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FranklyTired
FranklyTired Technological Neanderthal
Jul 10 2010 Anchor

Hello all! It's been a while since I last posted anything, mostly because in two weeks I'm done with the university (yay!) and I've found a verty interesting subject I want to discuss with everybody in here... Semiotics in our media: videogames.

Most won't know what actually means semiotics or semiology, and I'm not in the mood to explain it, so I'll just quote wikipedia:

Someone wrote: In linguistics, semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols. It is usually divided into the three following branches:

  • Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata
  • Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures
  • Pragmatics: Relation between signs and their effects on those (people) who use them

Semiotics is frequently seen as having important anthropological dimensions; for example, Umberto Eco proposes that every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication. However, some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science. They examine areas belonging also to the natural sciences – such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world (see semiosis). In general, semiotic theories take signs or sign systems as their object of study: the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics or zoosemiosis.

Syntactics is the branch of semiotics that deals with the formal properties of signs and symbols. More precisely, syntactics deals with the "rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences." Charles Morris adds that semantics deals with the relation of signs to their designata and the objects which they may or do denote; and, pragmatics deals with the biotic aspects of semiosis, that is, with all the psychological, biological, and sociological phenomena which occur in the functioning of signs.


Anyhow, my career is communication sciences and one of the main aspects of it were semiotics/semiology. And in our media, We must have in mind those concepts to actually make better experiences for everyone, so I'll like to share these links regarding the subject:

Books.google.com
Semiotics.ca
Digra.org

Now... may the discussion begin!

Edited by: FranklyTired

frosty-theaussie
frosty-theaussie Sonny Jim
Jul 10 2010 Anchor

It's a funny way to start a discussion when you admit that you're not in the mood to discuss anything.

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FranklyTired
FranklyTired Technological Neanderthal
Jul 10 2010 Anchor

I said I was in no mood to explain what semiotics is that's why I quoted wikipedia... not in a mood to not discuss. Semiotics/semiology have way too many definitions and meanings.

There's a difference. Have you actually read what I wrote after the quote?

fdslk wrote: Anyhow, my career is communication sciences and one of the main aspects of it were semiotics/semiology. And in our media, We must have in mind those concepts to actually make better experiences for everyone, so I'll like to share these links regarding the subject:


Should I add: "Do you agree or disagree?" I don't think so, since that question it's implicit... and not very hard to find out.

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La Rescatista

Aug 27 2010 Anchor

High fdslk - fancy discussing video games in terms of Zizek's (Lacanian) concepts of Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real - in terms of the Performative? ie. video games as (social) symbolic projection of interior imaginary (''virtually real') worlds..

Sincerely
Henry Swanson

Aug 28 2010 Anchor

The biggest misuse of semiotics ever has to be by Peter Molyeneux, he keeps going on about it but his games feel utterly void of it. "I'm trying to express love in the form of a dog".. No.. you're trying to express an annoying game design choice that I want to kill (ok so its semiotic for pissing me the hell off! lol).

But he keeps going on about Touch and Power now.. so what? we can touch people and grab them and yank them off to some slave camp? that's not really using semiotics well, and power? what power? I though power could be seem as a form of feedback, not an semiotic token. I feel like he's just throwing semiotics out there to make himself sounds smarter.

I feel like the best forms of Semiotics in a game are ones that rely more on the visual than anything, if we're communicating a visual semiotic I feel it has a greater impact than one that tries to be preachy during a gameplay point, or worse, one that is constantly in your face as some kind of story theme. That won't work for great gameplay, instead focusing on evoking some kind of atmosphere or emotional responce via colours and symbols would be a greater way of getting semiotics across, its something I feel isn't really essential to making a great game rather is something that makes a game more detailed if you wanted to go that far. Creating some form of visual semiotic would actually make the world more beleivable and the illusion more effective- instead what we see in the case of the Peter Molyeneuxs of the world, they want it to hijack gameplay.. I feel that ruins what they were trying to get across because if the player doesn't interact with it the way it was intended, the semiotic gets screwed, plus it is subjected to opinion- one which Pete Molyeneux has never catered for in his entire history of blabbing on about semiotics.

