments, what does the game package and its contents tell the audience in progressive measure? In otherwords, can you judge a game by its cover? According to our findings: Yes. Figure 4 represents our judgment of the appearance ofdanger to the character or player as character controller in the game slick or box cover, the handbook, cinematics and game-play(albeit the first ten minutes). Although we expected the slick, in particular, to present gamers with excitement and extremeelements of risk to compel their attention, compared with the internal workings of the game-play, we found a remarkable continuityin the presentation of danger across the elements of the game package. Interestingly too, we found that the most extremeconditions (either bucolic or apocalyptic) were quite rare and in equal measure with one another compared with more moderatesafety/danger conditions.

Figure 4: Apparent Danger by Unit of Analysis

Our final general observation was the average duration of the opening cinematics: 107 seconds or 1 minute and 47 seconds. Thisvaries considerably by platform. GBA titles featured the low average across the platforms of 26 seconds of cinematic “set-up” forthe story whereas the PS2 titles had an average of 2 minutes and 51 seconds of introductory cinematics.

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

4/12/2008 1:06 PM

Diverse Worlds Project

Characters and People

Our sampling system gave us two leading characters for each game. Given that the opening cinematic sequence and thegame-play often portrayed multiple characters, we chose to examine character representations exclusively within game-play.

In the main, we found that the depiction of characters is highly dependent on the game genre, they are predominantly human whoserve the role of the independent, non-speaking hero (Table 8). Given that speech is one of the defining characteristics of humansociety, we were surprised if not disappointed to find that only 37 percent of the lead characters and 49 percent of the second leadcharacter exhibited a speaking function. However, we noted qualitatively that many active background characters were presentedwith speaking functions and non-active background characters were occasionally heard; we compared this with film in whichbackground characters generally are less vocal than lead characters. An immediate caution, though, is that just as a substantialproportion of the narrative is carried by cinematic sequences in games, so too might more speech be carried in the cinematics.Indeed, narrative exposition and speech go hand-in-hand in film.

In any given narrative, a character is restricted to a limited range of story roles. Invariably, the main character will exhibit the role ofhero as our findings in Table 8 demonstrate for character one. Character two is free to fulfill a range of roles other than hero; 29percent served as villains and 13 percent as helper.

Perhaps not surprising too, is that the stereotypical representation of characters in traditional mainstream media has found its wayinto game worlds. Table 9 speaks in many ways to the lack of diversity in people within CVGs. In contrast to this conclusion,however, we noted the remarkable frequency with which it was difficult or impossible to divine the actual demographiccharacteristic of the lead characters. We concluded that this is one of many important dimensions which speak to the differencebetween the interactive functions of game-play and the more (behaviourally) passive experiences of film and television. Ambiguouscharacters allow the player to make affordances with their imagination about who is in the car, behind the suit or inside the planethus making the experience more personal. Further, quite a few of the sports games, fighting games and notably The Simsfranchise allow the player a choice of pre-defined characters or the option to create a character presumably to choose a surrogateself.

Table 8: Depictions of Two Leading Characters in Game-play

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DepictionCharacter

1

%

(N=123)

Character

2

%

(N=45)

Visibility

1st Person 14 2

Voice Only 2 7

Partial Body 7 13

Full Body (3rd Person) 66 67

Team-Group 7 11

Other 5 0

Form

Human 71 73

Humanoid 3 2

Anthropomorphised

Animal

9 9

Voice 9 5

Other 8 11

Speaking Frequency

No Speaking 63 51

Infrequent Speaking 29 33

Frequent Speaking 8 16

Continuous Speaking 1 0

Story Role

Hero-Victim 89 38

Villain 0 29

Helper 0 13

Dispatcher 0 4

Other 5 0

Unclear 7 16

Group Relations

Independent 62 42

Platonic Pair 11 20

Romantic Pair 2 4

Small Group 13 20

Large Group 9 11

Crowd 3 2

For 91 percent of the titles, religious affiliation was unclear. This suggested to us that religious representation and story-telling isuncommon in game narrative. Only one character was identified as Jewish and three characters were represented as members ofa fictional religious order. Our measurement system allowed for multiple observations of religion, however in their regular absence,we chose not to include further information in the tables.

One criticism often made of CVGs is that their characters are unrealistic. To some extent, the excessive focus on adults to theexclusion of seniors and children and the dominance of the white-European character seem to suggest that while gamesstereotype like other mainstream media, they also show the dominant socio-political culture of American society (if any society inparticular is shown).

Table 9: Demographics of Two Leading Characters in Game-play

DemographicCharacter

1

%

(N=123)

Character

2

%

(N=45)

Playable 95 50

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Gender

Female 13 11

Male 69 76

Unclear 18 11

Approximate Age

Child 2 2

Adolescent 7 7

Adult 63 64

Senior 0 2

Unclear 27 24

Racial/Ethnic Origin

White-European 46 38

African 2 7

East Asian 5 2

South Asian 0 2

Non-Human 9 11

Unclear 39 40

Apparent Nationality

American 14 11

Japanese 2 2

German 0 2

Other 12 9

Non-human 9 11

Unclear 61 64

Our further examination of the body presentation, the results of which are presented in Table 10 confirm that leading characters invideo games are more often realistic and “normal” or “average”. More than half are of average height. More than two-thirds are ofaverage weight. Two thirds appear to have natural and realistic body types, suggesting that the oft-noted (particularly sexual)exaggerations of anatomical features are less common than critics might have us believe; in other words, Lara Croft is theexception, not the rule. Equal proportions of male and female characters were shown with natural body types (78 percent and 81percent, respectively).

