This document discusses how games can "play with reality" through their environments and ability to create "situations". It explores the work of urban planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann and the Situationist International group who aimed to transform environments. The document defines games as "semi-regulated situations that unfold over time and resolve based on the creative participation of one or more players". It provides examples of games like Gone Home and Tag: You're It that interact with physical or social environments in meaningful ways.

1. PLAYINGWITH
REALITY
Jeff Watson, PhD
Assistant Professor, OCAD University, Digital Futures
Director, Situation Lab
http://remotedevice.net
@remotedevice

2. ACTION

3. How games “play with
reality”

4. Two touchstones:
Environment and
Situation

5. Two touchstones:
Environment and
Situation

6. Georges-Eugène Haussmann
Urban Planner
Boulevards of Paris,
“Haussmannization”

11. Situationist International
Revolutionary Group
Psychogeography, the
construction of “Situations”
Guy Debord, Constant
Nieuwenhuys, Rauol
Vaneigem, et al.
c. 1957 - 1972

13. “[Only] play can
deconsecrate, open up
the possibilities of total
freedom . . . the
freedom, for example, to
turn Chartres Cathedral
into a fun-fair, into a
labyrinth, into a
shooting-range, into a
dream landscape.”
Raoul Vaneigem, quoted
in Plant, The Most Radical
Gesture, 129.

15. Theory of the Dérive
Guy Debord, 1958.

16. Environmental Game Design
The practice of designing games with and around the physical, digital,
social, and emotional environment of players so as to manifest an
impact on the way in which that environment is used

17. Environmental Games and Direct Action
The transformative potential of environmental games lies in the fact
that they can be more than just a call to action -- they can
meaningfully be the action itself

18. Gaston Bachelard – The Poetics of Space, Topoanalysis

19. Gone Home

20. Erving Goffman
Sociologist
Dramaturgical Analysis
The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life (1959)

22. DRAMATURGICAL
CODES
PERFORMANCE

23. Action: Macon Money (2010)
Impact mandates: build personal connections, support local business
Game actions: build personal connections, support local business

24. Action: Reality Ends Here (2011-present)
Impact mandates: collaboration, peer discovery, media experimentation
Game actions: collaboration, peer discovery, media experimentation

27. Situation

28. Situation
(noun)
a set of circumstances in which one finds
oneself; a state of affairs.
synonyms: circumstances, (state of) affairs,
state, condition

30. Situation
(via Sartre)
“The situation is an appeal: it surrounds us,
offering us solutions which it’s up to us to
choose.” (Theater of Situations)
“Thus we begin to catch a glimpse of the
paradox of freedom: there is freedom only in a
situation, and there is a situation only through
freedom.” (Being And Nothingness)

31. The writer is in a
situation in their epoch.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Editorial in Les Temps Modernes,
Issue 1 (1945)

32. An opportunity to act

33. “We’ve got ourselves a
situation…”

35. Eudaimonia & Eupraxis

36. Games are Situations

37. Games ∈ Situations

38. What do you do?
Super Hexagon

39. What do you do?
Chess Boxing

40. What do you do?
Myst

41. No game is an island

43. Star Trek: TNG

44. Go

45. Team Fortress 2/Oculus Rift

46. Defining Game

47. I perceive four common
factors: representation ["a
closed formal system that
subjectively represents a
subset of reality"], interaction,
conflict, and safety ["the
results of a game are always
less harsh than the situations
the game models"].
Chris Crawford, 1981

48. A game is a system in which
players engage in an artificial
conflict, defined by rules, that
results in a quantifiable
outcome.
Katie Salen and Eric
Zimmerman, 2003

49. [An] activity which is
essentially: Free (voluntary),
separate [in time and space],
uncertain, unproductive,
governed by rules, make-
believe.
Roger Caillois, 1961

50. A game is a rule-based formal
system with a variable and
quantifiable outcome, where
different outcomes are assigned
different values, the player exerts
effort in order to influence the
outcome, the player feels attached
to the outcome, and the
consequences of the activity are
optional and negotiable.
Jesper Juul, 2003

51. “Not this, but…”

52. Games are permeable
regulated situations that
unfold over time and resolve
or conclude based in whole or
in part on the creative
participation of one or more
players.
Jeff Watson, just now

53. Games are permeable
regulated situations that
unfold over time and resolve
based on the creative
participation of one or more
players.
Jeff Watson, just now-er

54. Games are semi-regulated
situations that unfold over
time and resolve based on the
creative participation of one
or more players.
Jeff Watson, just now-est

55. Permeability

56. “Not this, but…”

57. Ludic
Paraludic

58. Ludic
Paraludic

59. Ludic Paraludic

60. Ludic Paraludic

61. Shrovetide

62. Mario Kart

63. Nidhogg

64. Hidden in Plain Sight

65. Spaceteam

66. JS Joust

67. Journey

68. The Castle Doctrine

69. Metal Gear Solid

70. Candy Box

71. Flappy Bird

72. PLAYINGWITH
REALITY
Jeff Watson, PhD
Assistant Professor, OCAD University, Digital Futures
Director, Situation Lab
http://remotedevice.net
@remotedevice