 | |
| Author | Alexander R. Galloway |
|---|---|
| Publisher | University of Minnesota Press |
Publication date | 2006 |
| Pages | 143 |
| ISBN | 978-0-8166-4850-4 |
Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture is a book of five essays on video game studies by Alexander R. Galloway. The essays are a critical analysis of the medium of video games, and its aesthetic and political impact.
The first chapter, "Gamic Action, Four Moments", outlines the theoretical underpinnings of the book. Proceeding from the premise that "video games are actions", and that they are a collaboration between player and computer, Galloway offers two axes of analysis: operator (i.e., the player) <--> machine (i.e., the computer); and diegetic (i.e. "in-universe") <--> non-diegetic (i.e., "out of character"). For example, firing a weapon is a diegetic operator action; ambience is a diegetic machine action; pausing the game is a non-diegetic operator action; and network lag is a non-diegetic machine action. These four modes of action can also be used to describe individual games: Galloway gives the examples of Tekken, Myst, Warcraft III, and Dance Dance Revolution, respectively.
The fourth chapter, "Allegories of Control", uses video games, as "uniquely algorithmic cultural objects", to think through new possibilities for critical interpretation. [1] The critical framework for this chapter is Gilles Deleuze's "Postscript on the Societies of Control", a short essay from 1990 that builds on Michel Foucault's work on "disciplinary societies". Galloway writes that "what Deleuze defines as control is key to understanding how computerized information societies function." [2] In particular, this chapter focuses on Sid Meier's Civilization , showing how, since electronic networks of control are both visible to players and essential to gameplay, video games have a certain kind of political and critical transparency - that is, because of their nature as a collaboration between player and computer, video games make obvious some elements that other media, such as film, deliberately try to conceal. Galloway argues that this characteristic of video games problematizes ideological critique, because everything in the game must first be codified as a mathematical variable. His remark, "the more one begins to think that Civilization is about a certain ideological interpretation of history ... or even that it creates a computer-generated 'history effect', the more one realises that it is about the absence of history altogether, or rather, the transcoding of history into specific mathematical models", [3] has attracted criticism from historians in games studies like Tom Apperley and Adam Chapman. [4] [5]
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a 4X video game, considered a spiritual sequel to the Civilization series. Set in a science fiction depiction of the 22nd century, the game begins as seven competing ideological factions land on the planet Chiron ("Planet") in the Alpha Centauri star system. As the game progresses, Planet's growing sentience becomes a formidable obstacle to the human colonists.
Sid Meier's Civilization is a 1991 turn-based strategy 4X video game developed and published by MicroProse. The game was originally developed for MS-DOS running on a PC, and it has undergone numerous revisions for various platforms. The player is tasked with leading an entire human civilization over the course of several millennia by controlling various areas such as urban development, exploration, government, trade, research, and military. The player can control individual units and advance the exploration, conquest and settlement of the game's world. The player can also make such decisions as setting forms of government, tax rates and research priorities. The player's civilization is in competition with other computer-controlled civilizations, with which the player can enter diplomatic relationships that can either end in alliances or lead to war.
Sidney K. Meier is an American businessman and computer programmer. A programmer, designer, and producer of several strategy video games and simulation video games, including the Civilization series, Meier co-founded MicroProse in 1982 with Bill Stealey and is the Director of Creative Development of Firaxis Games, which he co-founded with Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds in 1996. For his contributions to the video game industry, Meier was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.
Sid Meier's Civilization II is a turn-based strategy video game in the Civilization series, developed and published by MicroProse. It was released in 1996 for PCs, and later ported to the PlayStation by Activision.
Firaxis Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Sparks, Maryland. The company was founded in May 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds following their departure from MicroProse, Meier's earlier venture. They were acquired by Take-Two Interactive in August 2005, and subsequently became part of the publisher's 2K label. Firaxis Games is best known for developing the Civilization and XCOM series, as well as many other games bearing Meier's name.
Sid Meier's Civilization III is the third installment of the Sid Meier's Civilization turn-based strategy video game series. It was released in 2001, and followed by Civilization IV. Unlike the original game, Civilization III was not designed by Sid Meier, but by Jeff Briggs, a game designer, and Soren Johnson, a game programmer.
