DISSERTATION NOTES

UNIT OPERATIONS IAN BOGOST

Any medium can be read as a configurative system and an arrangement of

interlocking units of expressive meaning. These are unit operations. This would
lead to a greater framework of understanding of the cultural productions that are
both computational and literary. It would also join the chasm between technology
and literary theory.
Object technology software engineering provides a framework for developers
to create units of programmable meaning and for creating different applications
without repeating the root programmes. Stephen Wolfram believes that OTs
object/relational effects are built into natural systems, which allows the whole
thing to be a configurative experience. See, for instance, humanities like film,
theatre and literature, and informatics like computer science, biology.
o
Mysterious fields that require a considerable amount of complex
knowledge and experience to fully understand, and obscuity dogs the
production of works on either side. Starting out with videogames at 30 if
youve not spent your younger years playing is also extremely different to
orient yourself to. This is partly because of the use of jargon.
Jonathan Culler: A theorycant be obvious. This is how
humanities are more like the informatics than they expect Jargon
and obfuscation is the means of groundwork for any new
production.
Move from real property to intellectual property critical theory as
intellectual property, works of literary theory as the user guide to
applying a critical theory to a given work.
Adaptive systems theory.
Videogames ludology theories of play and the history of videogames.
Ludology and game theory are not mutually exclusive; game theory is a study of
strategic/mathematical problems, such as poker; ludology is the study of any
game that can be played on a machine, including arcade machines and PC games.

Part One: Unit Operations

Unit operations are a form of making meaning that use individual /unique actions rather
than a deterministic system. In literary theory, unit operations would be a single unique
reading while the system would be literary authority --- i.e. a renowned critic or the
theory itself. (another way of putting it is the DNA the whole is the system, the
individual setpieces of the DNA are unit operations).
This could also be explained as the biological shift from scientists studying genes
as a method of understanding the human condition to scientists studying the
behaviour between genes in a larger biological capacity so as to understand
human behaviour.
Unit operations are concise, referential, separate and active whereas System Operations
are prolonged, dependant, chronological and static; unit operations prefer function and
instance over context and longevity, i.e. something that makes sense in that moment is
better than something in the long term.

However, the creation of unit operations does not mean that systems will become
obsolete. Systems are still important, only now they exists as spontaneous and complex
backgrounds made up by millions of tiny little unit operations rather than a general
backbone to which unit operations must and did adhere to. The integrity of systems stays
they regulate the units meaning to become part of the whole. [Postgenomic biology
does not strip genes of all their value; rather it reconfigures the role of genes in the
systems of organic life from one of causality to one of contribution. Genetics become a
process of gene combination, rather than a circumstance of gene existence.]
Systems theory (Ludwig von Bertalanffy) focused on studying interrelation between parts
of a system as the primary basis for understanding the system itself; today, there is
complex theory, which uses the logic of networks stable systems in a network
functioning as organized, but unpredictable and individual, functions as a part of the
entire network.
Definitions:
Unit a material element that is referentially related to each other. It is an object
that is separate and unique, but related to other things like it. Anything can be a
unit, even if it isnt strictly inanimate and can even be abstract and conceptual.
Units define everything from people to emotions, and the whole result of these
units (works of literature; human conditions; anatomy) can be called systems, but
they are different from a unit a system is the whole of a bunch of units working
or related to each other. However, in the greater picture, a system can also be
seen as a unit to a larger whole.
o Luhmanns system theory puts communication as the basic unit of social
systems, for example.
Systems are thus structures that seek to explain a phenomenon, behaviour or
state, which trive on order, rather than the balance of chaos and order.
o Mark C. Taylor structuralists are obsessed with systems because they are
trying to understand history through universal forms/patterns.
o However, because they are stable, they depend a great deal on
attitudes/values that inform the approach that created the systems; they
imply a universal order that someone might discover. Complex systems, on
the other hand, are self-contained and rely on interpretation instead of
discovery.
o Heidegger Gestell the idea of ordering the potential of structures in the
world to conceal their energy for future use, Bestand (standing reserve)
which basically means that everything is waiting and on standby. A good
way of understanding this is using packaged poultry that is the Bestand,
laying in wait for when chickens run out or we do not have access to
chickens. Gestell sees the world only in terms of what it can give us;
systematic scientific work seeks to understand and control the world,
which draws it away from human experience.
o While we cannot avoid systems, we can understand ourselves through the
exploration of systems. This is the same idea as Heiddeggers essay on
technology, and units function in the same way: they leave opportunities
open.
Heidegger suggests that the only way out of enframing (bringing
forth bestand material) is through reidentifying potential
reconfigurations of enframing; i.e. instead of giving into reserved
theory, creating our own interpretation of a given work.
Operation a basic process that takes one or more inputs and transforms it into
something else.
Brewing tea: teabag + water = hot tea. They are governed by rules. Unit
operations are creative, system operations are static (Heidegger) or unit
operations are procedural and system operations are structured (software
engineering). Complex networks are open and made up of the interaction
between hundreds of nonrelated units the internet, the brain, human genetics,
are all unit-driven networks moving away from simplistic systems. Unit operations

