Video game theory...What an amazing world of possibilities it is! I recently had the pleasure of reading Julian Kucklich's article "Perspectives of Video Game Philology" in the latest issue of Gamestudies. Following is my attempt to summarize the article and some email correspondence I've had with the author regarding Peirce's semeosis.

This article is Kucklich's attempt to bring some language and concepts from the field of philology into videogame studies; Kuchlich describes it as "an attempt to engage others in the playful process of formulating a theory of computer games" (9). Philology can be described as "linguistic science." Kucklich hopes that concepts like "viability," "semiosis," and "the model reader" may help us in our efforts to theorize videogames. I agree with Kuklich that these concepts may indeed prove valuable and help us speak about games in "truly appropriate terms" rather than "vague metaphors" (9).

Kucklich begins his article by remarking that "playing a game can be regarded as a form of semiosis, an interaction of signs" (1). Kucklich anticipates the argument that video games are fundamentally different from "reading" by stating that our understanding of the relationship between read and text is too simplistic. Still, Kucklich does not want us to borrow literary theory for the purpose of studying digital games without a good deal of culling and adaptation. Kucklich finds three problems with other's attempts to apply such theory to videogames: The dichotomy of text and code, interactivity, narrative (1).

The section "Games as Literature" outlines a bit of the history of applying lit theory to game studies. Kucklich argues that it wasn't until videogames began to "resemble stories" that lit theorists first began their attempts--we're probably thinking here of the old text adventures. Since these games rely purely on text and thus strongly resemble traditional narratives, they received a great deal of (negative) criticism from lit theorists, who found them simple and undeveloped. Espen Aarseth argued that "the adventure game is an artistic genre of its own," but lit theorists ignored this warning and "blindly equated a computer game's techncial levels of its code and its interface with the narratological levels of story and discourse" (2). The problem is that theorists should not confuse a game's interface with its story; the "subtleness of the textual commands issued by the player" must be taken into consideration.

Jesper Juul notes in his thesis A Clash Between Game and Narrative that "the qualities of computer games are based on entirely different factors: in computer games the player is given a liberty to explore and understand the structure of the unreal game world" (4). This is an important point because it shifts the focus from the "temporal sequence of individual events" (more proper to the study of a novel) to the "spatial organization of the entire game" (4).

In the section "Text and Code" Kucklich describes the work of theorists who argue that computer games operate on an "immediate level that constitutes part of the game's interface" and a "mediated level that is comprised by the game's code" (5). Kucklich rightly points that this view is problematic because most players never encounter the code directly; rather, they interact with it solely through the interface. This is where Kucklich wants to use the concept of "viability" from "radical constructivist" theory (5): "Viability means that a sensation is stabilized by perception, but whether something proves viable is by no means proof of its reality" (5). The example Ernst von Glasersfeld uses to illustrate the concept is a blind man who must pass through a forest each day. At first the man will undoubtedly painfully bump into trees and stumble over roots, but with enough experience, he will create a "mental map" that will allow him to avoid the obstacles and navigate his way painlessly. It doesn't matter if this "mental map" to look like the "real forest," as long as it is serviceable for the man, it's good enough. Kucklich argues that this is precisely how a player navigates through a game's code; he doesn't see the trees (and it isn't even important that he think of them as trees); as long as he can navigate his way successfully, he will have developed a viable representation.

Kuchlick uses this concept to challenge the notion that computer games are "trivial machines," that is, they are predictable (an argument made by Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. in his Making Sense of Nintendo). Kuchlick argues that "although we usually encounter only non-trivial machines, we are able to make predictions based on our past experience" (6). This leads Kucklich to the observation that "the art of making a good game, then, depends to a high degree on a careful balance of giving the player the feeling of interacting with a non-trivial machine that has some trivial features" (6). Kuchlich thinks we should "regard computer games as non-trivial machines with built-in trivial machines" (6). This is pretty sophisticated terminology. An example of this may be the game Q-Bert. Some aspects of Q-Bert are "trivial machines," that is, the way Q-Bert jumps we move the controller. This is highly predictable behavior. However, we aren't always certain how the snake or purple ball will behave; this is a non-trivial machine. While the overall computer game is thus unpredictable, certain parts of its are predictable; else we would not be able to make sense of it.

In the "narrative" section, Kuchlich draws upon Charles S. Peirce's concept of semiosis, in which "a sign is something which can be interpreted infintiely, a process in which the sign gains complexity and meaning. This infinite semiotic process is the way in which we usually make sense of the world, without ever actually perceiving anything but signs" (6). The "constant process of meaning-making" then becomes a kind of narrative. Kuchlich draws from this that "narrative is not an inherent featuer of games, but something merely implemented in a game virtually. The actual construction of the narrative is always done by the player by taking the signs on the interface and interpreting them further" (7). What this means is that while we play a game and familiarize ourselves with its interface, we are part of a narrative. We learn more and more about each part of the interface, infinitely, as it were.

