The Performance of the Game

• In Event: 4S at Play: Video Game Studies in STS - I

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that the addition of spectatorship to video game play creates a new and distinct frame for the ludic act. Observing that audiences experience games as narratives when they witness video games rather than play them, I will demonstrate the processes whereby a formal system of rules become narrative through the transmission of a player’s persona. Rather than regarding the game as a text, I rely upon the metaphor of video game as improv partner, generating prompts for the player and so allowing for the creation of new and expressive artifacts. I believe this act of creation emerges as as a response to the limits of player agency within video games themselves. Without the ability to fully alter the game world as a literary author might in a written story, content creators who wish to entertain others through play must find a way of adding expression back to an inexpressive medium. Let’s plays and streaming return expression to such players, allowing them to contextualize the experience of a game as the author rather than audience of their own playthrough.

Within the larger context of this year’s theme, I hope to demonstrate how content creators dominate play. This paper’s goal is to reframe the relationship of game and “let’s player” in terms of performance studies, emphasizing human spontaneity over technological affordance. The persona leads the dance, and the computer can only stumble along behind, offering the occasional suggestion where it can.

Author

• Colin S Stricklin, Georgia Institute of Technology