Gaming as writing

            I really enjoyed the article for this week, “After the Last Generation: Rethinking Scholarship in the Days of Serious Play” by Stuart Moulthrop, and it also reminded me a lot of Sirc’s article from a few weeks ago. Both articles are about changing the way that we think about writing, and though most of what we have read is centered on this question, these two in particular seem to pick up on the same themes. Moulthrop simply takes the ideas first given by Sirc and expands them, which helps us see how Sirc’s ideas can be applied to real life.

            First of all, the idea of gaming the Moulthrop introduces in his article is a very interesting one. He explains that “Learning at all levels…[comes] to depend more heavily on simulation and discovery, on iterative, intensely personal encounters with information, rather than traditional methods based in authority and exposition” (208). Though we all are aware of the fact that the basis for writing is changing, Moulthrop tells us how the university system (and quite possibly all levels of learning) needs to conform to this changing environment, even going as far as citing the words of James Paul Gee who believes that as time wears on, tenured professors as we know them will disappear in place of a collection of individuals co-learning together (209). Whether or not someone agrees with this statement, it is pretty clear that, no matter what, teaching styles have to change as writing changes.

            There is a link to writing and technology that few in the humanities wish to acknowledge, even though we should be the ones most receptive to new ideas; as a think tank of ideas and modes or learning, the humanities should not deny new thought. Moulthrop explains the link between writing and technology:

            To begin with, digital information is not statically inscribed, but rather copied,

            distributed, indexed, and linked according to specific logical processes. The locus

            of reading and writing has changed from stable page to flickering screen, and as

            Manovich puts it, ‘the screen keeps alternating between the supposed transparency

            Of image and the opacity of means and diagrams (210).

I think that this is an interesting point because most of the time, video games are seen as a very low form of entertainment in the sense that gaming is seen as an escape from the academic world; few people I have encountered think that anything intellectual goes on in gaming. However, Moulthrop does a good job expelling this sense of negativity around games, saying that they help with the ability to learn and understand concepts. Of course, there are dissenters with any new form of learning, and this is no different:

People who write [anti-gaming as learning articles] have probably not spent much time handling a game controller, or have failed to understand the experience. In place of ‘creative involvement,’ they prefer critical insulation, substituting content-as-writing for the real essence of gaming, which is a dynamic encounter with a consistent simulation or virtual world—on other words, serious play (210).

All of this points back to how we need to be more open minded to new learning alternatives. Especially as technology becomes more and more part of life. For example, I read this article, sent to me by an online board, on the computer, made notes on the computer, and now I’m typing this response in an electronic word processor, and will ultimately upload it to a blog, also online. How can people with archaic views of learning expect to stay alive in a world where you could literally never leave the computer and complete your education?

            The specific areas where I felt Sirc was coming into play showed up in two places in particular. The first place I saw the connection occur was the quote by Cayley that Moulthrop includes:

Programming is writing, writing recognized as prior and provisional, the detailed announcement of a performance which may soon take place (on the screen, in the

mind) an indication of what to read and how. Programming will reconfigure the process

of writing and incorporate ‘programming’ in its technical sense, including the algorithms

of text generators, textual movies, all the ‘performance-design’ publication and production aspects of text-making (211).

This reminded me of when Sirc asserts that writers are designers; we are simply moving writing to include programming so that we can adapt to the new world of writing, and we actually literally become designers. The second place I saw Sirc in this article is right before the sixth section when Moulthrop writes “Writing as ‘work’ tends to fix itself in time, but cybernetic writing leans into the future. The code base of a successful game is at least momentarily stable, but while its popularity lasts it will remain in flux, subject to upgrades, service releases, versioning, sequelization—not to mention unscheduled expansion” (212). This sequence reminded me of how Sirc demonstrates how “the box is always open” in the sense that we can always return to an idea and use it again in a different way. In this sense, is gaming a more pure form of writing?