Christopher Lim
VISM3B01 – Critical Play
Professor Emma Westecott
February 28, 2012
The Escapist’s Sandbox: A Life Beyond the Realms of our own (Proposal).
When one chooses to engage in an act of play whether it is in a digital or analog form, they often do it with the justification of their own pleasure. But what constitutes pleasure? Why does a being engage in a play act? While the definitions of play can be quite ambiguous at worst, and arguable at best, it can be said for many that engaging in a play act constitutes placing one’s mind in a state of altered reality. We immerse ourselves in the play act, and that the most pleasurable acts of play are those in which the player is allowed to escape the constraints of the world outside the particular play act. Often people engage in acts of play in order to remove themselves from the social constraints and norms that exist outside the play act. This aspect of psychology is often referred to as escapism, and can prove to be a key in understanding why we engage in specific acts of play, and why they give us such pleasure.
Escapism can often be seen simply as an act of mental diversion from the menial aspects of everyday life. Although not all forms of play incorporate escapist theory, it is a good starting point in the dissection of the specific type of play act that many people are familiar with, fantasy play. Indeed, it is often the fact that players are prone to flights of fancy that make certain acts of play more fulfilling than others. But what makes fantasy so fulfilling? What aspects of fantasy enthral and empower us to engage in these play acts? It is these questions that will give insight into the motivations behind escapist gameplay.
The advent of digital game play has given escapists a new medium to enact their fantasies, and while traditional role-play has always been an accepted form of play-practice, the ability to modify aspects of the digital game has allowed players to bend the rules of play further to their own ends. This inevitably allows the escapist player to create their own fantasies through the construction of their own play experience.
Thus, the most important question we must ask ourselves is how one constructs their own play experience in the context of digital gameplay.
One must first understand the scope of digital role-playing games. It is clear that some of the most successful digital game franchises provide the player with the most immersive mental diversions, regardless of genre. While online role-playing is often the most popular form of escapist gameplay, it is important to understand the limitations of online game play, and often the rules and bureaucracy a player must be confined to in order to be allowed to participate in the game world.
This is the primary reason why the best way to examine how an escapist can fully create their own play experience is to remove such limitations. This limits one to the examination of single-player games, for it is much easier to “break” the constraints of gameplay, and undertake play decisions of questionable morality. One of the rare examples of open-ended single-player gameplay can be found in The Elder Scrolls franchise, which is a series of open-world role-playing games in which the player is free to do whatever they wish once they are released into the game world. The research process will be initiated in a brief discussion of the history of the franchise, followed by a close reading of the series latest instalment, Skyrim.
While any Elder Scrolls game can be utilized for this purpose, Skyrim is relatively new, and introduces certain aspects of gameplay (such as marriage, realistic graphics, and ragdoll physics) not present in previous games. In our close reading, it is proposed that we look at three major aspects of role-playing, and what makes them so immersive and crucial to formulating one’s play experience.
Skyrim, like any form of role-play be it digital or analog, involves decision making. The game’s ability to play in a free manner allows the player an infinite range of possibilities, without a defined set of rules to abide by. “Ethics and Game Design” by Karen Schrier and David Gibson looks into how decisions are a reflection of our own morality, and the theories presented will make a helpful comparison as to how players’ decisions in the game can reflect, or go against their own moralities, and how this contributes to the player’s fulfillment resulting from the play act.
Due to its’ single player nature, games from The Elder Scrolls have retained a long tradition of being able to be manipulated directly by the player. Through console commands and even official developer tools, players are able to modify the existing gameworld in many ways. Seif Al-Nasr’s publication “Learning through Game Modding” looks into how modding and reskinning can give the player the ability to bend the game world to their own wishes, as players can choose (or make) whatever they wish to see in their fantasy. This gives insight as how the escapist’s fantasies can be fulfilled during the play act.
Finally, Skyrim’s improved gameplay and realistic ragdoll physics allow the escapist to immerse themselves in a game-world that responds appropriately to their actions. The level of interaction between the player’s avatar and the game world’s characters allows the player to mimic the traditional dollhouse in an unconstrained digital space. Mary Flanagan’s theories presented in “Critical Play, Radical Game Design” regarding doll-play can be used to make a link between the popular practice of reskinning Barbie dolls, and how the player can interact with the game’s AI to force Skyrim’s NPCs to their bidding. This gives the player control over their own fantasy, and places them in a fulfilling; dominant role in relation to the game’s other characters.
Through close reading, and a careful cross-examination of three primary aspects of open-ended gameplay, one can begin to understand how the escapist can create their own gameplay experience, without being bound by rules. By understanding how the escapist does this, one can also understand why escapism in play practice can be a fulfilling experience for the player.