Executive Summary

Overview

This study of 130 of the top-selling games for the first half of 2002 in Australia demonstrates that, across the five major platforms (including the PlayStation2, Xbox, Game Cube, Game Boy Advance and personal computer) computer and video games present diverse worlds of play. They do so in terms of their presentation of physical space and objects, characters, narrative and style.

Methods

Four objects of study for each game title were identified including

  slick/cover/box,

  the manual/handbook,

  the introductory cinematics and

  the first 10 minutes of game-play.

The researchers coders established an innovative coding scheme with coding definitions and pilot-tested it in August and September 2002. Four researchers coded 130 games in the sample frame between October and November 2002. Over 80 variables were used and over 400 measures were made of each game title.

Key Findings

General

  The most frequently observed genres were action, platformer, sport and driving/racing.

  The distinction between action games and platformers is technical with a focus on 3D versus 2D representation; this was highlighted by PC and console titles versus GBA titles.

  Genres tended to be bound up with OFLC classification.

  Platforms showed a relationship to OFLC classification.

  On a subjective measure of implied danger, games were evenly split between “safe” and “unsafe.”

  Slicks or box covers reveal that the heritage of CVGs is more one of the appeal to visual and play elements than one of complex narrative.

  The handbook or manual functions primarily as a cybernetic orientation and secondarily as a narrative introduction.

Physical Space and Objects

  Contrary to the common stereotypes about CVGs (that they are simplistic, repetitive, formulaic worlds lacking in aesthetic nuance and texture), the digital world of games is painted using a vast array of visible features and locations.

  Interior and exterior locations were commonly used, building, trees, lights and water dominated the visible landscape and the action was set in cities, forests and a wide range of landscapes in between.

  The game worlds we studied featured a diversity of environmental and weather conditions.

  The presentation of equipment in game cinematics and play is skewed toward objects that have utility to the player or the player’s character in the unfolding experience of the game.

  Subjectively, for most games (60 percent), the population density was sparse.

  Objectively, more than 20 active background characters share the game space as the primary character in over half of the games.

Characters

  The depiction of characters is dependent on the game genre.

  Characters are predominantly human who serve the role of the independent, non-speaking hero.

  The stereotypical representation of characters in traditional mainstream media also exists in game worlds. Yet games are different from traditional mass media in that very often it is hard to “see” the character being played, the camera serves as the eyes of the character in the game, and thus the player.

  Leading characters in video games are more often realistic and “normal” or “average”. More than half are of average height. More than two-thirds are of average weight. Two thirds have natural and realistic body types.

  Visible characters are always clothed, unless they are anthropomorphised animals in which case clothing may not be necessary. Style of dress varied considerably with casual street clothes most commonly shown, followed by sports clothing.

  Where a work role could be confirmed, athletes were most common, followed by soldiers.

  Weapons were the tools used most frequently by characters. When they were used, weapons were restricted to FPS and action games and these were held within M15+ and MA15+ OFLC classifications.

  Lead characters are active agents exhibiting a full range of behaviours. These behaviours run the gamut from standing to flying and from eating to sleeping.

  The emotions that were most commonly expressed by the characters were those that exhibited clear vocal counterparts; otherwise emotional expression is vague as a function primarily of technical limitations and use of “camera” in showing the character.

Narrative

  Better than one third of the games in the study exhibited an open-ended narrative structure. Games in which the player is “on rails”, that is in which the player has little control of the narrative progression tend to be platformers, FPS and action; games in which the player is “god” tend to be sport, driving/racing, RPG and sim titles.

  Most games are situated in the present.

  As with mainstream film, when a manipulation of story order occurs, it is most commonly in the form of a flashback; in games this occurs in cinematics as a narrative tool and very rarely appears in game-play, which by definition, takes place in real time.

  During the cinematic sequence, the player and audience knows more about the story than the character knows. However, in the game-play, the player-as-character is provided with a restricted knowledge of the story to enhance the experience of dramatic tension.

  Like mainstream film, a majority of games is presented with objective depth of story information; the player, looking into the game world has an omniscient perspective.

  Good versus evil is a recurring theme in folklore, fairytales, mythology, contemporary drama and … CVGs. However, games differentiate themselves by their use of point accumulation as an objective.

Style

  In both the cinematics and game-play, the tendency toward near photo-realistic expression is higher for the rendering of environments than for characters but overall, graphic stylisation tends toward a mid-point between basic animation and photo-realism.

