TY - CONF
T1 - Environmental designs
T2 - Digital Games Research Association Conference
AU - Abraham, Benjamin
AU - Jayemanne, Darshana
N1 - Conference code: 10th
PY - 2017/7/5
Y1 - 2017/7/5
N2 - In this paper we offer a provisional typology of the primary categories of environmental or ecological relationships depicted, represented or simulated in games. We explore four main approaches to environments in games: environment as backdrop, as resource, as antagonist, and as text. These four provisional types are not clearly delineated, or equally common amongst all games and game genres, nor are they mutually exclusive within particular games. We argue that consideration of ecological notions in gaming reveals their frequent subordination to higher level game design decisions, and that analysis through this typology can reveal the shifting relationships between technologies of simulation and videogame strategies of representation – as well as orient game design towards the possibility for more expansive thinking about environmental relations (and hence, the most significant political issues of our time) as seen in the work of scholars such as Timothy Morton.
AB - In this paper we offer a provisional typology of the primary categories of environmental or ecological relationships depicted, represented or simulated in games. We explore four main approaches to environments in games: environment as backdrop, as resource, as antagonist, and as text. These four provisional types are not clearly delineated, or equally common amongst all games and game genres, nor are they mutually exclusive within particular games. We argue that consideration of ecological notions in gaming reveals their frequent subordination to higher level game design decisions, and that analysis through this typology can reveal the shifting relationships between technologies of simulation and videogame strategies of representation – as well as orient game design towards the possibility for more expansive thinking about environmental relations (and hence, the most significant political issues of our time) as seen in the work of scholars such as Timothy Morton.
M3 - Paper
Y2 - 2 July 2017 through 6 July 2017
ER -