We were also surprised to find that only a third of the lead characters (often the ones represented through the player’s actions)evinced above average agility, that one-fifth were abnormally swift and that under a third were exceedingly strong. At the sametime, we were disappointed to find no characters who could be described as artificially handicapped or showing some form ofphysical disability.

Table 10: Body Presentation for Leading Characters in Game-play

Body PresentationCharacter

1

%

(N=123)

Character

2

%

(N=45)

Body Height

Short 13 7

Average 53 56

Tall 14 18

Unclear 20 20

Body Type

Natural-Realistic 65 62

Natural-Unrealistic 8 13

Unnatural/Fantastic 8 9

Unclear 18 15

Body Weight

Slight-Underweight 2 2

Average Weight 71 67

Heavy-Overweight 8 13

Unclear 19 18

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Physical Prowess

Agility 33 24

Swiftness 20 13

Strength 30 17

Handicapped/Disabled 0 0

NOTE: Physical Prowess allowed for multiple indicators

In spite of recent press attention to more racy and sexualised titles, we found that the majority of leading characters were clothed(Table 11). Where this indication was unclear, we would have otherwise assumed, and we believe most players would assume,that they were clothed in off-frame space, meaning the characters were concealed from the player. For example, when thecharacter’s body was being masked behind the door of a car or when the character was heard but not seen. Fully 73 percent ofthe both the first and second leading characters we observed were at least partially clothed with most of those in full kit. Only twopercent were without clothes and these were anthropomorphised animals, as were half of the three percent who were judged tobe scantily clothed.

Seeming to provide more evidence for our emerging view that CVGs present players with diverse worlds was our finding that thestyle of dress varied considerably. Casual street clothes were the most frequently observed style worn by lead characters in thegames and within this category we saw a wide variety of clothes including blue jeans, jackets, t-shirts, walking shoes and on andon. Given the popularity of sports games, it wasn’t surprising that sports clothing appeared often in the games we studied. Norwere we surprised to see military dress feature in the upper half of our list. What did surprise us was clothing that appeared torepresent traditional culture. Most of these were worn in RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and Golden Sun with quite afew also being worn in action games such as Tekken Advance.

Table 11: Degree and Style of Dress for Two Leading Characters in Game-play

DressCharacter

1

%

(N=123)

Character

2

%

(N=45)

Degree of Dress

Fully Clothed 59 64

Partially Clothed 14 9

Scantily Clothed 3 4

Naked 2 2

Other 2 2

Unclear 20 18

Style of Dress

Casual-Street 27 29

Sports 16 29

Traditional Culture 11 7

Military 8 9

Work Uniform 7 7

Formal-Business 2 2

Leisure-Holiday 2 2

N/A 2 7

Other 4 0

Unclear 20 9

Clothing is one of the bases (but not the only one) that we were able to use to determine the approximate work role of the largelyadult lead characters. Table 2 presents the work roles filled by our two lead characters. Again, the market prowess of sportsgames dictates the inevitable dominance of their character athletes in the list. Similarly the combat orientation and popularity ofFPS games leads to approximately 12 percent of lead characters appearing as soldiers or warriors. Drivers and spies round outthe top half of the list.

Table 12: Work Roles of Two Leading Characters in Game-play

RoleCharacter

1

%

Character

2

%

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(N=123) (N=45)

Athlete 22 52

Soldier 12 13

Driver 9 13

Spy/Agent 8 7

Labourer 3 0

Criminal 2 3

Hunter 2 0

Law Enforcement 1 0

Scientist 0 3

Unclear 25 0

Other 16 10

In popular discourse the image of the beefed-up superhuman character running around and reaping havoc doesn’t hold,according to our findings in Table 13. When we reflect on comic books as a youth medium of the twentieth century and the notionthat the video game form is analogous to the comic book form where the lead character exhibits superhuman power, we find thatthe comparison doesn’t hold. That is, only a minority albeit a significant minority exhibits superhuman powers with an even smallerproportion demonstrating magical abilities. Moreover, these powers tended to be most evident in worlds where the game-playrequired them of the character, such as in platformers.

As we explored the findings in Table 13 on tools used by characters, we reflected on the role of conflict in drama. Since the vastmajority (96 percent) of the games in our study exhibited some quotient of narrative form, and since conflict is a natural aspect ofdrama, we expected the characters to use weaponry during the course of the narrative as it unfolded in game-play. However, wealso expected this to be bound by certain genres that have a natural predisposition to violent conflict resolution as part of thestrategic objective of the game-play and central to the story-telling. We believed that where this was the case it demonstrated theindelible link between game-play and narrative. This is precisely what we found. With the exception of one bomb used for comediceffect in a platformer, the weapons outlined in Table 13 were confined to two genres: FPS and action. Moreover, these weaponswere also bound in titles that were classified as M15+ and MA15+, reinforcing the value of an effective national, unifiedclassification scheme. The only exceptions were the two bombs and six swords. The bombs were used for comedic effect in oneG title and one G8+ title (Atlantis, The Lost Empire). The swords were used in RPG games that take place in wholly fictionalisedworlds and fantastic contexts such as Golden Sun and Star Wars Jedi Battles.

