The writerly text is a perpetual present, upon which no consequent language (which would inevitably make it past) can be superimposed; the writerly text is ourselves writing,
before the infinite play of the world (the world as function) is
traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some singular system
(Ideology, Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances,
the opening of networks, the infinity of languages. (Barthes, S/Z 5)
I
begin with this quote from Roland Barthes as a way to lay some
theoretical groundwork to my argument and at least gloss over my
beliefs on ideology and media. Any form of language, whether it be
spoken language, literature, cinema, visual language, music, etc. is
mediated by the receiver of the language; Barthes, in his influential
essay "The Death of the Author" explains how "a text is made of
multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual
relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place
where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not,
as was hitherto said, the author" (Barthes, Image-Music-Text
148). Although Barthes was focusing on literary criticism at the time
of writing, the same ideas about "the text" hold true in watching a
movie or consuming any other form of media. Henry Jenkins expanded
Barthes's ideas to the realm of television in showing how television
and movie fandoms created "producerly texts", where a television
universe is expanded by an audience's re-appropriation of something
such as the Star Trek Universe creates fanfic, fan vids, and more text
that lies outside the realm and jurisdiction of the original author.
Going back to the original quote from S/Z, Barthes describes
the process of "ourselves writing" as happening "before the infinite
play of the world...is travesed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by
some singular system". Therefore, what is happening in our creation of
meaning when experiencing a text is play, and the attempts of a higher
power (or perhaps hegemony)
to prohibit our own meanings by instating and forcing the meanings of
the language upon us. This could not be more relevant in the realm of
play itself, with the opposition of game modding going against the
ideologies of the hegemony of play at hand.
The Fluxus
movement of analog game modding shows in the extreme case how writerly
the medium of games is, and how meaning arise out of the reader/users
interactions as much as the original game author's, if not more. As
Celia Pearce explains: "the game artist makes a conscious choice to
share the art-making process, putting at least a part of the creative
act in the hands of the player/participant" (Pearce 70). In contrast,
the author as described by Barthes "is thought to nourish the book,
which is to say that he exists before it, thinks, suffers, lives for
it, is in the same relation of antecedence to his work as a father to
his child" (Barthes, Image-Music-Text 145). However, "To give a
text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a
final signified, to close the writing" (Barthes, Image-Music-Text
147). In this regard, the "infinite play of the world" is cut off by
the idea of the author controlling the singular central meaning of
piece of literature. The classic example is of Hamlet, which
has been studied and interpreted for over 400 years; in that time no
central agreement "what Shakespeare really meant" has ever been arrived
at for as Barthes would argue, such a conclusion is impossible as we
ourselves are forming the meaning of Hamlet now, not Shakespeare. Every
reading of Hamlet is a reappropriation of the text on part of
the viewer. Pearce continues to explain how game artists allow more so
for the "infinite play of the world" on the participants part instead
of intervening like the classic author: "the artist's absence can be
more powerful, more palpable, more distinctive, and in some instances,
more personal than his or her presence" (Pearce 70). For example, in
Pearce's example of Yoko Ono's White Chess she explains how the
piece "draw(s) attention to the deeply militaristic metaphors embedded
in...[analog] games by conscientiously objecting to their implicit
narratives of combat and enmity" (Pearce 80). However, the game artist
does not impose rules upon the players who decide to engage the game.
While there is a presence of an anti-war message that can be read as an
intention of the artist, there is no imposition on how it should be
read or played: the rules of the game that serve as the language of how
it is played is relegated to the reader/player, and calls the user to
approach the issues of peace, reconciliation, and non-opposition in
their own fashion. Similarly the Same Card Flux Deck example
also presents a format with no rules, and in attempting to create rules
the user expresses him or herself; this is a medium where a set of
infinite meanings are certainly possible! But even in the world of
mainstream analog games there is a constant play between established
rules and personal interpretation, for analog games for rules to be
changed and bent at will by their players, to form "house rules" that
sometimes run against the original message or intention of the game
(Fron et al 4).
