Looking for my corpse: video games and player positioning.

Bradford, Clare

When young people play video games they do so as embodied subjects whose identities are shaped by the cultures in which they are situated, the circumstances of their lived experience, and the particularities of their dispositions, abilities and interests. Like books and films, video games do not constitute systems of meaning which exist to be unlocked or decoded. Rather, players behave like readers and film audiences in that they negotiate meanings dialectically, so that no two experiences of a game are exactly the same (because no two players, any more than readers or viewers, are the same). A noticeable feature of the moral panic surrounding discussions of the influence of video games in contemporary societies is that young people are assumed to possess little capacity for independent thought and are represented as passive and impressionable. Our work with young people in the project Literacy in the digital world of the twenty-first century (1) belies this assumption, demonstrating that players do not leave their critical capacities behind when they access games on their PCs, connect PlayStation or Wii, or take a Nintendo DS from their backpacks. Nor is it the case that video games impel young people to act out in real life the behaviours and actions they experience in games (what might be termed the Columbine effect). The binary oppositions which structure much discussion of video games in the mass media, and which lump together all games and players, are incapable of accounting for the complexity of games and experiences of playing.

To study video games is to engage with what James Gee describes as 'a new art form ... largely immune to traditional tools developed for the analysis of literature and film' (2006, p. 58). Many of these traditional tools derive from the field of narratology, which emerged during the 1960s as an expression of French structuralist thought, and which is preoccupied with the structure of narratives and the strategies through which they engage and position readers. Other interpretive tools draw upon ludology, deriving from theories of games and play which attend to how rules function in game-playing, and what various genres and styles of video games have in common. A third bundle of tools derive from film studies, whose focus on the semiotics of moving pictures deploys various approaches drawn from literary and cultural theories. While debates between proponents of narratology and ludology have dominated game studies from its inception (Simons 2007; Raessens 2006), more recently theorists have advocated a syncretic and hybrid approach. Janet Murray, for instance, suggests that 'game studies, like any organised pursuit of knowledge, is not a zero-sum team contest, but a multi-dimensional, open-ended puzzle that we all are engaged in cooperatively solving' (2005).

The project to which this paper relates comprised three strands: Video games as textual forms; young people's experience of video games; and professional development of teachers in relation to video games. My paper is situated in Strand 1 of the project, and functions as a case study of games analysis, focusing on three games aimed at different audiences and played on different platforms. By reflecting on my experience of playing these games, I foreground the ways in which my knowledge, experience and values shape my engagement with games while the games themselves position me as a playing subject. If we are to engage young people in games analysis, we must also encourage them to be conscious of how games work; the pressures and pleasures which they exert; and how they position their players. This paper seeks to model a self-reflexive perspective which shifts between the games and the experience of playing them.

The topic of subject positioning is of great importance to studies of fiction, non-fiction and films for children and young people (Stephens 1992) because it enables a focus on the cultural work carried out by texts. By analysing the expectations of readers that are implied in texts (such as knowledge of the world, acceptance of value systems, comprehension of language) we can scrutinise the extent to which texts subject such implied readers (and hence draw them into their textual ideologies) or accord readerly agency which enables a variety of interpretive positions. Games are like fiction in that they too position their audiences and imply knowledge and skills. However, concepts of reader positioning in narrative theory are not sufficient to analyse the experience of playing video games, even those which draw upon narrative elements, because games, crucially, rely upon activity. As the theorist and programmer Alexander Galloway says, 'Without action, games remain only in the pages of an abstract rule book' (2006, p. 2). It follows, then, that a discussion of subject positioning in games must take account of the actions of players and of the machine (that is, elements of games over which players have no control).

