Call for Presentations: Perception in Games and Virtual Worlds

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Seminar in Athens, Greece: 01-02 September, 2022.

The Norwegian Institute in Athens

 

Both traditional games and games that take place in virtual environments rely on play-states that are essentially designed around perceptual features that play crucial roles in aiding how the player is acting in the gaming environment. This is apparent by the fact that they prominently rely on phenomenal spatial structures, but also by a variety of perceptual roles that enter into elements like storytelling, sound, kinesthetic feedback and immersive design. 

How should we understand the character of perception in games and virtual environments?  While normal perception registers ordinary perceptual properties, players perceive objects and properties imposed by images, rules, symbols and ludic context. In the perception of virtual worlds, the user is not perceiving ordinary objects, but rather images and symbols designed to instil imagination and to convey semantic contents. In traditional games the players perceive objects and properties determined by rules and play. 

In this workshop we aim to discuss questions that pertain to perceptual content and its relationship with player action.

Among the questions we wish to explore are:

  • Is perception in virtual worlds veridical? Is it appropriate to talk of perception in virtual worlds?
  • Do we perceive game properties?
  • How should we understand subjectivity and perception mediated by avatars?
  • How do cultural and ideological frames shape perceptual experience?
  • How does the reality status of objects and properties affect the characterization of perceptual content?
  • What are the phenomenal characteristics of gaming experiences?
  • How is narrative, fictional worlds and gaming structured around perceptual states?
  • How is imagination, make-believe and fantasy related to perception in games?
  • In what manners are perceptual schema like space, time, objecthood and modality utilized in gaming?
  • What is the relationship between inference and perceptual content in games?
  • How do we perceive affordances in games?
  • Can the perceptual content of games be analyzed as “seeing as”?
  • What are the phenomenal characteristics of perceptual experiences that are distinctive to ludic environments?
  • How should we characterize the consciousness that accompanies perception of games and virtual environments?

Contributions from different scholarly approaches are welcome, such as game studies, cognitive science, enactivist perception theory, phenomenology, fiction theory, media philosophy, and classic philosophies of perception.

To establish a common frame of reference, three existing articles on the topic will be distributed for common reading. Please submit an abstract (max 3000 characters) in this form: https://bit.ly/3PHRrYD and send a copy to perceptioningames@gmail.com by August 1.  The participants will be required to submit a 1-2 page synopsis for circulation right before the seminar. We highly appreciate presentations that can be submitted as papers to the Journal of the Philosophy of Games, but the participants are free to publish their work where they want.

The seminar is organized by Game Philosophy Network, Cultural Informatics, Data and Computational Cultural Studies Lab [CID-CCS Lab] at Panteion University, and the Department of Philosophy and Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway.

Organizing Committee: Anita Leirfall, Elina Roinioti, John R. Sageng and Rune Klevjer.

Call for Papers: “The Genre Buster – On Terminology, History, Worldbuilding and Gameplay of the Immersive Sim”

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Dear community of the Game Philosophy Network,

it is my pleasure to share with you the Call for Papers “The Genre Buster – On Terminology, History, Worldbuilding and Gameplay of the Immersive Sim.”
It will be a special issue for the online journal Paidia and was conceptualized by me dear colleagues Hajo Backe (ITU Copenhagen), Felix Zimmermann (University of Cologne) and me.
At a glance:
  • Research/research projects on all possible facets of Immersive Sim welcome (see below for possible topics and questions)
  • Abstract by 04/10/2022 (max. 300 words) to paidia(at)germanistik.uni-muenchen.de (blind peer review process)
  • Feedback by the end of May
  • Full paper to be submitted by 10/15/2022
  • Contributions in German and English possible

One of the most talked-about, well-reviewed, and awarded1 games of 2021, Deathloop (Arkane 2021.) stands in a long tradition of digital games like System Shock (Looking Glass Studios 1994.), Deus Ex (Ion Storm 2000.) and Bioshock (Irrational Games 2007.) that are often referred to as “immersive simulation games” or “immersive sims”, for short. Are these games a genre, a style, a school, or a mode? It doesn’t make things any easier that the name “immersive sim” is an actual misreading of the text it originates in: Warren Spector’s Postmortem of Deus Ex uses the term, but in a descriptive fashion for only one of the many facets of the game, when he characterizes it as “part immersive simulation, part role-playing game, part first-person shooter, part adventure game”.2

