Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism (Hardcover)

Ian Bogost

  • 出版商: MIT
  • 出版日期: 2006-03-10
  • 售價: $1,080
  • 語言: 英文
  • 頁數: 243
  • 裝訂: Hardcover
  • ISBN: 026202599X
  • ISBN-13: 9780262025997
  • 相關分類: 遊戲設計 Game-design
  • 立即出貨

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商品描述

Description

In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that can be used to analyze particular videogames. Moreover, this approach can be applied beyond videogames: Bogost suggests that any medium--from videogames to poetry, literature, cinema, or art--can be read as a configurative system of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and he illustrates this method of analysis with examples from all these fields. The marriage of literary theory and information technology, he argues, will help humanists take technology more seriously and hep technologists better understand software and videogames as cultural artifacts. This approach is especially useful for the comparative analysis of digital and nondigital artifacts and allows scholars from other fields who are interested in studying videogames to avoid the esoteric isolation of "game studies."

The richness of Bogost's comparative approach can be seen in his discussions of works by such philosophers and theorists as Plato, Badiou, Zizek, and McLuhan, and in his analysis of numerous videogames including Pong, Half-Life, and Star Wars Galaxies. Bogost draws on object technology and complex adaptive systems theory for his method of unit analysis, underscoring the configurative aspects of a wide variety of human processes. His extended analysis of freedom in large virtual spaces examines Grand Theft Auto 3, The Legend of Zelda, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Joyce's Ulysses. In Unit Operations, Bogost not only offers a new methodology for videogame criticism but argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.

Ian Bogost is Assistant Professor of Literature, Communication, and Culture at Georgia Institute of Technology.

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii
 
 Introduction
 
I From Systems to Units 
 
1 Unit Operations
 
2 Structuralism and Computation 21
 
3 Humanism and Object Technology 31
 
II Procedural Criticism 
 
4 Comparative Videogame Criticism 49
 
5 Videogames and Expression 55
 
6 Encounters across Platforms 73
 
III Procedural Subjectivity 
 
7 Cellular Automata and Simulation 93
 
8 An Alternative to Fun 111
 
9 The Simulation Gap 129
 
IV From Design to Configuration 
 
10 Complex Networks 139
 
11 Complex Worlds 153
 
12 Critical Networks 171
 
 Notes 181
 
 Bibliography
 
 Index

商品描述(中文翻譯)

描述

在《單元操作》中,伊恩·博戈斯特(Ian Bogost)主張文學理論和計算機具有相似的原則,提出了一種可以用於分析特定視頻遊戲的文學技術理論。此外,這種方法也可以應用於視頻遊戲以外的媒體,從詩歌、文學、電影到藝術,都可以被視為一個由離散、相互鎖定的意義單元組成的配置系統,博戈斯特通過這些領域的例子來說明這種分析方法。他認為文學理論和信息技術的結合將有助於人文學者更加重視技術,並幫助技術人員更好地理解軟件和視頻遊戲作為文化產物。這種方法尤其適用於數字和非數字產物的比較分析,並使其他領域的學者避免陷入“遊戲研究”的專門孤立。

博戈斯特的比較方法的豐富性可以從他對柏拉圖、巴迪歐、齊澤克和麥克盧漢等哲學家和理論家的討論中看出,以及他對包括《乒乓球》、《半衰期》和《星球大戰銀河》在內的眾多視頻遊戲的分析。博戈斯特利用物件技術和複雜自適應系統理論進行單元分析,強調各種人類過程的配置性方面。他對大型虛擬空間中自由的延伸分析涉及《侠盗猎车手3》、《塞尔达传说》、福楼拜的《包法利夫人》和乔伊斯的《尤利西斯》。在《單元操作》中,博戈斯特不僅提供了一種新的視頻遊戲評論方法,還主張人文學科和信息技術之間存在真正的合作可能性。

伊恩·博戈斯特是喬治亞理工學院的文學、傳播和文化助理教授。

目錄

致謝 vii
導言
I 從系統到單元
1 單元操作
2 結構主義和計算
3 人文主義和物件技術
II 程序批評
4 比較視頻遊戲批評
5 視頻遊戲和表達
6 跨平台的相遇
III 程序主觀性
7 細胞自動機和模擬
8 超越樂趣的替代方案
9 模擬差距
IV 從設計到配置
10 複雜網絡
11 複雜世界
12 批判網絡
註釋
參考文獻
索引