create connections between networks and build relations. They move according to
a broad range of logics (maximizing profit; new function).
o Spinoza: one substance (God/nature) controls the universe. Deus siva
Natura is a unit operation the two ideas, God and Nature, are related via
sive (or) where the two are in open relation to each other and different in
only arbitrary ways. It doesnt matter which is chosen, as they are both
equally good it is one substance appearing in different forms. The
substance then interacts with itself in different forms; for example, Spinoza
uses the idea of memory a memory is the mind remembering things that
are outside the human body, it memorizes objects that act on the mind
rather than the mind controlling what is remembered.
o Leibniz: monads/self-contained units make up the universe from clearest
(God) to cloudiest (organic matter) and their essences/ideals are defined
from the beginning of their existence. The relationship between
themselves is conceived by God, who dictates the relationship between the
other monads. Systems therefore fall in line and exist on a divine order.
o Cantor: combined the notion of infinite with that of the set/total- the
infinite is mathematically immeasurable, so he focused on the numerical
order of different infinities.
Set theory intensional: a set as a collection of objects held
together by a common thing. They require coherent and clearly
defined properties, i.e. system operations. An extensional set is
self-contained and only understood by the collection of objects it
contains, and is thus constructed from the bottom up.
Badiou multiplicity: the items in it are both the same as a unit and
unique from one another. Sets are made up of collections of
elements and it is fundamental for their existence.
Count as one multiplicities are seen as a completed whole;
each one is a multiple (so not a unit) but the result left
after the count as one process is one.
Units do not exist as they are all multiplicities.
Situation an infinite set; structured presentation the set
it set up in a certain way. This cannot count as on, but the
structure of the situation can count as one. The structuring
process is the state of a situation.
State what identifies, names, classifies and orders the
parts of a situation.
Event a disruption of the set.
Both Spinoza and Badiou put belonging as the centre of existing. With regards to
configuration/order:
o Spinoza units form their own relations.
o Leibneiz units are pre-organized.
o Badiou count as one; a set of units taken as a complete whole.
Jane Murray on digital environments: they are procedural, participatory, spatial,
encyclopaedic. Procedural references the computers ability to follow pre-defined
rules; it is the practice of programming real behaviour into digital representations.
o Eliza a computer programme who crafted responses according to natural
language rules.
o Through count as one process, it helps to bridge the gap between
computational and traditional representation the unit operation, which is
self-contained but also part of a whole, is dictated by rules and changes
according to rules.
o ontology: a conceptual model of the domain that is, a framework of the
hierarchy of programmes and the relationships between them, which serve
as frameworks for further calculations. They enable relationships, but do
not explain them; unit operations not only enables relationships but
explains the relationship between one situation and the other.

