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A Short Theory of Ecocritical Metagames

von Alexander Lehner

http://www.paidia.de/?p=11569 (28. Februar 2018)

A Short Theory of Ecocritical Metagames: Shadow of


the Colossus and Everything.

Scene from the level of mathematical concepts of David OReilly's Everything. Quelle:
http://www.everything-game.com/presskit/

Abstract (DE): Der folgende Artikel befasst sich mit Metagames, die einen ökokritischen
Einschlag besitzen und über die Konventionen des Videospiels in Bezug auf Neoliberalismus
und die Umwelt reflektieren. Basierend auf Waughs Konzept der literarischen Metafiktion,
Warks Gamer Theory und Deleuzes Kontrollgesellschaft wird ein theoretisches Konzept
selbstreflexiver Videospiele erstellt, das auf die Entlarvung neoliberaler Strategien in den
gängigen Konventionen des Videospiels abzielt. Diese Symptome einer neoliberalen Ideologie
werden mit der Darstellung und Funktionalisierung der Umwelt in Videospielen verbunden und
in Shadow of the Colossus 1 sowie Everything 2 hierauf analysiert.

Abstract (EN): The following paper addresses metagames with an ecocritical twist and deals
with their reflections on genre conventions and their relation to neoliberalism and the
environment. Drawing primarily from Waugh’s perspective on literary metafiction, Wark’s
Gamer Theory, and Deleuze’s concept of the society of control, I propose a theoretical
framework of self-reflective videogames aiming at the ideology of neoliberalism within their
conventions. These symptoms will be connected to the depiction and function of the
environment in videogames. The final section provides an analysis of Shadow of the Colossus
and Everything as examples of ecocritical metagames.

Metafiction

Metafiction in general is “fiction about fiction – that is, fiction that includes within itself a
commentary on its own narrative and/or linguistic identity.” 3 Waugh, however, considers it in
her more focused definition as “fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically
draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose question about the relationship
between fiction and reality.” 4 Rather than offering a definition applicable to all metafictional
occurrences, Waugh perceives the genre as a systematic approach within a certain kind of

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A Short Theory of Ecocritical Metagames
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artifact. Additionally, she sees metafiction not only as commenting on the construction of fiction
and its identity, but as posing questions about the complicity of fiction’s form in perpetuating
world-views. The genre opposes the naturalization of a certain ideology transported through
the re-iteration of the corresponding conventions, namely “[t]he materialist, positivist and
empiricist world-view on which realistic fiction is premised.” 5

Games as the Civilizing Momentum of Society

In an interesting argumentative maneuver, Waugh relates the aesthetic resistance of


metafiction to Caillois’s notion of the civilizing momentum inherent in games. 6 Ilinx and
mimicry (as formative elements of the power structures in primitive societies) are vanquished
by an awareness of their fictionality as rule-bound games. 7 “The sorcerer’s mask becomes a
theater mask”, 8 as, for example, certain shamanic practices in the primitive society become
laid bare as a formal kind of play and transform into a ritual in the civilized society. Waugh
sums up her concept of the relation between metafiction and Caillois’s cultivation theory:

‘Illinx’ [sic!] becomes associated with the attempts at pure mimesis and […] [t]he player
loses him or herself in a fantasy world and actually becomes the role being played […]
or attempts to impose it on others as ‘reality’. In literature, then, realism […] becomes
the mode most threatening to full civilization, and metafiction becomes the mode most
conducive to it! 9

Through the naturalization of realism as a form of convention, positivism is transported as a


form of ideology. Language is misrepresented as an objective medium free from ideology.
Therefore, the predominant convention of realism in literature becomes a threat to civilized
society, since language becomes an allegedly objective form of representing the world (without
the potential to transport, perpetuate or create certain ideologies). Consequently, laying bare
the rules of the literary game and therefore its corresponding ideology becomes the civilizing
momentum inherent in metafiction. Realism and its corresponding ideology of
positivism/empiricism become its opponent. Applying this theory to videogames raises the
question: what is the mode most threatening civilization in contemporary society? What is the
metagame’s antagonist?

