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Agreed the confirmation of the danger of exploration being undefined in terms of outputs and controls as there is an inherent appeal in moving in to new areas with the development of the aesthetic tools and losing sight of the aims of the study. There is a need to always keep the game player and application to game design at the centre of any research or when creating the toolsets.

The use of Fine Art research methodologies will aid in the validation of the creative processes required within the design and build of the cultural toolsets and research into practitioners working with images of place and digital collection methods may help the design process.

1. Discourse of texts

2. Lived experiences

3. Social context

Relates directly to examining games

1.       Examination of game systems

2.       Player experience

3.       Social contexts

The area of leisure activities such as hunting use more formal methods of cooperation that allow for the individual solitary experience and  social cooperative activities as well.  Game designers of co-operative games need to explore more non digital practices to inspire and develop games. Game designers are tied to previous genres and theories and now need to look outside of the normal virtual arenas. This is using an analysis of real world co-operative acivities that can then be used to inform applicable multi-player game design. The need for this study to locate and analyse suitable real world experiential activities may be crucial for validity.

Koichi Iwabuchi ‘cultural odour’ to be removed from products for export explaining the success of the Sony Walkman.

China and Japan exerted an aesthetic influence on America and American development that cannot be simplified to the single influence of Europe. With this interweaving of Japanese and American cultural influences so “How American is an American video game?”.

If we’re arguing the aestheticism is mixed then the cultural cognitive differences need to be explored.

We implemented this information value algorithm using a tool called HIIVVE (Highly Interactive Information Value Visualization and Evaluation), which is shown in Figure 2. The tool allows the user to load world geometry and recorded player data to then calculate the information value for all surfaces of the geometry based on that player data.

Bespoke HIIVE tool to analyse player movements and field of view, there is also VU-Flow that has been developed for tracking user behaviour in a virtual environment (Chittaro, Ranon, & Ieronutti, 2006) but does not take in field of view. Then statistical analysis of data was done using ANOVA one way method and statistical methods to view mean differences such as Scheffe’s method.

Although race has been a relatively unexplored topic in relation to videogames, at least as compared to gender, a few studies have explored the presence of Orientalist elements in digital games made in both Japan and the West.Christopher Douglas [4] critiqued Civilization III for its imperialist elements, finding in the game ideologies of domination and cultural strangeness while at the same time possibly containing a “subversive potential to challenge notions of Western supremacy.” More recently, Schwartz examined representations of foreign cultures in four contemporary games, finding that in the game Suikoden III, for example, “game designers used othering as a narrative theme” which “emphasizes the natural tendency to define and fear the unfamiliar” [11]. Likewise, Tucker writes more broadly about Japanese videogame titles, arguing “Orientalism persists as the default framework through which gaming depicts Eastern cultures” [15]. That framework can be found, he believes, in both Western titles that depict ‘strange and exotic’ cultures such as the Prince of Persia series, as well as in games made by Japanese developers themselves, who are “internalizing and catering to the Western audience’s fetish” and thus are “able to commodify their cool, and use the marketing power of their cultural archetypes in the capturing of the electronic gaming market” [15]. (Consalvo, 2007)

This essay will attempt to show that Anglo-American culture research can make a significant contribution to a better understanding of digital games, their production contexts and acquisition processes. 1 The essay is based upon the theories and methods in the tradition of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) which has concentrated on the social role of popular media products for a long time. What are the advantages of the proposed approach compared to the other paradigms of the social sciences and the humanities, as for example linguistics, film studies or educational science? Three features of Cultural Studies seem to be especially promising. First of all a Cultural Studies project is dealt with in a multi-disciplinary approach, i.e. theories and methods from other faculties can simply be integrated if 1 The compound noun “digital games” is used for all sorts of electronic games, irrespective of the platform on which they are played. This does not imply that it is not significant, whether a game is installed on a PC, a console, an arcade cabinet, a mobile phone or another terminal equipment, because usually this will have consequences on the target group. The rules of the game and the form of the representation will be adjusted to the platform and the reception situation will vary considerably. they contribute to the epistemological interest. Secondly, the multi-perspective approach provides the opportunity to analyze games on various levels. Thirdly, the declared goal of Cultural Studies is to enable the recipient to deal with media products in a discerning and competent way. In particular the multi-perspective approach will lead to better results than an isolated approach. A close examination of a game’s production context will shed light on structures, processes and ideologies which influence the development of a game on a conscious or unconscious level. The analysis of the game itself can reveal models of society presented in the game, intrinsic identification potentials and creative acquisition potentials. But the way the game is eventually adopted by the player can only be made clear by a close examination of its acquisition and the various forms of reception and enjoyment it induces.

There are various approaches to analyze the actual game text, but the one method prevalent in Cultural Studies is ideology criticism (cf. Kellner 1995). The term “ideology” refers here to a set of convictions, ideas or philosophies claiming to be valid and true and at the same time serving the interests of a social group. Ideology can both influence the level of representation of the game’s characters and society models and the “ludic” structure, i.e. the rules and objectives of a game (on distinguishing representation and ludic structure: cf. Buckingham 2006, 9, 183).

This kind of “intertextual game” (Fiske 1989, 1991) is more moulded by the player’s motivations and interpretations than by the game actually played. A special case of modification is the practice of playing a game “against the rules” (cf. Everett 2005. 318). 9 This means, the players do not follow the game’s objective but look for goals, which mirror their personal wishes and motivations. These objectives range from speed running – completing a game level as quickly as possible; and bug hunting – trying to find mistakes in the software; to re-programming – attempting to interfere with the game’s intended course of action and the intended objective. These “refractory interpretations and practices” (Fiske 1989, 1991) show that components which play an inferior role or are irrelevant in the game itself, may become the decisive generator of the joy of playing. Thus the game is a resource for expressive and social activities (cf. Burn 2006, 88), a chance to act out wishes and visions and to articulate the interests of one’s online and offline community. (cf. Pearce 2002, 11-12).10

Discusses the role of spectatorship within MMORPG and WoW in particular and how game designers could take this into account. Level 60 players leave there avatars outside the auction houses for people to see the visual attributes of the avatar.

“For most, playing the game is therefore like being “alone together” – surrounded by others, but not necessarily actively interacting with them. Based on WoW’s success, this suggests alternative design strategies for online games (and online spaces more generally) where encouraging and supporting direct interactions might be less important than designing for the “spectator experience” and a sense of social presence [15].”

This idea that MMORPG’s are not such social games as first considered. The statistical data collected directly supports game design decisions that may be used to enhance game play and in some cases offer new directions led by the analysis of unexpected player behaviour and interactions.

The analysis of WoW that indicates the solitary nature of play at early levels with some elements of social play and group activity, later levels after 60 become more social and are more spectator led in terms of raids and general discussion as opposed to action. Guild analysis offers some debate on the transitory nature of guilds and guild membership and the intended form of guild play by the game designers.