Unit operations textual and critical. Aarseth views cybertext as art, not as a tool
with which art must be analyzed.
o Multidisciplinary and seen only through criticism of a work of art. By
criticising, we will see the unit operations that will transfer between
mediums. They can be found naturally in any form of art they are the
procedure of a work of art, the framework of it.
o For example, the film the Terminal seen in the view of a unit-operation
analysis becomes a story about uncorroborated waiting (waiting without
guaranteed results): Dixon waiting for the results of his review
(complicated by Navorskys presence in the airport); Navorsky trying to get
the last signature for his fathers collection 50 years later; Enrique and
Dolores; Amelia and her married man (waiting for him to break it off, leave
his wife, take her in instead); Gupta waiting to find out if he can go home
to India. Furthermore, when viewed in similar circumstances as the base
operation (in this case, a flight) the unit operations themselves become
more obvious and noticeable and the viewer will be able to supplement the
unit operation with his own experience of waiting.
o Story/plot is merely a way to string unit operations together.
Structuralism and Computation
Both seek universal models semiotics tries to find rules to govern the production
of meaning in language; computers operate on logic and seek to code all meaning
in such a way that can be manipulated by outside forces.
Do universals (abstract concepts) that range over individual things (particulars)
exist outside of human understanding?
o Plato realist universals exist on their own.
o Ockham nominalist only particulars exist.
o Aristotle universals exist within human experience as objects function in
two ways: the universal mode (symbolic red for apple) and the particulars
about the object. This affects system operations in two ways:
Dualistic world where universals forms exist but only materially.
Matter + form = abstraction allows us to understand the material
form and the universal form is accessible through thought in the
material world. This lack of separation between form and material
leads to individuality. Form is always something material.
Causality final causality is the form objects work towards as they
change. Things actually seek a formal purpose and purposiveness is
the universal system that guides the objects to their form. Forms
are shared (general) properties and because they are
simultaneously shared and general, their distinctness becomes a
universal with a pre-established end.
The tension between causality and dualism is the tension between
unit and system operations, which is similar to semiotics (signs only
have meaning if relayed through a larger system).
Semiotics of signs:
o Peirce sign functions by resemblance (computer icon)
o Saussure symbol, i.e. no relation between the word and what it means
parole (unit/single use) and langue (system).
o Post-structuralists are against the idea of a stable structure establishing
and controlling all meaning while remaining external to the system.
Favoured the notion of unit operations but their approaches tended to risk
falling into becoming system operations, like deconstruction. The very
assumption that anything can be deconstructed is a system operation.
WWII:
o The computer ENIAV needed its information processes physically plugged
in in a certain way to relay the information. John von Neumann suggested
that it would be easier if the computer performed its work internally
without the need for physical alteration to the computer by a human this

led to stored programming, where each unit of the programme is reusable

and executable based on need, not arrangement.
Conditional control transfer executing instructions in any order.
Commonly used sets of instructions (subroutines) were kept in
libraries and loaded in multiple programmes to reduce
programming.
o JvN wanted a universal computer where the CCT would allow individual
computer functions to be preserved across programmes unit operational.
He worked with Turing and they treated universal compution as a logical
problem. Computation mimics representation on a higher plane and they
wanted to create a pre-defined notion for universal cognition, and used the
brain as a model. However the brain does not rank in a hierarchy and so
becomes hypothetical. Computation and cognition thus becomes an equal
relationship this is similar to post-structuralist and structuralist theory
because meaning-making becomes the universal process.
Praxis structure and method create meaning.
Post-structuralism moves away from systems; universalisation becomes an
approach and spreads different methods.
In digital culture, the bit is the most common universalism. The force and power of
the media comes from how the bits are organized (functionally and logically).
o Analogue vs digital analogue begins universalisation on a 1-1 basis,
which Walter Benjamin calls the decline in the aura of mechanical
production of art, where art looses its ties to tradition and thus becomes
easily applicable for a socio-political purpose (such as revolt) and, ergo,
becomes a commodity. This is also known as stored-programme.
Katherine Hayles and cybernetics:
o CN function with relations of pattern and randomness meaning emerges
when authors create meaning or recognize the pattern of meaning. These
take the form of unit operations: 1 action on 1 piece of data.
Pattern recognition can be either a system operation or a unit operation. In a
scenario where conditions are met, it is unit operational the act of information
processing that identifies patterns is a unit operation. This leaves out
political/social/economic/ethical issues.
o Bayesian filtering may sold this this uses predictions based on decisions
made by humans being monitored by computers, although the output is
considered a probability and not a certainty.
US Homeland Security Advisory System shows tension between unit and system
operations. DOHS colour system was launched and made public to the general
media, but by standardizing threat into a colour unit operation, the government
hoped to express risks clearly. However, citizens do not have a historical/political
context to make an informed decision because the DOHS assumes that America is
safe, and not a part of the violent world its predicting. The unit operation
encapsulates a system, not a single unit.
Unit operations must therefore try and succeed the promise of universal
computation. If we have become to see the world through logics and unit
operations, we must understand their relationship to each other and to us.
Humanism and Object Technology
Usually come with ontological questions ontology, how something exists. For
Aristotle, the object is accessibly in the material world (the universal form is only
accessible in thought). Ontology therefore becomes a reference.
o In psychoanalysis, the analyst asks questions to individual structures which
are mostly enabled through jargon (i.e. the 4 forces of dreams). These
theories become building blocks that the analyst arranges in order to move
the patient towards a result. Psychoanalysis is made up of units.
o Lacan came up with mathemes (algorithms) that act in the gap between
the unconscious and subconscious action.
The gap does not exist as such, but when the subject is awake, it
leaves a chasm that the object a (the desire) can work in to incite

