Perspectives of Computer Game

Philology

by Julian Kücklich

Playing a game, like reading a novel, can be regarded as a

form of semiosis, an interaction of signs. This constitutes the
basic similarity between games and literature the following
paper tries to explore. Taking the process of reading as a
model for the process of playing might seem like an
oversimplification, but this is not the fault of the critical
analogy, but rather of our simplistic understanding of the
interaction between reader and text. In order to understand
this interaction properly, we must take into account the
context, or contexts, in which the phenomenon of digital
games is embedded. While it seems obvious that computer
games fall into the category of games, which is notoriously
hard to define, many of them transcend this category by
virtue of their ability to tell a story. Therefore, games must be
seen as part of the tradition of narrative literature as well as
that of games. Furthermore, games can be seen as media, i.e.
as devices that enable players to interact meaningfully with
each other.

In the following paper, I will focus on the literary context of

computer games. However, this does not mean that I regard
the ludic and the media context as less important. On the
contrary: my interest in the study of computer games from a
literary viewpoint derives from their hybrid nature, from their
being neither fish, flesh nor fowl, as it were. Therefore, this
attempt to locate computer games in the context of literature
must not be misconstrued as an attempt to "colonize" the field
of digital games. Ultimately, this approach aims at
establishing computer game studies as an independent
aesthetic subject, rather than a sub-discipline of literary
studies. The suggestions made here should not be construed
as a form of "theoretical imperialism," to use Espen Aarseth’s
term, but rather as a display of what literary studies can
contribute to an interdisciplinary cooperation.

In the first section of this paper I will give a brief overview of

attempts undertaken so far to approach the field of computer
games from a literary perspective. I will then single out what
appear to be the three central problems of these approaches,
and try to provide solutions for them. The problematic issues I
address are 1) the dichotomy of text and code, 2) interactivity
and 3) narrative. Although I think that literary theory provides
models to describe these phenomena, as well as a
terminology that allows us to discuss them appropriately, in
discussing the above-mentioned problems I rely on other
theoretical concepts as well, especially from semiotics and
second-order cybernetics. Thus, the approach followed here
extends well beyond the field of traditional philology, while
remaining firmly rooted in literary studies.

Games as Literature
Historically, there have been many attempts to regard literary
texts as games. As Warren Motte (1995) points out, some of
these attempts can be traced back to the likes of Plato,
Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
By contrast, analyzing games from a literary viewpoint is a
rather new idea. Arguably, it is only through the advent of
computer games, i.e. games that feature something
resembling a story, that literary studies became aware of the
subject of games. This was made possible not only by the fact
that computer games are more "literary" than chess, poker
and football, but also by the recent inflation of the meaning of
the term "text."

In cultural studies, it is by now a common practice to regard

every cultural artifact as a text to be read and interpreted,
whether it is a certain dress code, the layout of a city or a
computer program. This view is exemplified by Ted Friedman’s
1995 essay "Making Sense of Software," in which he laments
the humanities’ negligent attitude toward computer games
because of their "traditional notions of textuality.". Therefore,
Friedman argues, "what is needed is an analysis rooted in the
distinct qualities of this new kind of interaction between
viewer and text" (1995).

One of the first theorists to take up Friedman’s challenge was

Espen Aarseth, who declared in his 1997 book Cybertext:
"The adventure game is an artistic genre of its own, a unique
aesthetic field of possibilities, which must be judged on its
own terms." However, theorists from literary studies did not
heed his warning against "theoretical imperialism," blindly
equating a computer game’stechnical levels of its code and its
interface with the narratologicallevels of story and discourse.
While such a narratological model, exemplified by the Russian
formalists’ distinction between sjuzet andfabula, is hardly
appropriate for describing literary texts, it becomes doubly
inappropriate when dealing with dynamic textual objects, such
as digital games.

It is a common fallacy to regard the code as a generative

grammar of sorts that is able to create an infinity of gameplay
experiences from a deep structure that is often likened to the
"formula" that Russian formalist Vladimir Propp extracted
from his analysis of folk-tales. In fact, this is stated as one of
the reasons for the small literary value of computer games in
Nicholas Montfort’s 1995 thesis "Interfacing with Computer
Narratives":

"The demands of puzzle-solving interactive fictions exceed

those of literary interfaces in some ways, however. Carefully
directing a character to perform a series of actions requires an
exact semantic interpretation of a textual command. This
exactness is not necessarily a component of a literary
experience of interactive fiction [...]."

