推薦語

這是一篇老文章，時間久遠(yuǎn)到20年前。2001年，《游戲研究 GameStudies》這一學(xué)術(shù)期刊被創(chuàng)立，而其主編，也是《Cybertext: Perspective on Ergodic Literature（制動文本:遍歷文學(xué)觀）》的作者，挪威學(xué)者Espen Aaserth在第一期的卷首寫下的這篇文章。這被看做是游戲研究的開始，而2001也被稱作游戲研究元年。

且不說隨后的二十年里發(fā)生了什么，就單純在今天的漢語世界中發(fā)生的情形，這文章或許再合適不過。我開始關(guān)注的這六年中的變化十分明顯：從零星的、在不同領(lǐng)域由個人興趣而推動的關(guān)于電子游戲的研究，媒體與玩家、開發(fā)者自發(fā)進(jìn)行的思考與搜集，到企業(yè)介入引導(dǎo)，邀請與試圖推動與建設(shè)，再到后疫情的今天，伴隨著元宇宙的糟糕關(guān)鍵詞，在當(dāng)代藝術(shù)，媒介研究，哲學(xué)，社會學(xué)，人類學(xué)，數(shù)字媒體，文學(xué)，行業(yè)內(nèi)等等不同的領(lǐng)域所興起的開始對于電子游戲研究的嘗試與討論。

今天對電子游戲的關(guān)注和討論的訴求正在發(fā)生。

而我也意識到我們確實就如同文中二十年前的起步階段，中國本土的研究生態(tài)與國外與電子游戲研究的差異性讓狀況會比當(dāng)時更加復(fù)雜，而游戲經(jīng)驗的缺失，文化對游戲的失語，電子游戲深入和廣泛地發(fā)展使得溝通交流之間有很大的鴻溝。

而今天看Aaserth的這篇文章，他所談?wù)摰膶徝琅c社會的結(jié)合，游戲與超文本的不同以及模擬（simulation）的本質(zhì)，作為物與過程的雙重體，游戲作為多種媒介（media）的集合的媒介差異性使得我們并不能將其作為單一媒介去進(jìn)行一般性的斷言的提醒，學(xué)界在舊有和新學(xué)科之間的兩難境地，研究與文化對行業(yè)改變的渺茫希望等等。

每一個議題在今天都需要再次被提醒、思索和認(rèn)識。

而即便你并非研究者，或許也可從中看到一個新學(xué)科的發(fā)展和一種對于新事物的思考的艱難的、但卻也十分有趣的創(chuàng)生過程。

希望你的閱讀有所收獲。

葉梓濤

2021/12/7

落日間 xpaidia.com

Computer Game Studies, Year One

電腦游戲研究，第一年

by Espen Aarseth, Editor-in-Chief

作者：Espen Aarseth，主編

譯介：DeepL + 葉梓濤

歡迎來到這致力于電子游戲研究的首份學(xué)術(shù)化的，同行評議的期刊的第一期。這是一個值得注意的時刻，并且最特殊的或許是，過去從來就沒有過這樣的一份期刊。眾所周知，幾乎是在電腦剛出現(xiàn)的時候，電腦游戲就出現(xiàn)了，可以說是第一個「現(xiàn)代」游戲的 Spacewar！，今年已經(jīng)四十歲，而作為商業(yè)的品類也有了三十多年的歷史。那么為什么之前沒有這樣的東西呢？

2001年可以被看作是計算機游戲研究作為一個新興的、可行的、國際性的學(xué)術(shù)領(lǐng)域的第一年。今年3月在哥本哈根舉行了第一次關(guān)于計算機游戲的國際學(xué)術(shù)會議，其他幾個會議也將陸續(xù)舉行。01-02年也可能是大學(xué)首次提供計算機游戲研究的正規(guī)研究生課程的學(xué)術(shù)年。而且這可能是學(xué)者和學(xué)術(shù)界第一次認(rèn)真對待計算機游戲，將其作為一個對價值難以給予厚望的文化領(lǐng)域。