the desire of the Other (the unconscious) on the subject. Ergo, the
subject does not really achieve desire but only notices the gap. In
other words, one unit changes the system and returns it to an
uncompromised state.
Similar to Spinoza, except the relation in Lacan is returned to a gap
in the unconsciousness.
Slavoj Zzk and his Lacanian analysis of Rear Window the window is a fantasy
window (does not exist) and shows what could happen if Jeff were motivated to
act (sexually). The meaning of what he sees depends on his situation outside the
window what the window provides is merely a great deal of different outcomes.
o Retroactive causality the search for truth prolongs the search. Every
context is already retroactively a part of the whole; problems are part of
the Lacanian subject.
Graham Harman insists that retroactive causality is a global
structure (system) not a psychological theory (unit).
Starr: the theory only appeals to Lacanian theorists.
o By relating problems outside the system, Zzk unit remain subject to
further change.
Lacan remains symbol/domain specific unlike Badiou who extends maths to all
domains rather than just believe that maths signifies key relationships between
symbols and reality. Badiou thinks all relationships are mathematical and one can
alter the situation by adjusting their structure.
o Badiou reality is constantly in flux because it can always be changed
(event) by something unexpected/something leading to an unexpected
and radical change. For ex: Anti-Semitics are incapable of seeing Jews as
individuals; they are merely the living lack of Aryan characteristics. A
restructuring would lead to them being seen as individuals, but it is
unthinkable at that moment. Psychoanalysitic-development unit operations
can therefore e reconfigured to underwrite new representation of a symbol.
Technology Objects
McLuhan sees technology as an extension of our bodies and changes the
boundaries of technology to implicate humanity, like cyberpunk (William Gibson).
Its a phenomenological.
o Kittler we are products of the technology we use. Partially connected
media systems emerge from segregated media systems (gramophone;
film) which are not yet fully connected media systems (digital storage). He
focuses on the transfer of human knowledge and experience into binary
data for electronic storage.
o Neil Postman people have become technology; opposes technology as it
claims sovereignty over the whole range of human experience and
supports its claims by showing that it thinks better than we can.
Both trace universal binarization back to Turing, who first thought the world could
be totally programmable. Postman reacts by denying signifence of computation
while Kittler show the limit to how far soft/hardware metaphors can go owing to
the inherently limited nature of the machine. For Kittler, there is a price of
programmability in which hardware constrains what software can do. Machines
cannot replace/do what humans do because of limited hardware. Humans relate
to computers only on a software basis, which is itself limited by hardware.
o Leibneiz binary arithmetic all reality is either Being (1) or Nothing (0)
but nowadays seems outdated.
Technology limits and extends human behaviour through
programming. Consider software and programming as expressive
binary data storage becomes an accident of convenience (such as
ink with books).
By 1970, Large Scale Engineering (LSI) reduced the space needed to house
required hardware for computing this led to the minicomputer being shipped
with software preloaded. VLSI reduced digital computer circuitry to one chip,
which led to the rice of the microcomputer with Apple/IBM/Radioshack.