The three games I intend to discuss--World of Warcraft, Bully and Pokemon: Mystery Dungeon--are played, respectively, on PC, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo DS, and are directed toward different populations of players. World of Warcraft (WOW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) which attracts a wide range of audiences from teenagers to adults and allows for online interaction with other players. Bully is a sandbox game--that is, a game in which players select from a range of quests or missions rather than following an exclusively linear trajectory toward one goal--whose boarding school setting implies teen audiences. Pokemon: Mystery Dungeon, an adventure game for younger audiences, is played on the hand-held Nintendo DS console and has the potential for online collaboration through the Nintendo WiFi connection. The three games are thus representative of some of the many styles and modes of game-playing.

The diegetic aspects of games--what Galloway refers to as 'the game's total world of narrative action' (2006, p. 2)--comprise only part of the experience of playing. Non-diegetic aspects--such as features of the platforms on which games are played, player actions including pressing the pause button, and game fansites--are central to playing in a way which is not true of the non-diegetic components of print and film texts. As I have said, playing is a situated activity inflected by personal, social and cultural factors. Moreover, games are located within a vast non-diegetic system of paratexts including reviews, websites, cheat sites, walkthroughs and fansites. As a novice player, I use walkthroughs (accounts of how to achieve missions and move from one stage of the game to the next) and I rely on experts including my fellow-researchers and family. In Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames (2007), Mia Consalvo argues that videogame cheating is a 'practice, one that is ludic, situated, and iterative in its expression' (2007, p. 27). As well as existing within a web of paratextual relations, then, playing is a social practice, since the virtual and real-world communities which cluster around games constantly engage in negotiations over strategies, experiences and opinions.

World of Warcraft was developed by Blizzard Entertainment, a US company, and was launched in November, 2004. By June 2009 its subscriber base has reached 11.5 million. The development of a game such as World of Warcraft and its take-up by players depends on the interface between what have been called 'circuits of interactivity' (Kline et al., 2003, pp. 58-9; 296-7) in which culture, technology and marketing intersect and contend with each other. The production of the game is shaped by cultural assumptions and semiotic codes, and its players--whether in Australia, South Korea, the United States or Europe--are always already enculturated subjects.

The game itself is differentially available to players, who access World of Warcraft in one of two ways: by purchasing a CD to install the game and then taking out a monthly subscription or by buying pre-paid time cards. Because the system requirements call for mid- to top-end computers, players without such hardware (especially players in developing countries) rely on pre-paid cards or keys which they use on public-access computers. I take the first option (CD and subscription), and thus my experience of the game is utterly different from someone who relies on pre-paid cards, which necessitate a rapid take-up of the game so as not to lose precious time. The game is, then, a product not only of the inventiveness of programmers but also of the more shadowy dynamics of global economies, and the experience of players too is shaped by these dynamics.

World of Warcraft builds on earlier pen-and-paper games such as Dungeons and Dragons and is located in a medievalist fantasy world, Azeroth, populated by stock figures, including warriors, sages and monsters, which are familiar to players from a multitude of texts (cartoons, films, fiction, and visual art). The player's first task on entering WOW is to create an avatar, a process involving choices circumscribed by the vast software system upon which players act. Avatars must belong to one or other faction: Horde or Alliance; to one of four races and to one of nine classes. My avatar, Anjo, belongs to the Horde faction, the mage class and the troll race. As a player I view Anjo as a figure in the landscape so that the story of his quest is unfolded in something similar to third-person narration. By manipulating the computer mouse I can see the world from Anjo's perspective, or drawback for a bird's-eye view. Anjo is also the 'you' of second-person imperative address when he encounters quest-givers and other non-player characters. For instance, Gadrin at Sen'Jin Village speaks as follows:

   The witchdoctor Zalazane dwells on the Echo Isles to the east. They
   are the isles we once called home. From there he sends his trolls
   to the mainland, to hex our people and drag more of them under his
   sway. He must be stopped. Defeat Zalazane and his minions ... Bring
   me his head and I will know his reign of evil is over.

