Games play into these dynamics to craft tensions and opportunities. We can see this in play in games of all genres. Players sneak into top-secret laboratories, try to escape from monster-infested dungeons, and venture deep into unknown lands. They also take refuge in private spaces, often protecting them from invaders. A trope of the role-playing game genre is for guards to protect the gates of the town or genre, not only keeping the evils of the world out, but forbidding the player from venturing into the wild before they are ready. Considering these dynamics and that “private space is distinct from, but always connected with, public space” (Lefebvre 166), we can see the importance of public and private city spaces.

I would like to illustrate three examples, taken from my thesis research, of this dynamic at play as a part of the narrative environment. The first is the generally public space of Tony Hawk’s Underground. The second is the violation of private space in Max Payne. Lastly, Grand Theft Auto IV is an example of the player as the violator of public space.

The Manhattan of Tony Hawk’s Underground is nearly all public space. Borden chronicled the history of skateboarding in terms of public and private places: from the city streets and the drained pools of California backyards, to the fabricated skateparks and reappropriated public architecture, the place of skateboarding is always in flux (Borden 108). This creates opportunities in the Tony Hawk games much the same as it does in the physical world.

The player rides on every piece of architecture available—storefronts, staircase railings, the roofs of buildings, the sidewalk and street, and even telephone and power lines. Some missions involve impressing pedestrians through the transformation of public property into spectacle. Others involve escaping from security guards or police designated to protect public space from intruders like yourself. The narrative of the game is not just about an up-and-coming skater trying to make it big, but also, as Iacovoni observed, the act of skating transforms spaces public and private into personal places dedicated to the player’s use.

Max Payne opens with a highly evocative scene. In a playable flashback sequence, the player, as Max Payne, comes home to their apartment calling out to their wife as the fireplace crackles. The apartment is cozy—hardwood floors and area rugs provide contrast to the usual concrete and pavement traversed in most games. Immediately this scene is disrupted, as the player catches a glimpse of hanging paintings turned on their side and a large letter V and syringe spray-painted on the wall. As the player makes their way through the house the tranquility of a familiar apartment is violently severed—a series of cinematic cuts show blood on the wall and the screaming of a woman and child are heard in the background. The player regains control over their movement, killing the men who have perpetrated the crime. But it is too late.

Again a series of cinematic cuts show a nursery, a pile of baby blocks, and then the murdered body of Max Payne’s child. After another shootout we see his slain wife on the bed. This opening, which shows the private protected space we most value violently ravaged gives the player motivation for the rest of the game. Here we see evocative narrative environments and elements at play. The elements are the murdered family, the spray-painted logo, and the escaping criminals. The environment is the normally safe private place—the furnished well-loved house—turned on its head both visually and through gameplay action.

There is no danger in Niko Bellic from Grand Theft Auto IV walking the streets of the Bronx at 4 in the morning. The player needs not worry about being mugged or assaulted. There is little threat of pedestrians becoming enemies (sometimes they will fight back if you punch them, but mostly they keep to themselves). On the one hand, the narrative of Grand Theft Auto IV is Niko as victim of circumstance just trying to get by in a strange place. On the other hand, the design of the world tells the story of Niko as a public menace. The gameplay of GTA IV is selfish and the world accommodates this. Ignoring for a moment the wanted system which determines police pursuit of the player, they are free to steal cars, kill pedestrians, run red lights, smash into other vehicles, drive anywhere their vehicle will prohibit, possess a range of weapons, and generally pose a threat to every resident of Liberty City.

Public space becomes threatening in Grand Theft Auto IV when missions are engaged because it leaves the player vulnerable. A massive outdoor gunfight might have enemies spread all over the place trying to kill the player, while one false move in front of a police officer forces the player to focus both on the goals of the mission and evading the pursuing police who will throw them off-course or end the mission. Liberty City tells a very different story about the use of space than our normal experience—it is a world where social norms are designed to be broken.

Cited:

Borden, Iain. Skateboarding, Space and the City. New York: Berg, 2006.

