Reading "Game, Gamer, Play"

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Games, Gamers, and Play

Sangwoo Lee's "Games, Gamers, and Play" is a unique book. While it appears to be a traditional humanities book, it's also somewhat like an essay. And while it seems like a book that thoroughly introduces and analyzes games, the objects of that analysis are games we casually enjoy – like "Journey" and "StarCraft."

 
"I have always been caught between two layers. The industry and academia, the company and school, literature and games. The last layer was the most unstable of them all. Most people in the literary world don't like games. Gamers aren't particularly interested in pure literature. The two groups have always walked parallel lines, never meeting, and I was stuck in the middle. It was lonely. But I thought that it was the role of someone caught in the middle to connect the two. In that sense, the word 'hybrid' seems like a fitting title for this book." - From the Afterword
 
I, too, have often felt this way while enjoying both literature and games for a long time. In fact, when it comes to adventure games, storytelling is paramount, making the genre quite close to narrative itself. However, perhaps because of the perceived 'lightness' of games, I felt that mainstream literary circles had never properly dealt with game narratives. In the midst of this, the appearance of a full-fledged game criticism collection was more than enough to pique my interest.

In particular, the sections on "Games and Time" and "Games and Space" were particularly interesting to me.
The passage of time within a game and the passage of time in the real world where we play are quite different. I have always found this gap interesting, and the author dives into this point, meticulously tracing the meaning of time in games from various perspectives. He even goes so far as to classify games using the axes of Real-time / Non-Realtime and Pure fictional Time / Realtime-induced fictional Time, classifying them as RR, NR, RP, and NP.

According to the author, RR refers to games where the time the player spends playing and the time within the game coincide. In other words, RR refers to games where the player must complete tasks within a time limit and face the pressure of a deadline. RP is a structure where real-time games are combined with pure fictional time. The time within the game flows invisibly, without placing pressure on the player. This, the author argues, is the time structure typically found in action and shooting games where the story can exist independently of gameplay.
So what about NR and NP? I think it's best if you find out by reading the book. It might be a little difficult for those who have immersed themselves in games, but once you understand it, it's definitely an intriguing classification method.
Space is also an interesting problem. A playground that doesn't exist in the real world, but one that we are clearly experiencing right now. Along with time, the virtuality of space sometimes evokes a strange sensation for the player.

All games are Space Machines. Once the long loading is over, the player – that is, us – arrives somewhere out of the blue. The only thing we know when we are dropped from the sky is that this body is the protagonist of the game. It doesn't matter if we don't know our name, or if we aren't even human, but a monster, something less than a monster, an amoeba, or even just a pixel that's hardly a living being. It's okay. I'm the protagonist, and as long as the protagonist moves according to my control, that's all that matters.

However, I found the amount of content about the space within games to be a little lacking compared to the discussion of time. As a reader, I wished there had been more analysis. However, I was very pleased that the book brought up the unexpected notions of temporality and spatiality, giving me a lot to think about.