Presentation - Astrid Ensslin

Video Games/-ing, Digital
Fiction and Virtual Worlds
Research
Dr Astrid Ensslin
Digital Media and Communication
School of Creative Studies and Media
Bangor University
[email protected]
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Background (1): digital literature
• Language and
semiotics
• Hypertextuality
• Multimodality
• ‘Canonicity’
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Background (2): discourse analysis
• Language in the
New Media
• Metalanguage
• Language ideologies
& attitudes
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VIDEOGAMES RESEARCH
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Food in games
• ‘Do avatars dream
of electric steak’?
• Energy supplies and
the (gendered)
cybernetic body
• See Ensslin (2011a)
Desperate Housewives (Buena
Vista Games 2006)
The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts
2006)
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Ludic digital literature vs. literary
computer games
TALE OF
TALES
(2009),
The Path
Nelson (2007) game, game, game and
again game
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Cybersomatics
Pullinger et al. (2004)
The Breathing Wall
cf. Ensslin (2009)
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The Language of Gaming:
Discourse and Ideology
• Textual architecture
• ‘Jargon’ and ‘buddylect’
• Illocution
• Dominant discourses
• Multimodality / voices
Black and White 2 (Lionhead
2005)
and accents
– Unconventional
oppositions
• (See Ensslin 2011b)
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VIRTUAL WORLDS
RESEARCH
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Hello!
I’m Tinto Bing.
Nice to meet you.

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This is where I live
and work:
Bangor University
Island…
…in Second Life…
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self-development needs
12%
3%
appearance
communication / relationships
cognitive/intellectual needs
emotional needs
existential needs
material needs
land
work
fun
comfort
intelligence /
learning skills
equality
shoes
nice character / fair
treatment
self-customisation /
self-expression
not many needs /
nothing
hair
design / building
skills
shape
house/home
money
skin
looks/beauty/appea
rance
communication /
interaction with
friendship
clothes
SL avatar needs
(see Ensslin 2011c)
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10
8
6
4
2
0
5%
42%
10%
4%
24%
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FL / SL architecture: remediation and
creativity
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Chapters by:
• Tom Boellstorff,
•
•
•
•
UCI, USA
Paul Sermon,
Salford
Denise Doyle,
Wolverhampton
Kevin Sherman,
AUT, NZ
…
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Metalanguage and the
Ideology of Creationist
Capitalism in Second Life®
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SL activities
• Commercial
– Shopping, buying, selling
– Property market
– Linden exchange
• Education
• Creative / aesthetic
– Design = creation
– ‘remediation’ of FL concepts
• Social / communicative
–
–
–
–
CMC (chat, IM, online discussion groups…)
Media
Groups and communities (incl. roleplay)
Norms and in-group behaviour
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‘Creationist capitalism’ = SL’s
political economy (Boellstorff 2008)
• Neoliberalism <- Californian libertarianism
• Creative class / creative industries
• Crowdsourcing, participatory culture (Howe 2006; Llewelyn
2006; Tapscott & Williams 2006, Jenkins 2006)
• Prosumption (prosumer = minor ‘god’)
• Labour = creativity; production = creation (selffulfilment; creation = human need)
– Creationist meritocracy
• Buzz phrases:
– ‘pronominal logic of customisation’ (‘you’ and ‘I’)
– ‘blurring of work and play’ (Yee 2006)
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‘Groups’ as meta-zone
N=661
Education
Translation
‘Policy’
Commodity
SIGs
N=
203
25
218
17
143
%
30.7
3.7
Salient
• SLA
• Scripting
• academic
Translation
services
32.9
• political
2.5
• Body
21.6
• National /
• Babel
• Help
• N’Asturianu
• ‘no xyz
• ‘Body
• ‘Grammar
categories
courses
E.g.