Goffman, Erving. Behavior in Public Places. Free Press, September 1966.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.

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!

According to de Certeau, “to walk” implies lacking place, a record of this movement only indicates that which is no longer, but that movement can be understood as a system. This system, in part, consists of “modalities of pedestrian enunciation,” which reveal the relationship between movement and what that movement means (de Certeau 99). First, the “alethic” modality relate to the mood and intent of the movement (99). Is the pedestrian taking the most direct route from one place to the next? Does their choice of route represent the multitude of possibility spaces? How are they negotiating that movement which is impossible or forced upon them? Secondly, “epistemic” modalities are concerned with understanding the space and these aforementioned possibilities. Lastly, “deonic” modalities refer to the obligations of space, what they permit and forbid, and what they offer optionally. Because these modalities deal with rules and choices, they map well to the medium of the game.

Important to the concept of representative spaces in games are two terms de Certeau uses to describe fundamental stylistic figures of spatial collapse in the urban environment. The first term, “synecdoche,” means using a word in which a part stands in for a whole (de Certeau 101). The second, “asyndeton,” refers to when conjunctions are deliberately left out of a sentence or phrase. De Certeau uses this to explain the phenomenon of ignoring parts of the travel to connect to places, as if, for example, Baltimore and Philadelphia are next to each other. These concepts become especially important in mission-based games in which the player must travel between locales to trigger events. The space traversed is often ignored; the destination is often represented by a single symbolic piece.

The final concept in “Walking in the City” relates to the functions of naming in place-making. De Certeau identifies naming as making place believable, memorable, and primitive (de Certeau 105). The believable place, identifiable by a name, is a habitable place. The memories of a place help construct its evolving identity by patterning the use of the space—that which is no longer continues to act in the present. The primitive quality of naming is related to that which is whole or quantifiable. A place with a name is a basic unit of understanding; unnamed places are constantly seeking the stability of nominative forces. I will be looking at both de Certeau’s functions of naming as a cultural action as well as naming as a practical practice for navigation in games.

As one of my theoretical sources, Michel de Certeau is of utmost importance because his discussion of imaging the city is based on action and the movement of bodies—a significant part of the 3d game environment experience. Expect summaries of more of my theoretical sources to come!

I present you with a scenario: driving along in your unmarked cop car on the highway, the police dispatcher informs you of a robbery in progress a mile from your position. Seems simple enough, right? After all, the location is practically right next to you. But the problem is that the geographic distance of the target location has nothing to do with the actual route you need to travel to get there. I found myself driving for at least a minute in the opposite direction until I found an exit I could take, and another minute until I was actually on a surface road that could take me back to where I started by the robbery. By then, it was too late–the crime had been perpetrated and the assailants escaped. 

Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City defines five elements that can be used to describe the imagability of the city: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. True Crime: New York City fails at establishing all five of these in a game context. In my previous example, I was moving along a path of travel but needed to stray from it. Unfortunately, my vehicle was unable to transfer between paths in a way that supported the game’s goals. Sure, it makes sense that I cannot drive off-road in the real world to get where I am going, but the game demands it and I should be able to do it.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a good example of how the rigid path of the highway can be broken so the player can move between districts. Driving the freeway over Los Santos, the designers included breaks in the barrier walls so that the player can drive straight off the road and fall to the roads beneath. While unrealistic, it serves the needs of the game. Paths are purposely porous in San Andreas so that transferring between districts comes naturally. 

Even comparing the representations of Manhattan’s spatial distribution in True Crime: NYC and Grand Theft Auto IV reveals how missions can be designed to accommodate the grid that is New York City. For one, GTA IV has more linear missions, so the designers can pick starting and ending locations for travel based on the availability of roads. In True Crime: NYC, however, the dispatcher does not care which direction you are traveling when assigning you the side-missions. As a result, I found myself racing down one-way streets against traffic hoping to make it to my destination on time. The traffic patterns and car control just are not up to handling this movement. Even with my sirens blaring I was constantly getting t-boned in intersections (clearly they only programmed it to affect traffic traveling in front of you). 

