Lab+1

16 September 2010 Response to **//Computer Game Studies, Year One//** by Espen Aarseth

 Aarseth approaches his article from two standpoints: The first being that video games are a "cognitive, communicative revolution", where he defends video games as a new method of communication, one that incorporates simulation with natural cognitive behaviours. The video game is premised on the user's own decisions and actions within a multitude of simul ated situations. He argues that games are "both object and process" and therefore are not coincidental because they require the user to involve him/her self in a creative and participatory way. Results cannot be easily predicted in the simulated environments of video games, as such in the real world, resulting in much more complex systems of communication than are required from other forms of communicative systems such as reading or listening to music or watching television. He raises the issue of the narrative and its role within the video game. I believe that video games are a more interactive method of communication when compared to the one-way communication models of TV and film. However, I also believe that when an individual is participating in a pre-meditated narrative that guides him or her as a player, or as a certain role within a simulated world, that the player responds in a manner that will result in a number of predicted outcomes based on the constraints he/she is forced to make decisions and act within. This being said, it can also be argued that this notion of a pre-meditated narrative and pre-defined roles within a simulated world is the "reality" in which we live today, and that these systems are unavoidable. The question is whether our reality is any less simulated than the worlds lived in video games.

Aarseth's second point elaborates on the restrictions within academia and its tendency to contain new fields of study into sub-fields. The colonizing nature of academic fields such as English, Psychology, Sociology, etc. have resulted in the sub-categorizing of video games within the field of "new media". However, Aarseth argues that video games cannot be considered "new media" because they are "not one medium, but many different media". I believe that the area of computer games can be its own field because of its elaborate nature and requires complete devotion to the process of story telling and complex computer programming. However, I also believe that as with all methods of communciation, it is subject to observation and consideration within other fields that study all such systems and their effects on the individual and on society. It will require a lot of time and patience to create a whole new field of study for computer gaming, since teachers and professors will need to be initially drawn from current established fields, as was seen in the case of New Media studies.

http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/editorial.html