對我們中的一些人來說，計算機游戲已經(jīng)是一種比電影或甚至體育更重要的文化現(xiàn)象。從2001年來看，電腦游戲在未來的潛在文化作用實際上是不可估量的。很明顯，這些游戲，尤其是多人游戲，以舊的大眾媒體，如戲劇、電影、電視節(jié)目和小說所做不到的方式，將審美（aesthetic）和社會（social）結(jié)合起來。舊的大眾媒體創(chuàng)造了大眾觀眾（mass audiences），他們分享價值觀并維持了市場，但大眾媒體社區(qū)仍然是想象出來的（在本尼迪克特-安德森的意義上（譯注：這里指《想象的共同體》中描述民族的想象由報紙等大眾傳媒建構(gòu)）），參與者之間很少或近乎沒有直接的交流。而顯然，多人游戲不是這樣的。

在像《MUD 1》（多用戶地下城，Multi-User Dungeon，1978）、《網(wǎng)絡(luò)創(chuàng)世紀(jì)》（1997）或 《雷神之錘：競技場》（1999）這樣的游戲中，審美和社會被融為一體，這可以被認(rèn)為是自幾千年前唱詩班（choir）發(fā)明以來的觀眾結(jié)構(gòu)最偉大的創(chuàng)新。如果像有些人那樣，把電腦游戲僅僅看作是好萊塢最新的自我革新，那也就無視了這些社會審美（socio-aesthetic）方面，把過時的范式（paradigms）強加給一個新的文化對象。

誠然，目前游戲行業(yè)有相當(dāng)大的好萊塢化（Hollywoodisation）的情況，這始于90年代初的 "互動電影 "的失敗，但也有一個世界范圍的、非商業(yè)的、集體性的游戲運動（games movement），它有比之前任何業(yè)余愛好者的運動都更好的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施。好萊塢，就像唱片業(yè)一樣，都是關(guān)于分銷的（distribution），現(xiàn)在有一種分銷機制，可以與攤位（booth）相媲美：互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。連比爾-蓋茨三世都沒能吞掉互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，那就更沒有理由相信好萊塢會成功。從任天堂的封閉生態(tài)系統(tǒng)到網(wǎng)絡(luò)上的開源游戲社區(qū)；游戲研究必須研究這兩者；我們不能錯誤地假設(shè) "任天堂-好萊塢 "工業(yè)綜合體將統(tǒng)治，并消除其他可選擇的道路（alternative）。作為一種文化研究策略，這就像為先前的戰(zhàn)爭做準(zhǔn)備。

A cognitive, communicative revolution? 一場認(rèn)知的，交流的革命？

關(guān)于新技術(shù)煽動新的思維和交流方式的能力，已經(jīng)產(chǎn)生了很多的炒作。以超文本（hypertext）為例，它被認(rèn)為會給我們帶來更接近我們大腦工作方式的寫作技巧，一種更 "自然（natural） "的文本交流方式。然而，到目前為止，萬維網(wǎng)（World Wide Web），這個迄今為止最成功的超文本系統(tǒng)，只產(chǎn)生了一個更好的分發(fā)機制，很少有文本真正使用該技術(shù)的非線性可能性（nonlinear possibilities）。而游戲往往是*模擬（simulations）；它們不像超文本或文學(xué)小說那樣是靜態(tài)的迷宮。而模擬這一方面的是至關(guān)重要的：它與作為認(rèn)知和交流結(jié)構(gòu)的敘事（narratives）完全不同。模擬是自下而上的；它們是基于邏輯規(guī)則的復(fù)雜系統(tǒng)。

游戲既是物（object / 對象）又是過程（process）；它們不能像文本一樣閱讀或像音樂一樣聆聽，它們必須被玩（played）。玩是不可或缺的，而不是像欣賞的讀者或聽眾那樣巧合性的。創(chuàng)造性的參與是游戲使用（uses）中的一個必要成分。模擬的復(fù)雜性質(zhì)決定了結(jié)果是無法事先預(yù)測的；它可以根據(jù)玩家的運氣、技巧和創(chuàng)造力有很大的變化。在多人游戲中，社會技能是需要的，或說是必須被培養(yǎng)的。任何在多人游戲上花上一段時間的人都知道這一點。然而，許多行業(yè)和學(xué)術(shù)評論家認(rèn)為需要 「敘事」 結(jié)構(gòu)（narrative struture），以便理解游戲并使游戲 「更好」。在這個問題上，關(guān)于敘事和敘事學(xué)（narratology）與游戲研究的相關(guān)性的辯論清晰可見。這場辯論表明我們?nèi)蕴幱诜浅Ｔ缙诘碾A段，控制和塑造理論范式的斗爭才剛剛開始。我們希望這場辯論能夠繼續(xù)下去，不管是在這里還是在其他地方，但希望未來的貢獻(xiàn)能夠解決已經(jīng)提出的觀點，而不是簡單地重復(fù)同樣的主張。這就是學(xué)術(shù)期刊的作用。

