Die Bedeutung der Bewegung im Computerspiel wird von vielen Seiten immer wieder betont. Dies ist keinesfalls verwunderlich, wenn man sich einmal die „Verben“ vor Augen führt, die den Handlungsraum klassischer Computerspiele konstituieren: „Laufen“, „Schießen“ und „Fangen“ sollen hier nur als Stellvertreter für ein Repertoire an möglichen Aktionen stehen, die allesamt auf der kinetischen Ebene stattfinden. Diese Handlungen erschöpfen sich aber nicht in sich selbst, sondern stellen auch Sinnzusammenhänge unterhalb der Spielelemente her. In den meisten klassischen Games sind es eben diese kinetischen Relationen, welche die singulären Elemente überhaupt erst zu einem diegetischen Spielraum zusammenfügen, und das Spiel so ermöglichen. Umso verwunderlicher mutet es da an, dass dieser Gestaltungsebene von analytischer Seite bislang so wenig Aufmerksamkeit zu Teil wurde. Mein Aufsatz soll an die Möglichkeiten einer kinetischen Perspektive bei der Betrachtung von Computerspielen heranführen und aufzeigen, welches Potential in einer Analyse wie auch der gestalterischen Nutzung dieser bislang weitgehend vernachlässigten Gestaltungsebene liegen könnte. / The significance of movement in computer games has always been emphasized by many views. This is not at all surprising when one considers the verbs describing the actions that occur in classic games: “Running”, “Shooting” and “Catching” are just a taste of the wide array of playing possibilities, all taking place on a level of kinetics. However these are not just words describing movement but rather create significant relations between the elements in the game. In most classic games it is exactly these kinetic correlations that bring together the single elements to create a diegetic space, thereby rendering the game possible. All the more remarkable is the lack of attention this level of design has received from any analytical standpoint. This document should provide an introduction to the possibilities of observing video games from a kinetics point of view, and bring to light what kind of potential lies in a dedicated analysis of this much neglected level of design as well as its utilization in the creative process.

In den Debatten über Gefährdungen durch Computerspiele stehen sich zwei Positionen scheinbar unversöhnlich gegenüber. Argumentieren die einen, dass die Games mit ihren Spielregeln ja schon so etwas wie eine interne Ethik besitzen, setzen die anderen die ethischen Prinzipien ihrer sozial-kultureller Welt dagegen. Vertreten wird die These, dass Computerspiele künstliche Welten sind, in denen menschliche und künstliche Intelligenzen interagieren. Wenn es verschiedene Möglichkeiten des Handelns gibt, treffen die Handelnden Entscheidungen über „gut“ und „böse“. Es entstehen „soziale“ Spielregeln, eine neue Ethik, die auch durch positive oder negative Sanktionen der Mitspielenden durchgesetzt wird. Diese Ethik folgt sowohl der internen Logik der Spielregeln und des Genres als auch den Wertmaßstäben der Spielenden aus deren realen Welten. Weil es sich um einen globalen Vorgang handelt, können unsere nationalen Werte nur bedingt wirksam sein. / In the ongoing debates about the dangers of computer games, two positions seem to be irreconcilable opposed. Whereas some argue that the games with their rules imply something like inbuilt ethics, others oppose the ethical principles of their socio-cultural world. The thesis is defended that computer games are artificial worlds in which human and artificial intelligences interact. If there are different possibilities of action, the player decides about “good” and “evil”. Enforced by positive or negative sanctions of the players, social rules and new ethics evolve following the internal logic of the rules and the genre of the game as well as the value standards of the players in their real world. Being a global transaction, our national values can only be partly effective.

This paper draws on Bernard Stiegler’s critique of “hyperindustrialism” to suggest that digital gaming is a privileged site for critiques of affective labor; games themselves routinely nod towards such critiques. Stiegler’s work adds, however, the important dimension of historical differentiation to recent critiques of affective labor, emphasizing “style” and “idiom” as key concerns in critical analyses of globalizing technocultures. These insights are applied to situate digital play in terms of affective labor, and conclude with a summary analysis of the gestural-technical stylistics of the Wii. The result is that interaction stylistics become comparable across an array of home networking devices, providing a gloss, in terms of affect, of the “simple enjoyment” Nintendo designers claim characterizes use of the Wii-console and its complex controllers.

Governments all over the world have responded to the offer of violent and sexual-themed video games by inaugurating regulatory bodies. Still, video games with content that is deemed unsuitable for children are played even by young children. With a focus on the situation in Germany the aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, the current state of literature on the importance of age ratings for the regulation of video games is scrutinized. Therefore, the focus is on the German rating system by the Entertainment Software Self Control. This scheme is compared in particular to the American Entertainment Software Rating Board scheme and parallels with the Pan-European Game Information-system are drawn. On the other hand, results from an exploratory survey study on the preferences for video games among German 8 to 12 year olds are presented (N=1703), arguing that the preference for video games that are not suitable for them is a widespread phenomenon in particular among boys.

Der zweite Band der DIGAREC Series beinhaltet Beiträge der DIGAREC Lectures 2008/09 sowie des Wissenschaftsforums der Deutschen Gamestage 2008 und 2009. Mit Beiträgen von Oliver Castendyk (Erich Pommer Institut), Stephan Günzel mit Michael Liebe und Dieter Mersch (Universität Potsdam), Andreas Lange (Computerspielemuseum Berlin), Ingrid Möller mit Barbara Krahé (Universität Potsdam), Klaus Spieler (Institut für digitale interaktive Kultur Berlin), James Tobias (University of California, Riverside), Stefan Böhme (HBK Braunschweig), Robert Glashüttner (Wien), Sven Jöckel (Universität Erfurt) mit Leyla Dogruel (FU Berlin), Michael Mosel (Universität Marburg), Sebastian Quack (HTW Berlin), Leif Rumbke (Hamburg) und Steffen P. Walz (ETH Zürich).