Economization in the Time of the Control Society

Caillois calls agôn and “the inhibitions it usually places upon natural avidity [through] the
system of moral, social, and legal constraints” 10 the prime exhibit of games and their civilizing
role. However, this only applies if the rules are adhered. A society built around this principle
can be corrupted through violence, will to power, and trickery 11. McKenzie Wark advocates
that this is the case in our contemporary society through his term ‘gamespace’ which
describes the structuring of reality as a form of rigged game. 12 The videogame as a perfect
rendition of agôn becomes a false promise for the reality they exist in and becomes
“everything that gamespace merely pretends to be: a fair fight, a level playing field, unfettered
competition.” 13 However, he sees videogames not as a misrepresentation, but deems reality
“a gamespace that appears as an imperfect form of the computer game” 14 . Videogames
naturalize the ideology of gamespace as a utopian rendition of the agonistic and unfair reality
of gamespace; gamespace’s neoliberal ideology corrupts agôn as a civilizing momentum.
Consequently, agôn has become corrupted and lost its function to restrain the avidity deeply
rooted within human nature . Therefore, videogames can be assumed to be “constitutive of
twenty-first-century global hyper capitalism.” 15

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However, videogames are not only representations of a neoliberal reality (or vice versa, as
Wark presumes). They are also re-iterations of the ‘society of control’, which can be
described as an interdependent network of independent actors and variables, in which
“ultrarapid forms of apparently free-floating control […] are taking over.” 16 It is the massive
occurrence of networks and their protocological nature molding reality and emerges from
“different sites [of discipline] converging in an owner, whether the state or some private power,
but transmutable or transformable coded configurations of a single business where the only
people left are administrators.” 17 This shift within the society is accompanied by a shift in
media from the disciplinary “physical semiotic constructs such as the signature and the
document” to control’s “immaterial ones such as the password and the computer.” 18 They
function through subtle control and not direct disciplinary measures. But how is control
achieved? Deleuze uses the metaphor of the highway to clarify how control works:

A control is not a discipline. In making high-ways, for example, you don’t enclose people but
instead multiply the means of control. I am not saying that is the highway’s exclusive purpose,
but that people can drive infinitely and “freely” without being at all confined yet while still being
perfectly controlled. This is our future. 19

Deleuze here utilizes the metaphor of the highway to foreshadow the development of a
networked society, in which possible decisions are already predetermined by the technological
design of the media and the related social structures. Galloway further explicates that control
is based upon the subject’s desire being created within the system. 20 He uses the example of
speed bumps: This measure makes the subjects want to decrease their speed as the system
already implies the methods to be deployed (driving fast is not a desirable option within this
system). 21 Therefore, systems of control are based on the desire they create and the potential
most advantageous use they enforce through their design. In turn, they produce expectable
results and, therefore, control.

The most pervasive convergence of games and reality as a system of control is ‘gamification’,
which is usually defined as “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts.” 22 The
Chinese financial app Sesame Credit 23 rates its users with a score ranging from 350 to 950
points and according to five factors: credit history, the ability to fulfill contracts, personal
characteristics like address and phone numbers, behavior and preferences, and interpersonal
relationships. 24 Whereas the first three categories are standard in rating the credibility of a
person, the latter ones seem to derive from dystopian fiction. In the fourth category, behaviors
like shopping preferences and frequent activities are analyzed and translated into character
traits: long sessions of playing videogames indicate a lazy person (negative rating) and buying
diapers indicates a parent and responsibility (positive rating). 25 The fifth category rates the
user’s and her friends’ interpersonal behavior and their conformity along the party lines and
politics: “[i]t ‘nudges’ citizens away from purchases and behaviours [and interactions and
friends] the government does not like.” 26 What Botsman describes as ‘nudging’ are the
workings of the society of control, since the user tries to make optimized use of the system to
fulfill the created desire (i.e. a good rating). Therefore, she will adapt her habits, consumption,
and social interaction according to the algorithm. What is most disturbing about this application
is that the app becomes mandatory in 2020 and will have real-life consequences for low
ratings, ranging from a slower internet connection to exclusion from certain areas and even
worse job opportunities and schools for the user’s kids. 27 Therefore, gamification as illustration
for the workings of the society of control in both videogames and reality is not only “the
keyword for a generation of social entrepreneurs and marketing experts, […] and the trends of
quantification and self-governance.” 28 Rather, it transforms conventional videogame
mechanics into a corrupted form of control to enforce self-governance in the empirical reality.