Minicamp used a client-server operation. The server (mainframe) had

minicomputers linked to it, which offered greater security, reliability and
control. When microcomputers became available, disaggregation of
programme elements became highly desirable because they would allow
microcomputers to contain common instruction symbol. Microsoft and
Apple found ways to protect their base of programmatic symbols.
1980 GUI programmes needed access to all instructions/objects/symbols that
bridged across all apps (OS). To protect code while leasing it, component objects
simple symbols in binary that expose certain aspects of a task. In windows OS,
these exist in dynamic link libraries (DLL) and contain object classes with
instructions for creating a window, etc. This protects the base code while also
simultaneously allowing outside developers to make apps for it. This is called
Object Oriented Programming/Object Technology.
o Attempts to bridge gap between human experience, software/programmed
representation and computational execution.
o Software 4 properties:
Abstraction programmed representation without context; the
object as is.
Encapsulation content of software hidden from the
system/simplified.
Polymorphism different instances of an object leading to different
behaviour.
Inheritance can create other classes which inherit attributes from
parent classes.
Software is made up of alogrithms (Lev Manovich a final sequence of complex
operations that a computer can execute to accomplish a task). The structured
objects are simple so software objects show a representation of the world, not the
world as is. LM believes that in changing data from traditional to computational,
the data is affected and changes to become more like the digital representation.
LM also think that the material world must be compressed to be reproduced in
software.
Bogost believes that unit operations help us expose and question the ways we
engage the world. OT merely makes it easier to discuss abstract relations that
exist between entities in the material world and the computational world through
encapsulation. Encapsulation hides the internal working to reduce complexity and
protect the real property.
In literary theory, device encapsulates meaning but it is complicated by literary
criticism. Bolter and Grusin claim that all media pay homage to previous media,
thus reinventing forms. For ex: the goal of the Batman franchise is to have a child
dressed as Batman while watching a Batman video and eating a Batman-themed
fast-food meal. Product licensing therefore becomes a form of unit operations.
George Landow on Hypertext:
o Praises Derrida for acknowledging that a new richer form of text depends
on discrete readings and that citability and separability is crucial to
hypertext because in so doing it can break with every given context
engineering an infinity of new contexts in a manner which is absolutely
illimitable, however he privileges the theory over the actual technology.
o We can now see that literary theory and technology work in the same way.
Human Objects
Human Genome Project- mapping out the structure of the human DNA. The DNA
has sequences of 4 base pairs which provide enough information for most social
relations. The goal of the HGP was to build a guidebook for human application
basically, to explain the DNA. Informational DNA was contained in the 4 bases as a
kind of backbone, and type and order of the DNA composed genetic encoding.
HGP was interested in simplicity and the DOE assumed that the hardest part was
the identification and sequencing because the final result would be simple. This is
because HGP saw humanity as a system operation rather than a unit operation,
which is blatantly false. Humanity cannot be simplified.
o

DNA model was also used by cyberneticist Gell-Mann who sees units of cultural
DNA encapsulating stored experience of many generations.
Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene speaks about the meme, which is cultural
and basically tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes, fashions, ways of making pots
or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by
leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in
the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain Memes are units of culture. The
unit-operation memeplex showed where memes encapsulated themselves into
the social system.
o Devox the meme superentity which creates cultural change through
deviance.
o WebQL viral marketing; cultural unit operation as OT (software unit
operation used to measure the success of a social unit operation). The
individual function of unit ismaintained.
Janet Murray procedural authority (the most important element the new
medium adds to our repertoire of representational powers is its procedural nature,
its ability to capture experience as system of interrelated actions. That is, they
can use a common toolkit to analyse both technology and literature. Both express
a system of interrelated action and teaches us to read both non-tech and tech
from the perspective of a shared procedure.

PROCEDURAL CRITICISM
Comparative Videogame Criticism
Claude Levi-Strauss comes up with 2 forms of thoughts: the mythological
(engineer) and the scientific (scientist). While the scientific seeks to create
structures which will then have events, the engineer creates events which form
structures. The bricoleur/engineer creates everything from scratch using parts.
Derrida shows that the bricoleur/engineer is a myth because the bricoleur is the
creator of the base of what he is. The bricoleur is produced by myth itself.
o Bricolur and literature criticism share a habit for borrowing concepts and
putting them to use.
o Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (The Handbook of Qualitative
Research) think that a bricoleur is a flexible and responsible agent willing
to deploy whatever research strategy, material and empirical material at
hand to get the job done.
Videogames are known for their rapid and unconventional approach to
development. Creators push the computational boundary of every day technology
ergo, comparative criticism and videogame software development need a
bricoleur who uses units of pre-existing meaning to form new structure of
meaning. This suggests that criticism and production are interrelated.
Videogame criticism tries to find abstract principles to characterize the medium
for example, Aarseths notion of cybertext (difference in function in the
mechanization leads to the aesthetic process). Videogames and technology
provide information regarding principles and evolution of human communication,
which primarily relies on configuration to get the meaning across. He refuses to
use literature criticism to explain videogame theory and believes that it must be
separate from literature criticism because otherwise it will be subordinate to
literature.
Generally, literature criticism regarding technology tended to focus on the links
between machinery and humanity. In the 80s and 90s, they tried to make a
computational practice of literature theory because they believed that the works
advanced assumption that software variations of theories exposed new ways to
read and write.
o Aarseth is adamant that is is a new form of art production and a new
form of literature; he does not want them to be thought of in the same way
as traditional art production and traditional literature.