I feel that semiotics in games are mostly at their strongest when they are visual. I've not been a fan of semiotic token characters designed with some kind of "meaning" to why they are called what they are and what they do. In terms of visual we can evoke an emotitonal responce better this way, a particular colour represents its own semiotic, and a particular form can evoke an emotion as well. I feel this is the best way to communicate it and any other way is probably too complicated or will likely work against your intentions.

EDIT: Correction, I think it should also apply to Audio too, I just realized that you can have iconic voice actors and music that evoke an emotion or symbolize something. So long as the semiotics don't influence the gameplay directly I'm cool with it, but its usually a case that Story controls the flow of gameplay, and in other cases they try to push semiotics on you during gameplay, which doesn't work. It's strictly secondary to gameplay.

Edited by: formerlyknownasMrCP

FranklyTired
FranklyTired Technological Neanderthal
Aug 28 2010 Anchor

Swanson420 wrote: High fdslk - fancy discussing video games in terms of Zizek's (Lacanian) concepts of Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real - in terms of the Performative? ie. video games as (social) symbolic projection of interior imaginary (''virtually real') worlds..

Sincerely
Henry Swanson


Hello Henry! Nice to meet you, I think that a better approach -in terms of concepts of imaginary- we should stay close to hyperrealism, since that analyzing the projection of videogames as part of an interior imaginary (actually, the developer's imaginary, not the target/gamer's imaginary) is hard to apply, due to the expression in a media (any media) itself, is a reflection of our own imagination (we can even remind what Adorno and Horkheimer said about the movies some time ago) but the interactivity and simulation created in a videogame, makes it hard to actually analyze it's contents depending of our own world of simbols and icons.

Mr_Cyberpunk wrote: The biggest misuse of semiotics ever has to be by Peter Molyeneux, he keeps going on about it but his games feel utterly void of it. "I'm trying to express love in the form of a dog".. No.. you're trying to express an annoying game design choice that I want to kill (ok so its semiotic for pissing me the hell off! lol).

But he keeps going on about Touch and Power now.. so what? we can touch people and grab them and yank them off to some slave camp? that's not really using semiotics well, and power? what power? I though power could be seem as a form of feedback, not an semiotic token. I feel like he's just throwing semiotics out there to make himself sounds smarter.

I feel like the best forms of Semiotics in a game are ones that rely more on the visual than anything, if we're communicating a visual semiotic I feel it has a greater impact than one that tries to be preachy during a gameplay point, or worse, one that is constantly in your face as some kind of story theme. That won't work for great gameplay, instead focusing on evoking some kind of atmosphere or emotional responce via colours and symbols would be a greater way of getting semiotics across, its something I feel isn't really essential to making a great game rather is something that makes a game more detailed if you wanted to go that far. Creating some form of visual semiotic would actually make the world more beleivable and the illusion more effective- instead what we see in the case of the Peter Molyeneuxs of the world, they want it to hijack gameplay.. I feel that ruins what they were trying to get across because if the player doesn't interact with it the way it was intended, the semiotic gets screwed, plus it is subjected to opinion- one which Pete Molyeneux has never catered for in his entire history of blabbing on about semiotics.

I feel that semiotics in games are mostly at their strongest when they are visual. I've not been a fan of semiotic token characters designed with some kind of "meaning" to why they are called what they are and what they do. In terms of visual we can evoke an emotitonal responce better this way, a particular colour represents its own semiotic, and a particular form can evoke an emotion as well. I feel this is the best way to communicate it and any other way is probably too complicated or will likely work against your intentions.

EDIT: Correction, I think it should also apply to Audio too, I just realized that you can have iconic voice actors and music that evoke an emotion or symbolize something. So long as the semiotics don't influence the gameplay directly I'm cool with it, but its usually a case that Story controls the flow of gameplay, and in other cases they try to push semiotics on you during gameplay, which doesn't work. It's strictly secondary to gameplay.


Well, hello there David! How have you been Mr. Cyberpunk? It's been a while! Ok, let me extend a little bit this:

I think Peter Molyneux won't work as the best example, I'll stick up with the minds that created Fallout, mostly because they actually used iconic references, made cameos and prasied classic ideas of literature, movies and tv into one single game. In Fallout you see reminiscense to movies such as Mad Max, Total Recall and The Day the Earth Stood Still in it's visual 50's stylish, yet you can find jokes about Dr. Who, Star Wars, and my favorite: The Monty Pythons.