Table 13: Skills and Tools Used of Two Leading Characters in Game-play

Skill or Tool Character

1

%

Character

2

%

Special Skill (N=62) (N=45)

Superhuman

Power

21 2

Martial Arts 19 11

Magic 18 7

Other 2 2

Unclear 40 78

Tools Used (N=71) (N=45)

Hand gun 23 2

Sword/Knife 21 0

Rifle 14 2

Bomb/Grenade 13 0

Blunt Instrument 11 2

Electronic Device 4 2

Laser 4 0

Light/Torch 4 0

Flame/Fire 3 0

Building Tool 1 0

Other 47 11

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NOTE: Tools Used allowed for multiple indicators

Lead characters are active agents exhibiting a full range of behaviours as our findings in Table 14 demonstrate. These behavioursrun the gamut from standing to flying and from eating to sleeping. An active agent exerts influence over the environment and othercharacters within the game world and in response to the players commands. For example, a character standing in the game worldconnotes the player pausing and considering their next move. Obviously, when this move is determined, the remaining behaviourslisted in Table 14 are forthcoming in the game-play.

Emotions are problematic as our finding suggests: we judged 56 percent of the lead characters were judged unclear. Thisemerged for three reasons. The first is that a significant proportion of the camera takes the perspective of first person, making ajudgment about emotional expression impossible. Moreover, another large proportion of the camera takes the perspective of third-person and stands behind the player’s character, again concealing the character’s expressions. It is only in cinematic sequencesof these games that we get a sense of the character’s emotion. In literature, we are able to access the internal voice of thecharacter allowing psychological insight; in CVGs the player is the internal voice making explicit representation ill-defined in thegame-play. The second and third reasons for the lack of defined emotional presentation are technical in nature; these being scaleand character modeling. The problem of scale is that the smaller the representation of the character on the screen, the moreambiguous will be its emotional state. The problem of character modeling is that beings are more difficult to animate than theenvironment in game space and therefore are harder to see with the fidelity necessary to achieve emotional representation (seeTable 18 below). Finally, it is worth noting the emotions that were most commonly expressed by the characters were those thatexhibited clear vocal counterparts.

Table 14: Behaviours and Emotions of Two Leading Characters in Game-play

Behaviour or Emotion Character

1

%

Character

2

%

Behaviour (N=121) (N=45 )

Standing 51 38

Running 49 27

Fighting 47 29

Walking 47 33

Jumping 39 18

Climbing 22 4

Driving Vehicle 22 20

Eating 6 7

Swimming 6 2

Consuming Media 5 2

Sitting 5 16

Flying (Self) 4 0

Sleeping 2 4

Other 17 11

Emotion (N=88) (N=45)

Distress/Anguish 23 11

Enjoyment/Joy 17 13

Interest/Excitement 15 16

Disgust/Contempt 3 2

Surprise/Startlement 2 2

Anger/Rage 2 2

Shame/Humiliation 0 0

Fear/Terror 0 0

Unclear 56 36

NOTE: Behaviour and Emotion allowed for multiple indicators

4/12/2008 1:44 PM

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

4/12/2008 1:44 PM

Diverse Worlds Project

Space and Objects

The first point of engagement with the objective presentation of physical space and objects in games is to explore the setting forgame cinematics and play. By itself Table 4 does not present particularly surprising findings. However, as a base measure of therange of features and locations for setting, these findings may become useful in tracing the progression of diversity in gameworlds of the near future and indeed to examine their progression from earlier periods to today. Historically, one of the overarchingaesthetic choices in location in games was that of the abstract maze. This was clearly a function of technical limitations. In ourstudy of games in 2002, the maze was replaced by discernibly real rather than abstract places.

Indeed, the value of this study and the novelty of the data such as those shown in the table is that they clearly indicate somethingcontrary to the common stereotypes about CVGs: that they are simplistic, repetitive, formulaic worlds lacking in aesthetic nuanceand texture. The digital world of games is painted using a vast array of visible features and locations. We were struck with themultiplicity of environments in which games are set and of the features presented in them. Buildings, trees lights, water … cities,forests, mountains and roads share the digital canvas with many other features that are more than just window dressing; indeedthey are common in a large proportion of games. This becomes our first indication that CVGs are diverse worlds of play. Moreover,the tending toward realistic representation of our real physical world in the game worlds suggests that the struggle to createcompelling media worlds to play out our fantasies and stories is being won inside video games. Of course, the role of fantastic andabstract worlds remains a part of CVGs, however it is a small part appearing in 10 percent of games in game-play and 12 percentin game cinematics.

