Task 4: Additional Web Research - Video Game Elements

I managed to collect information on elements of video games which seem to make them more addictive. Collectiviely, these elements seem to comprise together what we know as a video game and often considered to be influential in the video gaming industry. The authors of the book, 'The Video game reader (Routledge 2003) discussed what the main features of a video game are and what actually makes a video game. Some of these factors may also contribute to some video games being more violent, as the graphs and interface, such as the controllers play a part in the violence and aggression created by playing these games for a long period of time.

Elements of Gaming

Bernard Perron and Mark Wolf in The Videogame Theory Reader (Routledge 2003) identified four main elements that they say define the videogame:

1. Graphics - the changing visuals on the screen.









2. Interface - a collective term for all the controls that enable the player to play the game.



These include physical controls like the controller, joystick and keyboard, and virtual controls such as health meters, maps and inventories shown on screen.




3. Player Activity - this is both physical and mental: physically players have to know what buttons to press, and mentally they have to understand what the game is about and how to play by the rules.










4. Algorithm - is the computer program that controls the game.


If it were to be written down on paper an algorithm would look like a long list of very detailed instructions.

In fact this is what it is, as it tells the computer (or games console) what to do at every point in the game.

All the game’s graphics, sounds and programming are called up from a database storage system by the algorithm. The game responds to what the player is doing by treating their button presses as a series of commands.

Sometime the game is programmed to choose between a number of different options in order to surprise the player and keep the game interesting. But if you play a game often enough you will start to notice repeated patterns.

Thinking about the key elements of videogames gives us a basic understanding of what a videogame is. While what happens in a film or book cannot be changed by the viewer or reader, in videogames the player can change what happens because the game is controlled by an algorithm which allows the player to chose between different options, even different storylines.

However understanding what games do does not help us to understand anything about the form and content of the games themselves, or how they are perceived and interpreted by their players.

The next sections discuss some approaches we can use to analyse these aspects of videogames.