Game Development Reference
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design, but the drama was ratcheted up by the leaked CCP documents.
Resolution also took the form of words, as CCP fl ew the players elected to
the current CSM to Iceland to hold a two-day summit. Players on the CSM
were given the opportunity to voice their concerns and developers got a
chance to apologize and explain their plans. Subsequent to the summit, a
joint-released developer blog outlined the position of CCP, and a statement
from the CSM acknowledged that “they felt issues had been resolved to
their satisfaction.” 15 The introduction of Aurum into EVE set of a chain
of events driven by words, starting with the frustration of players, then
infl amed by leaked documents from CCP, and closing with the report on a
summit designed to quell tensions.
With status as cultural objects, words are a key piece of the discourse
of video games. Although elements of video games can never be wholly
separated from each other, EVE is constructed from the words within and
surrounding it. Understanding EVE starts by looking at how it is discussed
by both those who play it and the company who designs it. Wordplay aids
in the evaluation of those words, with a focus on how they help constitute
EVE . Words are well suited to the background of rhetorical criticism built
into wordplay, but boiling the entirety of video game discourse down to
words would be folly. Production of words and the interaction surrounding
Aurum are key to understanding EVE as a cultural object, but there are
other cases where design is the crucial element to examine.
DESIGN
The second key area of wordplay is the design of games, with a focus on how
the structures built in and around video games help defi ne their discourse.
Video game design can open up alternate worlds, introduce rules that contra-
dict what we experience in real life, and let us live out or fantasies or confront
assumptions that we make about life outside of games. Simultaneously the
design of society sets the frame for game design. Game development does not
happen in a vacuum, and game creators are subject to larger social forces,
especially as they attempt to attract audiences. This topic has addressed how
a number of dif erent design elements shape the rhetorical construction of
video games. These pieces of design often overlap with words and play, but
wordplay's strength in articulating the arguments made by design can be
seen by briefl y examining NBA 2K11 and Gears of War .
Although I share a name with a star National Basketball Association
(NBA) point guard, I rarely get the opportunity to match that Chris Paul's
hardwood skills. However, one of the key features of NBA 2K11 allowed
me to debut my counterpoint to the other version of my name. My NBA
version of Chris Paul is a 7- foot- 5- inch, 350- pound behemoth that owns
the paint and possesses an increasingly deadly jump shot. The My Player
mode of NBA 2K11 encourages players to build their version of an NBA
 
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