Table 4: Presentation of Setting in Game Cinematics and Play

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SettingCharacteristic

Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Interior/Exterior (N=117) (N=129)

Exterior 80 71

Interior 49 50

Visible Features (N=112) (N=129)

Buildings 63 65

Trees 55 62

Lights 61 61

Water 33 50

Signs 36 44

Roads 38 40

Vehicles 47 40

Bridges 15 33

Machines 28 31

Animals 27 29

Furniture 21 25

Domiciles 15 16

Pictures 15 16

Food 12 15

Statues 6 15

Appliances 11 10

Other 21 16

In or On …

Location

(N=115) (n=130)

City 29 22

Forest 16 22

Mountain 17 18

Road 15 17

Public Building 13 13

Stadium 14 12

Water (Ocean,

Lake, River)

12 12

Village 9 12

Tunnel 5 11

Fantastic Place 12 10

Ancient

Structure

9 9

Airborne or

Aircraft

19 9

Residence 12 6

Automobile 7 6

Space Ship 8 5

Water Craft 5 5

Other 30 35

The game worlds we studied featured a diversity of environmental and weather conditions as the data in Table 5 attest. Our glibobservation was that the weather has taken a turn for the worse. We recalled the limited environmental and atmosphericconditions of games like Wolfenstein 3-D (circa 1992) which took place entirely indoors precisely because the game engine couldnot cope adequately with, well, the weather; similarly, driving games today have rain but Ridge Racer (circa 1995) had only sun,clouds and stars as well as a range of twilight colours.

The present range of environmental conditions within which game cinematics and play take place can be contextualised in termsof technical, aesthetic and narrative functions. Technical function is exemplified by using fog to limit redrawing in the distance andis, as such one of the elements that has been in use for some time. Aesthetic function is best demonstrated by Metal Gear Solid2: Sons of Liberty in which the entire panoply of environmental forces bear down on the lead character, Solid Snake. The narrative

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is served by environmental complexity by different means including the dramatic device known as “pathetic fallacy” by which theinner psychology of the character is externalised in the environmental features, as well as the establishment of mood in which thestory is set. Silent Hill 2, for example, is enhanced by fear, dread and foreboding through traditional horror movie environmentalfeatures.

Table 5: Presentation of Environment in Game Cinematics and Play

EnvironmentalFeature

Cinematics

%

(N=109)

Game-play

%

(N=115)

Clouds in Sky 53 50

Sun in Sky 51 48

Fire 35 33

Fog 10 11

Stars in Sky 21 9

Rain 11 8

Smoke 13 8

Lightning 10 7

Snow 6 7

Vacuum of

Space

11 6

Other 14 14

The presentation of equipment in game cinematics and play appears to be skewed toward those objects that have utility to theplayer or the player’s character in the unfolding experience of the game. The corollary of this point is the absence of equipmentsuperfluous to the successful completion of the player’s goal. Here we attend to Figure 6 below that reveals the most commonobjectives in game-play. For example, overcoming evil and earning points aren’t achieved using musical instruments. With thispoint in mind, the most notable equipment items to use in contemporary games are weapons, vehicles and sports equipment. Yetnone of these exceeded much more than a third of the games in either cinematics or game-play.

Table 6: Presentation of Equipment in Game Cinematics and Play

EquipmentItem

Cinematics

%

(N=98)

Game-play

%

(N=114)

Weapon 35 38

Vehicle 48 34

Sports

Equipment

16 17

Magic Device 7 11

Computer 9 8

Tool 6 8

Key 1 8

Media 10 7

Flashlight 4 2

Musical

Instrument

0 1

Other 9 14

The diverse worlds of CVGs contain not only inanimate objects, they naturally include people and beings through which the actionand experience takes shape. We considered the presentation of characters separately from physical spaces and objects exceptfor our determination about the relative population levels of game worlds. The next slide (#) presents a sort of digital census of

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the game worlds in which we estimate the degree of population density in these worlds and break down the proportion of gamescontaining one or more of each of four types of characters or beings: Primary, secondary, active background, and non-activebackground. Active background characters appear in the frame, are clearly moving and beings who with whom the player’scharacter may interact or in fact be. An example of these is the people on the street in Grand Theft Auto III who are subject topotential affect by the player’s character. Non-active background characters included large collections of characters that appearrelatively static such as a crowd at a football match or race. Examples of these include the crowds in Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec andRugby

Subjectively, we concluded that for most games (60 percent), the population density was sparse. Yet this finding is contradictedby more objective evaluations of population representation. For example, most games feature one primary character in the framewho is almost half of the time associated with at least one secondary character; moreover, in over half of the games, more than 20active background characters share the game space. Almost 20 percent of games have non-active background characters and thisparticular population category is found almost exclusively in games based on spectator sports.

Table 7: Presentation of People and Beings in Game Cinematics and Play

Variable Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Populatedness (N=111) (N=130)

Uninhabited 5 8

Sparsely

Populated

60 59

Well Populated 16 17

Heavily

Populated

16 15

Number of

Characters

(N=114) (N=122)

Primary

0 19 5

1 29 61

2 13 17

3—20 29 11

>20 10 6

Secondary

0 61 54

1 24 21

2 4 8

3—20 10 9

>20 1 8

Active

Background

0 53 36

1 3 3

2 3 2

3—20 9 5

>20 32 54

Non-active

Background

0 81 80

1 0 1

2 0 0

3—20 4 0

>20 16 19

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Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

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Diverse Worlds Project

Handbook or Manual

Inside the game package, the handbook or manual provides a transition between the promotional currency of the slick and theexperiential realm game cinematic and play. While the slick serves to attract players, the manual aspires to prepare them for theirgame experience. Table 3 presents our findings for the most commonly featured elements in game handbooks. The first point tonote is that contemporary titles almost always feature a printed manual. Digital manuals seem to be reserved for budgetre-releases, a few of which made it into our sample by virtue of their popularity in the first half of 2002.