Kuchlich brings in some terminology from Peirce here which I cannot follow. The section clearly needs explication. The discussion of "secondness," or "outward clash," simply does not make sense to me. The conclusion Kuchlich draws from it is that "narrative is something that unfolds because of the player's attempts to make sense of the game" (7). Clearly, one would need a far better understanding of Pierce's theory than I possess to make sense of this part of Kuchlich's article. I intend to write Kuchlich an email and ask him to unpack this section a bit.

The last section, "Interactivity," draws on the concept of the "model reader" as developed by Umberto Eco. The "model reader" is the reader the author feels is "ideally suited to actualize a given text" (8). We're not so much concerned here with the "author's intention" as the form of language, presuppositions, and so on that would make a text "fit" for one reader and not for another. Kuchlich observes that we see a parallel of this in a "model player," that is, the "right" kind of player for a given videogame. He writes, "The model player is not a player that is able to master the game at the first attempt, but a player whose abilities expand in the process of playing" (8). The player wants to "become the mdoel player of the game that enables him to identify with the avatar, and thus to interact with the gameworld and make progress in the game" (8). These arguments make a lot of sense.

I received an email from Julian this morning:

Dear Matt,

thank you for your message: I am glad that you enjoyed reading my article.

And I have to apologize: I introduced the concepts of firstness and secondness in passing here, but they would surely warrant a much longer explanation. You are probably familiar with Peirce's semiotic triad consisting of an object, a sign and an interpretant. The process of semiosis can be regarded as a form of algorithm (which makes it uniquely useful in computational contexts) which takes something yet unspecified as its object, transforms it into a sign and is then interpreted. One of the more difficult of Peirce's ideas to wrap one's head around is his notion that consciousness is external to this process; it is not the agent of semiosis, but its outcome.

Peirce then takes all of this to a higher level -- a much higher level, actually. As a philosopher and logician he is not satisfied with semiosis as a communicative and cognitive concept, it has to be an all-encompassing concept; in other words: a philosophy. Therefore, he introduces a categorical system, which is radically different from the categories of traditional philosophy such as space and time, or being and non-being. His idea is that everything falls into one of the categories of firstness, secondness, or thirdness (with these categories corresponding to the three parts of the semiotic triad).

Firstness is probably the hardest category to understand. I've been working with Peircean semiotics for some years now, and it still largely eludes me. It is a primary (obviously!) state of being, in which whatever falls into this category is not 'polluted' by consciousness; it exists, but it is not interpreted, categorized or even perceived. Peirce usually gives the example of an impression of 'pure color' without object, meaning or significance.

Secondness, which features most prominently in my concept of (game) narratives, is often translated as 'resistance'. In transforming an object from its state of firstness into a state of secondness (i.e. a sign), consciousness encounters resistance. [In German, an object is called a 'Gegenstand', which is a (too) literal translation of the Latin word 'object', but foregrounds the meaning 'against' (German 'gegen') of the Latin prefix 'ob-'.] It is also important to understand that, maybe counter-intuitively, secondness is in a way the 'origin' of object and interpretant alike. Peirce is certainly not a (proto-)radical constructivist, insofar as he frequently refers to the material world, and insists on its existence, but nevertheless he recognizes the central role of perception in bridging the gap between the world of objects and the world of subjectivity. Therefore, it is not hard to understand why there is resistance in overcoming this categorical gap. In a way, we can imagine the object resisting (passively) against its transformation into a sign.

Thirdness, then, is the state of being interpreted. Once a sign has been attached to an object, it can be processed by consciousness, which is basically a repetition of the first two steps. An interpretant can in turn become the object of a semiotic operation, thus steadily increasing the complexity of the signs. Peirce does not conceive of semiosis as an infinite process -- he insists that everything can be known. This is an object of much debate among semioticians, because this ideal state would bring the semiotic process to an end. So what happens then? This could be compared to literary studies finding the final interpretation of, say, Tristram Shandy -- it is almost impossible to imagine. But it is equally impossible to resist the theoretical beauty of this
conceptualization: the very process that can be seen as the source of anything new that comes into our world is steadily decreasing the chances for this form of semiotic innovation to occur.

This, of course, is where Peirce's ideas become relevant for games and narratives. The beginning of a novel or a game is always a moment of "anything can happen" (or "what happens if...?) -- but once the fictional world is fixed in its conventions the probability of surprise is steadily decreasing. This might be more pronounced in genre fiction, but is true for 'higher' literature as well. And in both games and literature, there are narrative obstacles to be overcome by the player/reader. This is what Aarseth recognizes by calling texts 'ergodic', but from a semiotic point of view the difference between acting and interpreting (or in Aarseth's terms 'trivial' and 'non-trivial effort') is non-existent. Whatever kind of 'effort' goes into a semiotic operation (such as reading a novel or 'solving' a game), it is always aimed at overcoming the resistance of the text.

This is not to say, of course, that there is no difference between games and literary texts. Once these higher-level processes are broken down to individual semiotic operations, we can differentiate the specific semiotic modes characteristic of these media forms. But this is a project that will still take some time to be completed, so for the time being bear with me and accept these explanations, as incomplete and muddled as they still are. I hope to have clarified at least some of the points in question, and would like to hear your take on it.

Regards,

Julian.

Of course, I'm still struggling to make complete sense of Peirce--Julian obviously think the man's work can have profound influence on the study of videogames.