Consequently, we can distinguish certain symptoms of neoliberalism in the control society as

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von Alexander Lehner

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“a mutation of capitalism” 29 and in contemporary videogames alike. Since my focus here lies
on the function of the environment in videogames, the next step will deliberate on these
symptoms and connect them to three roles of environment in videogames. 30

The Symptoms of Neoliberalism and the Functions of


Videogame-Environments

Building on the assumption that neoliberalism allows their “subjects to choose how they would
act under conditions of freedom” 31, economic choice conquered other social areas, and
became the connecting element of neoliberalism and videogames. Their logic is that of “the
neoliberal free market economy”, since both offer the player/the subject choices to act
according to their own desires while staying within the confinement of the game’s rules. 32 The
subject in videogames and the neoliberal society of control is forged into a “homo
oeconomicus” 33, who acts based on quantified parameters “in keeping with a neoliberal
calculative rationality” 34.

In relation to the environment in videogames, these connect to the first two modes of the
media scholars Abraham and Jayemanne made in their article Where are all the Climate
Change Games? Locating Digital Games’ Response to Climate Change: The environment as
backdrop and the environment as resource. Chang already stated these functions in her
seminal article Games as Environmental Texts, which she deemed typical mistakes in
handling natural environments: “relegating environment to background scenery […] and
predicating player success on extraction and use of natural resources.” 35 The first function is
defined as “static or unchanging backdrop, or a smooth empty space in relation to which
efficient movement takes place.” 36 Obvious examples here include 2D platformers, in which
the background scenery is merely illustrative, whereas the usable or perilous objects are in the
foreground, easily distinguishable from the mechanically defunct background. 37

In connecting the points made about the market-logic inherent in digital games to the
environment, it effectively becomes the playground of free choices to be made according to
said logic. Consequently, the environment is part of the system of control in videogames, their
protocological logic. The player is socialized within the gameworld; the design of the game
already implies the optimal usage. Thus, the player appears to act freely, but is always guided
by the principles of the system and effectively becomes its slave 38. This corresponds with
Bogost’s argument that “procedural representations often do not allow the user to mount
procedural objections through configurations of the system itself.” 39 Freedom may be
perceived by the player in her potential to make decisions for herself, but the protocological
market-logic of the digital game implies the optimal usage by its design, and therefore imposes
it on the player-subject. To sum up, the videogame’s implied player structures the behavior of
the actual player in a predictable manner according to the calculative rationality of
market-logic, demanding efficiency in every action, and in the case of the environment
oftentimes movement to keep progressing through the game.

Enabling efficiency is therefore a strong indicator and conventional use of the environment in
videogames usually not only indicative of the potential to optimize the players’ movement
through the environment, but rather their usage of it by draining its resources. This connects to
the second mode of videogame-environments as resources: Here, “the environment [i]s
something to be exploited. Games deploy this relationship whenever they utilize extractive or
collecting mechanics for the sake of development, deployment or creation.” 40 This goes hand
in hand with the quantification of the game environment along the lines of the control society,
which predominantlty works through the abstraction into data. 41

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Within these data-streams everything “can be analyzed in terms of investment, capital cost,
and profit.” 42 Quantification (the numerical depiction of data within an increasingly networked
world) therefore splits the environment into different kinds of quantified data (oftentimes
through the interface and its enhancements, compared to the perception of the pure
storyworld). This functionalizes the environment as a kind of mining field for resources the
players need to further their interest within the game rules. This logic becomes most apparent
in the real time strategy genre, which is built around the gathering of resources according to
pre-defined micro- and macro-goals: “whenever environment as resources is present, almost
inevitably it is harnessed for and in the context of some kind of economy.” 43 Like Deleuze’s
dividual, the environment is split into various data-streams according to the different resources
and their purposes within the control system of the videogame. 44

This, again, creates an environment (and implied player) subjecting the player to the neoliberal
logics of the society of control, since the parameters depicted in the dividual-environment imply
their optimized use and afford the players to act as homo oeconomicus to further their
interests.