DiGRA published a Hard Core forum (dedicated researchers coming together to

discuss what was essential in digital games criticism) which raises the question if
they were primarily focusing on the ludic aspect/videogames and evading all
other forms of theory. From Frans Myrs 3 thesis of videogames, this definitely
sees to be the cause because it isolates games from other disciplines and
emphasizes the playing aspect over the literary and expressive.
Bogost believes that we should focus on what they do and how they
communicate; focus mostly on the expressive capacity which would seek to
understand how videogames shows what it means to be human. This would not
avoid functionalism/ludic aspects of the games but would recognize the use of the
functional aspect of videogames as a tool for further analysis, i.e. the creation of
meaning through the mechanical parts of a cybertext.
Videogames and Expressions
Videogames are complex software programmes, however they can be abstracted
into units with dramatically increased scope. The FPS genre founded the industry
of game engines and leads into advances because common gameplay in the
works of some genres makes it easy to develop new games based on the code
written for existing games.
Aarseth: Creating a new version is mainly a matter of editing and then
recompiling a program file; the end result can be as similar or different from the
original as the programmer wants. Ergo the idea of a common substructure for
games grew into modern game engines. Component-based software became not
only useful for background rendering but also for crucial functions of gameplay. In
modern games, the engine is split up into software objects and recompiling isnt
necessary.
Developers create tools to allow nonprogrammers to build game components that
the engine then runs, such as plugins to import models/animations from 3D
programmes and level editors.
o Valve hammer Editor Half-Life.
o Neverwinter Nights Aurora Editor.
Game engines regulate individual artistic/narrative/cultural expression. This is due
to videogame status as an industrial art, i.e. the creative process that takes place
in the market economy. Like film, videogames require large budgets and big
creative teams, and only way they differ is in their treatment of IP.
o Film license IPs based on content and most are pre-existing (LotR; Harry
Potter) so they may produce sequels. Shrek the only thing reserved from
the bok are the name and the ttle character. Furthermore, studios structure
their films around formulas already proven to be a success, however they
do not produce/own/sell those models themselves. The studios cannot own
a genre.
o The game engine is a genre; one plays a game not a game engine. Genre
describes a story while game engines are the functional unit operations of
that genre for example, a genre would be a buddy cop movie while the
game engine would have to include driving, guns and chases.
Bushnell created a competitor for Atari (Kee Games) to increase market share and
later created Chuck E. Cheeses pizza/arcade chain because he understood botht
he promise of transferring material structure from one game to another and the
importance of transferring games from one play environment to the other. In the
mid 70s, arcade games like Pong were set in bars and showed an attractive
young man playing with a woman on his arm. Bushnell realized that the social
function of games could be transferred from an adult to a family setting, but this
social play was lost during the 90s.
Pong and Tank p2p combat simulation/aggression-release/materially bound to
structure of works themselves. Unlike film and literature, there is no reason for
alignment between IP, material, functional and discursive modes of authorship.
o The hardware structure of Atari 2600 was crafted to accommodate games
like Pong and Tank, i.e. a playfield, 2 sprites, 2 missiles and 1 ball. VCS was
considered one of the hardest systems to programme for, and gameplay