This give us not only a totally different experience regarding media and icons (some signs of the streets in the game have the "YIELD" sign of Pearl Jam's album) but actually let us delve in a world of pure uniqueness that will let us smile remind us some classics that we -or some- remember with fun. So, we basically agree in that the graphic condition of a game can imply a lot.

Yet, I think that using some symbolisms for the design of some creatures can works for delving the player more, for example: In Silent Hill 2, the nurses represent the sexual repression of James. The audio can work too, and Akira Yamaoka in the Silent Hill saga have proven tons of times how can affect the game pretty much a good melody.

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La Rescatista

Aug 29 2010 Anchor

Hello

I would have thought using Baudrillard's notion of Hyperreality (as he strictly defines it, at least) for the backdrop to semiotic analysis (eg. Sassure, Barthes etc.) somewhat problematic.

This isn't to say it's not without merit - more that Zizek's 'virtually real' is close to hitting the mark when applied to modern video games, since they already seem an 'external imaginary' - ie. not so much something projected from within, but more a pre-existing (virtual) space - which, of course ties in with Baudrillard's 'copies without originals' in the hierarchy of simulacra.

I like something along these lines: "In video games, visual representation and sounds are secondary; these are elements from traditional media that are less relevant to video games than interactive systems, the differentiating aspect of the medium. It's through the interactive systems – as related to the player's agency – that we see the artistry in video games" - ie. active agency, as in the Performative.

fdslk wrote: I think Peter Molyneux won't work as the best example, I'll stick up with the minds that created Fallout, mostly because they actually used iconic references, made cameos and prasied classic ideas of literature, movies and tv into one single game


The shameless, cynical - and often poorly implemented - plundering of ancient mythology by the modern dollar grabbing video games industry, has created.. some of the best selling video games in history ;-)

- When you see the raw Jungian beauty of a game like "Shadow Of The Colossus", it's easy to see the overlap between semiotic analysis and universal human themes..

Thing is, are these 'themes' actually universal, or is it more that - given our consumer queue to respond to the pretty GFX - we succumb to their Baudrillardian Spectacle and perform the expected social behavior of 'mythological awe & wonder'?

Anyhow l8ers, I'm off to play Fear 2
Henry Swanson

Aug 30 2010 Anchor

Someone wrote: Yet, I think that using some symbolisms for the design of some creatures can works for delving the player more, for example: In Silent Hill 2, the nurses represent the sexual repression of James.


I disagree here, my issue with semiotic character representation is that it makes the characters seem not real- they seem manufactured to suit the story or gameplay. I have issues with that sort of game design, we should be focusing on creating characters that don't conform to cliches, but rather are unique intelligent entities able to react and respond intuitively. If we focus too much on the semiotic construction of a character then they become relatively un-interesting because their story seems manufactured and forced, whereas we want a natural progression of a character because that's more real and creates the better illusion. Characters shouldn't have any "hidden" meaning, if we want it to seem real, we need to focus on creating or even faking some kind of dynamic ehtos for the character, that they've come all this way to evolve into the character they are today, and their stance on the world is based on that journey. If we instead focus on a characters semiotic meaning we loose all that and they become nothing more than a device for us to use and eventually throw away.

FranklyTired
FranklyTired Technological Neanderthal
Aug 30 2010 Anchor

Swanson420 wrote: Hello

I would have thought using Baudrillard's notion of Hyperreality (as he strictly defines it, at least) for the backdrop to semiotic analysis (eg. Sassure, Barthes etc.) somewhat problematic.

This isn't to say it's not without merit - more that Zizek's 'virtually real' is close to hitting the mark when applied to modern video games, since they already seem an 'external imaginary' - ie. not so much something projected from within, but more a pre-existing (virtual) space - which, of course ties in with Baudrillard's 'copies without originals' in the hierarchy of simulacra.