It is well understood that cybernetics make or break the game. This being the case, we expected all game handbooks to featurecontrol information. One exception was Empire Earth which presented controls within the game, or icons in the manual whichrequired mouse-clicks; seemingly a more implicit form control information.

The emergent formalisation and dominance of the games industry is evident in the extent to which credits are given to theproducers of the medium with 71 percent of the handbooks containing this information for the audience.

The large proportion of “low” backstory and game world cases clearly conflates the low and non-existent categories for thesevariables. These were collapsed from a 5-point scale which, in the case of backstory detail, resulted in 55 percent of cases beinggive a low “1” and 30 percent of cases being given a low “2.” What this demonstrates, in fact, is that we may set our metric fordetermining these levels at too high a standard. Another explanation is that the provision of narrative content in the manual issimply very low. If this interpretation is correct, then we would conclude that the industry and audience have decided that, in themain, the handbook is significantly less important than the cinematics and game-play.

Similarly, game-world detail is “low” in two-thirds of the game manuals. We noted the relatively greater presence of game worlddetail than narrative and divined two explanations. The first is that perhaps game world detail is more useful to the player thanbackstory detail in playing the game. Alternatively, because many games appear to lack a full narrative system (37 percent of titleswere non-narrative or pseudo-narrative), we would expect backstory detail to be less common in handbooks than game worlddetail where the focus is more on what we expect to see, hear and do than on why we see, hear or do it.

Table 3: Most Common Features of the Game Handbook or Manual

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Feature %

Form (N=130)

Printed 91

Digital 9

Contents (N=130)

Control

Information

99

Install Guide 77

Credits 71

Character

Profiles

59

Maps 10

In-box Extras 8

Backstory Detail (N=129)

Low 85

Medium 12

High 3

Game World

Detail

(N=129)

Low 67

Medium 23

High 10

NOTE: Handbook Form and Contents variablesallowed for multiple indicators.

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

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Diverse Worlds Project

Slick or Box Covers

This finding invites further discussion about the non-game elements of the game package: the slick and the handbook. Table 2presents the most common elements contained in the game slick. Table 3 does the same for handbook.

Perhaps the most striking finding about the slick is that it emphasises game-play and de-emphasises narrative and characterelements. However, this is not surprising. The heritage of CVGs is not one of complex narrative, but rather one of the appeal tovisual and play elements. This nexus is likely to inform research on games into the future.

Our attention was also taken by the absence of universality in indicating game genre. Only 71 percent of the slicks containedinformation that allowed our coders to recognise genre; a majority of these were divined from implicit elements such as screenshots displaying the generic characteristic of a genre and text describing game-play. In other words, we are struck that gameslicks rarely have an explicit genre designation.

Table 2: Most Common Contents of the Game Slick or Box Cover

Contents f %

Game Shots 125 96

Game Features 123 95

Game-play 104 80

Genre 92 71

Characters 69 53

Narrative 63 49

Cinematic Shots 27 21

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight

Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

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Diverse Worlds Project

Style

Style factors relate to the salient techniques employed by the game designers to render their respective game worlds, in essence how thegame world is presented.

The most general of stylistic factors relates to the overall level of stylisation of environment and character. The data from Table 18 showsthat in both the cinematics and game-play, the tendency toward near photo-realistic expression is higher for the rendering of environmentsthan for characters. One straightforward explanation of this is that character modeling is more difficult to animate than environments. Notealso that as our definition of photo-realism was moving photographic images, i.e. real-time video, that this type of representation occurredonly in cinematic sequences. However we find a wide variety of stylisations being employed and the criticism of cell-shaded rendering notas prolific as generally accepted.

Table 18: Stylization of Environments and Characters in Game Cinematics and Play

Stylization Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Environment (N=109) (N=129)

Basic Animation 6 16

Above Basic Animation 24 28

Btw Animation & Photo-

realism

40 46

Below Photo-realism 16 10

Photo-realism 14 0

Characters (N=105) (N=121)

Basic Animation 9 25

Above Basic Animation 34 43

Btw Animation & Photo-

realism

34 29

Below Photo-realism 10 4

Photo-realism 13 0

As we expected, the aspect ratio (the ratio of frame height to width) remained at standard full screen Academy ratio of 1.33:1 forgame-play, however it shifted to other ratios approximating the wide-screen cinema frames of 1.85 and 2.35 for cinematic sequencesallowing for greater horizontal composition (Table 19).

“Camera” refers to the position of a fictional camera and the subsequent framing of the action. Obviously, a vast majority of cinematicsequences employ what we coded as ‘cinematic’ camera, meaning the replication of traditional filmic camera set-ups using the standardediting system to shoot the action. The various camera positions and techniques in game-play however were spread across all categoriesand generally bound to genre. That is, FPS titles employed first-person camera, platformers were presented in side-on and scrolling, andaction games used the third-person variation. Of note was the existence of multiple camera perspectives with a significant percentage oftitles exhibiting dynamic and user/defined camera.

