From Game Spaces to Playable Worlds

In this paper I will critically examine the phenomenological underpinnings of what we might call the ‘spatiality paradigm’ in computer game studies – the project of using spatial metaphors and terminology to understand computer game play. Drawing on the (post-)phenomenological tradition, I argue that while this terminology is useful for analytic projects seeking to shed light on the structure and form of the game artifact and the processes it facilitates, spatial notions do not necessarily resonate with the first-person experience of computer game play, especially in cases of playing games of genres which do not rely on simulated locomotion and proprioception in three-dimensionally modeled space. Furthermore, I argue that the differences between single-player and multi-player games – namely that single-player games can be described, using Ihde’s framework of intentionality relations, as situating in ‘alterity relations’ and multi-player games in ‘relations of mediation’ – further complicate the issue of spatiality in computer games. Given these observations, I suggest that whereas the spatial notions appear problematic for the purpose of first-person description of the experience of playing single-player computer games, the notion of ‘game world’ seems more accurate a description of that with which the players are engaged with.