I like something along these lines: "In video games, visual representation and sounds are secondary; these are elements from traditional media that are less relevant to video games than interactive systems, the differentiating aspect of the medium. It's through the interactive systems – as related to the player's agency – that we see the artistry in video games" - ie. active agency, as in the Performative.

fdslk wrote: I think Peter Molyneux won't work as the best example, I'll stick up with the minds that created Fallout, mostly because they actually used iconic references, made cameos and prasied classic ideas of literature, movies and tv into one single game


The shameless, cynical - and often poorly implemented - plundering of ancient mythology by the modern dollar grabbing video games industry, has created.. some of the best selling video games in history ;-)

- When you see the raw Jungian beauty of a game like "Shadow Of The Colossus", it's easy to see the overlap between semiotic analysis and universal human themes..

Thing is, are these 'themes' actually universal, or is it more that - given our consumer queue to respond to the pretty GFX - we succumb to their Baudrillardian Spectacle and perform the expected social behavior of 'mythological awe & wonder'?

Anyhow l8ers, I'm off to play Fear 2
Henry Swanson


Now I see what you meant, yes. I quite agree with you regarding the Zizek's approach on the matter. But now, to your final interrogative. I do believe, it's a mix of both the Baudrillardian Spectacle and not.

I think in certain way we do, since the simulation itself that a game is, makes us hop into a totally different world and it's own aspect, forgeting for a while of it. You come to mention Shados of the Colossus, a game -beautiful at the extends of graphics and art direction- that makes autoanalyze yourself, mostly because of the lack a very elaborated script and the loneliness of your character, you only have that world, your horse and the colossus, that most of them don't attack you, and act in their natural way (animalistic most of them) that really can apply to what Mr. Cyberpunk mentioned later, yet, the characters design resemble certain animals, you can't really see "try-to-guees-what-it-means" objetive. That makes you feel very awkward after killing one colossi, since you're destroying some really nice creatures only for a selfish act, the moral implications of Shadow of the Colossus it's what makes the game a hyperralist melodrama.

But! In a certain point, the game don't totally sucumb to the hyperrealism, because it actually makes you feel and reminds you: that it's just a game. And you on your own do that when playing it, and that's what avoid to make it a Baudrillardian spectacle (or receptacle too) your own capacity of knowing that is a simulation, in a difference with pornography that actually make guys think that a woman will always enjoy swalling some organic fluids, when hardly is that way in real life (today not so much, since the prerogative now due to the ages of the influence of porn in the media make it easy to develop some probabilities that woman do love doing it) something a game (unless some torks and switches are bad in you) can hardly archieve.

Mr_Cyberpunk wrote:

Someone wrote: Yet, I think that using some symbolisms for the design of some creatures can works for delving the player more, for example: In Silent Hill 2, the nurses represent the sexual repression of James.


I disagree here, my issue with semiotic character representation is that it makes the characters seem not real- they seem manufactured to suit the story or gameplay. I have issues with that sort of game design, we should be focusing on creating characters that don't conform to cliches, but rather are unique intelligent entities able to react and respond intuitively. If we focus too much on the semiotic construction of a character then they become relatively un-interesting because their story seems manufactured and forced, whereas we want a natural progression of a character because that's more real and creates the better illusion. Characters shouldn't have any "hidden" meaning, if we want it to seem real, we need to focus on creating or even faking some kind of dynamic ehtos for the character, that they've come all this way to evolve into the character they are today, and their stance on the world is based on that journey. If we instead focus on a characters semiotic meaning we loose all that and they become nothing more than a device for us to use and eventually throw away.


Well, I think that depends of the game your trying to do, and the effect you're approaching. If you want to make a horror game that's situated on the mind of the MC, that can work, depending of yourself, you can go ala Silent Hill or Rule of Rose (that for me, used this formula more than perfectly) making symbolic creatures to lure the character, or you can try a "realistic" approach the same way Inception did with the manifestations of the mind in the dreams.

I agree with you in the way that it's pointless to add a character a meaning of itself, I prefer do it in a way where the player can assume what he better thinks what it means, to give him the chance to do some semantic-connotative analysis on the game world and whatever lurks in it, in case he can't get it, well. I can give a short explanation of what I resembles for me.