The apparent problem described here stems from the

confusion between the interface level of a computer game and
the discourse level of a narrative text rather than the
"subtleness" of the textual commands issued by the player.
Furthermore, a narrative must not necessarily belong to the
category of literature, although the literary perspective
arguably exerts some pressure to that effect. Otherwise, it is
hard to account for Montfort’s disappointment with the
unsatisfactory plot and virtually non-existent character
development in "interactive narratives." This view is also
expressed in Janet Murray’s influential book Hamlet on the
Holodeck (1997): "Games generally use language only
instrumentally [...] rather than to convey subtleties of
description or to communicate complex emotions."

Terms like "interactive narrative" are used to designate web-

based hypertext fiction, or hyperfiction, as well as computer
games. This indiscriminate approach is practiced widely in the
field of hypertext theory. In a paper entitled "Gore Galore:
Literary Theory and Computer Games" (2002) Geoffrey
Rockwell outlines a possible reason for this: "Those like
George Landow who have inaugurated the field of hypertext
theory tend to treat computer games as lesser forms of
hypertexts assuming that what is said about hypertexts
applies to computer games." In hypertext theory, this
paradigm survives to this day, as a quote from J. Yellowlees
Douglas’ recent book The End of Books or Books without
End (2000) shows: "[D]igital narratives [the author’s term for
computer games; JK] primarily follow the trajectory
of Adventure, a work considered venerable only by the techies
who first played it in the 1970s, cybergaming geeks, and the
writers, theorists, and practitioners who deal with
interactivity. Hypertext fiction, on the other hand, follows and
furthers the trajectory of hallowed touchstones of print
culture, especially the avantgarde novel."

An explanation both for the fact that many authors treat

hyperfiction and computer games indiscriminately as well as
the widespread tendency to regard games as "lesser forms of
hypertext" is offered by Phil Goetz. In his paper "Interactive
Fiction and Computers" (1999) he explains that the
development from text adventures to graphic adventures was
interpreted by many as a sign of the genre’s decline: "Mystery
House was released in 1980. It had a picture for every
location. [...] From then on, the trend was towards graphics
adventures. [...] Fans of text-only adventures complained
about the smaller scenarios, concentration on graphics to the
exclusion of other issues such as plot and ease of use, and the
limitation of the imagination."

This might also be the reason for recent approaches to

foreground individual problems rather than trying to answer
the question whether computer games can be regarded as
literary texts. Jesper Juul’s thesis "A Clash between Game and
Narrative" (1999), in which he analyzes narrative and
interactive traits of computer games and interactive fiction, is
a case in point: while narrativity might be an important
characteristic of certain literary genres, it is definitely of little
use in determining the "literariness" of a given text. In his
conclusion, Juul notes that instead of telling a good story, "the
qualities of computer games are based on entirely different
factors: in computer games the player is given a liberty to
explore and understand the structure of the unreal game
world, and to get better at handling it" (1991).

This analogy of the computer game as a world to be explored

can be traced back to Mary Fuller’s and Henry Jenkins’ essay
"Nintendo® and New World Travel Writing" (1995) and even
further to Marie-Laure Ryan’s 1991 book Possible Worlds,
Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory. Only in the last
two years, however, has it become a widely accepted
paradigm. While this approach does not rule out literary
ambitions for computer games, it shifts the focus from the
temporal sequence of individual events to the spatial
organization of the game. This has given rise to analyses
concentrating on aspects such as the production of a "sense of
place" (Oliver 2001), or how events are "focalized" in
computer games (Järvinen 2001), to name only two examples
of how this "spatial turn" has influenced computer game
theory.

