In
this lecture we will be looking at the important concept of cybertext. We will
consider this concept by studying two important 'families' of cybertext, namely
networked multi-user programs and video games. In
this lecture we will be looking at the important concept of cybertext. We will
consider this concept by studying two important 'families' of cybertext, namely
networked multi-user programs and video games.
We will begin by looking at the history of these two forms and note their intertwining development. We will then discuss various attempts by contemporary theorists to provide a formal definition of these new cultural phenomenon, before reviewing the various aspects of cybertextuality being discussed by new media theorists. In particular, we will consider the effects of these new forms on our cultural understanding of identity,power and immersion. Our theoretical discussions will then be placed in context, by looking in detail at some early computer games. This lecture will conclude with a practical session which will provide an opportunity to play some of the games discussed during this lecture.
In her introduction to Cyberspace Textuality, Computer Technology and Literary Theory Marie-Laure Ryan defines a cybertext as:
"a cybernetic system that generates a different sequence of signs every time the work is experienced" (Ryan 1999:16)
Cybertext do not have to be computer-mediated, for as Espen J.Aarseth notes:
"A cybertext is a self-changing text, in which scriptons and traversal functions are controlled by an immanent cybernetic agent, either mechanical or human." (Aarseth 1994: 71)
In his seminal work, Cybertext : Perspectives on Ergodic Literature Aarseth recognises that the ancient Chinese text the 'I Ching' is an early example of a human-controlled cybertext. Tarot Cards, Runes and other divinational texts can, similarly also all be regarded as early human-controlled cybertext.
MUD is an acronym for multi-user dungeon ( though it sometimes also describe as a multi-user domain or multi-undergraduate destroyer). In Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle describes the multi-user experience as 'a new kind of virtual parlor game and a new form of communication' based on a computer program that enables many people to simultaneously ''navigate, converse and build.. a new form of collaborative literature' together.
The history of Multi-User programs stretch back nearly quarter of a century to the early days of the ARPANET ( the military precursor of today's INTERNET). Espen J.Aarseth, notes a number of important milestones in this murky history. Firstly there was the 'Adventure' program developed by William Crowther and Don Woods in 1976. This was a loosely based on the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game by Gary Gygax. It allowed a group of 'explorers' to wander a textual description of a virtual cave system and to pick up treasure. Versions of this program ran on many computers around the world and Aarseth recognizes it as the ''Homer' program, the ancestor of all the thousands of games, adventure and multi-user programs that have come along since (see Rick Adam's site for further details of Adventure).
The next important program was MUD1 developed by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle in 1980. This program was key because it allowed multiple players to play together from different locations ( hence the multi-user designation). As Aarseth notes " soon participants from many parts of the world phoned in from their modems to the........computer to participate in the new social reality." (Aarseth 1997:13).
A further key development was added in 1989 with the Tiny MUD program developed by James Aspnes. This allowed users to enter their own descriptions of textual objects and landscapes. Multi-user programs had now become Multi-author programs. The name TinyMUD proved to be a rather ironic one however, as its database rapidly expanded to occupy vast amounts of memory.
The ability for users to create objects gave rise to the next great leap forward in the Multi-User story with the birth of the MOO (Multi-User Object-Oriented). The key aspect of MOO is that"everything is an object. Rooms are objects, exits are objects, possessions are objects, even your MOO alter-ego/avatar is an object." This allowed the relatively non-technical user to create a vast array of imaginative and somewhat bizarre textual objects for others to explore. (If you are interested in reading further about MOOs you might like to have a look at The Lost Library of MOO - which contains more information than most people ever want to know about MUDs and MOOs).
One of the striking features of the MOO environment is that it has made excellent use of chatterbot programs. A chatterbot is a small, mobile programmable agent that can move and speak like the character of a game player.In Life on the Screen Sherry Turkle describes a number of fascinating interactions between human users and chatterbot programs such as ELIZA ( Turkle 1995:105-124).
Over the course of the 1990s multi-users programs have developed into a number of separate genre. Some MU programs have retained the original 'hack and slash' adventure aesthetic of Dungeons and Dragons. Others have developed along the 'community-building' lines described by Howard Rheingold in The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier . Still others have built fantasy worlds in which the mention of Real Life (RL) is banned ( these are sometimes called MUSHes - Multi-User Shared Hallucinations..just to add another acronym to the soup). There are even some rather serious academic MOOs used for research purposes e.g.the Computer Assisted Language Learning MOO and the MediaMOO.