The problems of the space of the city translate into problems of place-making. It may be shaped like New York City, but that’s about as close as it gets. The strongest city ambience is the fantastic licensed soundtrack which features songs from a lot of NYC-based rock and hip-hop artists. Unfortunately there’s no persistent soundtrack, so getting in and out of a car changes the track, but it at least helps set the gangster-crime theme. The NPCs take the form of only a few model types, meaning it’s possible to stand in a group of pedestrians who all share the same face though different clothes. It might bill itself as a sandbox city alive and breathing, but this is just a facade. The is hardly any difference between Washington Heights and Hell’s Kitchen. Though it includes many New York City landmarks, they only serve to highlight the disparity between the real place and the place of game action. 

True Crime: New York City is a shining example of what doesn’t work in games. If a designer wants to translate a real place into game form, they need to think about the ways the player will want to navigate that space and compare that to the demands they are making of the player. The awe of traveling in an accurate recreation of New York City is diluted by  the fact that there’s no good reason to explore all the space provided. It was an ambitious project for a 2005 game, but it is clear the designers did not aspire (for whatever reason) to meet their ambition. I’m not convinced that the task is futile, but it certainly will require the full attention of a design team to be executed successfully.

Identity
Identity implies an objects’ “distinction from other things” and recognition as a separate entity (Lynch 8). An object can be as small as a box or as large as a city itself and is designated by utility. The distinction between one building and the next might be useful for someone walking a city block but not someone driving.

Structure
Structure is the arrangement of objects in the world. The construction of the game’s world, structure is meant to refer to the layout of objects and 3D modeling of environments. As a kind of architecture, Suzanne Langer writes, “it is the total environment made visible.” It is intended to describe the landscape and the space of play. In the city that could mean streets, building exteriors, building interiors, lampposts and park benches, bridges, hills, water, ramps and ladders, and so on. These are diagetic machine objects rendered by the software for the player to interact with.

Meaning
An environment is brought to life through the context in which it is experienced. In terms of a game, meaning in a three-dimensionally modeled space comes from a handful of places. There is a setting that develops the personality of the space. There is often a narrative which inscribes specific meanings. There is the player as someone who takes action in the environment–whether this be a desire to complete goals on a purely gamic level, the result of narrative triggers, or emergent play.

Action
In addition to these three points from Lynch, I’ve added a term from Alexander Galloway to adopt the framework to games. A term used by Galloway to describe the basic interaction with a video game, action refers to active participation by a player in enacting the software (game) that runs on the hardware (platform). Galloway discusses four types of action: operator, machine, diagetic, and nondiagetic. Operator action is that performed by the player whereas machine is performed by the software and hardware. Diagetic action occurs within the game’s world whereas nondiagetic action might refer to menus, cheats, or other processes related to the game that are outside of the “pretend world of character and story” (Galloway 8). In addition to character and story, I would like to amend the definition to include those processes that construct the gaming plane.  ‘Action’ provides a tangible series of definitions of gameplay, which is often a fuzzy term. The term gameplay, for this research, describes the diagetic operator actions as defined by control mechanisms. It is meant to refer to the range of actions a player can take. Examples include, but are not limited to: moving a character’s body, interacting with other characters, combat, manipulating the environment, and methods of achieving goals.

Beginning with these four lenses and creating a sample of games based in or on New York City, I can begin to explore the ways the city experience is represented in video games. The purpose of this inquiry is both reflexive and prescriptive. The textual analysis of a range of games provides insight into these objects as cultural texts. We can search for common themes, common concerns, and common allusions. I also am looking at the techniques designers use for navigating and reading the city. It provides the opportunity to not only identify well-crafted examples that can be repeated, but also to take critical theory about city and urban design and apply it to game-making.

Next step? Assembling a list of games to explore. Keep the suggestions coming.