innovation required developers to work within constraints such as 128

bytes of RAM ad 2 kb game data cartridges. Furthermore, there were
concept constraints because it was designed for games with tennislike
attributes. Although the RAM was later increased, new concepts required
manipulation of the hardware.
Comparative unit operation game engines accentuated merger between functions
and materialism. Ben Sawyer: as a media form, games have perhaps the closest
relationship between advancement of the medium and advancement of its
underlying technology and production processes.
FPS game engines are usually more anticipated than games, i.e. Epic Games
Unreal Engine.
DOOM gave birth to modern game engines. It showed:
o Huge market for FPS 600,000 retail copies shown plus whatever was sold
through a shareware license.
o Huge market for helping others to create similar games by
extracting/abstracting the games core features so they created the
Quake Engine.
Modern game engines are more complex because they manage 3D worlds which
demand increasing complex programmes. Rendering has nothing to do with
gameplay, for example, and the game engine also manages abstract routines for
objects/characters, game physics; AI; sound management, scripting and tools. The
last two open up the game engine to other systems which might modify or add to
it.
o Therefore, the game engine is responsible for the growth of industry. Links
created by communication technology are many.
o Pong/Tank shared IP through direct ownership.
o Quake II Engine both the licenser and the licensee benefit from shared
property. Licensing starts at 10,000 an devs save start-up costs due to
already having an engine to work on.
Valve Half-Life (1998) Counter-Strike, still popular today.
The legal relationship makes them different from books because there is no legal
literary body to regulate intertextuality. Anxiety of influence by Harold Bloom
states that all literary texts are mirespresentations of stronger texts that came
before them. Strong poets like Keats achieve a high revisionary ratio because of
his internalizing works of writers such as Milton and Wordsworth, and thus it is
easier for Keats to be accepted into the canon as a great original writer. Poets
work against themselves and against the fear they will be forgotten.
By contrast, half-Life has core portions of Quake. Their commonness is mediated
through IP, which is a stable relationship regulated by governments and markets.
Rules are flexible, and may change, but the fundamental principle is legal.
o IP differs from remediation (Bolter & Grusin): remediation is at work, but
the borrowing is mediated by outside legal/commercial forces. The
games access to the unit operations game engine being borrowed from
Quake is redeemed through another unit operation, licensing. By relying on
this unambiguous relationship with the law, game engines relate cultural
art and market in a new way. IP is modified by the law, so effective game
criticism has to take license operation into account.
Commercial material/functional basis collapses literary criticism notions of
metaphor and analogy into unit operations: Quake and Half-Life shares same
material basis. The material, therefore, shows the cultural, social, microeconomic
status of a game. Working conditions, for example, might become embedded into
the game engine.
o In 2003, California workers went on strike (141 days) and Californians just
avoided the accused markets. This game-engines material basis then gets
formally embedded in another.
Discursive relationships between games of the same engines:
o Half-Life adjust the parameters of the Quake Engine.
o CS makes players fight in a world of gravity and friction.

FPS shooter games were born from the market opportunity to cater to a market
dominated by young men.
o Some developers use FPS engines to turn it on their heads.
MGS stealt over violence Rainbow Six.
Thief avoid conflict entirely.
Deus Ex (Unreal Thief) adds character interaction and skill use as
an alternative way of getting through the game. The player has
numerous solutions and a morality scale, both of which affect the
outcome.
Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern are developing a game engine for their
interactive drama, Faade, for more subtle human acts. It uses a set of software
subsystems to manage interactions between Grace and Trip, a couple involved in
a complex marriage crisis. The player takes the role of a longtime friend visiting
them.
o Faade integrates A Behavioural Language (reactive planning language)
which underscores the importance of recognizing the material and
functional details of unit operations through the game engine.
o The discursivity of games is thus changed by the capabilities of the gameengine. Limitations influence the kind of discourse the works can create.
Game Engine development is usually relegated to the visual/physical.
o The Maximum PC report on Half-Life 2 focused on improved bump
mapping, visual effects, and described Valves goal as to make everything
in the game look positively life-like (if not otherworldly). Appearance is
the most important aspect of a game-engine.
Remediation (Bolter and Grusin) humans write code because the computer can
execute code by the computer can act without human intervention. The
programmers use disappearance to remove themselves from the executing
programme, so disappearance becomes a goal of new media. They argue that
digital media reproduction identification through creators interactions with
previous reproductions. However computer systems resort to unit operations as
their primary form of reproduction.
o In the case of a game-engine/software development kit/code framework,
the programmer embeds his presence into object-oriented systems that
both limit and enable works.
Faades goal-directed ABL creates no work. ABL is a computer
language that compiles to an ABL agent API in Faades world. It
supports synchronized behaviours which allow the narrative author
to yield mixed effects and also supports a number of features, i.e.
goals, subgoals, priority, etc. Primitives are enabled through the
game world.
Mateas and Stern: ABL sends simple parameterized action requests
to the 3D story world, answers questions about the game world and
receives event notifications. The 3D story world is responsible for
accomplishing basic performance tasks such as the animation of
the face and synching the mouth to dialogue.
Break down the master-narrative into story beats (plot points within
a larger story) but in Faade, the story beats mean short segments
of goal-driving action. They are the unit operations of the narrative
and the platform queues beats to progress the storyline.
o Game Engines like the Quake II Engine and ABL API bind developers
materially/functionally/intellectually, which both limits and facilitates
discursive production. These confines, like language rules, can be broken.
Games and Narrative:
o Aarseth Adventure and Zork are objectified-systems that generate units
of textual meaning.
o Markku Eskelinen Aarseths theory focuses on functional differences
within media instead of making essentialist claims.

