[-empyre-] baggage and utilitarian tools

[Mathias Fuchs]

I completely agree with Micha.
To consider games as "utilitarian tools" and to forget about the 
historical context is as shallow a view as can be.
The historical and cultural dimension of software and hardware is most 
important when the tools are announced to us as being utilitarian, 
value-neutral, non-historic... That is when ideology slips in big time.

Nobody would consider a car as a mere tool to go from A to B and 
everybody acknowledges the difference of a Ferrari and a Volkswagen in 
regard to going from A to B. It is not only the speed and the sound, it 
is the social connotations, historical framing aso. The same is of 
course true for games. The question that Adorno asked in regard to music 
is interesting for games as well. Why do I prefer to listen to certain 
musical styles? Why do I prefer to play certain games?
An interesting inverstigation on that is by Garry Crawford and Victoria 
Gosling: "Who plays?" But even in Huizinga and Caillois one can find a 
lot of hints on the aspects of games beyond rules and efficiency. If one 
sees "game designers fundamentally as engineers" one does not see how 
games are received by the players. One does also not see that game 
designers who consider themselves as mere engineers carry consiousl or 
unconsciously a huge bag of historical and social framing and that they 
drop elements of that into the products they create.

Mathias Fuchs
   European Masters in Ludic Interfaces
   http://ludicinterfaces.com
   Programme Leader MA Creative Technology and MSc Creative Games
   Salford University, School of Art&  Design, Manchester M3 6EQ
   http://creativegames.org.uk/
   mobile: +44 7949 60 9893

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