And in the running commentary at lower left of the screen, Anjo is also addressed as 'you': 'You salute Razor Hill grunt with respect.' These shifts signal how players oscillate between manipulating and identifying with avatars. In discussing the game Baldur's Gate, Diane Carr uses the terms 'immersion', 'engagement' and 'flow' to describe gameplay. 'Immersion' refers to those episodes or moments when players experience the avatar as 'I' and are drawn into the action of a quest or an exchange with a non-playing character. Playing World of Warcraft involves embodied practices: the clicking and pointing of the mouse, the use of computer keys. As I will Anjo to succeed in his quests I find myself leaning in the direction he should go in order to kill an enemy or open a treasure-chest. Phases of 'engagement' occur when players shift to a third-person perspective and move away from the game, perhaps to seek more information about a quest, a character or a place, before returning to apply this knowledge to the game. 'Flow' incorporates immersion and engagement and is experienced as 'an intensely pleasurable, optimum state, incorporating focus, euphoria and high levels of motivation' (Carr 2006, p. 57).

As is clear from the stretch of Gadrin's language I quoted above, the ambience of WOW relies on the medievalist elements signalled through language, settings and characters. Archaic expressions such as 'dwells' and 'minions' and formulaic phrases such as 'reign of evil' sustain this illusion, combined with tropes of magic, spells, wizards and other medievalist elements. Tanya Krzywinska argues that computer games are 'thick texts. richly populated with various allusions, correspondences, references, and connotations' (2006, p. 383). However, players' experience of this 'thickness' depends upon the textual knowledge which they bring to the game; for instance, a player with an understanding of medieval guilds and their social functions will respond to an invitation to join one of the many player guilds of World of Warcraft with a different array of expectations from a player to whom the word 'guild' means little more than 'group'. At the same time, the term has its specific meanings and associations in the World of Warcraft setting, which accrue to it as players engage actively in guild activities. The medievalist settings, tropes and motifs of WOW do not in themselves invest a player's actions with meaning; rather, they afford a backdrop for action, an elaborate camouflage which enhances enjoyment and disguises the extent to which the machine determines what the player can do.

Unlike protagonists in books and films, Anjo has no claim to permanence, since he is at the mercy of the player who creates him. If I click on 'Delete character', Anjo will be consigned to the graveyard of abandoned avatars, existing only as a trace in the memory of my computer, and an item in Blizzard's immense databases. Avatars, like other commodities, are subject to market demands, and if I decide that it might be easier to reach Level 60 as a Warrior or an Orc, I might well abandon Anjo and take on a new avatar with superior potential. The player's orientation toward her avatar thus incorporates a degree of pragmatism, as she weighs up the advantages avatars afford by reason of the abilities and skills associated with their class and race, and those they have earned.

A crucial component of MMORPGs is that of the communities of practice which exist both inside and outside games. For instance, players can use in-game chat facilities to invite avatars into groups attempting quests, where complementary skills enable groups to achieve what individuals would not. A pre-existing group of friends may choose to play together, or groups may form inside the game. Anjo has been invited on numerous occasions to join groups--probably because as a mage he has the arcane capacity to hurl fireballs at monsters, while other classes such as warriors must get in close with their weaponry. However, as an avatar he is limited by my ineptness as a player; often I have taken Anjo in the wrong direction to look for action; and I am so slow at typing responses to invitations that by the time I say 'Yes' on his account, the group has disappeared over a hill or into a cave. I spend an unconscionable amount of time looking for my corpse when I have been killed by a monster of one kind or another.