Ludology vs narratology Jesper Juul: Do games tell stories? Answering

this should tell us both how to study games and who should study them.
The affirmative answer suggests that games are easily studied from within
existing paradigms. The negative implies that we must start afresh.
Games and narratives share common properties, such as the use of
narrative to make sense of the experience, and the games
embedded stories/backstories are decidedly narrative. Even simple
games (Space invaders) has a narrative to motivate gameplay. Juul
if games are narrative, they must be translated from other
mediums, like film.
Compare the film version and the game version of Star Wars the
game does not create enough narrative to recreate the story of the
film; it recreates neither narration nor motivation. Juul believes that
games disturb the relationship between the reader and the story
that narration requires because the player becomes both an
empirical subject outside the game while also retaining a place
inside the game. Juul believes that paying too much attention to
narrative will make us focus too much on existing theories, thus
leading to forgetting what makes games unique.
The argument against Juul is simply that games may not be trying
to reproduce coherence.
Ludology is the study of unique features of a game; narratology is the
study of narrative across all media. Traditionally, narratology owes a lot to
structuralism which focuses on formal properties of language. Fabula/sjuzet
imply rule-based analysis of narrative discourse. Frasca: Just like
narratology, ludology should also be independent from the medium that
supports the activity. He compares elements of ludus to elements of
narration (game goal compared to the narrative plot)
Janet Murray reminds us that all forms of storytelling requires units, such
as Propps morphology of folk-takes. Digital stories are thus only a subset
of the reproduction possibilities for unit operations, while examples of
storytelling like epic poetry and folktale suggests that stories are instances
of unit operations. However, discussion of formal properties of games and
narrative becomes confuse with a discussion of expressive quality. Frasca
proposes that we use narrativism instead of narratology because it
characterizes the particular kind of criticism that privileges narrative over
configuration.
Henry Jenkins narrative enters games at localized incidents
(micronarratives) with fabula as the catalyst for understanding these
structures. narrative comprehension is an active process by which viewers
assemble and make hypotheses about likely narrative developments on
the basis of information drawn from textual cues and clues This narrative
reassembly of unit operations is taken forgranted.
Aligning stories with cognition:
Roger Schank we think in stories. Humans process
information in story form.
Mark Turner [humans possess] a literary mind.
Giacomo Rizzolatti mirror neurons suggests a
relationship between the cognitive understanding and
discrete nonnarrative actions.
o Also structure human cognition.
o Might explain empathy and the evolution of
language.
While mirror neurons seek to understand units of reproduced
meaning that do not necessarily help narrative, ludology sees to
separate games from human experience. Following just narrative
makes games produces of narrative only. Both ludology and
narrativism are dictated by a functionalist ideology.

Ergo, ludology vs narrativism should ask if games need to

produce stories while acknowledging that they are able to.
We should try to evaluate all tets as configurative systems
built out of experience units through training ourselves both
to understand simulations as interpretations of the world
(Janet Murray) but also to understand narrative texts as
simple. Videogames can be played as individual lines of
experience that might be narrative, however this is only
useful to show the broader abstract meaning the tets unit
operations make. Murrays assumption that a digital version
of a film must have a plot progression is ideology. We must
learn to read unit operations as discursive in their own right.