Digital games, in their very nature of being digital, complicate the relation of author and user. The essay The Hegemony of Play
illustrates how "the ways in which the exclusionary poewr structures of
the computer game industry have narrowed the conception of both play
and player in the digital sphere" (Fron et al 1), and how the notion of
"the gamer" as devised by the industry is much like Barthes's idea of
"the Author", in that the potential for the reader/player to play,
interpret, and explore infinite meanings is cut short and curtailed by
the industry attempting to attach a history and definition to the user
of the game; what is interesting here though is now instead of the
author of the work being rigorously defined by the
critic/ideology/genus, it is the audience themselves who find
themselves defined. Analog gaming, specifically tabletop role-playing
and strategy games, "give players the ultimate power in determining how
they shall play... while [players] may have purchased some specialized
implements of play... that the 'game' does not come in the box, but is
in themselves and their fellow players" (Fron et al 4). Digital games
are different: "Much of the mastery in digital games entails ones
ability to 'beat' the computer on its own terms...rather than
determining if a game is good enough for them, as Bernie DeKoven has
proposed, players now must prove they are good enough for the game"
(Fron et al 4). Rules are now hard coded into a machine, and without
hacking are hidden from the user and incapable of being changed
fluidly. Unlike White Chess and Same Card Flux Deck
where the game artist implies infinite ways to play, play is literally
limited by the potential actions which the code has to offer, which is
usually some variation of "point, click, and shoot". The essay
eventually explains how "the game industry has constructed an entirely
new fictional variation of Simone De Beauvoir's subjective male, one
which may have as little to do with the majority of men as it does with
women" (Fron et al 7). The rules and rhetoric of "point, click, shoot"
are made for a pre-defined player, a 'third gender', one which the real
reader/player is made to inhabit, and in doing so is not allowed to
explore infinite meanings within a game. Instead, they find themselves
defined as "gamers", a label that they eventually take up and act out.
The outlook of The Hegemony of Play
is overly pessemistic though, as artists, modders, and especially
"hardcore gamers" have responded to the challenge of the Hegemony
through making games writerly texts, where meaning is once again
discovered in the hands of the reader/player. First, on the level of
the playing within a given game universe there are various examples of
artists and players who simply play against the predetermined goals of
the programmer and Hegemony. The artist Joseph Delappe, in his work Dead-In-Iraq,
would go against the military-glorifying message of the game and simply
insert himself into games, refuse to play, and instead type in the
names of dead American soldiers until his player was killed. The group Velvet Strike
did similar work in invading Counterstrike; instead of playing the game
"properly", they would spray peace messages, drop their weapons, stand
in heart formations, etc. Both of these examples show how the players
of these games took it upon themselves to use the provided rules system
and play with it in a different way, one that did not promote the
pre-programmed language of violence but rather civil disobedience. Jodi.org's SOD and Untitled Game
reveal another level of games as writerly texts, for both games are
literally rewritings of the classic violent 1st person shooters. These
mods, like the Fluxus games, are unplayable, and the artists
outline no rules, control schemes, or objectives for the player. In
that sense, the ever glitchy and unnavigable spaces within the game
offer no meanings themselves, and lend meaning for the reader/player to
coalesce. Finally, Portal is the perfect example how a group of
modders (who eventually worked for Valve) completely changed Half Life
2 from being a game of violence to spatial navigation and gender. These
modders were not artists or interventionists but rather dedicated
gamers. This is not unusual, for as Pearce points out "there is less
and less a boundary between virtuosity as a player and virtuosity as a
creator... within game culture itself, play and creation often fuse
such that playing the game is a form of consensual performance" (Pearce
82). Most game modders or rewriters are not artists but game players,
who empower themselves to change and create games to meet their own
expressive needs when the Hegemony's "third gender" definition falls
short for them.