Even in the late 1990s most MUDs and MOOs relied on alphabetic text to convey their meaning. Despite the rising popularity of graphics, many players argue that this is not a draw back. For example, Richard Bartle argues that: -
"Though they relied on text, MUDs proved to be incredibly immersive, much more so than the virtual reality goggles and gloves also being hyped at the time. Players were sucked into the worlds they helped to write." (Bartle 1999)
However recently a new sub-genre the 'graphic MUDs' has emerged. These make use of the graphical interface of a video game as well as text. These will be discussed later under video games.
Multi-user programs
( along with chat rooms and Internet Relay Chat) are one of the most studied
phenomenon of the Internet. Sociologists, Ethnographers and Philosophers have
all recognized them as being worthy of serious academic attention. One of the
loci of this research effort has been to understand how users create and maintain
their identities on-line.
One of the most interesting aspects of multi-user systems is that they often allow their users to remain anonymous or pseudo-anonymous. The player's real name, ethnicity, location, e-mail address etc. are all hidden from the other users of the program. All they see is the name and the descriptions of the fictional characters. The player is hidden behind this 'textual mask' (see Danet 2001). This masking means that males can play female characters, and humans can play inanimate characters ( such as lampshades or a back copy of the New York Times). If you can describe it, then you can pretend to be it. Multi-user systems, therefore, sometimes facilitate a carnivalesque, role-playing behaviour that has been likened to improvisational drama. However, being masked also means that some players are free to be antisocial, offensive, or just plain weird. This has serious implications for the real world. For example, there has been a great deal of concern expressed recently by policy-makers and parents about the ability of paedophiles to hide behind the 'textual' mask and to pretend to be young people while on-line.
Sherry Turkle notes that Multi-user programs also allow participants to play many roles simultaneously. The MUD participants she interviewed often talk about themselves having multi-identities. As one participant notes:
"I'm not one thing. I'm many things"(Turkle 1995:185)
These statement raise number of key questions: What exactly do we mean by identity? Who are we?
Multi-user environments were widely heralded in the early 1990s as an opportunity to create democratic, open and egalitarian communities. MOOs (multi-user dungeon, object-orientated) in particular attracted a lot of interest. However, a number of observers have subsequently raised issues that challenge this cyber-utopian model of MOOs. These researcher note a long catalogue of transgressive behaviours and punishments that have occurred in multi-user environments. Dibbel (2001) for example, gives an insiders’ account of a cyber-rape incident in LinguaMOO. Dibbels' descriptions of the original transgressions and the subsequent punishment of the perpetrator highlight the importance of having access and control of the database within these programs. Far from being egalitarian, MOOs have been shown to be technocracies with the programmers and database administrator being referred to as ‘gods’ and ‘wizards’( see Reid 1994 and Reid 1999). This highlights what Tim Jordan (1999) has called the importance of ‘'cyberpower'’ in the formation of the social rules and norms that govern participant interactions on-line.
The need to control access to the database has radically altered the design of multi-user programs. Contemporary MOOs have a series of 'permission' levels built in to their functionality; these in turn are governed by encrypted passwords that are held by the privileged wizards. A new participant in a MOO is often only allowed to be an observer, being granted ‘guest’ status that does not allow that participant to create objects. MOOs also have list of rules and demand a certain type of ‘netiquette’ from ‘newbies‘ (new participants). These rules are backed up by the explicit or implicit threat of being punished by the authorizing‘wizards’. As Tim Jordan notes:
"Cyberspace at the end of the twentieth century has at its heart a constant battle between the individuals and the propagation of an ever more powerful virtual elite. By providing ever more powerful tools to the individual, cyberspace seems to offer power in various virtual possessions. Yet, the reliance on these tools ensures individuals become ever more dependent on a expertise-base elite who create and maintain these tools." ( Jordan 1999:7)
Contemporary video games are important popular cultural artifacts produced by a huge, powerful media industry and yet despite their huge cultural and economic significance video games and gaming have only recently been recognized as a legitimate area of academic study. One of the first challenges taken on by these 'pioneer' games researchers has been to try and define what they mean by the term video game!
In their introduction to Video Game Theory Mark J.P.Wolf and Bernard Perron tackle this issue by noting the importance of both words in this description.
