Ethnographic Video Games

LORINA NAVARRO

navarro. lor ina@gmai l .com

UGAT Conference 2014 / / baguio ci ty, phi l ippines

U s i ng g a m e s fo r e thno g ra p h i c re p re s e nta t i o ns

G E L V E Z O N - T E Q U I , O F E L I A . V I S I O N S O F A B O D H I S A T T V A 1 9 9 9 . B U L W A G A N N G D A N G A L . H T T P : / / G E L V E Z O N - T E Q U I . V I T E N E T . C O M / G A L L E R Y / 2 0 0 2 - E X H I B I T . H T M L

My name is Lorina, and I am a gamer

About the Gaming Industry

$75.2 billion dollars in expected global revenue (2014)

59% of Americans play videogames

48% of gamers are women

The average gamer is 31 years old

H T T P : / / W W W . T H E E S A . C O M / F A C T S / P D F S / E S A _ E F _ 2 0 1 4 . P D FH T T P : / / W W W . N E W Z O O . C O M / I N F O G R A P H I C S / G L O B A L - G A M E S - M A R K E T - R E P O R T - I N F O G R A P H I C S /

Games cut across classes, genders and geographies.

Serious Games

Urban Planning

Social impact games

Papers, Please

Anthropology and Games

Cultural meanings of “play”

Ethnographies of gaming communities

“The virtual borrows from the real, but the real is also virtual“Tom Boelstorff

A card from Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson’s board game “Democracies and Dictators”

Video Games made by Anthropologists?

As far as I know: none

What is a Game?

“A game is an activity defined by rules in which players try to reach some sort of goal.”

“A video game is a cultural object, bound by history and materiality, consisting of an electronic computational device and a game simulated in software.”

-Alexander Galloway, “Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture”

Other Characteristics of Video Games

They are action-based (Galloway, 2007)

They represent a subset of reality (Crawford, 1982)

They carry beliefs within their representation systems and mechanics (Flanagan, 2009)

How will games provide a different type of ethnography?

Immersive, affective & embodied

Actively engages player decisions

Represents player in many ways (“subjective shot”, avatars)

Visual and sensory

Haptics, motion-sensing, virtual reality and more to come!

Adds depth and validity to games

Anito, a Philippine-developed game set in 16th century Philippines

(1) a system that involves players, actions and rules

(2) enriched by experience-near interpretations of culture and

(3) informed by anthropological theory

Ethnographic Video Game

Poetic and Political

Not an “objective” account of culture

Must balance cultural authenticity with artistry

Collaborative/Participatory

Game must be designed in collaboration with informants

Must allow subjects to be co-creators

Never Alone Based on Inupiaq folklore

Done in collaboration with the Inupiaq tribal council

Game contains videos and insights from Inupiaq community

Represents the underrepresented

Include different voices

Challenge power structures

Interpretive and Reflexive

Not just a simulation, but must have interpretation & theory

Need to disclose author’s biases somehow

Final words

Tools for making games

Examples: Games Factory, Game Maker, Scratch, Twine

Dys4ia, Anna Anthropy. Made with Games Factory

Games Factory Twine

Multidisciplinary Approach

Work with game designers, programmers, artists, etc.

Learn from Game Design, e.g., creating game prototypes

Problematizing representations

The spatial, temporal, the kinetic, the affective, the sensual, the material

Experiment with the “grammar” of games to get message across

Thank You!LORINA NAVARRO

navarro.lorina@gmail.com