Deathloop’s developer, Arkane Studios, has specialized in immersive sims, like 2K Boston, Irrational Games, and Looking Glass Studios before them. These developers are often credited with pioneering countless innovations of action-adventure gameplay that have permeated into the mainstream of digital games, to the point that immersive sims are effectively declared passé by one of the former studio bosses of Arkane, Raphael Colantonio, when he claims that “the genre will eventually disappear because its values must migrate to all genres eventually”.3 What is more, these games themselves, despite their acclaim and influence, have notoriously under-performed in terms of sales. Deathloop has fallen short even of its predecessor, Prey (Arkane 2017), in both copies sold4 and number of concurrent players.5 So why are these games so revered by fans and game developers alike, yet fail to attract a large player-base? Why are they considered so influential and at the same time inaccessible and somewhat obscure? Are they, to borrow the words of Forbes contributor Paul Tassi, “not designed to sell very well”?6 And in addition: why are they, given their critical acclaim and often non-commercial attitudes, not embraced as game art to the degree that many indie games are?

That none of these questions is easy to answer is maybe unsurprising given that there’s little consensus about what defines these games. There is a whole range of commonalities between them. To highlight just three: (1) Their game design emphasizes alternative solutions to problems, usually favoring stealth and cunning over brute force. With regards to both Dishonored games and Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal 2011), among others, most levels are laid out as branching, multi-path structures embodying different modes of play and thus reward the player with diverse solutions to solve a quest or parts of it. Hence, immersive sim architectures are tightly interlaced with a certain openness of the quest design; (2) in addition, their lead designers – Warren Spector, Harvey Smith, Ken Levine, to name but a few of the most prominent figures – are often considered game auteurs; (3) finally, an immersive sim gameplay experience can lead to a specific empowerment of the player, while at the same time, it can evoke an “aporetic experience” in the sense of Darshana Jayemanne, meaning that the player can be overwhelmed by a game situation and has to gain advantage out of her own uncertainty.7

Immersive sims, or what has come to be known as immersive sims, appear to be very much “genre-busting” as Warren Spector already proclaimed for Deus Ex.8 It seems only natural, then, that where a new alleged immersive sim emerges, a discussion about this prevalent but ephemeral term follows. Again, the recent Deathloop can serve as an example. For the online magazine Edge, Alex Spencer takes the release of the game as an incentive to talk about the history and future of the “imperfect label” that is immersive sim.9 He even goes so far as to say that Deathloop “seems to have been designed to address some of the flaws of the immersive sim”.10 Or consider the piece on The Escapist by Andrei Pechalin who claims that Deathloop is a “subversion of immersive sim expectations”.11 The aforementioned stealth and cunning that appear to be significant for immersive sim games have been, according to Pechalin, replaced by a decidedly “quick pacing” which, however, “saps some of that atmosphere” characteristic for the immersive sim experience of earlier games.12 But does this mean that Deathloop isn’t an immersive sim anymore? Or is it just a different, maybe more accessible version of it? Considering all these critical thoughts, one can also ask if Arkane created Deathloop with the intention of being self-reflective or a meta commentary on their past games and on the specific peculiarities of the immersive sims in general.

One would be mistaken to assume that this discussion confines itself to circles of experts. A quick search on the subreddit for Deathloop reveals numerous entries on immersive sim. Similarly to the argument brought forth by Pechalin, players discuss if and to what degree Deathloop “will work and help the genre become more popular in the future” because of its more action-oriented gameplay.13 Others ask whether Deathloop even still is an immersive sim, or a “light immersive sim” in comparison to previous titles like Prey or Dishonored (Arkane 2012).14There even is a – albeit small – subreddit specifically dedicated to immersive sims (r/ImmersiveSims).

It is noticeable that these discussions almost always go the way of comparing new entries to the manageable number of games in what appears to be an immersive sim canon. Players as well as journalists often collect these games in listicles15 with usual suspects like Thief: The Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios 1998), Dishonored and Deus Ex always making the cut. More controversial picks like the 2016 reboot of the Hitman series (IO Interactive 2016-2021) signify the volatility of these canon-like collections and the term “immersive sim” as a whole. Nevertheless, it appears to be impossible to talk about games that could be deemed worthy of this label without considering the tradition, the historical context of their existence.

However, while – as we have shown – journalists and players alike regularly engage in discussion on the use and limitations of the immersive sim terminology, the scientific community remains surprisingly absent from these debates. This is not to say that there is no scholarly research on the aforementioned games. Although games like Bioshock Infinite  (Irrational Games 2013)16 or Dishonored17 have drawn attention, we still see the need for a unifying approach which considers these and other games specifically in light of their status as immersive sims.

