Even our own homely accounts What Hockey Wants: Drama, Narrative, and Sports (DiGRA 2014 Talk)

JEFF WATSON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND GAMES USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS @REMOTEDEVICE

COMPLETELY UNSCIENTIFIC CHARTS COMPARING GOOGLE SEARCHES FOR THE KEYWORD “HOCKEY” WITH OTHER KEYWORD SEARCHES

0 5 10 15 20 hockey (18M) "video game" (69k) videogame (20k) # of news search results # of news search results (in millions) Google.com. 28 July 2014.

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 hockey (109M) "video game" (70M) videogame (12M) # of web search results # of web search results (in tens of millions) Google.com. 28 July 2014.

0 100 200 300 400 500 # of web search results # of web search results (in tens of millions) Google.com. 28 July 2014.

GAMES AND NARRATIVE

NARRATIVE IS JUST AS CENTRAL TO HOCKEY AS IT IS TO THESE GAMES.

SPORTS LIKE HOCKEY SET THE HIGH WATERMARK FOR PROCEDURAL CONTENT GENERATION.

SPORTS MAKE NARRATIVE – AND THEY ARE MADE OF NARRATIVE.

DEFINITIONS: SPORT SITUATION DRAMA

SPORT

A SPORT IS A COMPETITIVE ACTIVITY, USUALLY BUT NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVING SOME KIND OF ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE, WHEREIN THE SKILL OF ONE PLAYER OR TEAM OF PLAYERS IS TESTED, THROUGH INDIVIDUAL CONTESTS OR SETS OF LINKED CONTESTS, AGAINST THE SKILL OF ONE OR MORE OTHER PLAYERS OR TEAMS OF PLAYERS*

A SPORT IS A COMPETITIVE ACTIVITY, USUALLY BUT NOT NECESSARILY INVOLVING SOME KIND OF ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE, WHEREIN THE SKILL OF ONE PLAYER OR TEAM OF PLAYERS IS TESTED, THROUGH INDIVIDUAL CONTESTS OR SETS OF LINKED CONTESTS, AGAINST THE SKILL OF ONE OR MORE OTHER PLAYERS OR TEAMS OF PLAYERS* *except when it isn’t

A SET OF RULES, PROCEDURES, LIMITS, AND TRADITIONS THAT GIVES RISE TO DRAMATIC SITUATIONS

SITUATION

AN OPPORTUNITY TO ACT

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

AN OPPORTUNITY TO AFFIRM OR BREAK WITH EXPECTATIONS (or “SCRIPTS”)

“We’ve got ourselves a situation…”

“CHARACTER IS DESTINY” Heraclitus

“[There] is freedom only in a situation, and there is a situation only through freedom . . . There can be a free for-itself only as engaged in a resisting world. Outside of this engagement the notions of freedom, of determination, of necessity lose all meaning.” Sartre 1956, 621

DRAMA

an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances. DRAMA

“TROUBLE PROVIDES THE ENGINE OF DRAMA.” Bruner 1991, 16

HOCKEY IS A POWERFUL FORMULA FOR TROUBLE

HOCKEY IS A POWERFUL FORMULA FOR DRAMA

“[If] one were not told beforehand that they were playing, one would certainly believe that they were fighting.” (Conover 1997)

DANGER -> DRAMA

TROUBLE -> DRAMA

UNCERTAINTY -> DRAMA

Evan Torner

THE DRAMATIC SITUATIONS PRODUCED BY HOCKEY RESOLVE INTO VARIOUS FORMS OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE NARRATIVE.

POWER PLAY

TROUBLE

UNCERTAINTY

SCRIPTS

“[when] you see a guy go down like that and the way he went down and what he did . . . the guys are going to want to rally around that.” Bruins Coach Claude Julien, following the incident

EACH SUCCESSIVE LAYER OF NARRATIVE MODULATES THE SITUATIONAL COMPLEXITY AND HERMENEUTIC RICHNESS OF GAMEPLAY.

“MOMENTUM”

“CHOKE”

“CLUTCH”

NARRATIVE FROM “OUTSIDE” THE GAME CAN ALSO IMPACT SITUATIONS OF PLAY

“. . . IN ADDITION TO, IN COMPETITION WITH, OTHER RULES AND IN RELATION TO MULTIPLE CONTEXTS, ACROSS VARYING CULTURES, AND INTO DIFFERENT GROUPS.” (Consalvo 2009, 416)

IN SPORTS, THERE IS A VERY TIGHT FEEDBACK RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SITUATION AND NARRATIVE

SITUATION

SITUATION NARRATIVE

THIS FEEDBACK LOOP FUNCTIONS IN MULTIPLE CONTEXTS, REGISTERS, AND TIME-SCALES

NARRATIVE ACCRUAL

Even our own homely accounts of happenings in our own lives are eventually converted into more or less coherent autobiographies. Bruner 1991, 18

[The] principles of jurisprudence . . . guarantee a tradition by assuring that once a "case" has been interpreted in one way, future cases that are "similar" shall be interpreted and decided equivalently. Insofar as the law insists on such accrual of cases as "precedents," and insofar as "cases" are narratives, the legal system imposes an orderly process of narrative accrual. Bruner 1991, 18

NARRATIVE IS THE MEANS BY WHICH A SPORT ITERATES, EVOLVES, AND SPREADS.

SPORTS ARE NOT STATIC SYSTEMS

THE RULES OF THE GAME CAN BE SEEN AS A KIND OF “LOSSY” NARRATIVE…

…A DISTILLATION OF SUCCESSIVE ACTS OF NARRATION…

…A KIND OF ENCODING OR “ENCRYPTION”.

RULES

SITUATION RULES

SITUATION NARRATIVE RULES

EMERGENT EMBEDDED ENCRYPTED

EMERGENT EMBEDDED ENCRYPTED Ludonarrative Dynamo

THE MORE NARRATIVE A SPORT GENERATES, THE MORE WELL-PLAYED IT WILL BE.

IF WE THINK OF A SPORT AS A SPECIES OF LIFE THAT “WANTS” TO REPRODUCE AND SURVIVE, THEN MAYBE WE CAN SAY…

NARRATIVE IS HOW HOCKEY GETS WHAT HOCKEY WANTS

WHAT HOCKEY WANTS JEFF WATSON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND GAMES USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS @REMOTEDEVICE Thank you.

WHAT HOCKEY WANTS JEFF WATSON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND GAMES USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS @REMOTEDEVICE

Even our own homely accounts What Hockey Wants: Drama, Narrative, and Sports (DiGRA 2014 Talk)

Jeff Watson

Even our own homely accounts