In summary, we can say that regarding games as literature

has many advantages, but we cannot overlook the
disadvantages deriving from the transposition of static
theoretical models from literary studies to the dynamic field of
computer games. The model of the two-level text that is often
employed in literary approaches to computer games can be
said to create more confusion than clarity. Regarding
computer games as hypertexts in order to account for their
interactivity is especially problematic. The insistence of early
hypertext theorists to regard hypertext as the vindication of
postmodern literary theory has done the field more harm than
good, and models borrowed from hypertext theory must
therefore be handled with caution. The most promising
approach so far is probably the attempt to employ possible
world theory as a method of comparing games and literature
in a meaningful way.

Perspectives
This overview seems to indicate that the problems of
employing literary theory in the study of computer games do
not stem from the inappropriateness of such an undertaking,
but rather from the use of models that are hardly sufficient to
describe literary texts, and therefore entirely insufficient to
analyze digital games. If literary theory is to be used in the
study of computer games, it must take into account the fact
the dynamic nature of these textual objects as well as the role
of the player in constituting the gameplay experience. This
should enable us to escape the fallacy of the two-levelled
model of computer game narration and to think about ways to
reconcile interactivity and narrative.

1. Text and Code

As I have pointed out above, some theorists postulate that
computer games operate on two distinct textual levels: an
immediate level that constitutes part of the game’s interface,
and a mediated level that is comprised by the program’s code
(e.g. Myers, 1991; Murray, 1997). This dual structure is
assumed to correspond to the levels of story and discourse in
a narrative text. While this "structuralist" conception might
have its benefits, its drawbacks are obvious, the most obvious
being that it fails to explain why the same game produces
different "results" each time it is played.

The basic problem of this view is the fact that the player does
not interact with the code during gameplay, but solely with
the interface. He or she might access the code at a different
point in time, and might even glean some information from
this activity, but it must necessarily remain outside the
experience of playing the game. Usually, the only thing the
player knows about the world of the game is what is displayed
on the screen. However, the player is able to learn about the
implicit rules of the game simply by interacting with it for a
sufficient amount of time. Thus, without "knowing" the rules
of the game – and usually without being able to formulate
them, albeit heuristically – the player will find out how to
react in a given gameplay situation.

In order to describe this process of adaptation, I suggest

adapting the model of viability from the philosophical
discourse known as "radical constructivism," or second-order
cybernetics. Viability, as defined by the constructivist Ernst
von Glasersfeld, means that a sensation is stabilized by
perception, but whether something proves viable is by no
means proof of its reality. In relation to games this means
that a player does not necessarily gain access to the implicit
rules of the game through playing, but that he or she will find
a way to interact meaningfully with the game, no matter what
the actual rules encoded by its designers are. In fact, the
player might even find ways to interact with the game that its
creators did not think of.

The concept of viability is often explained by the metaphor of

a blind man who has to walk through a forest every day.
Initially, he will bump into a tree quite often, but by and by he
will learn to avoid the trees, because he will have created a
mental map of the forest. This map does not have to bear any
relation to the forest at all, in fact it is not even necessary for
the map to represent trees. Nevertheless, this representation
of the outside world proves viable for the blind man, because
it enables him to find his way through the forest. The player
of a computer game learns to navigate through the code of
the game in a similar way, although he or she will usually not
set eyes on it (von Glasersfeld, 1985).

Furthermore, the concept of viability allows us to regard

computer games as non-trivial machines. While a trivial
machine is a device or a process whose outcome is totally
predictable, non-trivial machines produce unpredictable
results. The concept of viability is in fact the result of the
observation that although we usually encounter only non-
trivial machines, we are able to make predictions based on
our past experience. Thus, we expect other people to react
meaningfully when we speak to them, we expect cars to stop
at red lights and we expect calculators to come up with the
correct sum.

By regarding the code of a computer game as a non-trivial

machine that returns unpredictable output, even when the
input is the same, we are provided with a constructivist model
of what Espen Aarseth would call an indeterminate cybertext.
The art of making a good game, then, depends to a high
degree on a careful balance of giving the player the feeling of
interacting with a non-trivial machine that has some trivial
features. For example, the player can usually expect his
avatar to step forward or to shoot when he or she pushes the
corresponding button. However, much artificial intelligence
research goes into making computer-controlled characters
respond in a non-trivial way to the user’s input.

