Reflection on Consalvo & Dutton Article

Last week I discovered an interest in game studies and this week’s reading on Game analysis provided another inspiring read. This week’s article by Consalvo & Dutton (2006) provided more of a methodological perspective and was instructive on how to study games qualitatively. Consalvo & Dutton (2006) discuss four parts of a game that can be studied: object inventory, interface study, interaction map, and gameplay log.

I find that gameplay log is the most interesting dimension because it seems to require a nuanced attention to detail to be able to observe. According to Consalvo & Dutton, the researcher who studies gameplay log is looking for the “unexpected” in gameplay to see how potentially open the game is for players. They write, “The researcher is less interested in seeing what options are offered to the player than in seeing what can happen when the player does something the game maker did not intend – and with what result.”

I think that if I were to study games, this is the aspect I would be most interested in because I have long been interested in how humans explored new environments. Each game’s universe is a new environment, every time a gamer begins a new game, he or she must figure out not only what should to be done to “win” the game, but also what can be done incidentally, or “along the way.” I am especially interested in sort of person who wants to play a game subversively – for example, the person who wants to lock a Sim inside a room with no refrigerator or bathroom and see how long it takes for them to turn into a gravestone, or the person who desperately wants to shoot the dog in Nintendo’s Duck Hunt.

I think that despite programmers’ admirable efforts and successes in replicating or augmenting reality for games, it is the moments that are unexpected that ultimately reflect real life the best. A related question to this is how to build unpredictability into a game, but still make sure that the game will continue on? Indeed, game developers have a lot to think about, and that only means that as researchers, we have a lot to think about too.