The game itself?

Interpreting Dwarf Fortress: Finitude, Absurdity, and Narrative

“…In The Game Itself , Aarseth and Möring make several prescriptions for interpreting computer games which seem to me entirely fair and reasonable. They take as foundational that “every game interpretation rests in a particular game ontology” (Aarseth & Möring, 2020), a prior understanding of the nature of the object of interpretation which guides the interpretation, which can be explicit or implicit, or well or poorly formed. Interpreting computer games, they argue, should involve making explicit the ontology upon which the interpretation rests, then specifying the ontology of the specific game(s) to be analyzed as a subcategory of that ontology.…”

“…Interpreting computer games, they argue, should involve making explicit the ontology upon which the interpretation rests, then specifying the ontology of the specific game(s) to be analyzed as a subcategory of that ontology. This lays out a solid theoretical context in which the following interpretation can make sense, but the interpretation itself must be grounded in and derived from playing the actual game, respecting “the primacy of the praxis of gameplay as an interpretive process” (Aarseth & Möring, 2020, n.p.). Their method rightly leaves open the possibility of multiple valid interpretations of a particular game.…”

“…They also point out that the computer game interpreter should recognize the heterogeneity of the category of “games” and the impossibility of an adequate formal definition of it, as Wittgenstein famously articulated in the Philosophical Investigations . There, he argued that there are no commonalities between all things that we call games, only “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: similarities in the large and the small” (Wittgenstein, 2009, p. 36)—which also applies to the subcategory of “computer games.” Accordingly, the interpreter should resist making general claims that would cover all (computer) games because, as Aarseth/Calleja put it, “the category of activities and objects that are productively called games evolves and expands in ways that no static, essentialist definition can ever hope to cover” (Aarseth & Calleja, 2015) Any attempt at an essential definition “misses the point because such models unintentionally make all games alike, which they are not” (Aarseth & Möring, 2020, n.p.). Instead, Aarseth/Möring suggest operating on a case-by-case basis, using specific ontologies for specific purposes, and concentrating on understanding “the game itself” in its particularity.…”

“…Instead, Aarseth/Möring suggest operating on a case-by-case basis, using specific ontologies for specific purposes, and concentrating on understanding “the game itself” in its particularity. As they put it, “there is no universal gameplay that pertains to every kind of game, and there is no hermeneutic method of game analysis as such; only game-specific or genre-specific” (Aarseth & Möring, 2020, n.p. ).…”

“…(Social media, for instance, would also be included.) Their assumed ontology was outlined earlier by Aarseth/Calleja and construes computer games belonging to the category of “cybermedia” (Aarseth & Calleja, 2015, n.p.). An in-depth discussion of this concept is beyond the scope of this article, but the ontology of games it allows for will be sufficient for our purposes.…”