Metodología para conocer a los estudiantes de 5to

In his book Half- Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, Jesper Juul develops what he terms a “classic game model,” criteria by which an activity can be defined as a game. Building upon the work of other scholars, Juul describes six elements that together constitute “an abstract plat-form upon which games are built” (2005, p. 54):

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A game is a rule- based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are negotiable [p. 36].

Although Juul uses this model to highlight the way that understandings of games have been altered by role- playing and digital games (p. 53), he describes how all of the games contained within David Parlett’s The Oxford History of Board Games (1999) and The Penguin Encyclopedia of Card Games (2000) fall within this model. Essentially, Juul’s claim is that, until recently, all forms of game could be defined using these criteria.

Following Juul’s model, a “classic” game proceeds towards an outcome that is largely indeterminable at the outset of play. Of the potential and vari-able outcomes, some are valorized and can be considered “better than others”

(2005, p. 40). In the case of multiplayer games, it is reasonable to assume that here Juul is referring to the achievement of the winning condition as being preferable to not achieving it — it is better to win than to lose. The final asser-tion that Juul makes with regard to the potential outcomes is that “the player is emotionally attached to the outcome of the game in the sense that a player will be winner and ‘happy’ in the case of a positive outcome, but a loser and

‘unhappy’ in the case of a negative outcome” (p. 36). In making this claim, Juul’s focus shifts from the game as an object to the game as subjective expe-rience. In claiming that “the emotional attachment of the player to the outcome is a psychological feature of the game activity” (p. 40), he moves from the realm of formalist game studies into that of play theory, and in doing so raises a number of questions about the limitations of a structuralist perspective in dealing with the complex nature of play and motivation. As Markku Eskelinen notes, the assumption that player motivation is always related to the outcome of the game “runs the risk of reducing the range of the player’s personal attach-ments, motivations, styles, and reasons for playing into the mere outcome or preferring one type of attachment to all the others” (2005, pp. 15–16).

The outcomes of modern board games are variable, quantifiable and val-orized, at least by the formal rules describing winning conditions. These rules explain the mechanics through which a player may influence the outcome of the game, implicitly or explicitly describe the hierarchy of goals, and conclude with the higher- order goal that prescribes the winning conditions.¹ As dis-cussed previously, the importance of the game goals lies in the way that they shape player actions. Yet despite the critical position goals hold in defining and understanding games, in terms of behavior within a play environment, the notion that player actions are oriented towards goals is one that is “curi-ously understudied” (Heide Smith, 2005). Game scholars and designers often take this understanding of player motivation as an a priori assumption. Video

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game scholar Jonas Heide Smith has undertaken significant research into the assumed goal- orientedness of players in his doctoral dissertation. His research is concerned with analyzing the “common folk theory” that players want to win a game (2006, p. 6). He identifies four player models which contribute to understandings of player behavior. Of these, only two, the rational and the active player, are actually concerned with player actions during play (pp. 23–

24).²

As Heide Smith observes, the idealized model of the rational player is the one inherent in texts that focus upon the process of game design and mathematical game theory (p. 257).³Consequently, the model is predicated on a very computational model of player behavior. The rational player’s behav-iors are motivated entirely by the goals of the game and form an ordered set of preferences based upon information received exclusively from the game state and rules. As a model, the rational player provides a baseline from which deviance can illuminate aspects of the relationship between game and player.

In observing physically co- located players of video games,⁴ Heide Smith’s results demonstrate the utility of the rational player in that the model “neatly predicts in- game behaviour” in terms of general goal- orientedness (p. 239).

Importantly however, he acknowledges that these behaviors are “subjugated by social norms defining appropriate play” (p. 242). In practical terms, Heide Smith observed that player behavior within the game space was largely oriented, while the social context was seen as an opportunity to share helpful information about the game being played. As one possible motivation for these differing behaviors, Heide Smith suggests that players are attempting to introduce a degree of fairness to the gaming encounter. In describing this incongruence between goal- orientedness during play and the contents of inter-personal communication, Heide Smith introduces a distinction between the

“game circle,” wherein the rational player pursues his or her goals with com-mitment, and the “gaming circle” wherein the social expectations of the game in context are met (p. 228).

In making this distinction, Heide Smith highlights the existence of the active player — that is, the player who engages in complex practices and social interactions in ways “often not predicted or prescribed by the game designers”

(p. 24).⁵Derived from semiotics and reader- response theory, the active player is imagined as a participatory agent in the interpretation and configuration of the game rather than a product of the game’s rules, slavishly bound to the prescribed goals. Consequently, as Espen Aarseth notes, the active player has proven a particularly attractive model for those who study digital games.

Examples of transgressive and subversive play, although perhaps “statistically marginal,” are “nevertheless a crucial aspect of, and key to understanding all kinds of play and game culture” (2007, p. 131).

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In terms of goal- orientedness, Heide Smith’s study is of particular rele-vance to this discussion in that he identifies a clear incongruity between formal understandings of games and the play of the game as a social experience. In his research into video game players, Heide Smith observes that players limit their pursuit of fairness to information sharing:

The players display a willingness to help others by giving advice and sharing information. This indicates that the players find strongly competitive behav-iour legitimate as long as it is accompanied by a desire to share relevant infor-mation with other players. Put differently, concerns about fairness do not extend to gamespace behaviour but clearly mean that performance in the game should not be a consequence of superior or inferior knowledge about how the game works [2006, p. 242, emphasis mine].

This sharing of information between players about how the game is played ensures that each player is conversant with the rules and mechanics of the game, and that a level playing field is retained. Although Heide Smith refers to this phenomenon as “self- handicapping,” this is a misnomer. handicapping is generally defined within studies of play behavior as “the delib-erate attenuation of the force or intensity of an action by one or other play partner in order to give the other a better chance of ‘winning’ or at least to allow more evenly matched encounters” (Boulton and Smith, 1992, p. 436).

As indicated above, Heide Smith finds no evidence of such attenuation in his research.

Nevertheless, it is apparent that the players in Heide Smith’s research are communicating in order to maintain fairness and a sense of social cohesion.

In the case of video games, however, the division between the game space and the social space is artificially clear. The video game takes place behind the screen, while the social interactions surrounding it are located in the “real world.” This distinction is made apparent when Heide Smith suggests that

While game playing may be one of the few spheres of life where people are in fact expected and entitled to care only for their own objective interests ...

close- proximity verbal interaction in a couch is not [p. 228].

This distinction that Heide Smith makes between the game circle and the gaming circle is not only imagined, but also actualized in the separation of the player environment and the game world as displayed on screen.

The reason I raise this distinction is to contrast this with the nature of board game play. In a board game, players not only share close physical prox-imity, but also intimate involvement with the physical components of the game. They are also engaged with the many mechanics employed in modern board games that explicitly invoke social interaction between players. Given the degree to which interpersonal psychology and social negotiations are often

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embedded in the ruleset of a board game, the division between play of the game and the social interactions brought about by that play is blurred. Where the screen space of video games allows a clear delineation between the oriented play of the game and the social expectations that accompany it, no such boundary exists within the play of a board game other than that con-structed by the player through the social context and degree of engagement.