Juul - Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds

I Figure P.1 I

Almost a video game.

What had I created? It was a game by most counts. But it was and it was not a video game: It took place on a screen, and though the terminal's processing power was modest, I had really designed a game on a computer. However, it was not a video game in the usual sense since it was me, and not the computer, that was upholding the rules.

In addition to setting up the rules of the game, I had also performed an act of imagination-I imagined the green characters on the black screen to be something else, a racetrack and a car, and I imagined that the movement of the cursor was the movement of a car. None of this required any cleverness: setting up a game with rules and goals was easy because I had at that time been exposed to hundreds or perhaps thousands of games, and imagining a rectangular cursor I to be something else-a car-is easy for a child. I had also tried and thoroughly enjoyed a handful of computer and video games, and I sensed that there was a basic connection between computers and games. It was a connection that I urgently wanted to explore.

While the present book is the result of many twists and turns and changes of mind, it is also a book whose basic issues are clearly visible in the tictac-toe bout and in my crude video game of some twenty-three years ago: What does it take for something to be a video game, and when is a video game enjoyable? How do rules in games work, and how do they provide enjoyment for players? How and why does the player imagine the world of a game?

As for the first question, the object of this book is games played using computer power, where the computer upholds the rules of the game and where the game is played using a video display. I will be using video games as an umbrella term to describe all such PC, console, arcade, and other digital games.

I must thank the following bright minds for influencing me during the creation of this book: Susana Pajares Tosca, Lisbeth Klastrup, Espen Aarseth, Aki Jarvinen, Gonzalo Frasca, Marie-Laure Ryan, Markku Eskelinen, Troels Degn Johansson, Henry Jenkins, Eric Zimmerman, Jill Walker, Mikkel Holm Sorensen, Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Peter Bogh Andersen, Lars Konzack, T. L. Taylor, Miguel Sicart Vila, Kim Forum Jacobsen, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Clara Fernandez-Vera, Chaim Gingold, Anker Helms Jorgensen, Rasmus Keldorff, and the people at MIT Press.

Thanks to Mads Rydahl for the line art and thanks to the tireless readers, Susana and Lisbeth.

The precursor of the book was produced on a Ph.D. grant at the IT University of Copenhagen between October 2000 and October 2003. Much of it was written between February and July 2003 during my stay at Comparative Media Studies, MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Some parts of this book have previously been published:

Most of chapter 2 was published as "The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness," in Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference Proceedings, edited by Marinka Copier and Joost Raessens, 30-45. Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2003.

Part of chapter 3's section on emergence and progression was published as "The Open and the Closed: Games of Emergence and Games of Progression," in Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings, edited by Frans Mayra, 323-329. Tampere: Tampere University Press, 2002.

An earlier version of chapter 4's section on time was published as "Introduction to Game Time," in First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, 131-142. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.

Parts of the conclusions were published as "Just What Is It That Makes Computer Games So Different, So Appealing?," Ivory Tower column for IGDA, April 2003. Available at .

Some of the notes on Grand Theft Auto III were taken from the article "Hvad Spillet Betyder" [What the Game Means], in Digitale Verdener, edited by Ida Engholm and Lisbeth Klastrup, 181-195. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2004.

In the title, Half-Real refers to the fact that video games are two different things at the same time: video games are real in that they consist of real rules with which players actually interact, and in that winning or losing a game is a real event. However, when winning a game by slaying a dragon, the dragon is not a real dragon but a fictional one. To play a video game is therefore to interact with real rules while imagining a fictional world, and a video game is a set of rules as well as a fictional world.

Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo 2003a) in figure 1.1 has been praised for its expressive graphics, lavish world, and detailed storyline. In the picture, the player's character has traveled far from his home island in search of his recently abducted little sister. In addition to the fictional world of the game, not only does a variety of on-screen displays provide the player with much information, there is also a curious arrow bouncing over the small girl in the flower field. The arrow indicates that we are playing a game with rules and a goal to work toward. It tells us that we can interact with the girl, and that she may help us progress in the game. It also illustrates that although the graphics depict an elaborate fictional world, only a small part of this world is actually implemented in the rules of the game; and the arrow indicates which part of the game fiction can also be found in these rules. Thereby Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker points to a fictional world, and it points to the rules of the game. These are the two things that video games are made of: real rules and fictional worlds.

In having fictional worlds, video games deviate from traditional nonelectronic games that are mostly abstract,' and this is part of the newness of video games. The interaction between game rules and game fiction is one of the most important features of video games, and it is a central theme of this book. Their interaction is present in many aspects of games: in the design of the games themselves; in the way we perceive and use games; and in the way we discuss games. This interaction gives the player a choice between imagining the world of the game and seeing the representation as a mere placeholder for information about the rules of the game.