Table 19: “Camera” in Game Cinematics and Play

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View Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Aspect Ratio (N=117) (N=130)

Academy,1.33:1 52 89

Wide, 1.85:1 20 5

Cinematic-Wide,

2.35:1

15 0

Varied 6 1

Other 8 5

“Camera” (N=117) (N=129)

Third-Person 3 57

Dynamic/Zoom 1 23

User-defined 0 22

First-Person 1 19

Side-on 5 16

Top-down 1 15

Isometric 2 12

Scrolling 3 11

Cinematic 91 3

Table 20 shows that variety of presentation was also highly evident in the range of titles’ tonality of lighting. In addition to the traditionalvideo game high contrast lighting aesthetic, allowing objects to be sharply rendered and easily seen by the player, we observed significantevidence of low contrast lighting and warm and cold tones.

Far and away the Hollywood Illusionistic convention of motivated lighting as a source predominated in both cinematic and game-play, asgame designers seem to be highly cognizant of avoiding drawing attention to the artificiality of the lighting scheme and pulling gamers outof their constructed worlds.

Table 20: Light, Tone and Colour in Game Cinematics and Play

Light Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Tonality (N=117) (N=129)

High Contrast 73 74

Low Contrast 35 35

Warm 57 50

Cold 47 40

Black & White 3 0

Other 1 0

Lighting Quality (N=115) (N=128)

Hard 45 57

Soft 25 27

Variable 24 13

Other 5 3

Lighting Source (N=114) (N=126)

Motivated 89 87

Unmotivated 1 6

Variable 5 3

Other 5 4

Lighting Colour (N=117) (N=129)

Natural 86 97

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Blue 21 10

Red 16 9

Green 9 8

Yellow 7 6

Other 3 0

NOTE: Tonality allowed for multiple indicators; Lighting quality allowed for one indicatoronly; Lighting source allowed for one indicator only; Lighting colour allowed for multipleindicators.

A vast majority of the cinematic sequences employ the continuity system of ‘invisible’ editing, as the data in Table 21 suggest. Theremainder use the ‘montage sequence’ type, that is a brief series of shots cut together summarising a topic or compressing a passage oftime into symbolic or typical images. We would expect the use of the traditional system in nearly all cases of cinematics, however GBAtitles tended not to employ cinematic sequences of a filmic nature. When game-play didn’t progress in real-time (which included fewgames and therefore few cases in Table 21), that is no cutting, it employed the traditional continuity system.

Table 21: Editing Techniques in Game Cinematics and Play

Technique Cinematics

%

(N=114)

Game-play

%

(N=129)

Cross-Cutting 17 2

Continuity

System

81 91

Jump Cut 9 1

360 Degree

Space

6 2

Non-diegetic

Inserts

37 1

Other 3 1

NOTE: Allowed for multiple indicators.

Text and iconography (Table 22), whether diegetic or non-diegetic, whether in cinematic sequence or game-play, tended to be of theinformational variety save for a significant proportion of instructional non-diegetic text. Non-diegetic text and iconography, player statisticsand the like rated highest in terms of degree of criticality to player success.

Table 22: Text and Iconography in Game Cinematics and Play

Diegetic Inserts Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Diegetic Text (N=114) (N=121)

Informational 43 56

Dialogue 1 3

Instructional 0 3

Non-diegetic Text (N=114) (N=129)

Informational 59 89

Dialogue 9 12

Instructional 3 23

Diegetic Iconography (N=115) (N=125)

Informational 53 68

Dialogue 0 0

Instructional 0 3

Non-diegetic Iconography (N=113) (N=127)

Informational 43 92

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Dialogue 0 0

Instructional 1 12

Mean Degree of Criticality

(1-5)

Mean Mean

Diegetic Text 1.1 1.6

Non-diegetic Text 1.4 2.7

Diegetic Iconography 1.1 1.6

Non-diegetic Iconography 1.1 2.9

NOTE: Each diegetic measure allowed for one indicator only. Mean degree of criticality: Score of one islowest level of criticality, score of 5 is highest level.

We expected that a majority of speech would emanate from within the story space and that it would be simultaneous with image; this iswhat we found (Table 23). Music mainly came from outside the story space and sound effects from within the game world. However, asignificant percentage of sound effects as seemed only to be perceived by the player rather than the character and therefore coded asnon-diegetic. Dynamic music in game-play occurred only six percent of the time during the ten minutes that we explored, betrayingperhaps the problem of programming music to change tempo and style in relation to dramatic events during game-play.

Table 23: Speech, Music and Sound Effects in Game Cinematics and Play

Sound Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Speech (N=113) (N=124)

Simultaneous Diegetic 42 70

Non-simultaneous Diegetic 10 3

Simultaneous Non-diegetic 15 12

Non-simultaneous

Non-diegetic

2 0

Music (N=118) (N=125)

Simultaneous Diegetic 4 7

Non-simultaneous Diegetic 0 1

Simultaneous Non-diegetic 90 82

Non-simultaneous

Non-diegetic

0 0

Sound Effects (N=114) (N=130)

Simultaneous Diegetic 65 96

Non-simultaneous Diegetic 0 0

Simultaneous Non-diegetic 4 19

Non-simultaneous

Non-diegetic

1 0

NOTE: Each speech, music and sound effects measure allowed for multiple indicators. Mean degree ofcriticality: Score of one is lowest level of criticality, score of five is highest level.