A civilization or civilisation is a complex society
Sid Meier's Pirates! is a video game created by Sid Meier for the Commodore 64 and published by MicroProse in May 1987. It was the first game to include the name "Sid Meier" in its title as an effort by MicroProse to attract fans of Meier's earlier games, most of which were combat vehicle simulation video games. The game is a simulation of the life of a pirate, a privateer, or a pirate hunter in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. It was widely ported to other systems.
4X is a subgenre of strategy-based computer and board games, and includes both turn-based and real-time strategy titles. The gameplay generally involves building an empire. Emphasis is placed upon economic and technological development, as well as a range of military and non-military routes to supremacy.
Civilization IV is a 4X turn-based strategy computer game and the fourth installment of the Civilization series, and designed by Soren Johnson under the direction of Sid Meier and his video game development studio Firaxis Games. It was released in North America, Europe, and Australia, between October 25 and November 4, 2005, and followed by Civilization V.
A hex map, hex board, or hex grid is a game board design commonly used in simulation games of all scales, including wargames, role-playing games, and strategy games in both board games and video games. A hex map is subdivided into a hexagonal tiling, small regular hexagons of identical size.
Soren Johnson is an American businessman, game programmer, and video game designer. Johnson's games primarily belong to 4X strategy, with a number of his titles having been critically acclaimed. He is best known for his work as a lead designer on Civilization IV, Offworld Trading Company, and Old World. He also worked on Civilization III as a co-lead designer.
Alexander R. Galloway is an author and professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. He has a bachelor's degree in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University and earned a Ph.D. in literature from Duke University in 2001. Galloway is known for his writings on philosophy, media theory, contemporary art, film, and video games.
Civilization is a series of turn-based strategy video games, first released in 1991. Sid Meier developed the first game in the series and has had creative input for most of the rest, and his name is usually included in the formal title of these games, such as Sid Meier's Civilization VI. There are six main games in the series, a number of expansion packs and spin-off games, as well as board games inspired by the video game series. The series is considered a formative example of the 4X genre, in which players achieve victory through four routes: "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate".
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is the second expansion pack of the turn-based strategy video game Civilization IV. The expansion focuses on adding content to the in-game time periods following the invention of gunpowder, and includes more general content such as 11 new scenarios, 10 new civilizations, and 16 new leaders.
Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution is a 4X, turn-based strategy game developed in 2008 by Firaxis Games with Sid Meier as designer. It is a spin-off of the Civilization series. The video game was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Windows Phone, and iOS. A Wii version was originally expected but was cancelled. The absence of a PlayStation Portable version was attributed to a lack of development manpower.
Sid Meier's Civilization: The Boardgame is a 2002 board game created by Glenn Drover based on the Civilization series of video games, in particular, Civilization III. Drover himself was a sales manager at Microprose during the original development of Civilization, though he was not directly involved in the creation of the video game.
Sid Meier's Civilization II Scenarios: Conflicts in Civilization is a single-player historical turn-based strategy game, and the first expansion pack to Civilization II. It contains 20 new scenarios; 12 made by the expansion pack developers, and 8 "Best of the Net" scenarios created by series fans. These were the fan-made scenarios that were "deemed the best by the developers". The game was developed and published by MicroProse. The game was "produced by the players and the development team, including some of the script and the 'new content'". This content contained new worlds, new maps, units, an updated technology tree, and new music. The game also allowed players to create their own custom scenarios. it was released November 25, 1996.
The relationship between race and video games has received substantial academic and journalistic attention. Games offer opportunities for players to explore, practice, and re-enforce cultural and social identities. Because of the multifaceted cultural implications of video games, there may be issues of race involved in the player base, the creative process, or within the game's universe. Video games predominantly created and played by one racial group can unintentionally perpetuate racial stereotypes and limit players' choices to preconceived notions of racial bias, and issues of representation and harassment may arise in the industry and the player community.
Nuclear Gandhi is a video game urban legend purporting the existence of a software bug in the 1991 strategy video game Civilization that would eventually force the pacifist leader Mahatma Gandhi to become extremely aggressive and make heavy use of nuclear weapons. The claim was mentioned on the TV Tropes wiki in 2012, and continued until 2020, when the series' creator, Sid Meier, confirmed that the bug would have been impossible in the original game. Gandhi was programmed to exhibit this behavior in Civilization V, released in 2010, and it is unclear whether this led to the belief that the behavior had also been present in earlier games.