Having written the previous sentence, I realised that I had conflated myself as player with my avatar: 'I spend ... time looking for my corpse.' This accident of expression goes to the heart of the gaming experience and the duality of the playing subject, who is both outside and inside the game. I manipulate computer keys and mouse; I also identify with Anjo as my proxy on the screen, and will him on to achieve quests and amass skills and rewards. The game conspires to let me imagine that I am agential; but in fact my gaming is shaped by what Galloway calls 'the action of the machine' (2006, p. 5). When Anjo is killed his corpse appears at the location of his demise, and only by locating it can I continue with the game. This consumes time in the game; but it is also a pleasurable experience because the journey to the corpse is accompanied by ghostly music and because as a kind of shade or ghost I am not bound by the same limitations which apply when Anjo is a 'living' avatar. The 'algorithmic machine' (Galloway 2006, p. 5) of the game depends upon and rewards the active involvement of the player.

Much of the pleasure of playing World of Warcraft derives from its deployment of narratives of various scope and complexity. For instance, Anjo's quest to 'defeat Zalazane and his minions' is one of a myriad of quests which players choose, and which are based on quest archetypes stretching back to folk narratives and omnipresent in contemporary fantasy literature. Simultaneously, the rules of the game are at play: if Anjo succeeds in his quest he will 'level up', attaining higher status and the capacity to perform more complex quests as well as amassing rewards. Thus, the game calls for analysis which pays attention both to narrative shapes and details and also to the systems of rules, rewards and penalties which pertain to its gameplay.

Bully (also called Canis Canem Edit) differs from World of Warcraft in regard to the platforms on which it is played (PlayStation and Wii) and because its action implies a player who aligns with the principal character, a teenager called Jimmy Hopkins. The game is set in Bullworth Academy, a private school in the northeast of the United States, where Jimmy's feckless mother and unattractive (fourth) stepfather deposit him at the beginning of the game. The gameplay requires that the player manipulate the controls of the console in order to move Jimmy through a series of missions, organised in what are referred to as chapters. This reference to print narratives accords with the game's intertextual references to other school narratives, and to the long tradition of parodies of school stories.

When Bully was released by the Canadian videogame studio Rockstar in 2006, some of its earliest critics were teacher organisations. The Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification allocated the game an M rating, but Parenting Australia, along with the Australian Education Union, unsuccessfully challenged this decision, arguing that the rating MA15+ was preferable because of the game's alleged violence and promotion of bullying. In an article in the Age the AEU president Angelo Gavrielatos is quoted as saying that 'teachers worldwide were vehemently opposed to the game and the union had joined a coalition of eight teacher organisations from countries such as South Korea, the United States and Britain denouncing its release' (Emerson 2008).

Another example of the criticism the game attracted--admittedly an extreme one--is evident in the words of the right-wing American warrior Jack Thompson, who in 2006 took Bully to court in an attempt to prevent its launch in the United States. Judge Friedman, adjudicating in the case, asked for a copy of the game so that he might review it in order to determine whether to proceed with the case. However, he came to the conclusion that the game involved no more violence than conventional TV programmes, and refused to ban the launch. In Thompson's widely-distributed open letter to Judge Friedman he said, 'Next time you promise a 'hearing,' I'll bring a parent with me whose kid is in the ground because of a kid who trained to kill him or her on a violent video game. Try mocking that person, I dare you' (Sinclair 2006). Thompson's rhetoric relies upon two false premises: that Bully is a violent video game; and that violent video games train young people to kill, leading to his conclusion that Bully is therefore responsible for the violent deaths of young people. This representation of Bully is so far from how the game works that it suggests that Thompson has little if any knowledge of how it works. Such lack of knowledge does not, of course, prevent his fulminating about the danger it poses to the lives and welfare of young people.

Subject positioning in Bully centres upon the figure of Jimmy. In one sense he is a cipher onto whom players project emotions and desires. However, the character of Jimmy also incorporates intertextual traces and allusions. His personal history as a troubled young man who has been expelled from various schools echoes the character of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, and his struggle against authoritarian forces such as prefects and teachers refers to the rich tradition of anti-authoritarian students in school stories and films. It is also the case that the machine acts of Bully position players in certain directions. In the episode 'A Little Help', in the game's first chapter, the psychopathic student Gary invites Jimmy to join him in harassing the homeless man ('the hobo') who lives on the school grounds. The hobo frightens Jimmy's companions away, but Jimmy engages in conversation with him, and the hobo promises to teach him some fighting moves if he retrieves transistors scattered around the school. When Jimmy finds transistors the hobo teaches him to use the game controls to carry out various pugilistic moves.

