Jesper Juul's works on Ludology
Half-Real/Half-Fictional refers to the fact that video games are two different things at the same time: video games are real in that they consist of real rules with which players actually interact, and in that winning or losing a game is a real event. However, when winning a game by slaying a dragon, the dragon is not a real dragon but a fictional one.
Steward Culin, Games of the North America Indians (1992)
E.M. Avedon and Brian Sutton-Smith, The Study of Games (1971)
Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (1950)
Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games (1961)
Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper (1978)
video game studies: narratology (games as stories) vs ludology (games as something special)
Definition: A game is a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are negotiable.
Video games are a combination of rules and fiction.
Jesper Juul, The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games (2013)
Paradox of failure
1) We generally avoid failure
2) We experience failure when playing games
3) We seek out games, although we will experience something that we normally avoid
The paradox of tragedy --> Aristotle's catharsis --> emotions are purged from us
When you fail in a game, it really means that you were in some way inadequate. Such a feeling of inadequacy is unpleasant for us, and it is odd that we choose to subject ourselves to it. However, while games uniquely induce such feelings of being inadequate, they also motivate us to play more in order to escape the same inadequacy, and the feeling of escaping failure (often by improving our skill) is central to the enjoyment of games. Games promise us a fair chance of redeeming ourselves. This distinguishes game failure from failure in our regular lives: (good) games are designed such that they give us a fair chance, whereas the regular world makes no such promises.
The ideas of sportsmanship also related to emotional control.
real failure vs fictional failure
Handmade Pixels: independent video games, though mere collections of bits, infinitely reproduceable and circulated globally, are also promoted as rare, handcrafted objects.
Independent Video Games and the Quest for Authenticity: independent games are continually presented as the authentic alternative to mainstream games - and to previous independent games - and that developers continue to strive to make new, truly authentic video games.
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