The Wii, Russian Formalism and What Makes Video Games ‘Games’.
Man, that is an exciting title! 
Okay – I have long had a fascination with interfaces. To me, the interface is the meeting point of user and information, the middle ground between human creativity and the raw materials with which to create. It was this I was thinking about recently as I watched people run around this Christmas for a Nintendo Wii. After all, the success of the Wii is predicated upon its interface, in the new way in which you interact with what happens on the screen. The ‘fun’ of the Wii is not solely in how brilliant the games are in theme or execution, but in how they ‘play’.
Though it may seem like an odd segue, this focus on ‘how and not what’ is something that pops up quite often in literary studies, and I couldn’t help but think of the relationship between some approaches to literature and how we think of video games. I am soon to read a whack of Russian Formalism, an early twentieth century literary school that focused upon what made certain texts literary and others merely informative or practical. Formalists like Roman Jakobson basically ended up stating that literary language differed from regular language because it drew attention to itself and its own ‘literariness’. When Wordsworth’s narrator says “A slumber did my spirit seal” rather than simply ‘I was out of it’, he or she deliberately slows down the reading process, asking the reader to pay attention to the form of what is said as much its content. The key to being ‘literary’ (according to some, anyway) is not in conveying information as effectively as possible; instead, it is the interplay between what is said and how it is expressed.
This distinction – between what is conveyed and how – is one that might also be applied to gaming. Let’s take Wii Tennis as an example: if one wanted to simulate what it is like to play tennis, the aim would be realism. You would need to replicate the physics of the racket swing, the motion of the player and the various effects of different surfaces, spins and weather conditions. The goal here would be the replication of a specific experience in much the same way that the purpose of journalistic or technical language is to convey a message or idea. The focus is on utility, on the end rather than the process. But similar to the way in which literary language focuses upon the experience of language itself, Wii Tennis does not attempt to realistically recreate the experience of tennis per se, but the fun of experiencing the interface. It is the Wiimote and how it is used that is key, the enjoyment not coming from the specific recreation of what it is like to play a sport or, conversely, participating in a war, but by creating a set of virtual rules which one then plays within using the interface available to one. Thus video games are themselves akin to sports: there is no inherent joy in placing a ball in a hoop or catching a pigskin. It is the rules of the game that create the potential for fun, pleasure coming from the joy of the process rather than the achievement of a goal. As such, a good game, one that game critics would say ‘controls well’, gives the player the maximum amount of freedom and choice within the given arena of the game through its interface.
Thus the ‘fun’ or enjoyment of a videogame lies in playing an approximation of an experience with a focus on the experience of the interface rather than completing goals. Pleasure lies in the combination of the ‘feeling’ of the movements and controls of the game and what those inputs then achieve. This is crucial for a number of reasons. First, the argument that first-person shooters are ‘killing simulators’ misses that the satisfaction in those games comes from the actions and techniques of ‘achieving a kill’ rather than the kill itself – it is the rules and restrictions of the game rather than the game’s end that is the source of fun. Secondly, in much the same way that literature’s focus upon its own ‘literariness’ provided an ‘in’ for a wealth of analysis, it is the interface in gaming that will provide an avenue for reading video games in a sophisticated academic manner. For the best example I’ve seen of this yet, I highly suggest you read Chris Sullenstrope’s brillaint reading of Bioshock. For now though, it’s Christmas Eve and my head is getting heavy with beer, so I apologise if this is still a bit unclear. If you wish to add to my slightly intoxicated thoughts, hit the comments and let me know what you think 
well, the easy question: does the little wii thing “defamiliarize” gaming, or does it simply create an more seamless immersion into an expected, simple 3D environment with predictable goals and rewards?
this may be part of our ongoing disagreements about the value of wiis, but the stories of people forgetting where they are and leaping across the room into a lamp tell me that there is very little frustration or defamiliarzation going on here. these people are acting “normally.” it is “intuitive.” in fact, the popularity of the wii seems entirely based in the idea that its grammar is easy to learn and accept. it does not cause frustration or meaningful “tension.”
two further complications. formalism is formal. it’s about how the narrative or poem itself is constructed. to be honest about this, you would have to look at the structure of wii tennis as a kind of isolated narrative. what figures are represented? what kinds of goals are explored in this kind of game? that is, a formalist text doesn’t have an “interface.” the formalist idea is that the text exists as a formal structure WITHOUT a reader (or an author, really). to introduce particular “interfaces” is to enter the world of reader response, interactive reading, bakhtinian dialogic imaginations, discourse, or whatever.
speaking of which, this does become more complicated if you think about this problem in relation to someone like Bakhtin, who argues (and i’m paraphrasing here) that the russian formalists are full of shit.
Dude, any time you want to write a ‘guest post’, you’re more than welcome. I think you could say more in one post than I could do in twenty. The trick would be keeping it populist
Your comments were helpful as I think they’ve made me recognise the futility of what I was trying to do (in a good way). I think the problem here is the impossibility of making an analogy between two different forms and their respective modes: one of representation, the other of simulation. While we can obviously look for narratives and representations within video games – and probably should – we would ultimately miss their ‘video game-y-ness’, particularly if we try to get overeager with comparisons between interface and reading.
One entry point might be what someone categorised as the distinction between film and gaming, namely, that film operates through empathy and gaming through agency. In that model, interface becomes about deliberate or unintended constraints on agency and there’s probably some fruitful (or at least interesting) links to ideology there.
The defamiliarisation bit was interesting too. I’m not sure what to make of it yet as you’re quite right about the whole ‘intuitiveness’ thing on the Wii – my *mum* can play it. I guess what I’m trying to think through is the simple question of what makes games ‘fun’. Shooting people, as far as I know, isn’t fun – yet yesterday I really enjoyed playing a game in which ‘I’ was ‘shooting at people’. I think the distance there is more than the usual sense of representation as re-presentation – interface has something to do with it, even though I’m totally unsure what.
Oh, sorta’ unrelated, but you probably right about the Wii just getting annoying – Super Mario Galaxy is practically dripping in design genius but I’m already wishing I could just play without having to waggle anything.
Pfft. I don’t have any ideas on my own.
I don’t think the formalist stuff is irrelevant to games in general. I just think the focus on the waggly thing doesn’t seem right for formalism.
In SL the other day I came across a place entirely in black and white. It’s stunningly good 3D building, with realistic textures and good lighting, but the creator also occasionally includes simple white 2D drawings into her 3D world. The scribbly drawings are entirely flat, stamped onto a transparent 2D surface. There are two stickmen talking (in cartoon bubbles) in the middle of what would otherwise be a remarkably realistic main street. There’s a bizarre cluster of white squiggled flowers out behind the house which functions as a “garden.”
Now THAT’s doing something interesting (and potentially defamiliarizing) because it’s using the 3D engine to interrupt its own grammar. At the most unlikely time, it pulls us back to the margins of our cheap lined paper.