One of Gonzalo Frasca’s articles, Simulation versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology, serves not only as an introduction to the basic ideas which make up ludology, but puts forth the argument that “the storytelling model is not only not accurate but also limits our understanding of the medium and our ability to create even more compelling games.”
Frasca contends that video games are based off of the “semiotic structure of simulation” more than that of “representation”. Throughout the pages after his brief introduction to ludology (the concept revolving around the idea that videogame structures “are not held together by a narrative structure”), Frasca spends some time discussing the definition of simulation and offering his own variation.
Frasca opens with a brief discussion on how industrial technology had limited the construction of simulation, until the advent of the computer. Moving naturally into a discussion on Espen Aarseth, Frasca presents his first argument: games “are not just made of sequences of signs but rather behave like machines or sign-generators.” Representational theory, therefore, does not accurately model videogame structures because the signs are not fixed variables within gameplay.
Next, Frasca offers a scientific model definition of simulation (coined by himself through a combination of semiotic theory and “several computer simulation essays”), which argues that simulation “includes a model of [a system’s] behaviours.” Harping on his own lexicon, Frasca contends that the key element in his definition is the use of “behaviour” (an ideal term of the data transmission (“stimuli”) between player and “model” of simulation). As an example of this thesis, Frasca compares playing a flight simulator with a film of a plane in flight; flight simulators rely on replicating “behavioural stimuli” rather than “fixed stimuli”, as with film.
Continuing his discussion on simulation, Frasca compares videogames to media such as film, and states that videogames “represent the first complex simulation media for the masses.” His main point of illustration for this statement centres on “advergames” as a form of the videogame medium that almost totally rejects narrative theory as a structural base:
“This puts [advertisers] in an extremely privileged position for realizing that the potential of games is not to tell a story but to simulate: to create an environment for experimentation.”
Frasca uses his discussion on “advergames” to move into the topic of rhetoric within videogames. Frasca highlights his main thesis on simulation again, through examples of how narratives (such as Emile Zola’s Germinal) contain fixed structural elements. Frasca calls these elements “isolated experiences”, whereas videogames are not: “we recognize them as games because we know we can always start over.”
Frasca then reasserts his contention that videogames, as forms of simulation, replicate “behavioural rules” central to a “goal”. For example, he reinterprets Zola’s Germinal as a simulation which could take on any number of scenarios that would all “carry a degree of indeterminacy that prevents players to know beforehand the final outcome” (i.e. different scenario variables would allow for different sim-narratives to form). Therefore, simauthors, as he terms them, have the ability to “model difficulty” (presenting views in statistical odds that are “rules” subsumed within the model/system), whereas narrative maintains an entirely fixed order of events.
Frasca begins the next section of his article by likening the forum theatre (from Augusto Boal’s “Theater of the Oppressed”) to the model of simulation previously mentioned. He argues that fixed narrative theory, although amended by the term “interactive narrative”, still cannot account for a proper model through which to express all structural components inherent to videogames. To rectify this failure, Frasca mentions Roger Caillois’ discussion on “paida” and “ludus” (which serve as two types of “action”; a child’s form of “play” versus a “game” with structural rules). Frasca claims that “ludus”-structure games (like chess) contain a three act structure (rules explained, players play, someone wins), whereas “paida” games are more “open-ended”. For Frasca, videogames based upon “paida” structures open up a world of creative exploration over “ludus” games.
Next, Frasca clearly defines “ludus” versus “paida” games through specific examples (those containing binary structures are “morally charged”), i.e Super Mario Brothers versus SimCity. However, because both examples contain rules, he further defines the concept of “rule” through the subcategory of a “manipulation rule” (an “if/then” statement that allows for a rule to be amended under particular circumstance). To further clarify himself, Frasca recaps that “simulations” contain “three different ideological levels in order to convey ideology”: “representation and events”, “manipulation rules”, and “goal rules”. However, Frasca also claims that because of rule modification (such as level editors within particular computer games) a fourth category he dubs “meta-rules” (“a rule that states how rules can be changed”) should also exist within the simauthor’s repertoire.
Frasca concludes his article by making an allegory between simulation and Borges’ “The Golem” (“simulation is only approximation... it is an alternative, not a replacement”). Frasca lastly claims that, in computer technology, “humanity” has finally found a “natural medium” through which to practise the art of simauthorship, where its essence lies on the “basic assumption [that] change is possible.”
I found this article highly enlightening. Considering videogames as more than just “interactive narrative” has been a difficult process over these readings. Having always wanted to be a writer, I contend that everything works under narrative function, without exception. However, Frasca’s compounded arguments concerning the nature and structure of simulation, as a better model for which to find allegory within videogames, I found very intriguing. Considering earlier readings in Galloway, specifically his chapter on informatics structures and allegory, I’ve started to more clearly recognise that the potential for metaphor within videogame structure is a symbiotic process between those allegories found within the game “system” and those found within the game “story”. This reminds me very much of the process for which a director and screenwriter work in tandem. Perhaps, then, Christie Marx’s contention that the videogame industry is heading toward a creative team modelled after television is not only an apt conclusion, but a flourishing possibility to create hybrid allegorical structures for “pleasure play” (as Carr would put it).
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