Framing My Research on City Space in Games

My exploration of the topic of representations of cities in video games is viewed through an inter-disciplinary lens that combines cultural studies, urban studies, architecture, and game studies. Researching these fields has produced a variety of theories that can be connected and scaffolded to produce a framework of understanding that negotiates the similarities and differences between the way we experience the city in our physical world and how we understand it in the medium of the game.

Henri Lefebvre’s seminal text, The Production of Space (1974), outlines space as socially and historically produced: it is created through cultural influence and by its own use. While often cited for its insights, Lefebvre’s work has been criticised for its impractical operational application. Cities, as they stand on the Earth and are used by billions of people each day, are so complex that this kind of criticism is understandable. However, in conducting my research, I have found that the medium of the video game is one place where Lefebvre’s observations are particularly applicable. Cities in video games are designed from the ground-up, translated into executable code, and experienced by the player. Unless a game includes the tools to physically alter the landscape of the city, once a single-player game, like those I looked at, is shipped into retail channels and into households, its space remains relatively static—that is, it remains within the scope and context of the original game.

It is here we have a relatively closed system that follows Lefebvre’s triad of understanding space: representations of space, spatial practice, and representational space (Lefebvre 38).

Representations of space refer to the manner by which social and cultural understandings of space guide the conception and function of that space (Lefebvre 41). It is the logical perception of the relationships between objects (physical and non-physical), and is the method by which social and cultural context is brought to physicality. In terms of the video game, this is the realm in which the designers express how the space of their game should function and how they expect that space to be used. It is formalized through the creation of code that manifests their rule systems.

Spatial practice is what we put in the world (Lefebvre 41). It is our rooms, our buildings, our cities. It also emcompasses the actions we take in these spaces; how we live in the world we produce and how our world, in turn, shapes the way we produce it. This is the part of the video game that we see. It’s the design of the level and the environment, the shape of the city, the gameplay that guides our interaction with the system, and the obstacles and goals the world presents to us.

Lastly, representational space is the experience of space. It is qualitative, fluid, dynamic, symbolic, and is culturally and individually situatied in ideology and knowledge (Lefebvre 42). As video game players, it is the point of the triad in which the we experience the execution of the software, participate in the world as actors, and create meaning.

This research has a heavier focus on spatial practice and representational space because these are more player-centric. It is important to press-upon Lefebvre’s note that these three concepts do not exist in a line nor even a triangle. Instead they are constantly influencing and being influenced by each other (Lefebvre 4). The same is true for games and even this research. I have attempted to address the interrelationship of the triad by developing experiences of space through their use. Divisions made in my sections are for purpose of clarity or convenience, but the cities in these games do not exist without people interacting with them—whether that be through play, through discussion of the game with other players, or through memories of experiences and places.

Over the next week I will be posting bits and pieces from my thesis, as my draft is due in 9 days. Nine days! GAH!