Therefore, I suggest regarding computer games as non-trivial

machines with built-in trivial machines, instead of as textual
objects consisting of two levels. By such a model, the
unpredictability typical of many games can be explained with
a much greater level of detail, and without taking recourse to
outdated literary terminology. The model of the computer
game as a system of interdependent trivial and non-trivial
machines allows for a differentiated analysis of the individual
features of a given game, thus enabling us to study its
intricacies by playing it rather than by disassembling it.
Furthermore, the cybernetic model suggested here is a first
step toward an aesthetics of computer games based on the
ways in which the player can exert control over the game, and
vice versa. An aesthetics of control, as first suggested by
Rune Klevjer in his paper "Computer Game Aesthetics and
Media Studies" (2001), would have to take into account that
there are different ways in which player and game can take
control of each other.

2. Narrative
Interaction with a non-trivial machine can also be described in
semiotic terms, thus allowing us a different view of the
process. In Charles S. Peirce’s concept of semiosis, a sign is
something which can be interpreted infinitely, a process in
which the sign gains complexity and meaning. This infinite
semiotic process is the way in which we usually make sense of
the world, without ever actually perceiving anything but signs.
The parallel to the constructivist model of perception is
obvious: there is no objective representation of the world,
only a constant process of meaning-making. It can be argued,
then, that narrative is one of the means by which the semiotic
process of playing a computer game progresses to new levels
of complexity.

This means that narrative is not an inherent feature of games,

but something merely implemented in a game virtually, i.e. as
a possibility. The actual construction of the narrative is always
done by the player by taking the signs on the interface and
interpreting them further. Thus, for example, a change in the
relationship between different characters, or from one state of
the game-world to another, can be seen as a progression in
the process of interpretation that constitutes a semiotic event.
An event can be seen as a complex sign that incorporates
several other signs as well their interrelations. Similarly,
narrative progression can be seen as a sign that puts two
event-signs in relation to each other.

Furthermore, narrative progression in computer games must

always overcome the game’s resistance against the player’s
attempts to make sense of it. This seems to correspond to
Roger Caillois’ category of agôn, or competitive play, which is
part of any game-like activity. According to Marie-Laure
Ryan, this category "is largely restricted to the literal domain.
In a computer game, the purpose is clearly to win, and the
way to win is to defeat enemies" (183). Semiotically speaking,
this resistance corresponds to Peirce’s category of
secondness, or "outward clash." In Peirce’s system of
categories, secondness is the sensation of the world’s
"objectness" before it is interpreted, and thus changed to the
state of thirdness. A sign in the state of secondness is
incomplete and unstable, and can only be stabilized by
interpretation.

A game can thus be conceptualized as a system of signs that

resist the player by virtue of their secondness. When they are
interpreted in the process of playing, some of them become
more complex, while others remain in their incomplete state.
The process of interpretation necessarily leads to the
existence of event-signs, which are then put into relation by
narrative-signs. This whole process takes place on a level that
cannot be located within the game, but exists merely as a
projection of the player’s mind.

In this model, narrative is something that unfolds because of

the player’s attempts to make sense of the game. The state of
basic resistance, or secondness, is necessarily unstable, since
the player cannot help but interpret this state, thus causing
the semiosis to change to the state of thirdness. From then
on, the process of semiosis is reiterated through the three
states, attaining new levels of complexity in each step. The
change from one level of complexity to the next is necessarily
perceived as a narrative sequence. In other words, a
sequence of unrelated events is automatically interpreted as
(and thereby transformed into) a narrative in order to enable
it to be mentally processed.

3. Interactivity
To fully understand this concept of narrative, we must take
into account the means by which the player is allowed to
interact with the game. In most computer games, excluding
only games of pure skill such as Tetris, this is achieved
through the player’s avatar, or main character. Different
games feature different kinds of avatars, from the god-like
figures in games like Civilization and Age of
Empires,represented only through the mouse pointer, to
parties of several characters in roleplaying games, and to
"internal focalizers" in first-person-shooters such as Quake (in
narratological terms, an "internal focalizer" corresponds
roughly to a first-person narrator). In any case, there is a
component of the interface that allows players to identify with
the events unfolding before their eyes.