Creating a New Discipline 創(chuàng)建一個新的學(xué)科

計算機游戲研究的最大挑戰(zhàn)無疑來自于學(xué)術(shù)世界內(nèi)部。為一個新的領(lǐng)域騰出空間通常意味著減少現(xiàn)有領(lǐng)域的資源，而現(xiàn)有的領(lǐng)域也往往會通過試圖將新的領(lǐng)域作為一個子領(lǐng)域（subfield）來應(yīng)對。游戲不是電影或文學(xué)的一種，但來自這兩個領(lǐng)域的殖民化（colonising）嘗試已經(jīng)發(fā)生了，而且毫無疑問會再發(fā)生。直到計算機游戲研究作為一個明確的自我維持（self-sustained）的學(xué)術(shù)領(lǐng)域出現(xiàn)。

讓事情變得更加混亂的是，目前的 「新媒體」（主要是一種為了視覺媒體研究而需要提出基于計算機的溝通（computer-based communication）的策略）的偽領(lǐng)域（pseudo-field），想要將計算機游戲歸入其對象之一。這種策略有很多問題，就像整個「新媒體」的概念一樣，其中最顯著的一點事實是，電腦游戲不是一種媒介（medium），而是許多不同的媒介（media）。從像菲比精靈Furby這樣的電腦玩具到奔邁（Palm Pilot，一種掌上電腦PDA）上的游戲《毒品戰(zhàn)爭》Drug Wars，更不用說像《無盡的任務(wù)》Everquest 這樣的大型多人游戲，或者最近的《混亂 Online》Anarchy Online，它有40.000名游戲測試者同時進(jìn)行測試，電腦游戲領(lǐng)域內(nèi)廣泛的媒體差異使得傳統(tǒng)媒體的觀點幾乎沒有用。我們最終得到了媒體理論家Liv Hausken所說的媒體盲（media blindness）：沒有看到具體的媒體差異如何導(dǎo)致了一種根本并不中立的 「媒體中立」（media-neutral）的媒體理論。這顯然是很危險地：無論是我們把游戲看成電影或故事，還是對游戲進(jìn)行一般性的斷言（general claims），就好像它們都屬于相同的媒體格式并有相同特征。

計算機游戲也許是我們所見過的最豐富的文化體裁（cultural genre），這對我們尋找合適的方法論進(jìn)路提出了挑戰(zhàn)。我們都是從別的地方（somewhere else）進(jìn)入這個領(lǐng)域的，從人類學(xué)、社會學(xué)、敘事學(xué)、符號學(xué)、電影研究等等，而我們從舊領(lǐng)域帶來的政治和意識形態(tài)的包袱不可避免地決定并推動我們的研究進(jìn)路。而更重要的是，我們是留下還是回去？我們是想要一個獨立的、被稱之為計算機游戲研究的領(lǐng)域，還是想要為我們的舊學(xué)科占據(jù)這個領(lǐng)域？這是任何一個新領(lǐng)域的學(xué)者都會遇到的兩難；以數(shù)字文化研究為例。今天，每一種現(xiàn)代文化也都是數(shù)字化的，所以人文和社會科學(xué)的每一個部門都必須把數(shù)字化看作是自己領(lǐng)域的一部分。因此，一個單獨的數(shù)字文化（研究）的領(lǐng)域很難構(gòu)建，而且可能（在現(xiàn)有的領(lǐng)域?qū)ζ渲匾蚤_始感興趣后）完全沒有必要。數(shù)字理論家最終會在舊有的學(xué)科中得到興趣和接納，因此，跨學(xué)科團體（如互聯(lián)網(wǎng)研究協(xié)會）提供的研究職位雖然仍有價值，但對于職業(yè)生涯的建設(shè)上已不再關(guān)鍵。

在電腦游戲方面，情況則不同。舊的游戲研究領(lǐng)域幾乎不存在（見Jesper Juul在本期的評論），而且似乎也絲毫沒給計算機游戲?qū)W者一個安全的避難所。有人會說，游戲研究的明顯位置是在媒體系，但鑒于那里對大眾傳媒和視覺美學(xué)的強烈關(guān)注，游戲具有根本性的獨特面向很容易被丟棄。