This episode models two ways of approaching the marginalised other exemplified by the hobo: treating him as an object of derision or curiosity, as Gary does, or engaging with him as an autonomous subject. When Jimmy meets the hobo, a brief machine act ensues, when the hobo asks, 'Have you got any liquor?' and Jimmy responds, 'No, I'm 15.' This exchange might seem to promote a view about the undesirability of under-age drinking, except that the self-referential and ironic tenor of the game calls into question any such straightforward reading. I read the exchange as an ironic nod to the disjunction between rules and behaviour; here, between laws prohibiting fifteen-year-olds from purchasing alcohol, and the propensity for young people to obtain and consume alcohol. More importantly, the episode positions players to align themselves with an orientation suggested by Jimmy's behaviour toward the hobo: that he is an individual possessing useful knowledge and skills, rather than a representative figure ('the hobo') susceptible to being stereotyped and stigmatised for his lack of adherence to cultural norms. Later in the game, various non-playing characters (NPCs) refer to the hobo, so that a back-story develops in which he is rumoured to be a former staff-member of Bullworth Academy who fought in the Korean War and is tolerated because of his past associations with the institution. Later still, Gary insinuates that the hobo is Jimmy's natural father. The swirling rumour-mill of Bullworth is itself the object of parody through the extravagant claims that are made about the hobo and his past life. So contradictory are these claims that players are required to weigh up one perspective against another, and this process in itself draws attention to the unreliability of language and of representation within and outside the game.

Despite Jack Thompson's insistence that Bully is a primer for bullying, the game interrogates systems of power and control which enshrine bullying as a strategy for maintaining the status quo. This does not mean that violence is banned, but rather that violent acts are calibrated according to the status and power of those involved in them. Jimmy frequently engages in fights with prefects and members of Bullworth's various cliques (greasers, jocks, nerds and preppies) who attack or challenge him. However, if he hits a smaller or weaker opponent he is punished and required to spend time in the office of the principal, Dr Crabblesnitch. A notable feature of Bully is that classes in subjects such as English, Chemistry, Art and Photography constitute mini-games which offer benefits to players. In English, the reward for forming words out of scrambled letters is increased facility in interacting with NPCs. To prevent being caught up in a fight, for instance, a player who has succeeded in English can utter a greeting or an apology, so saving time to devote to one or other of the many missions involved in the game. Bully is characterised by a pervasive irony which distances players from Jimmy and from the action of the game, encouraging a style of playing which is both engaged and also designed to encourage critical analysis of how one is positioned in and by the game. To produce an analysis of Bully, then, one must engage in a hybrid methodology which acknowledges not only the game's narrative and ludic features, but the ideological implications of its representations and gameplay, and their interface with cultural values and practices.

Bully is a stand-alone game intended for younger players than those attracted by Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto. In contrast, Pokemon: Explorers of Time draws upon an entire universe of characters, settings and narrative tropes, popularised through a variety of media including video games, card games, books, anime, toys and trading cards. Developed in Japan in the 1990s, Pokemon is based on the idea that there exist 'wild' Pokemon ('pocket monsters') who can be trained by humans so as to participate in games and competitions against other Pokemon teams. The game is deeply invested in Japanese traditions of cuteness (kawaisa) which enable it to position non-Japanese players to align with child-like, appealing figures and, by implication, to be drawn into the global enterprises through which conceptions of Japan are promoted. Anne Allison points out that what she calls 'the cute business' (2003, p. 386) began in Japan in the 1970s, modulating into the development of cute characters and their commodification. The Hello Kitty character is a prime example, deployed as a brand across multiple consumer products.