It's all up to the public and your target! :D

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La Rescatista

Aug 30 2010 Anchor

Someone wrote: to give him the chance to do some semantic-connotative analysis on the game world and whatever lurks in it,


Yeah that's exactly what I was getting at, if we want to create real psychological characters in our game worlds, we need to allow the player to do this on their own- all we're doing is putting a character there, the player thinks about their actions and thinking however they want, Ideally in an intuitive way that doesn't feel forced. If we can do this, I feel like the player will have a greater connection to the game world, not so much its characters, I feel that is intentional and should be, because we want to create a sense of belonging, not a sense that the player is god- I see this problem is so many RPGs, you're always the chosen one, and when you step into a bar everyone looks at you waiting for you to talk to them so they can shove yet another bullshit fetch quest under your nose- if we were doing it properly, you walk into a bar and everyone treats either like shit because you don't fit in, or like any other drunk in the bar and just leaves you to your drink.

The player has to see their own semiotics in things, they need psychological feedback and they need to stop being told they're special and instead be told that they belong to this world- I feel its what we've all craved from games. If you look at the real world, do you honestly give a shit about the people walking down the same street as you? nope.. do they care about you, nope.. in video games however, apparently they do. Basically what I'm explaining here is a common art semiotic of urban loneliness, to be surrounded by hundreds of people, but yet still be completely alone.. and we've done that without manufacturing characters, its just happened because of the circumstances that the character you're playing happens to be in- and sure the player can take actions to fix this.

Edited by: formerlyknownasMrCP

FranklyTired
FranklyTired Technological Neanderthal
Aug 30 2010 Anchor

Mr_Cyberpunk wrote:

Someone wrote: to give him the chance to do some semantic-connotative analysis on the game world and whatever lurks in it,


Yeah that's exactly what I was getting at, if we want to create real psychological characters in our game worlds, we need to allow the player to do this on their own- all we're doing is putting a character there, the player thinks about their actions and thinking however they want, Ideally in an intuitive way that doesn't feel forced. If we can do this, I feel like the player will have a greater connection to the game world, not so much its characters, I feel that is intentional and should be, because we want to create a sense of belonging, not a sense that the player is god- I see this problem is so many RPGs, you're always the chosen one, and when you step into a bar everyone looks at you waiting for you to talk to them so they can shove yet another bullshit fetch quest under your nose- if we were doing it properly, you walk into a bar and everyone treats either like shit because you don't fit in, or like any other drunk in the bar and just leaves you to your drink. The player has to see their own semiotics in things, they need psychological feedback and they need to stop being told they're special and instead be told that they belong to this world- I feel its what we've all craved from games.


Exactly, I'm aiming to that with Breath (but now I'm having to much work to finish it up, but it's coming up) and I think Fallout 2 really made it, besides of you being a chosen one of your village, they manage to make a world where you can be a nobody, or a most wanted criminal. The game: Rise of the Dragon got that too, but in certain extent, the character must have something "special" to actually grab the player to make him play the game, now, the main problem would be:

How can we really make a player play a game in which he's just a nobody?

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Gorbles
Gorbles Antaprota
Aug 31 2010 Anchor

How can we really make a player play a game in which he's just a nobody?

Simple.

Make the environment and other characters as immersive and entertaining as possible. Look at Left 4 Dead. It's player driven, but you're a regular person (insofar as being capable with most modern military weapons counts as being a 'regular' person :D) and the game works in terms of keeping you interested. Admittedly it's a player-driven "move here, kill zombie" game, but if you spend your time trawling all over the maps there is so much detail that you would never find in a competitive playthrough (say a Versus version of that Campaign); the posters on the walls, the writing in the saferooms, heck, even some of the NPC character speech.

Ergo, take this theme. Expand on it. Games that aren't driven by action or combat aren't exactly mainstream and the most common theme you see are puzzle games, however there's no real sense of interaction with the player character; the only thing that keeps you going are the puzzles. There's no semantic context beyond perhaps a superficial association between the shape of the puzzle and something we know in real life, for example a puzzle styled on a rat maze. Such comparisons are superficial and lack the depth that even the most basic of FPS games hold.

So puzzles are out, barring perhaps as a minigame or some other form of distraction (akin to Splinter Cell, the first Prince of Persia or Resident Evil where puzzles are what you need to complete to open a particular door or other locked object), which means it's back to creating a realistic environment that responds to player interaction in ways beyond the usual "hit this, break this, grab loot". Unfortunately the amount of work needed is usually too much for anything barring, say, an RPG game, and the problem with those is that you are usually centric to the plot (KotoR being a rather pertinent example here).