In the third mode, ‘environment as antagonist’, “the environment itself becomes an obstacle
or an ‘antagonist’ that resists the player. […] In games which present the player a challenge to
progress all elements participate to various degrees in an ecosystem of antagonism directed at
the player.” 45 This mode of playing (which is the predominant mode in games of progression)
is inherently connected to neoliberalism. It enacts the antagonistic struggle on the level of the
environment. However this does not only include environmental obstacles hindering traversal
(like traps, cliffs to be scaled, or human-made perils), but also the mobile enemies within the
gameworld in all their possible shapes; both can be considered part of an “ecosystem of
antagonism”, 46 since in Dark Souls 47 for example “the world itself is often just as dangerous
as the actual ‘enemies.’” 48

Also including the fourth mode, environmental storytelling, Abraham and Jayemanne conclude
that in all these modes “the environment is largely subject to the activity of more lively entities
that inhabit it: either an index of their movement (background) or subject to their extractive
(resource), militarist (antagonist) or cognitive (text) gameplay.” 49 This can be connected to
Moore’s perspective on capitalism as a project: “Capitalism’s governing conceit is that it may
do with Nature as it pleases, that Nature is external and may be coded, quantified, and
rationalized to serve economic growth, social development, or some other higher good.” 50
However, with videogames being a primarily spatial medium, we can also conceptualize the
virtual environment as a large constituent of the implied player, and therefore connect the
genre to his notion of co-production of life: “[H]umans make environments and environments
make humans – and human organization.” 51 The environment and its functions in videogames
are not only a form of submitting nature to the influence of neoliberal strategies, but it also
forms the player into its subject and imposes its ideology on them, since they are a systemic
part of the implied player creating a role for the actual player to fill. 52

In the first part of this paper, I have outlined how the theory of literary metafiction translates to
videogames. Instead of criticizing an objectivist ideology by addressing its corresponding
convention of realism, metagames’ opponent becomes neoliberalism present in the
conventional approach to game design. Metagames reveal the rules of the game and show
how reality does not uphold the rules like a videogame, but is nevertheless structured alike
due to the underlying systems of control deployed in digital games and the empirical reality.
The second part has translated several symptoms of neoliberalism to the functions of the
environment in videogames. Neoliberal approaches to environmental design are an inherent
element of videogames. However, the environment is not only subject to economical
rationality, but also imposes this ideology on the players in a reciprocal movement.

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Nevertheless, there are games aware of their own medial and real conditions that could offer
“lines of exodus from it.” 53

A Short Theory of (ecocritical) Metagames

Nguyen already addresses the need for ecologically- and self-aware videogames, which are
critical of the inherent environmental harm their “creation, operation, and disposal” causes
and further states that “games of environmental responsibility must challenge the logics of fun
[…] [and] consider alternatives.” 54

Lehner also addresses the potential of (aesthetically complex and especially self-referential)
videogames in influencing a discourse in the sense of Zapf’s cultural ecology 55 in connection
to the critical player-type of the emancipated player 56: “Cultural ecology as well as the
emancipated player are based upon multifaceted and aesthetically complex works of art,
through which their positive influence as a regenerative force [in the cultural system and
discourse] can emerge in co-operation with an active reader/player.” 57 Especially the case of
self-reflexivity in videogames that “deliberately violate[s] the ludo-narrative conventions of [its]
genre and the medium itself” 58 contains the possibility “to trigger metaludic reflections which
might include the potential emergence of ecocritical thought.” 59

Based on these observations on self-reflective videogames and their impact on ecological


awareness, I want to address ecocritical metagames that offer either a critique of or an escape
from the perpetuation of neoliberal ideology within their design and narrative. First, I want to
discuss Shadow of the Colossus as an example of a critical approach to neoliberalism and the
environment (connecting it to the notion of neoliberalism as project). Second, there will be a
discussion of Everything, as a positive example of environmental awareness and an
anti-neoliberal approach to game-design.

