PAPER
3: CLOSE READING OF A LEVEL
The purpose of this paper:
1) Find or refine a question/hypothesis about the social significance of videogames
that will the basis of your argument paper and probably your final research
project)
2) Get a deeper understanding of the game you are studying (and we hope, of
your issue)
3) Learn new heuristic creativity prewriting strategies
This investigation builds on what you discovered in the last paper (you may
refine your question, or even change to another if you decide your hypothesis
was incorrect or uninteresting, but remember this is about finding out what's
true, not proving yourself right). In this paper, we are broadening our view
to put more emphasis on the game as an interactive story/space/system. Still,
trying to analyze a whole game that might take fifty hours to play (and even
that might no exhaust all the possibilities, such as different strategies or
Easter eggs), so here we will look at something more manageable: a single level
(or what you can cover in an hour or so). You'll want to keep careful notes.
I can imagine it might be
interesting to do this is pairs, or to observe someone you know playing the
game you're interested in (though you'd want to be able to direct them to pause,
go certain places and do certain actions that give you data about your question).
There's a way to record what's going on in a game using software like Camtasia
and Fraps http://www.fraps.com/, but it's
not simple (take quite a lot of memory), and I'm not sure how useful it'd be
(however, some people record and post their gameplay, for example, ,http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=15343,
and some companies post trailers of their games, for example, World of Warcraft
http://www.machinima.com/films.php?engine=5
).
You may find that some of the semiotic questions are useful here (especially
is you change games), but I want everyone to try Tagmemic
(here's a sample) and Pentadic
analysis, which focused on human motivation for actions, just so you'll be familiar
with it. Even in games in which the backstory is minimal or relatively irrelevant
to gameplay, it still tells us about the cultural assumptions underlying the
game. It's important to pick an event that's important or at least typical.
It's
important to pick an event that's important or at least typical. An important
decision works well. Here's an example
based on the Lord of the Rings film.
The paper should be four pages, and can still be exploratory, but should have
a clear direction for an argument paper, though it does not need to explore
it in depth (maybe just enough to be fairly confident that it's worth exploring).
Include your prewriting, cover sheet (form) and drafts.
4/07