Digital games are unique compared to more conventional media like films or televisions in which, the meanings are constructed by active interaction through playing rather than the more passive attention. There is also inherent difference between digital games and traditional games such as board games or sport; digital games are technological by nature. They require electricity to be played on platforms consist of complex technological components and mechanisms which will take us into virtual words built from digital codes and polygons. These technological requirements in my opinion is the first and foremost rules of digital games.
However, many researches of digital games overlook, or at least do not put heavy emphasize to, the fact that they are technological artefacts. Those researches mainly study how digital games’ texts are read and what messages the players receive from them but rarely do about the technological aspects of video games which made those reading possible. These happen mainly because researchers are applying the paradigms of conventional media studies into digital games. Studies of conventional media have more grounded theories and have been formalized for a longer time. Conversely, digital games studies can be studied from multiple science disciplines and are relatively new.
Bogost (2009) argues that digital games studies are not to be formalized in one school. The reasoning of his argument is that studying digital games from only one school of thought will resulting in missing out of numerous things. In digital games, there are two main school thoughts which often at odds with each other; narratology and ludology (Bogost, 2009). Narratology treats digital games as narrative representations while ludology sees them as more of a simulations of play. By overlooking either one of those two schools, we can only see a partition of what digital games are. Because digital games are both fiction and rules (Bogost, 2009). Bogost (2009) openly declares that digital games are indeed “computational artefacts whose understanding demands at least partial mastery of the architecture of computers” (Bogost, 2009 pn/a). Through Bogost’s declaration, it’s become clear that the reading of digital games as technology is as significant as their reading as texts. It also gives clear picture how reading of digital games as technology walk along with ludology. Another thing that we should put our minds into is the importance of players as actors within digital games researches and studies.
In reading of digital games as technology, the relationship between players and the digital games is vital in the creation aesthetic forms (Kirkpatrick, 2009). Digital games technological peripherals are exceptionally important because they connect players to virtual worlds of digital games (Kirkpatrick, 2009) where immersion and simulation would take place. Also, the aesthetic forms of video games are not too different than those of music and painting; all require the combinations of hands, tools, matters, and forms (Focillon, 1992). In digital games the combinations can be elaborated as the movements of hands through controllers to decipher the computing codes within digital games’ contents that are shown on screen which will eventually create both physical and psychological sensations (Kirkpatrick, 2009).
In his journal entry, Kirkpatrick (2009) continuously compares the aesthetic forms of digital games to those of music and paintings. And looking at his arguments, the comparing actually makes sense. In spite of objection and trivialization, is it finally time to see digital games as more than leisure and educational artefacts but also as artistic objects?
Reference:
BOGOST, I. (2009) “Videogames are a mess.” Keynote from the 2009 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference
FOCILLON, H. (1992). The Life of Form in Art. London: Zone Books
KIRKPATRICK, G. (2009) “Controller, Hand, Screen: Aesthetic Form in the Computer Game.” Games and Culture 4(2), pp. 127-143.