Shadow of the Colossus: Making the Player feel her Environmental


Impact

Shadow of the Colossus’s eponymous creatures are not mere enemies hindering the player’s
progress, but are actually representations of the videogame environment itself. Their “hybrid
materiality of fur, stones, and ruins also renders them representatives of the environment” and
their inhabitants alike. 60 Seeing them as clearly belonging to both realms, the perceived
separation between lively creatures and inanimate environment is dissolved. This is also
mirrored in their gameplay-function as their role within the game is to replace the actual
dungeons usually set within the environment as “puzzle[s] that the player must solve.” 61 The
line between lively enemies and the environment is blurred. The colossi can be seen as a
symbolic implementation of the “ecosystem of antagonism” 62 comprising of enemies and the
environment as antagonists. However, the colossi can also be seen as a kind of resource to be
harvested by the player. In defeating the colossi, the player effectively gathers the means to
fulfill the narrative desire the game creates (i.e. saving the girl from death).

Therefore, the colossi do not only incorporate these two functions of videogame environments,
but rather are a representation of the environment under the influence of neoliberalism in
videogames exactly through both their hybridity in representation and gameplay purposes.
However, the colossi are not a mere symbol for the environment as subject of the neoliberal
player, but serve a critical function in the game’s procedural rhetoric combined with their
visual and audio representation.

The narrative premise of slaying monsters to save a girl is a familiar trope in videogames. It

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creates the urge to act upon the premise and embark on a hero’s quest. The desires forged
by the core of the gameplay (taking down the colossi) and the narrative (saving the damsel in
distress) clearly overlap at first. Through the act of play, however, this changes and the player
“becomes gradually less willing to fulfill the narrative premise.” 63 She realizes that her actions
are not justified by any aggressive behavior of the usually calm and content creatures 64 and
renders her the aggressive force within the gameworld, disturbing the natural environment. 65

Further, despite the fact that defeating one of the colossi is a challenging endeavor and
supposed to “lead to a sense of triumph” 66, there is no sense of heroism in killing them 67.
Slaying a colossus leads to a slow-motion cut-scene showing “a gory stream of black blood in
an awful hiss” 68 with a “sorrowful female choral [in style of] a requiem” 69 accompanying the
dreadful scene.

The empathetic design of Shadow of the Colossus comes to its conclusion with Dormin (the
quest-giver) revealing their plot, taking over the hero’s body and turning him into a
colossus-like creature. The guards and the priest of the village the protagonist stole from have
eventually reached the temple and attack. Nevertheless, despite yielding the enormous power
of the colossi, the protagonist is still doomed.

Transforming into a colossus shifts the player’s experience: “confusing controls, limited vision,
and encumbered movement” create a new and unknown situation for the player. 70 Despite the
enormous power that comes with this transformation, the player feels desperate while
defending herself and relieves the situations she created attacking the colossi. The player is
put into the perspective of the colossi and forced to sympathize with them as symbols of the
environment as “the anthropocentric perspective of the protagonist is disrupted [by substituting
her] whole mechanical and perceptual system.” 71

Therefore, one can discern an incongruence between the desires evoked by the narrative and
gameplay and the actual act of play 72 Through the game’s procedural rhetoric as friction
between the actual presentation of the alleged victory and the expectations and desires the
gameplay and narrative premises, 73 the player acknowledge her own complicity in her
obedience to the rules of the game 74. This, however, is not only an acknowledgement of the
neoliberal rhetoric found in videogames, but a recognition of her complicity “in videogames as
well as in the empirical reality”. 75 This is what Fest calls ‘metaproceduralism’: “If videogames
produce a self-reflexivity specific to their medium, […] it follows that it will be found in the ways
their machinic and operational procedures reflect upon themselves, in their metaproceduralism
. 76 Similarly to metalanguage, metaproceduralism reflects upon the processes in videogames
via process. In the case of Shadow of the Colossus, this includes a procedural commentary on
“the morality of conventional game-mechanics and rewards” 77 in connection to the
environment. Partly, this resembles Ngyuen’s argument about the complicity of videogames in
ecological harm throughout all their states of production and consumption and the implicit
complicity of the player in taking part in such a system 78. However, this also addresses the
problems of a neoliberal mindset and its implications for the environment in general: “the
player is confronted with the immediate response of the environment to the naturalized
convention of neoliberal capitalism in games.” 79 The player’s progression and the
consequences of her deeds paired with the decidedly empathetic notion of the game’s
conclusion enforce deliberations about the environmental impact of neoliberalism and its logic
found to be in videogames. These conventions are scrutinized by the games’ (procedural)
rhetoric as metaproceduralism and can lead to awareness for them in reality.