With this special issue, we aim to engage – for the first time, to our knowledge – in a scholarly debate about the fundamental implications of the immersive sim term. Hence we encourage interested researchers from all disciplines to reflect and argue critically on topics and questions that include, but are not limited to, the following:

– The historicization of the immersive sim

– The question of whether the immersive sim is a genre, style, or mode, or something else

– The distinct properties of the immersive sim (e.g. agency, choice making, worldbuilding, environmental storytelling, possibility space)

– The originality, tradition and/or innovation within the immersive sim phenomenon

– The question of how to deal with cases where the “genre-busting” genre immersive sim adopts influences from other genres or styles (like rogue-like)

– The question of perspective (e.g. is the first-person/subjective point of view a constitutive part of the immersive sim?)

– Production contexts of the immersive sim (e.g. personnel continuities, auteur games, artistic ambitions, focus on aesthetics)

– The general role of specific developer studios (e.g. Irrational Games, Arkane) or publishers (e.g. Bethesda)

– The question of whether the immersive sim is a niche product, art, indie, or mainstream

– The metareflexive potential of the immersive sim e.g. as in revealing a possible status between toys and games

– Case studies of (classic) immersive sim games from current scholarly approaches (e.g. gender studies, queer studies or critical race studies)

– Exploring borderline cases of the immersive sim (e.g. Hitman reboot series, Cyberpunk 2077, Dying Light 2 Stay Human)

– The connection between ludonarrative dissonance and immersive sims

– Explorations on the specific atmospheres or architectonics of the immersive sim

Important information:

Contributions will be accepted in either English or German.

If you want to contribute please send an abstract of 300 words until 10th of April to paidia@germanistik.uni-muenchen.de. Please use usual formats like pdf, docx or rtf.

The proposals will enter a blind peer review process, please anonymize your document.

The full paper shall not exceed 35.000 characters (including blanks) and has to be submitted by 15th of October so that the special issue can be published on www.paidia.de in Winter/Spring 2022/2023. PAIDIA is a scientific non-profit project which is why the published contributions are unremunerated.

For further questions concerning the topic ‘immersive sim’ please contact the editors of the special issue:

Hans-Joachim Backe: hanj@itu.dk

Marc Bonner: mbonner@uni-koeln.de

Felix Zimmermann: kontakt@felix-zimmermann.net

Abstracts deadline: May 1st 2022

Announcement of proposal acceptance: May 2022

Full paper submissions deadline: October 15th 2022

Academic Game Philosophy Discord

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Hello! I’m Kutub Gandhi, a second year PhD student interested in teaching philosophy through games. The pandemic has limited my ability to find like minded individuals, and in that vein I’ve created a discord for academics interested in game philosophy.
I hope that it can serve as an unofficial messaging platform for the game philosophy network; a platform for any and all discussion under the wide umbrella of games and philosophy.
If there are enough interested members, I could even see the discord hosting reading groups or social hours. Join at this link (https://discord.gg/QPzvX5NfX9) and feel free to invite your peers who may be interested!

Game: Doors – A Playable Philosophical Essay on In-game Doors

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Prof. Stefano Gualeni (University of Malta) and his team, which includes Dr. Nele Van de Mosselaer (University of Antwerp, Belgium) and other members of the Institute of Digital Games (University of Malta), are happy to announce the launch of a new, FREE and SHORT playful attempt at making a new set of philosophical arguments.

You might remember their previous game about the analytical definition of what a soup is: Something Something Soup Something. Well, their new game is titled ‘Doors’ and is about doors. It takes about 20 minutes and it is great for in-class use.

PLAY IT AT: https://doors.gua-le-ni.com

‘Doors’ was made possible with funds made available by Maltco Lotteries and the FWO (FWO Research Foundation – Flanders).

What is the game about?

‘Doors’ is a ‘playable essay’ designed to playfully examine existing theories about how objects are represented within games and virtual worlds more in general. Each door in the game raises a different question regarding its representation!

How is it valuable as a didactic tool?

‘Doors’ can be used in a variety of ways, beyond being played and reflected upon. It can be assigned as homework in order to stimulate in-class conversations concerning the representation of in-game objects and related theories in fields such as the philosophy of fiction, the philosophy of imagination, the philosophy of games, game studies, and so on.

Also, each student can be tasked – as an assignment – to find doors in games that are represented in a way that aligns with one of the categories offered by the game (and related literature). After that, they can present to the rest of the class about what they found, such as interesting overlaps and uses, cases that transcend basic categorizations, or particularly relevant examples.

All the doors and the papers connected to each are also possible to be browsed off-game HERE.

‘Doors’ is a SHORT and FREE experiment in playable philosophy about in-game doors. Do you think you can HANDLE it?