The word 'video', they note, "would seem to require that game action appear in some visual form on a screen." (Wolf and Perron 2003:14) and that the word 'game' links these contemporary games to the ludic traditions of non-computer games noted by researchers such as Huizinga ( see Huizinga 1947) and Caillois ( see Caillios 1961).They go on to note that video games always feature four persistent elements:
The Algorithm or 'Game Engine' is the heart of the game program and is responsible with producing the 4r's of video gaming - representation, responses, rules and randomness that allow the game to be played in real-time( see Wolf and Perron 2003: 15). Player activity, as defined by Wolf and Perron, refers to both the diegetic activity displayed on the screen ( i.e...-" what the player's avatar does as a result of the player activity") as well the player's extra-diegetic activity (i.e. " what the player is physically doing to achieve a certain result.") outside of the screen. Interface, in this case means both the hardware (such as the screen, speakers, input devices), as well as onscreen elements used by the gamer.
It is one of the striking things about Games Studies that as it becomes more and more academically respectable, its history and the history of its object of study reach further and further back into time. For example, David Winter now recognizes Ralph Baer, an engineer working at the Loral TV company in 1951 as the original inventor of the concept of the video game ( see The Pong Story Website). However as Baer was not able to develop his ideas until the 1960s he also recognizes A.S.Douglas, a PhD student working at the University of Cambridge as a 'founder' of the game. Douglas produced a working 'graphical' version of noughts and crosses on an early EDSAC computer in 1952.
Most historians
of video games also recognize Spacewar!, coded by students working at MIT in
1961-62, as an important milestone in the development of video games. Spacewar
was developed on the experimental PDP-1 operating system which allowed multiple
users to share the computer simultaneously. Spacewar, as you can see in this
screen shot, could be played as two-player game involving warring spaceships.
However, none of these early programs were consider to be important or worthy
of further comment at the time. As Wolf and Perron note:
""the attitude [of] considering video games as useless toys was already present even while the video game was still in a purely experimental stage."(Wolf and Perron 2003: 3)
Video games broke out from this campus setting with the development of the first commercially-available video game, Computer Space by Nolan Bushnall, in 1971. The first home system, the Magnavox Odyssey, and the first hit game, PONG, followed shortly afterwards in 1972.
The 1970s and early 1980s are now regarded by games enthusiasts as being the 'golden' era of video games. This period saw the release of arcade 'classics' such as Breakout (1976), Space Invaders(1977), Frogs(1978), Pacman (1980), Missile Command(1980), Battlezone(1980) and Donkey Kong ( 1981) ( see links to some of these games below). This period also saw the re-working of Crowther and Wood's text-based 'Adventure' game into a ground-breaking video game by Warren Robinett. Robinett's program served as a model for many of the 'adventure' games, such as Tombraider, that were to be huge commercial successes in the 1990s
The video game industry experienced a huge reversal of its fortunes in the early 1980s, which cumulated in the 'great crash of 1984'. However, the industry was re-born with the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985. The late 1980s and 1990s were then marked as an era of intense competition (Nintendo's dominance of the home console market was challenged firstly by the Sony Play Station and then later by Microsoft's X-BOX) and by great technological improvements; in particular, in the presentation of graphics on the screen (Wolf 2003:47). This period of time also saw a huge increase in computers in the home, which helped to spur the development of PC-based games.
Video Games have been classified by a number of typologies, based on such issues as economic model (e.g. the home console or the coin-op arcade markets), the platform ( e.g. dedicated game console such as an X-BOX or Gameboy as opposed to the PC platform), the representational strategies deployed (god-view or 1st person shooters etc.) or the object of the game ( e.g. puzzle vs action). The Gaming community also divides games on the basis of their playing style and 'content', recognizing game genres such as:-
The recent history
of cybertext has brought the two divergent forms cybertext discussed in this
lecture together again. Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games such
as Everquest ( see Everquest website) or Ultima On line( see Ultima website)
are both multi-user and graphic.
Miroslaw Filiciak defines a MMORPG as 'a computer newtwork-mediated game in which at least one thousand players are role-playing simultaneously in a graphical environment'.( Filiciak 2003: 87).
Filiciak, like Turkle before him, describes situations where by users of MMORPG are able to adopt new "selves" by selecting attributes and appearance of their avatars. He argues that this is important because "other people see us in the way we want to be seen." (Filiciak 2003: 90) suggesting that identity will continue to be a subject of considerable interest for academic studying 21st century multi-user programs.
A variety of academic approaches have been used in order to understand video games. These approaches include using:
Games Studies, therefore, is emerging as a diverse, multi-disciplinary subject. It has, however, developed a vocabulary and set of key interests which are helping to define the subjects core interests.