  The aspect ratio remained at standard full screen Academy ratio of 1.33:1 for game-play, however it shifted to other ratios approximating the wide-screen cinema frames for cinematic sequences.

  Cinematic sequences usually employ ‘cinematic’ camera, meaning the replication of traditional film. However, in game-play the fictional camera is spread across all categories and is generally bound to genre such as the first-person perspective in FPS.

  Variety of presentation was found in games’ tonality of lighting. In addition to the traditional video game high contrast lighting aesthetic, there was plenty of evidence of low contrast lighting and warm and cold tones.

  The Hollywood Illusionistic convention of motivated lighting as a source predominated in both cinematic and game-play.

  A majority of the cinematic sequences employ the continuity system of ‘invisible’ editing; the remainder use the ‘montage sequence’ type.

  Text and iconography whether diegetic or non-diegetic, whether in cinematics or game-play, tended to be informational, save for a significant proportion of instructional non-diegetic text.

  Most speech emanates from within the story space and is simultaneous with image.

  Music mainly came from outside the story space and sound effects from within the game world.

Conclusions

CVGs present audiences diverse worlds of play. These worlds are as much about fun and safe digital playgrounds as they are about the traditional devices of story-telling; that is, of confrontation and conflict. The results presented in this report have policy implications, commercial value and academic merit. The policy implications centre on the popular debate about violence and classification. The commercial value exists in the analytical tool and potential variations of it that we used to examine game content in relation to market popularity of key titles. The academic merit comes from the blending of two distinct styles of research into a new method of observation and analysis.

Introduction

Not one published, credible study exists to document the wider nature of contemporary computer and video games (CVGs). This study seeks to fill the gap. However, questions come quickly to mind that challenge the study’s purpose:

  Why is understanding CVGs important?

  Does this gap need to be filled?

  Is this academic?

  What is the commercial value of such knowledge?

We believe this report answers these and other questions. In the end we conclude: CVGs present their diverse audiences with diverse worlds of digital play. That they do so is profoundly important because play is the foundation of culture. German philosopher Johan Huizinga wrote in 1939 that culture is determined by play. He noted that without play, there would be no great cultures, no great civilisations, no … humanity. He argued that rather than calling ourselves homo sapiens (man the thinker) we should call ourselves homo ludens, man the player.

In 2003, computer and video games represent our current “state of play.” That is, CVGs set the rules by which so many of us play. Presumably, by extension of Huizinga’s argument, CVGs are culture-makers. Indeed, if CVGs underpin so much of our play and emergent culture, knowing the nature of their world seems of self evident importance.

This study of 130 of the top-selling games in the first half of 2002 in Australia (a country which is arguably a nexus of European, American and Japanese market tastes), demonstrates that, across the five major platforms, computer and video games present diverse worlds of play. They do so in terms of…

  Physical space and objects

  Characters

  Narrative, and

  Style.

The purpose of our study was to conduct a quantitative content analysis of the portrayal of the variety of physical spaces and characters in CVGs while at the same time assessing narrative and style features.  Moreover, we wanted to include rich qualitative analyses of the narrative in two presumably different games to demonstrate the distinction between non-narrative and narrative game forms.

To achieve these goals, we examined games in the five popular platforms for CVGs in early 2002 including the PlayStation2, Xbox, Game Cube, Game Boy Advance and personal computer.  Figure one demonstrates the near equal representation in this study of each of the five dominant CVG platforms in 2002.

Underlying much of our interest was our view that CVGs are increasingly popular as entertainment media. The growth rate of 32 per cent in the value of Australian retail games hardware and software sales in 2001 over 2000 is just one indicator. In 2002, the sales of CVG hardware and software has been estimated at $(AU)55 billion which represents a 12 percent increase world-wide over 2001 figures. In Australia for the 12 months to June 2002, the CVG market was including $315 million in software.

Figure 1: Platforms Represented in the Sample

Moreover, the target audience for CVGs is no longer an adolescent one. In Australia and other developed western countries, CVGs are played by children and adults with the median age range being adults 18 to 35 years of age. As a function of a more diverse audience for CVGs, we believe that producers of these are depicting more representations of society and culture in CVG content to elaborate the story of more complex plots, scenarios and characters that serve as the backdrop against which game-play takes place. Not only are the representations and stories of these CVGs intended for increasingly diverse audiences, but they may better represent the diversity of society by virtue of their appeal both to broader and to narrower audience tastes.