So discourse being what it is, we (and by “we” I mean a subset of game studies academics, game designers and critics) have somehow found ourselves back discussing the merits or pitfalls of formalism, alongside the creation of the (what I think is misguided) concept of “ludoessentialism”. I think, for all the frustration I see many of my ilk have (“here we go again!”), that the conversation has been somewhat productive, especially in regards to Cameron Kunzelman’s post that dissects Lantz’ form and content distinction and complicates it by thinking through the problem of what constitutes an assemblage in Deleuze and Guattari’s work on aesthetics and assemblages.
On the level of my own thoughts on on the core of the debate, and if there is such a thing as ludoessentialism, I go back to a post I made in 2013 when everybody was in a huff about Bioshock: Infinite and games made on twine:
The problem with formalism is never so much in the typologies themselves, but rather when they become prescriptive. High Modernist poetry was both at its best in its practice by the likes of Pound and T.S. Eliot and at it’s most conservative and dare I say it – fascist – when it became prescriptive.
I love the games I have played in Twine so far because they are themselves undisciplined in regards to the typologies of previous formalisms of games. That doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t a formal practice embedded in these communities. Rather it just hasn’t been explicated – there hasn’t been a manifesto of form – rather than has been more of a demand – to make games, no matter who you are. I look forward to when these designers (and those theorists who pay close attention to the games) wish to expound on their formal practices, what they see as the structuring elements of what they do, what they think makes for an evocative game on these platforms.
For me I would emphasize that fascist tendencies of prescriptive formalism. That’s dangerous and should be questioned whenever we see it.
The problem, however, is that Lantz and others aren’t advocating for prescriptive game design that conforms in whole to a formalist typology. Instead they are advocating for a method of analysis that is entirely ex post facto. One thing we should always remember about disciplines of design and academic analysis is that they are quite often demarcated by their methods, and certain game design cultures will advocate for their methods of analysis over others. We should be not be surprised that Lantz advocates for his (it is his job to, after all). Thankfully, however, I don’t think he thinks it’s the only way to study and understand what games are, otherwise he would have a lot of cultural studies scholars like myself asking him a lot of questions about what the hell we are supposed to do now.
Maybe the real problem that the advocates of ludoessentialism are worried about is a hegemony of thought, much like what Brandon Keogh criticized in his journal article last year. I responded by contextualizing the historical context of the various disciplines that make up game studies. I thought the problem wasn’t so much that there were authoritarians telling us not to conduct close readings of videogames in academia, but that the institutional cultures of our various disciplines alongside the political economy of the university was more the culprit here.
I would say that we face a similar problem today, but it’s not just about us tacitly accepting it as common sense but also as a function of wider structures of power. Game design programs are more likely to focus on (and hire those who specialize in) ludic, formalist analysis as a form of teaching because the university sells game design programs as professional development, rather than as a fully realized degree in the humanities (and even the humanities film studies and English have long standing formalist traditions). That we see a lot of these designers who become members of the academic and critical community with a visible position in the industry as well, we should recognize that it’s not so much a hegemony in the wider culture about how to think about games (because Lantz is right, the formalists are just a powerless towards the AAA game industry as those of us in cultural studies like me using Marx to analyze Steam) but rather a small institutional preference and platform for certain modes of thought. I think that at the end of the day there is no one person we can point to and accuse for “ludoessentialist’ thought that prescribes as much as it analyzes, at least in the academy, anyways. If there are critics whose entire practice is prescriptive formalism, I doubt they will listen to any critique of their work, because it is ridiculous.
So how do I position myself in this ludic knife fight? Where do I stand in regards to Lantzs distinction of form and content? What about the very real concerns of those with the over emphasis of criticism and analysis on systems and mechanics?
For both I rely on assemblage theory to help piece together, and make sense analytically, of what a game is. Both as an individual object and as a piece in a larger assemblage. It is simultaneously made up of its mechanics, code, and the cultural signifiers that Lantz describes as “content”. Assemblages also allow us to think through the problem of micro and macro scale of interactions that comprise how games function and come into being. I have a journal article that uses them to link the formal qualities and aesthetics of independent video game production with urban geography and cultural policy. My good friend Lee Knuttila and I wrote about this in our chapter in the Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies. Our chapter dealt with the prompt of “single and multiplayer games”. We worked through this distinction with assemblage theory. I’ll sign off with this section from it:
A key aspect of any assemblage is the way it exercises different sets of capacities, which can lead to macro-assemblages or micro-assemblage with individual capabilities. Thus, just as a wide net is required to understand how the Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed franchises operate against (or with) fiscal pressures, user expectation, and established gameplay mechanics, types of multiplayer and single-player games are both strengthened and weakened across platforms. With the ongoing proliferation of games for mobile phones and tablets, the particular propensities of single-player/multiplayer games change. Although the entry into the market may be smaller than consoles and bear more similarities to the PC, the mobile game market remains highly saturated, meaning individual titles and games attempt to gain consumer visibility on several fronts.
The interactive entertainment company Kabam makes free-to-play games that mimic mechanics of popular MMOGs. Their title Arcane Empires (2012) designed for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices draws upon the city-building play of strategy games with players constructing different sets of buildings, raising armies, and managing population resources and happiness, while the game also angles into MMOG systems of peer-versus-peer battle, alliances, global chat, and so on. Temporality is a key aspect of the game system, as most tasks rely on elapsed real-time counters, which purchasing ingame coins can circumvent. Unlike PC MMOGs that rely on complex control schemes, titles such as Arcane Empires must develop key schemes based on a touch screen. One element recurrent to many multiplayer titles, especially MMOGs, is extended play sessions allowing multiple player tasks and community actions such as raids to play out, which conflicts with mobile gaming’s function as frequent and temporary entertainment. Granted, iPads and mobile phones garner great attention for prolonged periods, yet popular titles often function equally well between bus stops or for hours at home.
Economic choices (the free-to-play price but pay-for-convenience structure) and gameplay elements (simplified control structures) attempt to draw in the widest swath of players through hybrid game types, employing aesthetic styles that hold some cultural cache (in the case of Arcane Empires, steampunk), and all of these aspects effect a game’s development, advertising, lifespan, player interactions, and so on. It is tempting to align the popularity of single-player titles such as those of the Angry Birds franchise to the playful aesthetic or simple controls yet this overlooks a wide network of factors. Equally, while the charms of the briefly popular Draw Something (OMGPOP, 2012) may seem to be the delight of player-to-player exchanges against the limits of the drawing palette, there is an array of factors at work. On multiple fronts, mobile titles frequently perform a balancing act of capitalizing on assemblages with strength (game type, aesthetic trends, temporal player tastes, familiarity or curiosity in the casual game market, and so on) with simultaneous attempts to destabilize others in order to gain traction, especially in gatekeeper distribution platforms such as the iTunes store. Seeking out how spaces of play (from desks to train seats to sofas), the borrowing of other platform styles, and the rebalancing of them against the limits and abilities of a platform, drive yet another questioning of monolithic categories such as cooperation or competition, while opening new avenues to think of material and expressive effects at work.