"Game, Gamer, Play" gelezen

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Games, Gamers, Play

Lee Sang-woo's "Games, Gamers, Play" is a unique book. It looks like a traditional humanities book, but it's actually also like an essay, and it seems like a book that thoroughly introduces and analyzes games, but the subject of that analysis is games that people used to enjoy without much thought – "Journey" and "StarCraft", for example. 

 
"I was always stuck between two strata. The industry and academia, the company and the school, literature and games. The last stratum was the most unstable of all. Most people who study literature don't like games. Gamers aren't very interested in pure literature either. The two groups walked parallel lines that could never meet, and I was in the middle. It was lonely. But I thought that it was also the responsibility of the person in between to connect the two. In that sense, the word 'hybrid' seems quite fitting for this book." – From the afterword
 
I too have often felt this way while enjoying literature and games for a long time. In fact, in the genre of adventure games, storytelling is so important that it's almost inseparable from the story itself. Nevertheless, perhaps because of the perceived lightness(?) of games, I thought the mainstream literary world had never properly dealt with the stories within games. In the midst of this, the appearance of this full-fledged game review collection was enough to pique my interest.

In particular, the parts I found interesting were the "Games and Time" and "Games and Space" sections.
Time within a game and the time of the real world in which you play are quite different. I've always found this gap interesting, and the author delves into it as well, meticulously tracing the meaning of time in games from various angles. To the point of classifying games as RR, NR, RP, and NP, using the axes of Real-time / Non-Realtime and Pure fictional Time / Realtime-induced fictional Time.

According to the author, RR refers to games where the time the player plays and the time within the game coincide. In other words, RR refers to the type of game where you have to complete tasks within a time limit and under pressure. RP is a structure where real-time gameplay is combined with pure fictional time. The time within the game flows invisibly, without putting pressure on the player. This is the time system mostly found in action and shooting games, where the story can exist independently of gameplay.
So what are NR and NP? I think it's best to find out by reading the book. It might be a bit difficult for someone who has immersed themselves in games, but once you understand it, it's definitely a fascinating classification system.
Space is also an interesting issue. A playground that doesn't exist in the real world, but that you're definitely experiencing right now. Along with time, the virtuality of space sometimes triggers a strange sensation in the player.

Every game is a Space Machine. After a long loading screen, the player, that is, us, suddenly arrives somewhere. We don't know anything except for one thing: that this body is the protagonist of the game. It doesn't matter if we don't know our name, or if we're not even human, but a monster, a creature less than a monster, or even just a single pixel that's barely considered a living being. It's okay. I'm the protagonist, and as long as the protagonist moves according to my manipulations, that's all that matters.

However, I did find it a bit regrettable that the amount of space dedicated to the space within games was less than that of time. As a reader, I wished there had been more analysis. But I was very pleased that the book brought up unexpected aspects of temporality and spatiality, giving me a lot to think about.