今天，我們有可能建立一個新的領(lǐng)域。我們有一個價值數(shù)十億美元的產(chǎn)業(yè)，但幾乎沒有基礎(chǔ)研究，我們有很長一段時間內(nèi)出現(xiàn)的最為迷人的文化材料，我們有機會將美學(xué)、文化和技術(shù)設(shè)計方面統(tǒng)一到一個學(xué)科中。這不會是一個無痛的過程，并且在這個過程中會犯很多錯誤。但是如果我們成功了，我們可以真正地做出建設(shè)性和批判性的貢獻(xiàn)，并在學(xué)術(shù)界之外（outside the academy）有所作為。我對影響一個數(shù)十億的產(chǎn)業(yè)這事并不太樂觀。但從長遠(yuǎn)來看，誰知道呢？

當(dāng)然，游戲也應(yīng)該在現(xiàn)有的領(lǐng)域和科系中進(jìn)行研究，如媒體研究（Media Studies）、社會學(xué)（Sociology）和英文等等。但游戲太重要了，不能留給這些領(lǐng)域。(而他們確實有三十年的時間什么都沒做?。┚拖窠ㄖW(xué)包含但不能簡化為藝術(shù)史一樣，游戲研究應(yīng)該包含媒體研究、美學(xué)、社會學(xué)等等。但它應(yīng)該作為一個獨立的學(xué)術(shù)結(jié)構(gòu)存在，因為它不能被簡化為上述任何一個。這是一個有趣的時代。

歡迎你們！

Welcome to the first issue of the first academic, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to computer game studies. This is a noteworthy occasion, and perhaps the most remarkable aspect is that such a journal has not been started before. As we know, there have been computer games for almost as long as there have been computers: SpaceWar, arguably the first modern game, turns forty this year, and commercially the genre has existed for three decades. So why not something like this before?

2001 can be seen as the Year One of Computer Game Studies as an emerging, viable, international, academic field. This year has seen the first international scholarly conference on computer games, in Copenhagen in March, and several others will follow. 01-02 may also be the academic year when regular graduate programs in computer game studies are offered for the first time in universities. And it might be the first time scholars and academics take computer games seriously, as a cultural field whose value is hard to overestimate.

To some of us, computer games are already a phenomenon of greater cultural importance than, say movies, or perhaps even sports. Seen from 2001, the potential cultural role(s) of computer games in the future is practically unfathomable. It seems clear that these games, especially multi-player games, combine the aesthetic and the social in a way the old mass media, such as theatre, movies, TV shows and novels never could. The old mass media created mass audiences, who shared values and sustained markets, but the mass media communities remained imagined (in Benedict Anderson’s sense), with little or no direct communication between participants. Clearly, multi-player games are not like that.

In games like MUD1, Ultima online, or Quake Arena, the aesthetic and the social are integrated parts, and this could be regarded as the greatest innovation in audience structure since the invention of the choir, thousands of years ago. To see computer games as merely the newest self-reinvention of Hollywood, as some do, is to disregard those socio-aesthetic aspects and also to force outdated paradigms onto a new cultural object.

True, there is a considerable Hollywoodisation of the games industry at the moment, that started with the "interactive movies" failures of the early nineties, but there is also a world wide, non-commercial, collective games movement that has a better infrastructure than any amateur movement before it. Hollywood, like the record industry, is all about distribution, and now there is a distribution mechanism that rivals booth: the Internet. Even Bill Gates III failed to swallow up the Internet, and there is much less reason to believe that Hollywood will succeed. From the closed ecosystem of Nintendo to the open source games communities on the Net; game studies must study both; it would be a mistake to assume that the "Nintendo-Hollywood" industrial complex will rule, and eliminate the alternative. As a cultural studies strategy, this would be like preparing to fight the previous war.

A cognitive, communicative revolution?

Much hype has been produced about the ability of new technology to instigate new ways of thought and communication. Take hypertext, which was supposed to give us writing skills that adhered much closer to the way our brains worked, a more "natural" way of textual communication. So far, however, the World Wide Web, the must successful hypertext system by far, has only produced a better distribution mechanism, and very few texts actually use the nonlinear possibilities of the technology. Games, however, are often simulations; they are not static labyrinths like hypertexts or literary fictions. The simulation aspect is crucial: it is radically different alternative to narratives as a cognitive and communicative structure. Simulations are bottom up; they are complex systems based on logical rules.