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

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Diverse Worlds Project

Narrative

Better than one third of the games we studied exhibited an open-ended narrative structure. Figure 5 illustrates the continuum ofdegree of influence players have over the progression of story in the game world and the degree to which they are active agents.Both narrative and genre structures became more apparent when we cross-tabulated player causal influence with genre todetermine the dominant genres representing each level of player causal influence. The result was stark: games in which theplayer is “on rails”, that is in which the player has little control of the narrative progression tend to be platformers, FPS and action;games in which the player is “god” tend to be sport, driving/racing, RPG and sim titles.

Figure 5: Degree of Player Influence on Narrative Outcomes in Game-play

We predicted that most game cinematics and play was “situated” in the present, despite the stereotype that games are aboutother times, especially future times. Table 15 shows that this prediction holds; the majority of game cinematics and play takesplace in the “now.”

Table 15: Temporal Setting in Game Cinematics and Play

Temporal Setting Cinematics

%

(N=120)

Game-play

%

(N=130)

Past 18 18

Present 54 65

Future 12 12

Other 5 6

NOTE: Temporal Setting allowed for multiple indicators

Our findings on story order are analogous to those found in the mainstream movie (Table 16). When a manipulation of story orderoccurs, it is most commonly in the form of a flashback. In the cinematic this is observed five times more frequently than in thegame-play and represents the telling of the backstory in flashback form. The differential between the game-play and the cinematic

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in story duration and frequency is due to the time-compression editing technique. For example, aspects of events are edited outfor the sake of narrative pace. So we find this from time-to-time in the cinematic but seldom in the game-play which takes place inreal time.

Table 16: Manipulation of Story in Game Cinematics and Play

Manipulation Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Story Order (N=117) (N=129)

Flashback 11 2

Flashforward 3 1

Story Duration and

Frequency

(N=117) (N=130)

Duration 25 6

Frequency 2 6

We observed a similar difference between cinematics and game-play in story range as outlined in Table 17. During the cinematicsequence, we as the player and audience know more about the story than the character knows. However, in the game-play, theplayer-as-character is provided with a restricted knowledge of the story to enhance the experience of dramatic tension. Theexception to this is strategy and sim games where the player, by definition, is calling the shots and is privy to the anticipatedoutcomes of the story.

Table 17: Range and Depth of Story Information in Game Cinematics and Play

Story Information Cinematics

%

Game-play

%

Range (N=108) (N=129)

Restricted 40 43

Near Restricted 13 33

Btw Restricted &

Unrestricted

11 8

Near Unrestricted 7 4

Unrestricted 29 12

Depth (N=118) (N=130)

Objective 88 85

Perceptual Subjective 6 19

Mental Subjective 3 9

Again, like mainstream cinema, a majority of games is presented with objective depth of story information. That is, the playerlooking in to the game world has an omniscient perspective. Only in specialised cases does the player’s view shift to aperceptually or mentally subjective state in cinematics. However, in game-play nearly a fifth of the titles presented perceptualsubjectivity. The majority of these occurred in FPS games which are defined by the player seeing through the eyes and hearingthrough the ears of the character.

Good versus evil is a recurring theme in folklore, fairytales, mythology, contemporary drama and … CVGs. Winning battles andraces is also common. However, games differentiate themselves by their use of point accumulation. The reason that winningbattles or overcoming evil appear less common in games than in other story-telling media is that the pseudo-narrative (generallysports games) don’t require overcoming evil as the strategic objective.

Solving puzzles raised an interesting question that we think is worthy of later exploration, to what extent can the film and televisiongenre of mystery (at least its narrative conventions and stylistic treatment) be applied to puzzle games?

Figure 6: Strategic Objective in Game-play

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Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

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Diverse Worlds Project

Discussion

This report scratches the surface of the diverse worlds of computer and video games. We believe this research is the first of itskind, that it is ground-breaking, that it contributes meaningfully to the rapidly evolving awareness of the world of computer andvideo game story-telling and experience, and that this research is the start, not the end of our expedition of mapping game worlds.

The foregoing findings are preliminary. The tabular results are final, but they are univariate and simplistic. Our next step is thesubmit the quantitative and qualitative data from our study to more complex analyses. While we believe the more detailed findingsare yet to come, we see that the results presented in this report already have policy implications, commercial value and academicmerit.

Policy Implications

This research is important for the policy debate because the news and current affairs media generally focus on a narrow aspect ofgame content: Violence. However, CVGs, we argue, offer a far wider range of story-telling, story locations and objects and storycharacters than that receiving popular criticism. Before the Diverse Worlds project, it has been hard to establish this pointauthoritatively because very little social scientific research has been undertaken to demonstrate whether games are more thandigital killing fields. What little research has been done, as our literature summary above reveals, has focused on violence ratherthan on the wider variety of story elements contained in games. Naturally the news and current affairs media have focused on thissensational element of gaming; however, the result has been that policy and decision-making by some government institutionshas responded to public concern and moral panics fuelled by popular media rather than on more detailed evidence.

