Language Games/Game Languages

1. Language Games/Game Languages Examining Design Epistemologies Through a Wittgensteinian Lens Nis Bojin, Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts and Technology Burnaby, BC. Canada

2. "The fact that people use the nomenclature 'grinding' to describe what they do in online games is a bad sign.” Designer, Richard Garriott

3. “the technique of use of a word gives us an idea of very general truths about the world in which it is used, of truths in fact which are so general that they don’t strike people…” Ludwig Wittgenstein

4. What IS the role of language in game design?

5. More specifically... • How design is directly influenced by the way we talk/speak/write about it/ask questions about it/DO it. • How play is subsequently influenced by that design • How even the questions we ask within our design paradigms are based on an epistemology which is tied to language itself and the ‘grammar’ surrounding design paradigms (i.e. the rules, norms and conventions typically followed in game design) • (particular emphasis on MMO design)

6. Wittgenstein’s Language-games • Language Games: Turns to games as an analogy for language. (boundaries, rules/grammar, players/participants) • The term ‘language-game’ “is meant to bring into prominence that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life”, it is the “whole consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven” • Taken up in game studies as a point of both acceptance and refutation (S&Z/Suits) • Game Languages: Turning Wittgenstein’s notion around on the design practices of games rather than the games themselves • The Grammar of Design: Design as Language

7. Game Languages • Looking at ‘Game Languages’ as a confluence of: • 1-The Language and Discourse around Game Design • 2-Game Design as a Language in and of itself (praxis)

8. Game Languages cont. • Knowledge precedes language: language becomes the form with which we express/describe that knowledge and subsequently reinforces it. • As a result, language cements an epistemology and/or paradigms with in it via linguistic conventions established through language-game play • How is this immediately relative to design?

9. ‘Semiotic Domains’

10. Semiotic Domains • James Gee-Construction of Semiotic Domains “any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities to communicate distinctive types of meanings”. • Design as the crafting of semiotic domains • There is a literacy involved in the participating in a given domain, including the linguistic and practical conventions and knowledge of the rules, signs/modalities and their meanings (Gee, Rieber etc.). • Semiotic domains are designed spaces, and much like Wittgenstein, Gee places great emphasis on the practice that has gone into the construction of and participation in semiotic domains. • The crafting of semiotic domains is what occurs through language-game play

11. Design Epistemologies • The language of game design, much like games themselves, are shaped by player and by designer (Gee). • Languages reinforce epistemologies, and vice versa. • e.g. even terminology for shortcomings in design further reify and legitimize these ‘shortcomings’ as convention in such that they become elements accepted by designers and expected by players (e.g. ‘rails’, ‘fed-exing’, ‘grinding’) • We speak of these things as being native to games: prying the ‘language’, ‘linguistic discourse’ and ‘linguistic practice’ apart from the paradigm becomes difficult

12. Why?

13. the reason we are “still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks…[is] because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions” Wittgenstein “ [the] reason there is so much "me-too" derivative design out there [is that] few take the time to develop the internal conceptual language” Tim Carter

14. How?

15. Meaning and Rhetoric • Meaning to Wittgenstein is established through use: the use of words and the moves made in a language game (constriction of elliptical phraseology). • The implementation of particular mechanics and design schemas secure in praxis the use of particular terminology, forming the basis of a reifying rhetoric that justifies and upholds design epistemologies • This epistemological rhetoric subsequently influences what is construed as ‘play’ by players and designers alike. The language games of design and play blur.

16. Garriott’s Lament • Brings us back to Garriott’s notion of the very nomenclature of current MMO design paradigms being part and parcel of what he would consider the undoing of the genre.

17. Is it possible that he is pointing to a symptom and not a cause? What about a political economic perspective? Well...he’s pointing to both... And an economic take is indeed apt, but...

18. Guild Wars and the Grind • Guild Wars • Skill vs. Time Invested Model • Financial Model is non-subscription based (designer blog on grind) • And yet over time grinding has become more of a frequently implemented design element in each subsequent iteration • Why?

19. Beyond Grinding Designer Tim Carter--derivative ‘me too’ design is for the lack of care to conceptual language -damage infliction mechanics (DPS) -in-game currency/markets (cap. ideology) -’genre’ (etymological underpinnings) -design textbooks “inventory and power-ups” -game fiction-fantasy and perpetual redux Diegetic and extra-diegetic elements also carry rhetorical weight in the formation and re-affirmation of particular design epistemologies (fantasy/sci-fi)

20. Ideology and Rhetoric • The practice of the language-game of game design is one which serves to further solidify itself through language and praxis, formulating conventions which become so deeply inscribed within language-games participants that they become difficult to deviate from. The dominant paradigms reign from below, permeating other paradigms (e.g. WoW’s lofty market position among MMOs) • The more participants that invest in the language-game of the dominant paradigm, the more that the subsequent encroachment into similar paradigms becomes suffocating and as such, emerging epistemologies which often attempt to undergo a shift (such as Guild Wars etc.) are highly susceptible to being implicitly undermined by the conventions already fastened in place through a communal acceptance and justification.

21. Sutton-Smith: Rhetorical Hegemony

22. Rhetorical Hegemony • ‘Rhetorical hegemony’ within the language-game of design is essentially the linguistic conventions, both through the exchange of language and the resulting practice that reinforce and cement the design epistemologies within which game designers construct semiotic domains: domains which intrinsically reflect those epistemologies and which implicitly assert domination over other rhetorics.

23. What does this mean? • Focused recognition of the fact that game design in many ways takes on its form because we continue to speak about and engage with it in the same ways: language exchange and practice within a language-game can simply never be pried apart from one another as they are organically and intrinsically enmeshed with one another. The language of game design, the discourse around game design and the praxis of game design are all inseparable, their intersections blurred.

24. Why does this matter? • Return to “ How play is subsequently influenced by design” • “Epistemological rhetoric subsequently influences what is construed as ‘play’ by players and designers alike” • As instances of ‘grind’ or any other standard design concept/element sediment themselves between the layers of a design epistemology, meanings implode under the weight of rhetoric...play included

25. Looking Forward: Ludic Hegemony

26. Ludic Hegemony • Un-Defining--Play as private language (Wittgenstein and Pain) • If we assume Wittgenstein’s model, play is only communicable via communal acknowledgment of cues (Bateman etc.) • Semiotic Domains-Design and Manipulation of Meaning (MMO’s in particular introduce power flows) • The Lusory Attitude---a consent to the game’s system-a consented to system of in-game engagement which does not necessarily reflect player’s best interests. Would posit that hegemonic consent is what the lusory attitude can/often does becomes in the context of MMO governance. • Work-play dichotomy--nebulous terminology . Instead, a focus on how we ‘know’ play (not how we define it) and what shapes these ludic epistemologies (de Castell). Wittgenstein hopefully represents one particular lens through which to look.

27. Game designer Tim Carter writes: “Language (of any type) is extremely important because it takes effervescent ideas and forms them into structured units; units which can then be recombined to create larger, more explicit and more advanced conceptual frameworks […] one reason there is so much "me-too" derivative design out there [is that] few take the time to develop the internal conceptual language you need to arrive at something really original.” (Tim Carter, Gamasutra, 2007)