Nevertheless, the ending’s cut-scene strikes a different note, hopeful in tone. The damsel in
distress is actually resurrected and Agro (the player’s trusty stead sacrificed in order to reach
the last colossus and achieving the player’s/the protagonist’s final goal) returns, though

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gravely injured. In the pond remains the protagonist turned into a child. 80 As the credits role,
each corpse of the defeated colossi is shown. Agro and the girl ascend the stairs of the temple
and reach an utopian space of natural beauty filled with animals (as opposed to the empty
environment of the temple’s surroundings).

The ending offers a utopian space for the protagonist and the player in offering a second
chance for both to atone for the deeds they have done and to start again without their harmful
impact on the environment. Despite having achieved the resurrection of the girl, the price paid
for this is made more than clear in the dreadful reminders in both the depiction of every slain
colossus and the irreparably injured Agro. However, the protagonist has returned to the
innocent form of an infant, but is still marked with his demonic horns. This indicates the
potential to learn from the events and how they played out in Shadow of the Colossus, not only
for the protagonist, but on an additional level for the player herself. While still being marked by
her deeds, the game offers space to learn from those mistakes and lead to societal change, on
the diegetic level in an eco-utopian realm atop the temple and outside of the game world with
the player realizing the mechanisms of control and neoliberalism driving her in the empirical
reality.

Everything: A Defamiliarized, Ecologically Positive Design

Everything is, at its core, playable philosophy, heavily based on the lectures of Alan Watts
(included as voice-over within the game itself) describing the interconnectivity of systems and
their defining nature in relation to each other. Everything does not operate with the
power-fantasies conventional videogames offer the player; instead of allowing them to remain
within their ego-fantasy, this game tries to transcend this perspective on the subject and
dissolve the ego of the player in its environment. As Hennig notes, usually videogames are
built around the movement of the avatar gaining control over the Other space (Fremdraum) of
the videogame. 81 While presumably still iterating this premise with the player learning the
basic mechanics of Everything (ascending and descending the different levels of perspectives
and spheres of the game), the lack of a fixed avatar of abstract or figurative quality suggests
that there is no space of the Other, since the player has always been part of the system she
inscribes herself into. Therefore, I will address different instances of defamiliarized or unnatural
design Everything utilizes to create a sense of interconnectivity in working against the usual
functions of the environment. First, we will look at the avatar and its relation to the
environment.

Gorsolke describes the convention of the avatar as generally player-centered, since they
usually deal with topographically taking possession (visualized through an increase in power),
graphically are built around her, and subordinate themselves technically to the actual player 82
According to Hennig, this is re-iterated on the interadiegetic level, as environments in
videogames usually belong to certain intradiegetic personae resembling their depiction and
character. 83 Environments, therefore, often become part of the subjectifying processes in
videogames, subordinating them not only to the player-avatar (feeling alienated in a world not
in her possession), but also to human or humanoid inhabitants of the gameworld. Connecting
this to Abraham and Jayemanne’s functions, the environment is the subject defined by its
functions and the separation of the living and the non-living. In Everything, however, there is
no underlying structure of function to the environment, which can be acted upon. It is never
subject to the player’s gameplay, as it is always part of the (potential) avatar of the player,
since switching one’s representation within the gameworld is possible at any time. The
individualistic approach iterated in conventional videogames is neglected. This is also reflected
in the different perspectives the player can inhabit. In six different scales of time and size
ranging from the mathematical concepts on which the world is built to galaxies themselves, the
things the player steers are connected to different perceptions of time. This means that

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movement and time are slower for the microscopic entities, and that time rushes for a
continent, which for example can be seen in the rapid alternation of day and night. Of course,
the scope of things that surround the player also changes with the inhabitance of things of
different magnitude. All these perceptive and variable elements force the player into the
perspective of the non-human (animals and the environment), letting her see things from their
point of view.