This component closely resembles the concept of the model

reader, as developed by Umberto Eco (1987). The model
reader is conceptualized as a reader who is ideally suited to
actualize a given text according to the author’s intention. This
is to say that reading as literary text requires a certain level of
"skill," just like playing a computer game. Of course, it hasn’t
been very fashionable in literary studies of late to speak of the
author’s intention, and it should therefore be stressed that the
author’s intention is merely one of several textual strategies
at work in any given literary text. The manifestations of the
model reader can be found within the text, in the form of the
choice of a language, presuppositions, specialized vocabulary
and other signals such as addressing the reader directly. In
computer games, we can assume a model player that is
created by certain features of the game such as the level of
difficulty.

If the player elects to play a game according to its rules, she

will fulfill the requirements of the game only to a certain
degree. This means for a game to be enjoyable and
suspenseful it is a necessary precondition to put up resistance
to the player’s attempts to "solve" it. While this might sound
like a rather trivial statement, it seems to be the key to
understanding the process of interaction in a computer game.
For the model player is not a player that is able to master the
game at the first attempt, but a player whose abilities expand
in the process of playing. This gradual expansion of the
player’s abilities is usually rewarded by the discovery of a new
level, or new territory to explore. It is therefore the player’s
desire to become the model player of the game that enables
him or her to identify with the avatar, and thus to interact
with the gameworld and make progress in the game, which in
turn is perceived as narrative development. Narrative and
interaction must then be seen as mutually dependent, rather
than concepts that cannot be reconciled.

Conclusion
As I hope to have shown, literary studies can contribute to the
emerging field of computer game studies in more than one
way. While philological approaches have often been dubbed
"narratologist" in the past, thereby reducing the discipline to
just one area of research, recent work in this field suggests
that there is more to literary theory than just narratology. In
fact, games and literature have more in common than it might
seem at first. However, this does not mean that we can
transfer the models from literary theory to digital games
without first assessing their appropriateness to the task at
hand.

But what is the task at hand? It seems as if we have not made

much progress in establishing a model of how players interact
with computer games since the first attempts in the mid-
nineties. Nevertheless, many theorists have now turned to
individual aspects of digital games, rather than working on an
overarching theoretical framework. Although it seems to have
abated by now, the methodological struggle between
"narratologists" and "ludologists" seems to be one of the
reasons for this tendency. Apparently, the concepts discussed
in this debate are considered either "too hot" or "too cold" to
be addressed in a meaningful way. Thus, the concepts and
terminologies of narratology and ludology are either used
indiscriminately, or avoided altogether.

It is by no means my intention to revive this debate, but I

think it is necessary to keep in mind that the theoretical work
in this field is far from completed. While I think that the
wealth of research on individual aspects of computer games is
an important indicator of the discipline's increasing maturity,
key issues still remain unresolved. These issues cannot be
tackled by one discipline alone, but must be dealt with in an
interdisciplinary effort. Literary studies can supply some of the
building blocks of such a theory, but they must be integrated
into a framework that spans all the disciplines involved in the
study of computer games.

The theoretical concepts sketched above are first attempts at

theoretical tools that are interdisciplinary in nature, although
they cannot deny their philological roots. Take, for example,
the concept of semiotic resistance as a means of narrative
progression. While this model is rooted in narratological
analysis, relying on concepts such as events and narrative
time, it incorporates terminology borrowed from semiotics as
well as traditional game theory. Furthermore, it acknowledges
the possibility of regarding the same process from different
theoretical perspectives, thus adding depth to the model.

As the term "building blocks" suggests, this is an attempt to

engage others in the playful process of formulating a theory of
computer games. As Espen Aarseth has suggested, the field of
game studies is itself a playing field, and like all playing fields
it is contested territory. In formulating these ideas for a
philological theory of computer games, I am aware of
trespassing into the field of other disciplines. In doing so, I
hope to provoke a reaction, in which my theoretical building
blocks are pushed to an adjoining field, transformed into
something else, or replaced by something new. It is my hope
that this process will ultimately evolve into something that
transcends the individual discipline's boundaries, and allows
us to speak about games in truly appropriate terms, instead of
vague metaphors.

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