Das Buch widmet sich der Betrachtung der verschiedenen Gegnerschaftsformen in Computerspielen als Ausdruck seiner Interaktivität, wobei eine dreiteilige Typologie generiert wird, mit der die Gegnerschaftsarten eines jeden Spieles abgedeckt werden können. Hierbei wird unterschieden zwischen dem „Wettbewerb“ (dieser zeichnet sich durch Chancengleichheit der Teilnehmer bei einer auf dasselbe Ziel ausgerichteten Bewegung aus), der „Feindschaft“ (bei der die Spieler unterschiedliche, häufig konträre Ziele verfolgen und eine gegenseitige Tötungsbereitschaft aufweisen) sowie der „Umgebung“ (bei der die Spieler nicht gegen einen realen Feind, sondern gegen die Hindernisse der Spielwelt antreten). Aus medienwissenschaftlicher Sicht spielt die Betrachtung der konzeptuellen Einbindung von Gewalt in den Spielekontext eine zentrale Rolle. Auf diese Weise wird versucht, die Interaktivität des Computerspiels anhand von agonalen Spielelementen zu systematisieren. Gewalt wird im Falle des Wettbewerbs domestiziert, durch die Feindschaft zelebriert und bei der Umgebung kanalisiert. Es soll in Gegnerschaft im Computerspiel jedoch weniger eine pädagogische, als vielmehr eine analytische Herangehensweise an das Computerspiel vollzogen werden. Darüber hinaus werden im Verlauf der Argumentation Kriterien herausgearbeitet, anhand derer sich die unterschiedlichen Formen von Gegnerschaft identifizieren lassen. Es wird eine simple Einteilungsmatrix bereitgestellt, die die Gegnerschaftsformen in Bezug zueinander setzt und deren Verhältnis verdeutlicht. Den Abschluss bildet ein Ausblick zur gängigen Spielhaltung von Computerspielern, der andeutet, wie diese theoretischen Konzepte in der Praxis mit Inhalten umgesetzt werden. / The book deals with the different types of enmity in computer games that shape the interactivity of that novel medium. A typology consisting of three equal parts is generated that allows classify every computer game that can be thought of. First, there is "competition" which is characterized by equality of chances and a movement that is aimed at one single goal. Second, „hostility“ makes the players pursue different, often contrary goals while the will to kill each other influences their actions. Third and last „environment“ is a type of enmity where the players do not fight living enemies, but obstacles of the game world. As a work that derives from a Media Science point of view, the way violence is implemented plays a key role in the dealing with the topic.This leads to the attempt of systemizing the interactivity of computer games via agonal elements of the game play. In competitions violence is domesticated while it is celebrated in hostile games and channeled in games where the player fights against the game world. However, this work is not meant to choose an pedagogical, but an analytical focus. Furthermore, criterias are developed that allow to identify the different types of enmity. A simple matrix is deduced that explains the relationship of the three types while a final outlook indicates the practical implementation of this whole conceptualization.

The fourth volume of the DIGAREC Series holds the proceedings to the conference “Logic and Structure of the Computer Game”, held at the House of Brandenburg- Prussian History in Potsdam on November 6 and 7, 2009. The conference was the first to explicitly address the medial logic and structure of the computer game. The contributions focus on the specific potential for mediation and on the unique form of mediation inherent in digital games. This includes existent, yet scattered approaches to develop a unique curriculum of game studies. In line with the concept of ‘mediality’, the notions of aesthetics, interactivity, software architecture, interface design, iconicity, spatiality, and rules are of special interest. Presentations were given by invited German scholars and were commented on by international respondents in a dialogical structure.

Game space can be conceived of as being structured by varying levels of ruledness, i.e. it oscillates between openness and closure, between playability and gameness. The movement through game space can then be described as a vector defined by possibility spaces, which are generated organically out of the interplay between ruled and unruled space. But we can only define rules ex negativo, therefore the possibility of breaking the rules is always already inscribed in this vector of movement. This can be conceptualized as a boundary operation that takes the difference between ‘ordinary life’ and ‘play’ as its argument, and which thus generates the difference between ‘play’ and ‘game’.

Computer games are rigid in a peculiar way: the logic of computation was the first to shape the early games. The logic of interactivity marked the action genre of games in the second place, while in massive multiplayer online gaming all the emergences of the net occur to confront us with just another type of logic. These logics are the media in which the specific forms of computer games evolve. Therefore, a look at gaming supposing that there are three eras of computation is taken: the early synthetical era, ruled by the Turing machine and by mainframe computers, by the IPO principle of computing; the second, mimetical era, when interactivity and graphical user interfaces dominate, the domain of the feedback loop; and the third, emergent era, in which the complexity of networked personal computers and their users is dominant.

Communication, simulation, interactive narrative and ubiquitous computing are widely accepted as perspectives in humancomputer interaction. This paper proposes play as another possible perspective. Everyday uses of the computer increasingly show signs of similarity to play. This is not discussed with regard to the so-called media society, the playful society, the growing cultural acceptance of the computer, the spread of computer games or a new version of Windows, but in view of the playful character of interaction with the computer that has always been part of it. The exploratory learning process involved with new software and the creative tasks that are often undertaken when using the computer may support this argument. Together with its high level of interactivity, these observations point to a sense of security, autonomy and freedom of the user that produce play and are, in turn, produced by play. This notion of play refers not to the playing of computer games, but to an implicit, abstract (or symbolic) process based on a certain attitude, the play spirit. This attitude is discussed regarding everyday computer use and related to the other mentioned perspectives.