Despite the fact that the third-person camera angle on a technological basis obviously caters
to the player in front of the game (which otherwise would make the act of playing impossible)
and their existence in the world, there is no need for her in this game. After running it,
Everything is entirely capable of playing itself. This is meaningful, as it highlights the
occurrence of a player as a random and minor note in a system of interconnected entities: the
player is not the sole center of attention anymore.

Therefore, the environment (if one can still speak of it like that in Everything) becomes devoid
of its usual functions in videogames. The trope of environment-as-backdrop is avoided as
there is no need for efficiency and the background does not need to feature as a smooth
setting for the player’s action to take place. Every ‘thing’ in this game appears to be as
meaningful as the other. Consequently, there are no “hollow surfaces intended to give the
impression of substantive objects” 84. Even the ‘interior’ of the surrounding air (in form of
molecules and atoms) is actually there and to be entered by the player, up to the point where
all there is are mere mathematical constructs holding the world together. Through the circular
construction of the different levels (as descending into the smallest level, leads to galaxies and
vice versa), even on the smallest one this interior dilemma of environmental design is avoided.
This construction supports the game’s message of dissolving the player-centric attitude of
videogames; the environment is not there to serve the player’s action, but its elements are
rightful entities of their own.

Looking at the function of the environment-as-resources, it is also non-existent. Since there


are no mechanics supporting an economic circulation of resources, there are no methods of
quantification through the player’s interface or in-game mechanics (like progression,
increasing or decreasing character values) or even quantifiable challenges or penalties on
certain behaviors.

Further, there is no need for agonistic or economical struggle in world of interconnectivity and
equality of elements. The subject-object disposition and challenges would be devoid of
meaning in this setting: If the player is everything, there is no need for an antagonistic struggle
or neoliberal play.

Consequently, Everything can be deemed as a defamiliarization of the concepts of


environment, avatar, and non-player-character and their general function. The distinction
between those elements (conventionally used in videogames to cater to the player) fades and
enforces the notion of interconnectivity of everything. This subverts the perception of the
environment as something subject to gameplay (and thus the player) and lets it actively take
part in it. In Everything, everything becomes the avatar and the player that the world is built
around. Everything offers a solution to the problem of survival in digital environments and the
ecological message in videogames: “The extent to which players themselves are also
refashioned according to ecological imperatives is typically quite limited: often simply by the
imperatives of survival itself.” 85

Through this approach and its procedural rhetoric, the player is encouraged to reflect upon the
systems usually used in videogames and the empirical reality, with the latter being as
anthropocentric as videogames are player-centric.

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Conclusion

Shadow of the Colossus offers a representational and procedural commentary on how the
environment and (as its extension) its inhabitants are treated within a neoliberal mind-set. The
colossi are symbolic for the living and non-living parts of the environment as well as for its ludic
function as a kind of resource to be gathered. Through a friction between the ludic core and
the narrative/representational shell, however, Shadow of the Colossus does not offer a
triumphant power fantasy in the spirit of neoliberal logic, but makes the player painfully aware
of the consequences of her actions and choices. She is forced to realize her own complicity in
the destruction of the environment in playing by the rules of the game, which can be connected
to the same behavior in the empirical reality. The ending, however, leaves hope for the
protagonist and the player, since both are left with the marks of their deeds; the protagonist
with his demonic horns and the player with her dreadful feeling of defeat and complicity.

Everything, however, offers a positive depiction of environmental game-design in


defamiliarizing the usual player-centric approach to making games and enforces the
connectivity of all life. It dissolves the conventional concepts of avatar, (game) environment,
and NPCs in order to revoke the special position of the player. The environment, usually
structured around its characters and the player’s avatar, becomes the sole center of attention,
and – in keeping with its theme – everything of the above-mentioned concepts. The game’s
mechanics make a conventional approach using the three stereotypical functions of design
impossible. As a non-antagonistic game, there is no use for a violent treatment of the
environment, the missing economical mechanics render quantification and capitalist rationality
useless, and the connectivity of all the things existent in this world neglects the
environment-as-background function.