Book: The Aestehetics of Virtual Reality

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It is a significant event that Grant Tavinor has a new book out. While it is about virtual reality rather than computer games, it will no doubt be read and used by many game philosophers.  This is the book description:

This is the first book to present an aesthetics of virtual reality media. It situates virtual reality media in terms of the philosophy of the arts, comparing them to more familiar media such as painting, film and photography.

When philosophers have approached virtual reality, they have almost always done so through the lens of metaphysics, asking questions about the reality of virtual items and worlds, about the value of such things, and indeed, about how they may reshape our understanding of the real world. Grant Tavinor finds that approach to be fundamentally mistaken, and that to really account for virtual reality, we must focus on the medium and its uses, and not the hypothetical and speculative instances that are typically the focus of earlier works. He also argues that much of the cultural and metaphysical hype around virtual reality is undeserved. But this does not mean that virtual reality is illusory or uninteresting; on the contrary, it is significant for the altogether different reason that it overturns much of our understanding of how representational media can function and what we can use them to achieve.

The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, philosophy of art, philosophy of technology, metaphysics, and game studies.

 

 

 

Journal Article: Ludic Unreliability and Deceptive Game Design

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Stefano Gualeni and Nele Van de Mosselaer have a new paper out in the online first issue for Journal of the Philosophy of Games. This is the abstract:

Drawing from narratology and design studies, this article makes use of the notions of the ‘implied designer’ and ‘ludic unreliability’ to understand deceptive game design as a specific subset of trans-gressive game design. More specifically, in this text wepresent deceptive game design as the delib-erate attempt to misguide players’ inferences about the designers’ intentions. Furthermore, we argue that deceptive design should not merely be taken as a set of design choices aimed at misleading players in theirefforts to understand the game, but also as decisions devised to give rise to experien-tial and emotional effects that are in the interest of players. Finally, we propose to introduce a dis-tinction between two varieties of deceptive design approaches basedon whether they operate in an overt or a covert fashion in relation to player experience. Our analysis casts light on expressive pos-sibilities that are not customarily part of the dominant paradigm of user-centered design, and can inform game designers intheir pursuit of wider and more nuanced creative aspirations.

Call for Papers: Chinese DiGRA 2021

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The call for the annual conference of Chinese DiGRA chapter is out, and the organizers wish to encourage game philosophers to submit abstracts to the conference. Please find the full call for papers below:

We are excited to announce this year’s Chinese DiGRA conference, hosted by the Academy of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University on the 4th of December 2021. Given the current restrictions on travel, we are planning this year’s Chinese DiGRA as a hybrid online and in-person event. Accepted papers will be pre-recorded as videos and live panels and paper discussions held in person and on Zoom.

We invite submissions on any aspect of Chinese games, game industries, game design and gaming cultures. We also invite submissions from people located in the Chinese-speaking region who are researching any aspect of games. The conference encourages papers from students and early career researchers as well as game industry workers. In addition to encouraging general submissions, our keynotes and themed panels will engage the converging trajectories of user-generated content and cryptocurrencies.

Keynote Speakers: To be announced.

Format:
Submissions can be in English or Chinese.
Please submit a maximum 1000 word (or 1700 characters) extended abstract.

Important dates:
October 16th: Deadline for submissions
October 26th: Decisions announced. Presenters receive additional practical information about how to record and submit their presentations (we recommend PowerPoint with voiceover or the free and open software OBS [Open Broadcast Software])
November 12th: Conference registration opens
November 12th: To facilitate uploading and translation, we ask all presenters to send us a video (or a PowerPoint presentation with voiceover) and a transcript of their presentation in advance.
December 4th: Conference.

How to submit:

Please email a pdf version of a maximum 1000-word/1700 character (excluding references) extended abstract no later than October 16th, 2021 to peteracnelson@hkbu.edu.hk. Please make sure to include “CDiGRA2021 Submission” in the subject line of your message. Extended abstracts will be selected by conference and program chairs based on their academic rigour and relevance to the themes of the conference. Note that the extended abstracts do not need to be anonymous. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by October 26th. Accepted authors will have an opportunity to submit their extended abstracts for inclusion in the DiGRA Digital Library. For questions regarding paper submission and the topics of the conference, or questions on the conference, please contact peteracnelson@hkbu.edu.hk.
Organization description and history

Chinese DiGRA (中华电子游戏研究协会​ /​ 中華 數位遊戲研究協會) is a regional chapter of DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) focusing on game research relevant to Chinese speaking countries and the surrounding regions. Chinese DiGRA aims to enhance the quality, quantity, and international profile of games research in the Chinese-speaking context, by developing a network of game scholars and researchers working in the Chinese-speaking world and/or on aspects of Chinese games and gaming cultures, forging links between academic and professional researchers on games, supporting teaching and PhD development in the region, and disseminating and promoting Chinese game scholarship around the world. Chinese DiGRA is run by a board comprised of top academics in the fields of Chinese games research from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. You can find more information on Chinese DiGRA, including papers from previous conferences, at our website.