Notwithstanding these points, we believe the more concrete and positive finding that this study makes is the effectiveness (at leastin terms of evaluating and categorising game content) of the Australian Commonwealth classification scheme. We expect thispoint will be reinforced by further cross-tabulations, however our findings with respect to content elements (such as the use ofweapons) found in different bands of classification provide a sort of third-party validation of the classification result.

Commercial Value

The system of analysis used for this study produces a new way of “seeing” what works in popular interactive entertainment media.This perspective on game worlds provides the industry, in the first instance, with a mirror in which to gaze and consider its mostpopular (in terms of unit sales) product. At this stage what we have presented here is only a mirror, although we think a fewconcrete directives already emerge (like the value of better understanding and then employing genre labels). We expect that thedata in this study can be interrogated much further to better understand narrow fields of interest such as particular platforms,particular genres, more versus less popular titles and so on. But we believe this research can be upgraded and turned into apowerful lens that magnifies particular strategies for success. To achieve this, content research needs to be on-going and offercomparisons between the present and past as well as emerging popular titles. For example, we began to feel that the presence ofGBA games today present us with a glimpse into the recent past of game-play; as the findings in this report suggest, there areimportant contrasts that come from comparing 32-bit systems with 128-bit systems. Such comparisons can be elaborated withease. The research also needs to examine what is popular with what is not popular. It also needs an audience component bywhich some of the ideas and assertions that emerge through content studies can be tested with game audiences.

Academic Merit

Our system of “seeing” these games borrows from two (usually disparate) paradigms of media research: social science andnarrative studies. It is rare in the literature to find a blend of these approaches. As a research team, the authors represent thisdifferent styles of research and we employed them here with an early success that encourages us to continue our work. Indeed,we believe the opportunities to understand CVGs in the context of media and communication theory are exciting. We have never

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read a study in which narrative and style factors have been structured by content analytic techniques. Importantly too, we see fewcontent analytic studies that attempt to elaborate findings by using textual analysis. Based on our experience, this is a shame.

Conclusion

CVGs present audiences diverse worlds of play. These worlds are as much about fun and safe digital playgrounds as they areabout the traditional devices of story-telling; this is, of confrontation and conflict. Returning to our opening discussion ofHuizinga’s thesis that play produces culture, we might quickly conclude that CVGs may contribute to diverse culture. However,the contribution of CVGs to the longer-term cultural landscape depends on the longer-term nature of play that games providealong with the narratives they offer and the presentation of the world within this junction.

The most popular CVGs in Australia, during the first half of 2002, present players with a wide range of digital playgrounds crossedwith a wide range of narrative experiences and sometimes a dizzying array of places, objects and characters with which tointeract. However, at other times games seem to borrow, the formulaic and thus “standard” places, objects, characters, narrativeand style to excess.

Our view is that our research tells a “good news” story. This young, but rapidly maturing medium offers much, much more than“just Donkey-Kong” to an increasingly large and diverse audience. It is our hope that the popular and academic discourse keepstrack of the changes.

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

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Diverse Worlds Project

References

Australian Film Commission (2001), Value of retail sales of games hardware and software, 2000-2001, Available Online:http://www.afc.gov.au/GTP/wnmgamesretail.html.

Bates, B. (2001). Game Design: The Art and Business of Creating Games. Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing.

Bordwell, David, Thompson, Kristin, Film art: an introduction, New York, McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Braun, Claude. M. J., Giroux, Josette, ‘Arcade video games: proxemic, cognitive and content analyses’, Journal of leisureresearch, 21 (2), 1989.

Dietz, Tracy L., ‘An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: implications for gender socialisation andaggressive behaviour’, Sex roles, 38 (5/6) 1998.

Durkin, Kevin, Computer games, their effects on young people: a review, Sydney, Office of Film and Literature Classification,1995.

Durkin, Kevin and Aisbett, Kate. Computer Games and Australians Today. Sydney, Office of Film and Literature Classification,1999.

Finn, Mark, ‘Computer games and narrative progression’, M/C: a journal of media and culture, vol. 3 no. 5, 2000,http://www.media-culture.org.au/0010/narrative.html, (date accessed) 19/12/2002.

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Games Cited (Outside the Study)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Collective, 2002.

The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo, 1987.

Marble Madness, Tengen, 1986.

Mortal Kombat 2, Midway Games, 1994.

Myst, Cyan, 1993.

Oddworld: Munch’s Oddyssee, Oddworld Inhabitants, 2001.

Pac-Man, Atarisoft, 1983.

Quake, id Software, 1996.

Ridge Racer, Namco, 1995.

Space Invaders, Taito, 1977.

Super Mario Brothers, Nintendo, 1985.

Tetris, Alexey Pazhitnov, 1985.

Wing Commander, Origin Systems, 1990.

Wolfenstein 3D, id Software, 1992.

Authors: Jeffrey E. Brand and Scott J. Knight Web Design: Luis Carlos Dominguez

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