Like the long tradition of the Author in
literary criticism, we now are experiencing a similar hegemony of play
which is being co-opted by its users in the form of modding, rule
bending, and resistance through art. Games, like any other media that
lies in the hand of a higher power, will be controlled by a higher
concept such as the author or the industry or Hollywood, but in the end
it falls on the audience who cares enough to change things to go out
and find the tools to read what they are given in their own way. Or
should we perhaps not say "read", but "play"?
POST SCRIPT:
I'll attempt to tie the ideas of the rest of the readings to this paper now.
Bernard DeKoven, in The Well Played Game, sets apart the difference between a "winning" and "playing well", stating that the goal of a player is not to necessarily be victorious in play, but rather play well with another player. "Any victory," he says, "now that we know what it is that we want to create together, is shared. No matter who wins a game, if we have played well together, we have accomplished what we set out to do. That victory is not determined by who wins, nor by what game we play, but rather by the quality of playing that we have been able to create together" (Dekoven 12). In his example of the ping pong game with his friend who is much better than he is, he outlines the play process of how he begins with a traditional game of Ping-Pong, and progressively changes the rules and playing of the game until they reach a level of "well playing". Because the original framework of the game was not producing good play (he was constantly losing and his friend was not trying hard and getting bored), they "played" with the structure and language of the game, first generating new rules such as handicaps, then settling on a cooperative version of volleying that was entertaining to both parties. This process of house rules demonstrate how play communities rewrite rules given to them by certain games to produce the play experience they desire. Besides levelling playing fields, games generate these kind of house rules so that the game does not eclipse the needs of the community that plays that game. DeKoven states how rules and communities relate: "You establish a community so that you can play well together. You learn, in the establishment of such a community, that it is necessary to exercise real caring for other players...And yet, when you finally find a game you all really enjoy, somehow, if you're not careful, that very game can destroy the community. The sense of play that brought you together in the first place can be taken over by the desire to continue the game" (DeKoven 42). Therefore, people have re-authored games within their communities to establish community over rigidly following prescribed rules put down by some higher gaming company power. In Magic: The Gathering, for example, play groups of friends and casual players will create "No CounterSpell or Land Destruction", for such cards can lead to unsatisfying play for these groups that want to simply have fun. Although these cards are included in the rules of the game, this adaptation demonstrates how sometimes those rules are bent in favor of the community that plays them. DeKoven includes this in his discussion of bending rules: "We didn't really change a rule, we bent it. We made an exception, and it was clear to all of us that it was all right. If making an exception helps us have an exceptional game, anything is all right" (DeKoven 56). I will go on further and say rule bending as an authoring process can in fact lead to new kinds of undiscovered play and expression within games. When the first set of FPS games were released, modders and hackers interested in "bending the rules" lead to play groups experimenting in what it would be like to go with "fists only" or "rocket launchers" only, leading to the first set of Rocket Arenas and other play experiences that were eventually included into mainstream games. These kind of rule bendings can also lead to these kind of games being reframed in context entirely: a recent example is of a mod of Team Fortress 2 which takes the usual "Kill Each Other" structure and turns it into a game of "hide and seek", where the game becomes less about battling each other and an arguably more satisfying well played game.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author". Image-Music-Text. Noonday Press, 1977. 142-148.
Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1970. e-Book.
DeKoven, Bernard. The Well Played Game. Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1978.
Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce,
C. (aka Ludica) "The Hegemony of Play." In Situated Play: Proceedings
of Digital Games Research Association 2007 Conference. Tokyo, Japan, September
2007. http://lcc.gatech.edu/~cpearce3/PearcePubs/HegemonyOfPlayFINAL.pdf
Pearce, Celia. "Games as Art: The
Aesthetics of Interactivity." Visible Language: Special Issue on Fluxus.
January 2006. http://lcc.gatech.edu/~cpearce3/PearcePubs/fluxus-pearce.pdf