Game Work: Language, Power, and Computer Game Culture

Notes

Preface 1. I prefer “computer game” to “video game” as the generic term for the subject of this book because it more accurately describes the central technology that enables the medium. Video is surely important for computer games, but it is not their only de¤ning characteristic. Games also depend on audio, tactile, and other aesthetic elements to give them life, and indeed some computer games—designed for visually impaired people—have no video content at all. 2. Thierry Kuntzel has made similar arguments about “¤lm-work.” See also Ruggill, McAllister, and Menchaca. Chapter 1 1. As will be discussed in chapters 4 and 5, the marketing and consumption of computer games are attended by similarly opaque signs. 2. Perhaps the greatest indicator of Sonic’s popularity is that it became the namesake for an important, but relatively obscure, genetic protein that determines, among other things, the orientation of a body’s limbs (e.g., the spine runs vertically, not horizontally). See Stix. 3. In reality, dozens of people have usually been involved in getting a game from the designers’ workstations to consumers, including packagers, loaders, truckers, and stockers. These people, however, are only marginally involved in the design of the computer applications they handle and so—for Ohmann, at least—do not ¤gure into his understanding of “mass culture.” From the point of view of the “work” of game production, however, all the people who have peripheral roles to the game development process are still crucial to the phenomenon of game popularization. See Ruggill, McAllister, and Menchaca. Notes 4. I will discuss these “strangers” at length in chapter 3. 5. Chapters 3 and 5 will deal with these issues in detail. 6. There also exists a small but growing niche market for current events games, such as those produced by Kuma Reality Games (KRG). KRG builds games rapidly and cheaply, drawing their design inspiration from “Headline News” on CNN. For example, recent titles have reproduced the hunt for Saddam Hussein, rescue missions in North Korea, and tactical battles in Afghanistan. See http://www. kumarealitygames.com. 7. There is considerable evidence supporting this claim, although it should be noted that there is a variety of explanations for it. Much of the research done on the question of how the brain processes images versus other types of information input has been done in the interest of education and instructional technology. See Anglin, Towers, and Levie; Chan Lin; and Molitor, Ballstaedt, and Mandl. 8. Jacques Ellul has observed that one of the main functions of propaganda is to make people believe that restrictions on their human and civil rights are justi¤ed and reasonable (Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes). Noam Chomsky makes a similar point in his book Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, observing that the greatest challenge for propagandists is not to persuade people to think in new ways but rather to persuade people to appreciate their bondage . Chomsky writes that one of the great success stories of democratic U.S. propaganda is that it has worked to make many people see doctrines that de¤ne the conditions for what is reasonably thinkable not as constraining but as evidence “that freedom reigns” (48). The ways this process plays out in computer games are discussed in later chapters. 9. There is some debate over this claim due to the different ways in which the two industries calculate their net gains. The fact that such debate exists, however, suggests that the two ¤gures are comparable and that arguments over which is higher say more about the interests of the disputers than about the industries themselves. 10. There also exists a micro genre of ¤ction in the online fan community that puts computer game characters into romantic, which is to say sexual, situations. Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft appears in many of these stories, as does Gabriel Knight from the game series of the same name. Several Web sites exist that specialize in archiving computer game fan ¤ction, including “A Quest for Fan¤c” (http://www. socalbrand.com/quest). 11. The desktop themes and screensavers, it may be argued, also allow players to subvert the guiding business metaphor of the most common operating systems into one of fantasy and play. 12. See Palumbo. 13. For example, see the U.S. Army’s recruiting game America’s Army. Available at http://www.goarmy.com/aagame. 14. One particularly notable example of this is the Liemandt Foundation’s recent “Hidden Agenda” contest...