So where is the balance? You don't want to continue the trope of the player being THE BEST GUY IN DA UNIVERSE, the luckiest man/woman/Wookie alive, etc. But on the other hand, in a professional scenario such as a games development studio, you have time and resource constraints. You can't (usually) afford to work on a game until it's perfect. Funding doesn't last that long. Public interest doesn't hold that long unless the game has achieved some form of legendary cult status (Starcraft, Duke Nukem Forever), and that kind of status is rare.

(I appear to have gotten somewhat sidetracked from the main debate of semiotics)

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FranklyTired
FranklyTired Technological Neanderthal
Aug 31 2010 Anchor

Gorb wrote: How can we really make a player play a game in which he's just a nobody?

So where is the balance? You don't want to continue the trope of the player being THE BEST GUY IN DA UNIVERSE, the luckiest man/woman/Wookie alive, etc. But on the other hand, in a professional scenario such as a games development studio, you have time and resource constraints. You can't (usually) afford to work on a game until it's perfect. Funding doesn't last that long. Public interest doesn't hold that long unless the game has achieved some form of legendary cult status (Starcraft, Duke Nukem Forever), and that kind of status is rare.


Don't worry 'bout it, yet, it's this what I was meaning with my question regarding development of the nobodies.

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La Rescatista

Aug 31 2010 Anchor

I think Gorb is reading too much into the game design- this is what I was trying to steer clear of because if you allow things like that to effect game design you end up with a game that to be honest doesn't play very well. If we want the player to be a nobody and yet still enjoy themselves, we need to make them apart of a bigger picture, have the player apart of something small and out of the way, with a backdrop of something interesting and enjoyable. The player doesn't have the save the world, rather only play their part in the grand scheme of things- sure you'd get feedback on your actions, but these would be minor compared to the epic scale of the things going on around you. Its sort of similar to how Deus Ex works at the start, where you're just an agent, and they give you a lot of choice, even allowing you to completely fuck up- and yet you weren't saving the world, you were just doing your job. What Deus Ex did wrong I've always felt, is that it went too far into the "Saving the world from a dictatorship" thing, as a result it did kill a lot of the non-linearity of the game, and made it less RPGish than what I would have liked it to be.

Edited by: formerlyknownasMrCP

FranklyTired
FranklyTired Technological Neanderthal
Nov 13 2010 Anchor

Mr_Cyberpunk wrote: I think Gorb is reading too much into the game design- this is what I was trying to steer clear of because if you allow things like that to effect game design you end up with a game that to be honest doesn't play very well. If we want the player to be a nobody and yet still enjoy themselves, we need to make them apart of a bigger picture, have the player apart of something small and out of the way, with a backdrop of something interesting and enjoyable. The player doesn't have the save the world, rather only play their part in the grand scheme of things- sure you'd get feedback on your actions, but these would be minor compared to the epic scale of the things going on around you. Its sort of similar to how Deus Ex works at the start, where you're just an agent, and they give you a lot of choice, even allowing you to completely fuck up- and yet you weren't saving the world, you were just doing your job. What Deus Ex did wrong I've always felt, is that it went too far into the "Saving the world from a dictatorship" thing, as a result it did kill a lot of the non-linearity of the game, and made it less RPGish than what I would have liked it to be.


I agree with you, but I think that was in part; the objective of the game, show your decisions can affect in long terms a major chain of events. Even so, back to the point, to be a nobody as you described; would make the game actually succesful? Could be if the story and gameplay are good enough, but, will you have a valid target that will make it up for your investments?

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La Rescatista

Nov 13 2010 Anchor

I wonder if the real focus of any semiotic analysis of video games is in the actual - yet largely unconscious & unquestioned - presumptions operating at the Design Stage itself. For example - with a little effort, we could deconstruct the use of video glitch / artificial compression artifacts in "Kane And Lynch 2: Dog Days" fairly easily - but I also think questioning the design decisions which lead to its unique aesthetic design could also be quite revealing..

On a parallel line of enquiry, there are several interesting essays over at The Ludologist. Here's a solid point from one of them: "The conclusion, then, is simple: it is possible to consider any of these games as the very first, for the birth of the video game is a pure abstraction, or a heuristic event, which depends on the premises one brings to it" - Marco Benôit Carbone

- Henry

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