Journal Article: Why So Serious? The Nature and Value of Play

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Mike Ridge has another paper out, this time in Philosophy and Phenomenology Research. Here is the abstract:

In this paper, I develop an account of play and playfulness, argue it is superior to its rivals and investigate the value of play so understood. I begin by laying out some interesting semantic features of ‘play’ which have not previously been systematically investigated (section 1). A failure to note these distinctions can lead theorists (and has led them) into unwitting equivocations and confusions. Drawing on this broader semantic framework, I lay out and motivate a positive account of the meaning of ‘play’ and the nature of play full-stop (section 2). I then survey some of this account’s main advantages (section 3) and argue that the theory helps us better understand the value of play (section 4), where this value should inform both moral theory and political philosophy. I then compare the proposal with rival theories (section 5). I conclude by suggesting directions for further research.

Journal Article: How to Understand Rule-Constituted Kinds

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An interesting paper about rule-constituted kinds was recently published by Manuel García-Carpintero in Review of Philosophy and Psychology.

Here is the abstract for the paper:

The paper distinguishes between two conceptions of kinds defined by constitutive rules, the one suggested by Searle, and the one invoked by Williamson to define assertion. Against recent arguments to the contrary by Maitra, Johnson and others, it argues for the superiority of the latter in the first place as an account of games. On this basis, the paper argues that the alleged disanalogies between real games and language games suggested in the literature in fact don’t exist. The paper relies on Rawls’s distinction between types (“blueprints”, as Rawls called them) of practices and institutions defined by constitutive rules, and those among them that are actually in force, and hence are truly normative; it defends along Rawlsian lines that a plurality of norms apply to actual instances of rule-constituted practices, and uses this Rawlsian line to block the examples that Maitra, Johnson and others provide to sustain their case.

Discussion Note: The Value of Value Capture, by Michael Ridge

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A discussion note by Michael Ridge about gamification has recently been published in the “Online First” issue for Journal of the Philosophy of Games.

JPG is interested in pursuing the discussion note format, so please contact the editor if you have an idea for a discussion note about emerging issues in the philosophy of games.

The abstract:

Gamification, roughly the use of game-like elements to motivate us to achieve practical ends “in the real world,” makes large promises. According to Jane McGonigal, gamification can save the world by channelling the amazing motivational power of gaming into pro-social causes ranging from alienation from our work to global resource scarcity and feeding the hungry (McGonigal 2011).  Even much more modest aims like improving personal fitness or promoting a more equitable division of household labour provide some license for optimism about the ability of gamification to improve our lives in more humble but still worthwhile ways.  On the other hand, Thi Nguyen has argued that there is a dark side to gamification: what he calls “value capture.”  Roughly, gamification works in large part because it offers a simplified value structure – this is an essential part of its appeal and motivational power.  However, especially in the context of gamification which exports these value schemes into our real-world lives, there is a risk that these overly simplistic models will displace our more rich, subtle values and that this will make our lives worse: this is value capture. The point is well-taken.  The way in which number of steps taken per day can, for an avid user of “FitBit,” displace more accurate measurements of how one’s activities contribute to one’s fitness is a compelling example.   If I become so obsessed with “getting my 10,000 steps” that I stop making time to go to the gym, jog or do my yoga/pilates then that is not a net gain.  However, there is an important range of cases that Nguyen’s discussion ignores but which provide an important exception to his critique:  value capture relative to behaviours that are addictive and destructive.  Here I have in mind things like alcoholism, drug addiction, and gambling addiction.  With these kinds of activities, value capture can not only be good but essential to a person’s well-being because (and not in spite of) of its displacement of the person’s more rich, subtle values.  Interestingly, the point is not limited to cases of addictive behaviour, though they put the point in its most sharp relief.  Any situation in which making rational decisions one by one can leave one worse off than “blindly” following a policy which is itself rational to adopt also turns out to illustrate the point, thus further expanding the role for value capture as itself a force for good.  The more general point is that certain kinds of sequential choice problems carve out an important and theoretically interesting exception to Nguyen’s worries about value capture.  In these kinds of choice contexts, value capture not only does not make our lives go worse, it may be essential to making our lives go better.