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Gameness and Negotiable Consequences. Introduction. Games often rely on combination of rule-governed action and representation. The role computing in computer games is to facilitate or stand in for rules for action.
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Introduction • Games often rely on combination of rule-governed action and representation. • The role computing in computer games is to facilitate or stand in for rulesfor action. • What makes rule-governed action to gaming as opposed to “serious” action? • To understand the nature of gameness is to understand the nature of the acceptance by the player exhibits in being governed by the rules. • Traditionally, gameness is thought to consist in the existence of optional or negotiable consequences rule-governed actions. • I will, as an alternative, propose that the heart of gameness rather is found in how rules ontologically constitute agential properties for attitudes with intentionally determined but arbitrary valorization. • Indicate what this view implies about the nature of computer games.
Outline • The classic game model. • Problems with the classic game model. • The ontological approach. • The IDAV proposal. • What the IDAV proposal says about being a game. • How IDAV invites the notion of a “deconditionalization machine”.
The Classic Game Model • (Juul 2005), drawing on (Huizinga 1950), (Caillois 1961), (Avedon & Sutton-Smith 1971), (Crawford 1982), (Kelley 1988), (Salen & Zimmerman 2004) • 1. Games are rule based • 2. Games have variable, quantifiable outcome.. • 3. The different potential outcomes of the game are assigned different values. • 4. The player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome. • 5. The player is emotionally attached to the outcome of the game. • 6. The same game can be played without real-life consequences. • Rules determine: State 1.. State n Outcome • One must distinguish between game as an object, game as an activity: as a type versus individual play session.
Definition • Use of definiendum in definiens: “player”, “game”. “real-life” A physical system used to facilitate acts of type A by S qualifies as a game if and only if 1. The acts are governed by a set of rules R 2. The outcome of the acts have a variable, quantifiable value 3. The acts are according to R, ranked as better or worse for S. 4. S performs the acts with an effort. 5. It matters to S whether the acts are performed or not. 6. The outcome of the acts is negotiable by S
Problems with the Classic Game Model • Too narrow: The Sims and Microsoft Flight Simulator • Negotiable consequences: Russian Roulette, Pervasive Games, Serious Games. Why should not game session types involve non-negotiable consequences? • The consequences of many rule governed social happenings are “negotiable” or “optional”. Does the model implicitly depend on the application of the concept of “winning”? • In the contrasting cases (like traffic rules), non-negotiability is due to the fact that the rules are still in effect!
Ontological Approach • The classic model attempts to locate gameness in the acceptance of the prescriptions of the rules. • The constitutive view is that some rules imposenewproperties specially made for deliberation and acceptance (e.g. whether a move is “mate”, and that a particular piece is a “rook”) • These rule-based agential properties also determine in-game valorization of strategies, preferability ranking of available acts etc. • Could it be that the gameness is found in the role rules have in the constitution of agential properties of the physical systems in question?
Searle’s Theory of Status Functions • Social ontology (money, marriages, waiters, contracts etc) are features of the world that are not “intrinsic” to the phenomena, but rather imposed by their role in social practice (Searle 1995). • Unlike natural features of the world they exist simply in virtue of being “believed in”. Example money: • Trade of goods. • Privileged goods for standardized trade. • Issued guarantees for standardized trade (gold standard). • Bank notes with an accepted status function.
Status Functions • Status functions exist in virtue of constitutive rules of the form • “X counts as Y in C” • We accept (S has power (S does A)). • We accept (S, the bearer of X, is enabled (S buys with X up to the value of five dollars).
Games and Status Functions • Very similar: • The rules determine ontic features (money, rooks, mates) • The physical systems are endowed with properties with in-game “functions”, purposes, valorizations relative to the game. • The valorization is not intrinsic but imposed However, they: • Do not depend directly on social acceptance (single player games, solitary games). • Do not rely on social sanctions to uphold the reality status. • There is a difference in “power” and enablement in that they rely on special gaming contexts. Conjecture: game rules are “cousins” to our natural abilities and inclinations to impose social ontologies via constitutive rules?
Acceptance and Constitution • (1) S believes (X occurs in context C) • (2) S accepts (X counts as Y in C) • (3) S believes (Y implies S ought to φ) • (4) S believes (S ought to φ) • What is happening in (2)?
“Deconditionalization” • If S had accepted (X counts as Y in C), then S would have believed (S ought to φ) • To • S believes (S ought to φ) • Objective properties are created that are made to fit demands of the sort: S does A (rationally) because of Y • They Y properties must satisfy cognitive and conative demands: The satisfaction condition of the pro-attitudes ( to φ) are made to match the truth-conditions of Y’s. • The acceptance in (2) is not epistemic, but practical credence. The rule determined conative and cognitive attitudes exist only in so far as the “point” of the activity is satisfied for S.
The Source of Credence • The notion of accept in a social setting is to facilitate prestablished pro-attitudes. Social ontologies exist in so far as you already have such attitudes towards their functional role. They are merely proxies for such attitudes. • Games: Intentionallydetermined but arbitrarily valorized pro-attitudes (IDAV-attitudes). • You cannot be credent to just any conceivable social function, but you can be credent to just any game-rule.
IDAV and Gameness • What matters for gameness is the existence of IDAV-based agential properties, not post game consequences. • It thus fits well with pervasive games and serious games. • Gameness does not depend on a specific outcome. Winning is merely one way to structure arbitrary valorization. • Game simulations are hence easily included. Real simulations are excluded because they rely on utility. • Furthermore, it disconnects gameness from such notions as "fun", and allows other purposes to be indirectly facilitated, such as political persuasion and art.
Definition of Computer Games • Non-essential connection between game and computer. Like “box game”, there may be no common characteristic to games played on computers relevant to gameness. • However, only a computer can stand in for constitutive rules. • Computers can be special purpose systems that impose the “point” of the agentive properties, as opposed to enforcing prescriptions. • Neither “laws of nature” nor “rules”. As like an environment as the laws of nature and as interest-dependent as constitutive rules. • Technical notion: “deconditionalization machine”: includes pinball machines and excludes Solitaire.
Conclusion • The outlined proposal locates gameness in the constitution of agential properties rather than in optional acceptance of outcome. • If offers a more general picture of what counts as a game, and allows simulations, serious games and pervasive games to qualify as games. • It allows us to conceive of a special intentional function derived from the constitution process that computer games are especially well suited for.