One of the key features of the development of video games in the late 1980s and 1990s noted above, was the desire to improve screen resolution to produce more and more finely-rendered graphics. This is often describe as a desire for 'photographic realism' ( i.e. animated scenes that look like photographs). It was often assumed by developers that better images would improve game-playing, primarily by facilitating immersion in the game.
Immersion, as defined by Janet H.Murray is a 'metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being submerged in water.'. She argues that immersion is important because:
"We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or a swimming pool: the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus ...in a participatory medium" ( Murray 1997:98-99)
Immersion is an important feature of a number of descriptions of artistic experiences. For example, film-goers are often described as being immersed in a film. Clearly, therefore, the question of immersion is not a unique issue to game studies. However, immersion does seem to be critical to the success of contemporary video games. The question therefore arising - Is photorealism responsible for immersion?
Interestingly, a number of commentators have noted that the drive to photo-realism might actually hinder immersion. As Stephen Poole notes:
" the increasing technological power available to the videogame designer also presents a challenge, because photographic realism is not necessarily desirable. After all, if a videogame character represents a fully detailed individual, there is a danger that there will be no purchase for our psychological projection. Perhaps we cannot become a character who looks too self-contained." (Poole 2002:85)
Mark J.P. Wolf has suggested that game designers might be better to consider the artistic notion of abstraction. He notes that to abstract something is to:
"simplify it , reducing it to a few essentials and basic forms instead of trying to reproduce it." ( Wolf 2003:48)
He argues that the value of abstraction to video games is that:
“The player’s mind is forced to complete or imagine game details, which engages and involves them more in the game.” (Wolf 2003: 64)
This module has been dedicated to discussing computer-mediation and cyberculture. It is inevitable, therefore, that it has ended up focusing on the Internet and Network culture to the exclusion of other key issues, such as world poverty, justice and war. Is this module a good use of your valuable time? Is the Internet worthy of study?
Let's give the last word on this module to a keen critic of many aspects of cyberculture. In Silicon Snake Oil Clifford Stoll notes:-
"Perhaps our networked world isn't a universal doorway to freedom. Might it be a distraction from reality? An ostrich hole to divert our attention and resources from social problems? A misuse of technology that encourages passive rather active participation...." (Stoll 1995:2)
What do you think?
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Aarseth, Espen. J. (1997) Cybertext : Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, Baltimore and London, The John Hopkins University Press
Adams, Rick The Colossal Cave Adventure Page available at http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/ ( last viewed 8th December 2003)
Atari Pong is available on http://www.pong-story.com/ ( last viewed 8th December 2003)
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on http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/tg280199.htm
( last viewed 8th December 2003)
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Electronic Arts is available at http://www.ea.com/home/home.jsp ( last viewed 8th December 2003)
Everquest is available at http://everquest.station.sony.com/ ( last viewed 8th December 2003)
Filiciak, Miroslaw (2003) 'Hyperidentities: Postmodern Identity Patterns in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games' in The Video Game Theory Reader ( edited by Wolf and Perron),new York and London, Routledge
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our money, won our
hearts and rewired our minds, London, Abacus
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Lost Library of MOO, The is available at http://www.hayseed.net/MOO/ ( last viewed 8th December 2003)
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Pong Story, The is available at http://www.pong-story.com/intro.htm (last viewed 1st December 2003)
Poole, Steven (2000) Trigger Happy: the Secret Life of
Video Games, 4th Estate,
London
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Reid, Elizabeth M (1994) Cultural Formations in Text-Based Virtual Realities A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Arts www.aluluei.com (last viewed 21st September 2002)
Reid, Elizabeth (1999) 'Hierarchy and Power: Social Control in Cyberspace' in Communities in Cyberspace ( edited by Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock) London and New York, Routledge
Rheingold, Howard (1993) The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier New York HarperPerennial
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Turkle, Sherry (1995) Life on the Screen :Identity in the Age of the Internet New York Simon and Schuster
Wolf, Mark J.P. and Perron, Bernard (2003) The Video Game Theory Reader ( edited by Wolf and Perron),new York and London, Routledge
Wolf, Mark J.P. (2003) 'Abstraction in Video the Video Game' in The Video Game Theory Reader ( edited by Wolf and Perron),new York and London, Routledge
Text based Pong http://www.karber.net/textbased/pong/
(last viewed 9th December 2003)
Car Chase Pong http://www.madblast.com/view.cfm?type=FunFlash&display=834
(last viewed 9th December 2003)