investiGaming is a publication of the Serious Game Design group in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University, 2007-2009
This gateway is partially supported by grant 0631771 from the National Science Foundation.
The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent Michigan State University or the National Science Foundation.
Author: Fullerton, Tracy, Fron, Janine and Pearce, Celia
Date: 2008
Source: The Fibreculture Journal, issue 11
Full Text Link:
http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue11/issue11_fullerton_morie_pearce.html
Synopsis:
Proposes a “new poetics” of game space in which game design is more egalitarian and games themselves draw on a wider range of spatial and cognitive models.
Keywords:
academia, journal article, MMO, player types, motivations, pink games, what women want, game design, competition, storytelling, empowerment, femininity, the Sims
Abstract:
ABSTRACT:
The techno-fetishism of computer game culture has lead to a predominately male sensibility towards the construction of space in digital entertainment. Real-time strategy games conceive of space as a domain to be conquered; first-person shooters create labyrinthine battlefields in which space becomes a context for combat. Massively multiplayer games offer the opportunity for non-linear exploration, but emphasize linear achievement within a combat-based narrative. In this paper, we argue for a new gendered, regendered and perhaps degendered poetics of game space, rethinking ways in which space is conceptualized and represented as a domain for play. We argue for a more egalitarian virtual playground that acknowledges and embraces a wider range of spatial and cognitive models, referencing literature, philosophy, fine art and non-digital games for inspiration. Reflecting on a variety of sources, beginning with Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, feminist writings of Charlotte Gilman Perkins, Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, Judith Butler, Janet Murray, and including contemporary game writers such as Lizbeth Klastrup, Mary Flanagan, Maia Engeli, and T.L. Taylor, we will argue for a new gendered poetics of game space, proposing an inclusionary approach that integrates feminine conceptions of space into the gaming landscape.
CONCLUSION:
The construction of space in the mainstream videogame industry has evolved primarily around male models of space and agency. In this paper, we identify a direction for a new poetics of game space that is more inclusionary and gender balanced, and advocate, after Woolf, for an androgynous mind of game design. Drawing from classic literature, as well as contemporary practices of VR art, we have provided illustrations of the rich diversity of inclusionary game space possibilities. Although they represent only a handful of examples, these experiments in alternative space all possess a quality decidedly lacking in many video games: a sense of wonder, a sense of the sublime, a sense of awe. Players seek to experience a sense of wonder within a magical world, a key pleasure of the literary forms described above. We encourage the exploration of these and other unique spaces in game design and game culture, towards more egalitarian and expanded domains for play where everyone can feel included, inspired, enlivened and entertained.