So what did I decide on? Representations of the city in video games. I did my undergrad American Studies culminating seminar work in Film Noir, so the city is a topic I’m familiar with thinking about. As I started my thesis proposal draft this weekend, I was plagued by the scope of the project. There are thousands of cities in video games, so how am I supposed to pin it down?

My first decision was to only focus on three-dimensional games. This would at least allow me to compare certain kinds of experiences on more even footing. Unfortunately, this excludes a lot of really interesting games from my study, but I can always make passing reference to them. So then I started thinking about games I’d like to use. The Grand Theft Auto cities, Rapture from BioShock, City 17 from Half-Life 2, the Citadel from Mass Effect, New York City in The Darkness, perhaps something from a Final Fantasy game, and maybe even something from a Tony Hawk game or an open world racing game.

I was still left scratching my head with this line of inquiry. These are all interesting places, and I’m sure I could draw parallels in my research, but I’d end up spending too much time trying to make it all fit.  How to narrow it down once again? I decided I really wanted to talk about Grand Theft Auto IV and The Darkness. And, with that, the muse hit me! I’ll do just games that are representations of New York City!

I still need to decide which games I’m going to use, which is where I need your help: In the comment section, can you recommend games that take place in New York City or a NYC-like place?

Why do a thesis about the city in the game? The purpose of my inquiry is both reflexive and prescriptive. The textual analysis of a range of games gives us insight into these objects as cultural texts. We can search for common themes, common concerns, and common allusions. It also provides the opportunity to not only identify well-crafted examples that can be repeated, but also to take critical theory about city and urban design and apply it to game-making.

How do I plan on approaching the subject? I will be looking at the construction of urban space in video games as a product of action, architecture, and culture.  At first these might seem like broad areas, but once defined it will become apparent that they are interrelated.

Action
A term used by Alexander Galloway to describe the basic interaction with a video game, action refers to active participation by a player in enacting the software (game) that runs on the hardware (platform). Galloway discusses four types of action: operator, machine, diagetic, and nondiagetic.

Architecture
The construction of the game’s world, architecture refers to the layout of objects and 3D modeling of environments. It’s buildings, streets, water, interiors–the landscape. As Suzanne Langer writes, “it is the total environment made visible.”

Culture
A three-dimensionally modeled environment is brought to life through cultural context. It provides the components that Kevin Lynch notes as being essential to imaging an environment: identity, structure, and meaning. Culture includes the narrative, the setting, and elements that help root the game in a specific sense of place-time.

I’ll be updating the blog as I work on my proposal, research, and then the actual writing of the thesis. I’m really interested in reader feedback because dialogue makes any written work stronger. So bookmark the blog, add it to your RSS reader, or engage in however you use this thing called Internet. Thanks!

The GameCulture Journal Blog is a place for me to not only muse on games but to include links to my other game related work, blog entries, and Master’s Thesis brainstorming. My goal, then, is to do a better job of keeping this thing up to date.  First order of business? The Low Score podcast, which I do with my friend J. We’ve recorded nine episodes thus far and the train keeps a’rollin’. So please check out the Low Score blog and subscribe to the ‘cast. We welcome comments and questions too!

Secondly, I have posted a few more blog entires for my Game Design as Cultural Practice course. Both are related to Grand Theft Auto games, but each uses a different framing question. My Vice City entry attempts to answers questions of gameplay styles and cultural context using values from the Values@Play Grow-A-Game kit. The San Andreas post discusses racial issues, playing as the dominant ideology, and the male-whiteness of the game industry.

For my other course, Ian Bogost’s Journalism and Games project studio, I’m currently looking into using Foucault’s thoughts of discourse as a model for discourse within single-player games. Look forward to that entry in the next week.

Finally, I’ve been researching my thesis topic. I’m going to be writing about the city in video games. From which angle, I am not yet sure.  To start my research I’m looking at books on city architecture and urban design, doing a survey of games that take place in the city for their gameplay and narrative elements, and thinking about play affordances within the city structure. Expect a lot of that brainstorming to go on here, as I’m using this as my Master’s blog as well.