Stapleton 1

Matt Stapleton

Dr. Frith

ENGL 8130

23 October 2019

Proposal

In this paper, I will explore the dynamics of social gaming through the advancement of

Nintendo hardware, specifically within the aspect of the 3DS’s StreetPass function. The basic

question I will inquire about is the purpose of passive data transmission-based game design

towards the user experience, particularly focusing on elements of gameplay that take place in

public. Data transmission-based game design is defined within the context of this paper as

entailing gameplay requiring the explicit transfer of data between two different devices, which

can range from intentional passing of memory bits to simply gathering player data between

systems. While older games included data transmission (for instance, with specific Pokémon

only able to evolve through being passed as data from one system to another), the switch to

wireless technology from the DS onwards within Nintendo products allowed for asynchronous

data transmission elements of a game. StreetPass was introduced on the 3DS, a handheld console

released by Nintendo in 2011. Building on the ability to wirelessly transfer data present on the

original DS (released in 2004), StreetPass was an optional function wherein the user’s 3DS

would passively communicate with other 3DS’s, collecting information about the player, games

played recently, hometown, gender, and additional information that specific games would

include in this digital handshake. The primary focus of this piece will be on three of the most

popular 3DS games that utilize this system feature: Pokémon X and Y, the first pair of Pokémon
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games on the handheld console that used this function; Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which

allowed players to use StreetPass to share their aesthetic designs; and StreetPass Plaza, a free

game that came with the console entirely comprised of StreetPass-based mini-games. Each of

these games utilized StreetPass in different and scaling manners, allowing for a variety of game

design to look into with regards to mobile play.

For the purpose of my paper, I will argue that the StreetPass functions native to the 3DS

detailed above complicated game design to an extent, but were ultimately a boon for the system

due to the prevalence of social gaming in other spheres. By focusing predominately on the

intersection between game design literature and rhetorics of social dynamics, I believe I will be

able to communicate how the influence of data transmission software positively impacted the

user experience of those who played 3DS games. Within my current research on this topic, I

have already been able to find a combination of reviews of games based on their social aspects,

as well as analysis of the software used therein and how that affected aspects of the gaming

experience. While social gaming has a variety of works to look into, specific articles on

StreetPass are less well known and prevalent, but still available and ready to be utilized.

This paper will be designed for submission to the quarterly publication Games and

Culture. The journal focuses predominately on discussion and analysis of both game mechanics

and social events in media that surround gaming; this piece will be focusing on the former, and

predominately be based on theoretical discussions about the nature of handheld gaming and

passive data transmission software. By focusing on the user experience derived in these games, I

will be able to identify possible avenues for further study of this system in other gaming

mediums.
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Annotated Bibliography

Bogost, Ian. “The rhetoric of video games.” The ecology of games: Connecting youth, games

and learning (2008): 117-140.

It’s difficult to discuss rhetoric within the realm of video games without acknowledging

this piece by Bogost, being one of the formative structures for the genre as-of late. While this

piece contains on a variety of details of gaming without focusing on any one particular aspect for

too long, I’ll be concentrating on the discussion of formative gameplay as a result of game

design. With regards to StreetPass, this will take the form of viewing how games change as you

use the function more; would this serve as enough motivation to go out and explore for other

players with Nintendo 3DS’s, or are the benefits not enough for true emergent gameplay to arise?

This piece is complicated somewhat with regards to the Merikivi discussion around ease-of-use

of this mechanic, which I believe will allow additional discussion to take place within my paper.

Briceño, Vanessa. "The Sound of One 3DS Clapping: User Commodification in

StreetPass.” Proceedings of DiGRA. 2014.

This article looks specifically into the problems that StreetPass as a feature has in

relationship to other social games; Briceño states that while the mechanic is quite novel and

interesting in its need to be something used physically close to other users, this extra step does

not provide enough of an incentive to actually motivate it as a groundbreaking piece of hardware.

Despite that, people used it heavily, leading to its importance as a piece of review. I think this

piece serves as a wonderful basis for my work, tying together the discussion of social gaming

alongside how these mechanics are actually and practically influencing players using these
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devices. I’ll be predominately using this piece to identify where to place the actual gamers in

these analyses.

Fizek, Sonia. “Why fun matters: In search of emergent playful experiences.” (2014): 273-287.

This piece is fantastic, in that it already engages Bogost and challenges some of the

concepts of “fun” that are proposed in that piece. Emergent gameplay is discussed as a result of

the given mechanics being somewhat dynamic, and displays various ways that gaming itself can

be subverted due to players’ literacy in gaming as well as their motivation to think outside the

box. I’ll be using this article because of its stringent and intensive discussion and definition of

the word “fun” within gaming; with regards to my own work, having a solid understanding of

this concept will allow my work to expand upon the premise of if StreetPass is something that

can be dealt with for the sake of better gameplay.

Merikivi, Jani, Virpi Tuuainen, and Duyun Nguyen. “What makes continued mobile gaming

enjoyable?.” Computers in Human Behavior 68 (2017): 411-421.

By delving into the practical applications of game design with regards to mobile gaming,

this article proposes a series of interactions and discussions in which various aspects of mobility

are considered in the design of a game, and the subsequent enjoyment of players once these

games are analyzed. With a variety of factors for analysis of enjoyment through surveys, they

found that enjoyment is far and away the key factor in what gamers look for in their games on

mobile, rather than any other categories that other forms of gaming contained better responses

for. This piece will contribute to my work in the analysis of game design in the three games I

chose; I will mostly be focusing on the practicality of how StreetPass affects these titles, and if
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the end product produced with the mechanic is something that can be qualified as useful for

gameplay or not.

Moore, Kyle. “Software Sorted Streets: Nintendo 3DS’s ‘Streetpass’ and the Reconfiguration of

Social Interactions.” Refereed Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand

Communication Association Conference: The digital and the social: communication for

inclusion and exchange.” 2014.

This piece gives a practical basis for how others have gone about discussing StreetPass in

the past; in particular, Moore views a specific individual, Mark Serrels, who decided to acquire

50 StreetPass ‘hits’ each day, and see where a majority of those passes with other players’ were

occurring. Comparing the function of the 3DS to other social, interactive games such as Ingress,

I feel that an apt comparison in my own work will be updating these examples to Pokémon Go,

considering the continued Nintendo property use between the 3DS and this other mobile game. I

particularly enjoy Moore’s discussion of how StreetPass encourages the user to view their device

as an actual device, rather than some way to engage in a physical space; its relation to social

rhetoric of a location might stem some wonderful discussion in my own piece.