Abstract
Rules in games are one of the most significant aspects to characterize games, and they allow players to temporarily live in a virtual world, which is separated from the real world. The author questions how the implication of rules in games has been altered based on the transformation of their forms from analog to digital. Furthermore, this paper analyzes rules and controls in contemporary technological societies by focusing on how video games are constructed as well as how contemporary game players experience them in the digital space.
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Notes
- 1.
Dutch historian Johan Huizinga coined the term the “magic circle” in Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1938). He wrote: “All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course…. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e., forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart”.
- 2.
“He (Huizinga) argues for a direct connection to be made between play and culture, that play is not simply something that exists within culture, but on the contrary that culture arises in and through play” Galloway (2010), p. 20.
- 3.
Galloway (2001), p. 12.
- 4.
Robert W. Williams explains, ““dividual”—a physically embodied human subject that is endlessly divisible and reducible to data representations via the modern technologies of control, like computer-based systems.” Williams, R. W. (2005). Politics and Self in the Age of Digital Re(pro)ducibility. Retrieved from http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/1_1/williams.html Issue 1.1.
- 5.
Galloway notes, “If photographs are images, and films are moving images, then video games are actions.” Galloway (2010), p. 2.
- 6.
Salen and Zimmerman discuss the relationship of game and play in Rules of games (2010).
- 7.
Davis (2013), p. 62.
- 8.
Marc Prensky’s Digital Game-Based Learning, quoted in Salen and Zimmerman (2010), Chapter 11, p. 4.
- 9.
Parlett (1999), “‘Every game has its rules,’ says Huizinga in Homo Ludens. But we may go further, and say, ‘Every game is its rules,’ for they are what define it.”
- 10.
Salen and Zimmerman (2010), Chapter 11, pp. 4–5.
- 11.
Huizinga quoted by Salen and Zimmerman (2010), Chapter 9, p. 3.
- 12.
- 13.
For example, the list of moves in Street Fighter II shows button combinations for different actions. http://streetfighter.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_moves_in_Street_Fighter_II.
- 14.
Chun (2013).
- 15.
Dunnigan (2010), p. xii.
- 16.
Galloway (2010), p. 21.
- 17.
Galloway (2010), pp. 87–88.
- 18.
Galloway (2001), p. 7.
- 19.
Bogost (2015), p. 184.
- 20.
Chun (2013).
- 21.
Galloway (2010), Chapter 3 - Social realism.
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Nam, S.H. (2019). Rules of Videogames and Controls in Digital Societies. In: Zagalo, N., Veloso, A., Costa, L., Mealha, Ó. (eds) Videogame Sciences and Arts. VJ 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1164. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37983-4_4
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