Language School
•Keystoner
(Lindenscripting)
• EIL 587 - CMC
for language
learning
Angels
• SL
Translation
Services
agendas
• register
• Idiom
language’
• ‘Italian
only’
language
• publishing
Language
Jewelry’
• Willpower
Publishing
ethnic… identities
• Artificial
(Gorean)
languages
• (Anti-) purism
• Researchers
Whores’
• ‘Typonese
Appreciation
Society’
• EUROCALL
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‘Body language by sweet lovely cute’
(Main Store, Koenji)
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Typonese and its ambivalent connotations
disease
Accepted variety
Required skill =>
privileged status
Eroticised /
hypersexualised /
commodified
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‘Places’ and objects as meta-zone
N=162
24/02/09
Education
Shopping /
commodity
Arts & Culture
Translation
N=
52
61
10
14
%
30.9
37.7
6.2
8.6
Salient
categories
• SLA
• scripting
• Body language
• ‘Love language’
• Language
• ethnic/national
• translation
• ‘Bidirectional
• ‘Mi pueblo’
• ‘Belfast Ireland
• ‘Babbler’
• ‘Language
‘products’
E.g.
• ‘Language Lab
Region’
multi-language
• ‘Goethe Institut’ greeter’
• ‘language love
• ‘College of
poofer’
Scripting, Music
and Language’
identity spaces
• combinations
with shopping/
education
Maritime Club’
• ‘Artisti della
Memoria’
services and
products
translator – by
Simbolic’’
• ‘metanomics.net
language translator
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Lorefield
Institute
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Learning at BABEL
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Further contacts, e.g.:
• Business:
• Asylum Entertainment, London
• The Game Creators
• Fred Hasson, former CEO of TIGA
• Mark Bernstein, Eastgate Systems
• Academia
• Prof Espen Aarseth, TU Copenhagen
• Brown University, MITH, Hedmark, Edmonton, Otago,
Yale, Aberystwyth, Sheffield Hallam…
• SMARTlab, UEL
• DiGRA, Nordic DiGRA, MeCCSA
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References (1)
• Boellstorff, Tom (2008), Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Buena Vista Games (2006) Desperate Housewives.
Electronic Arts (2006) The Sims 2.
Ensslin, Astrid (2007) Canonizing Hypertext: Explorations and Constructions. London:
Continuum.
Ensslin, Astrid (2009) ‘Respiratory narrative: Multimodality and cybernetic corporeality in
"physio-cybertext"’, in Ruth Page (ed) New Perspectives on Narrative and Multimodality, pp.
155-65 . London: Routledge.
Ensslin, A. & E. Muse (2009) ‘Creating spaces for virtual communities: The role of
architecture in Second Life’. Poster presented at MeCCSA 2009, Bradford, 14-16 Jan. 2009.
Ensslin, A. (2011a) ‘”Do Avatars Dream of Electric Steak?” – Games, Energy Supplies and
the Cybernetic Body’. Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, 3:1.
Ensslin, A. (2011b) The Language of Gaming: Discourse and Ideology. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Ensslin, A. (2011c) ‘Avatar Needs and the Remediation of Architecture in Second Life', in
Astrid Ensslin and Eben Muse (eds) Creating Second Lives: Community, Identity and
Spatiality as Constructions of the Virtual. New York: Routledge.
Ensslin, A. and E. Muse (2011) Creating Second Lives: Community, Identity and Spatiality
as Constructions of the Virtual. New York: Routledge.
geniwate and Larsen, Deena (2003) The Princess Murderer.
http://www.deenalarsen.net/princess/prin_murd.swf. Accessed 2 July 2010.
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References (2)
• Howe, Jeff (2006), ‘The rise of crowdsourcing’. Wired, 14(6).
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http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html (20/08/09).
Jenkins, H. (2006), Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.
New York: New York University Press.
Johnson, S. & A. Ensslin (eds.) (2007), Language in the Media: Representations,
Identities, Ideologies. London: Continuum.
Linden Research (2003-2010) Second Life. www.secondlife.com. Accessed 28
July 2010.
Lionhead Studios (2005) Black and White 2.
Llewelyn, Gwyneth (2006) ‘Crowdsourcing in Second Life’ (July 22).
http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2006/07/22/crowdsourcing-in-second-life/
(20/08/09).
Nelson, Jason (2007) game, game and again game.
http://www.secrettechnology.com/gamegame/gamegame6.html. Accessed 2
July 2010.
Pullinger, K., S. Schemat, and babel (2004) The Breathing Wall. London: The
Sayle Literary Agency.
TALE OF TALES (2009) The Path. http://tale-oftales.com/ThePath/downloads.html. accessed 25 July 2010.
Tapscott, D. & A.D. Williams (2006), Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration
Changes Everything. Portfolio.
Yee, N. (2006) ‘The labor of fun: how video games blur the boundaries of work
and play’. Games and Culture, 1(1): 68-71.
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