Games are both object and process; they can’t be read as texts or listened to as music, they must be played. Playing is integral, not coincidental like the appreciative reader or listener. The creative involvement is a necessary ingredient in the uses of games. The complex nature of simulations is such that a result can’t be predicted beforehand; it can vary greatly depending on the player’s luck, skill and creativity. In multi-player games, social skills are needed, or must be developed. Anyone who has spent some time in a multi-player game knows that. Yet much of the industry and the academic commentators see the need for "narrative" structures in order to understand games and make games "better." In this issue, the debate about narratives’ and narratology’s relevance to game studies is clearly visible. This is a debate that shows the very early stage we are still in, where the struggle of controlling and shaping the theoretical paradigms has just started. We expect the debate to continue, here and elsewhere, but hope that future contributions will address the points already made, and not simply make the same claims over and over again. That is what an academic journal is for.

Creating a New Discipline

The greatest challenge to computer game studies will no doubt come from within the academic world. Making room for a new field usually means reducing the resources of the existing ones, and the existing fields will also often respond by trying to contain the new area as a subfield. Games are not a kind of cinema, or literature, but colonising attempts from both these fields have already happened, and no doubt will happen again. And again, until computer game studies emerges as a clearly self-sustained academic field.

To make things more confusing, the current pseudo-field of "new media" (primarily a strategy to claim computer-based communication for visual media studies), wants to subsume computer games as one of its objects. There are many problems with this strategy, as there is with the whole concept of "new media," and most dramatically the fact that computer games are not one medium, but many different media. From a computerized toy like Furby to the game Drug Wars on the Palm Pilot, not to mention massively multi-player games like Everquest, or the recent Anarchy Online, which was tested by 40.000 simultaneous playtesters, the extensive media differences within the field of computer games makes a traditional medium perspective almost useless. We end up with what media theorist Liv Hausken has termed media blindness: how a failure to see the specific media differences leads to a "media-neutral" media theory that is anything but neutral. This is clearly a danger when looking at games as cinema or stories, but also when making general claims about games, as though they all belonged to the same media format and shared the same characteristics.

Computer games are perhaps the richest cultural genre we have yet seen, and this challenges our search for a suitable methodological approach. We all enter this field from somewhere else, from anthropology, sociology, narratology, semiotics, film studies, etc, and the political and ideological baggage we bring from our old field inevitably determines and motivates our approaches. And even more importantly, do we stay or do we go back? Do we want a separate field named computer game studies, or do we want to claim the field for our old discipline? This is a common dilemma for any scholar in a new field; take for example digital culture studies. Today, every modern culture is also digital, so every sector of the humanities and social sciences must see the digital as part of their own territory. Hence, a separate field of digital culture is difficult to construct, and probably (after the existing fields warmed to its importance), completely unnecessary. The digital theorists will finally have found interest and acceptance back at the old discipline, and so the fellowship offered by interdisciplinary communities (such as the Internet Research Association) while still valuable, is no longer crucial when building a career.

In computer games, this is different. The old field of game studies barely exists (see Jesper Juul’s review in this issue), and seems in no shape to give the computer game scholars a safe haven. Some would argue that the obvious place for game studies is in a media department, but given the strong focus there on mass media and the visual aesthetics, the fundamentally unique aspects of the games could easily be lost.

Today we have the possibility to build anew field. We have a billion dollar industry with almost no basic research, we have the most fascinating cultural material to appear in a very long time, and we have the chance of uniting aesthetic, cultural and technical design aspects in a single discipline. This will not be a painless process, and many mistakes will be made along the way. But if we are successful, we can actually contribute both constructively and critically, and make a difference outside the academy. I am not too optimistic about influencing a multibillion industry. But in the long run, who knows?

Of course, games should also be studied within existing fields and departments, such as Media Studies, Sociology, and English, to name a few. But games are too important to be left to these fields. (And they did have thirty years in which they did nothing!) Like architecture, which contains but cannot be reduced to art history, game studies should contain media studies, aesthetics, sociology etc. But it should exist as an independent academic structure, because it cannot be reduced to any of the above. These are interesting times.

You are all invited!

來源：http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/editorial.html#top?

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