The size and portability of the Nintendo DS, similar to its antecedent the Game Boy, invite a peculiarly intimate and personalised style of play. Players carry the DS with them, using it at home, school and on public transport, so that the Pokemon world itself is portable, available to one player or to pairs and small groups huddled over a console. In a reaction to cultural anxieties in Japan concerning the isolation of children and the high scholastic expectations placed on them, Pokemon game design emphasises sociality as players are encouraged to interact with the life-forms which feature in the game (friends, pets, objects) and, in the case of Explorers of Time, to join a team of adventurers intent on exploring the mystery dungeon of the game's title.

The first activity a player performs on entering the Explorers of Time game is to respond to a series of questions which lead to a sequence where players are allocated an 'aura'. This exercise, imbued with New Age discourses, creates the illusion that as a player I am known and valued by the Pokemon who administers the questions, and that my induction into the Pokemon world incorporates me into a set of relationships where my aura (sky blue) blends with and is complemented by the auras of other Pokemon. The game takes great pains, then, to construct a friendly, unthreatening play environment. Even so, the game action of Explorers of Time involves a high degree of surveillance and control. As a player in the first stretches of the game I am reminded of my junior status as an apprentice, my obligation to show respect to my teachers, and the necessity of working diligently. While there are moments in the game when these values are gently mocked, such as when the apprentice Pokemon exchange messages about the propensity of the Guild leader, Wigglytuff, to fall asleep in the middle of an oration, they are also inescapable and immutable. When I faint in a dungeon and thus fail to accomplish my mission, I am admonished but also encouraged to 'try again tomorrow'. The differences between player positioning in Pokemon Explorers of Time on one hand, and World of Warcraft and Bully on the other are more than merely indications of the age or maturity of implied players. All three games position players to accept values such as that cooperation results in better outcomes than a style of play reliant on indiscriminate violence. Of the three games, Pokemon Explorers of Time most explicitly articulates and polices its ideological givens, resulting in a more closed and controlled form of playing than World of Warcraft or Bully. The visual and auditory effects of the game are especially important, constructing a Pokemon world in which cuteness is embodied in characters and settings. The overall effect is to produce a coherent, consistent and ordered universe in which players derive pleasure from doing what the game tells them to do.

Theories of reader positioning rely, in the main, on the language and visual components of texts; on how narratives deploy strategies such as focalisation, distancing, point of view and estrangement. This close attention to textual and discoursal features enables us to determine, as Stephens says, whether 'the reading subject, as in an actual world pragmatic exchange, may negotiate meaning with the text or be subjected by it' (1992, p. 55). To understand how video games position their players we need to draw upon a wider range of concepts and methodologies. In this discussion I have shifted between theories of narrative and concepts drawn from games studies in order to enable my analysis of the three games I have selected. My discussion has necessarily reflected my own playing of these games, which is idiosyncratic and particular. Nevertheless, all three games are forged out of the algorithms which shape gameplay, so that my experience of playing is situated within the possibilities of these games as well as the social practices which surround them. In The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes describes the act of reading as a site where the reader finds 'the possibility of a dialectics of desire, of an unpredictability of bliss' (1975, p. 4). When I began playing World of Warcraft I did not expect that I would find pleasure, of a kind, in looking for my corpse. Games are worth taking seriously because they activate new forms of textual pleasure and new forms of sociality; and because, like other kinds of texts, their possibilities are never exhausted or their meanings ever absolute.

References

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Clare Bradford

School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University

(1) Beavis, C., Bradford, C., O'Mara, J., Walsh, C.: Literacy in the Digital World of the Twenty First Century: Learning from Computer Games. Australian Research Council 2007-2009. Industry Partners: The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, The Victorian Association for the Teaching of English, The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria. Research Fellow: Thomas Apperley, Research Assistant: Amanda Gutierrez