Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Study of Game Production

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Garner Gabrielle
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

The purpose of this essay is to show the ways in which ethnographic methodology provided a useful means for investigating the work and activity of an emergent game production team and system. With neither expertise in game design nor software programming, the researcher gained access to the unit of analysis, the production of educational computer games, as a research and instructional design apprentice. The essay shares an experience of sociological inquiry in the context of a highly complex and private game production process.

 

Memory of a Broken Dimension: a study in a politics of skill for experimental art games

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Lockett William
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

This paper outlines a political theory of digital games using conceptual resources drawn from the history of art. Beginning with a close reading of a single game—Memory of a Broken Dimension—the author develops his theoretical concerns through a contrast between Ian Bogost’s theory or procedural representation and a theoretical framework focused on the politics of skill acquisition process, embodied activities of information access and manipulation, and the historically determined forms of material objects. By revisiting key texts pertaining to minimalist sculpture—specifically those of art historian Michael Fried and artist Robert Morris—the author elucidates the connection between Memory of a Broken Dimension and the lager political stakes of his project.