Both games offer approaches to make a receptive player aware of ecological issues, Shadow
of the Colossus in a rather nihilistic approach to persuasion and Everything in an more positive
atmosphere. Both use unconventional design-choices to enforce reflection upon the structures
and conventions in videogames and their connections to a neoliberal ideology in relation to the
environment. Meta-commentaries on the mediality of the videogame, therefore, seem to be an
ideal way of cultivating environmental thoughts in the player and can contribute to this civilizing
momentum of Caillois saw for games and Waugh saw for metafiction.

References
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Anmerkungen

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1 Ueda: Shadow of the Colossus. 2011.

2 OReilly: Everything. 2017.

3 Hutcheon: Narcissistic Narrative. 1988, p. 1.

4 Waugh: Metafiction. 1990, p. 2.

5 Waugh: Metafiction. 1990, p. 7.

6 cf. Waugh: Metafiction. 1990, p. 41.

7 cf. Caillois: Man, Play, and Games. 1961, p. 101-109.

8 Caillois: Man, Play, and Games. 1961, p. 78.

9 Waugh: Metafiction. 1990, p. 41.

10 Caillois: Man, Play, and Games. 1961, p. 46.

11 cf. Caillois: Man, Play, and Games. 1961, p. 54.

12 cf. Wark: Gamer Theory. 2007, § 1-2.

13 Wark: Gamer Theory. 2007, § 21.

14 cf. Wark: Gamer Theory. 2007, § 22.

15 Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter: Games of Empire. 2009, p. xxix.

16 Deleuze: Postscript. 1995, p. 178

17 Deleuze: Postscript. 1995, p. 181

18 Galloway: Algorithmic Culture. 2006, p. 87.

19 Deleuze: Idea in Cinema. 1998, p. 18.

20 cf. Galloway: Protocol. 2004, p. 241.

21 cf. Galloway: Protocol. 2004, p 241.

22 Deterding et al.: Gamification. 2010, p. 10.

23 Ant Financial Services: Sesame Credit, 2015.

24 cf. Botsman: Big Data. 2015, n. pag.

25 cf. Botsman: Big Data. 2015, n. pag.

26 Botsman: Big Data. 2015, n. pag.

27 cf. Botsman: Big Data. 2015, n. pag.

28 Fuchs et al.: Introduction. 2014, p. 9.

29 Deleuze: Postscript. 1995, p. 180

30 cf. Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, pp. 78-84.

31 Baerg: Governmentality. 2009, p. 120.

32 cf. Baerg: Governmentality. 2009, p. 119.

33 Foucault: Biopolitics. 2008, p. 225.

34 Baerg: Governmentality. 2009, p. 124

35 Chang: Environmental Texts. 2011, p. 58.

36 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 79.

37 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, pp. 79-80.

38 Kato and Bauer: Marionette. 2016, p. 173.

39 Bogost: Persuasive. 2007, p. 37 and cf. Baerg. Governmentality. 2009, p. 125.

40 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 81.

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41 cf. Shaviro: Bitterness. 2011, p. 75. Deleuze clearly states the role digitalization plays in the society of control:

“the various forms of control […] are inseparable variations, forming a system of varying geometry whose language is

digital (though not necessarily binary)” Deleuze: Postscript. 1995, p. 178.

42 Foucault: Biopolitics. 2008, p. 244.

43 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 81.

44 Dominant quantification-strategies aside from the environment include measurement of general progress

(percentages), character development and traits, in-game commodities (for example the numerical depiction of traits

like fire rate, clip size, weight etc.) and the general statistics often to be found (for example bullets fired, enemies

killed, checkpoints used etc.) cf. Stallabras: Gargantua. 1996, pp. 89-90 and Baerg: Risky Business. 2012, pp.

159-161.

45 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 83.

46 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 83.

47 FromSoftware: Dark Souls. 2011.

48 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, pp. 82-83, at 83.

49 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 84.

50 Moore: Capitalism. 2015, p. 2.

51 Moore: Capitalism. 2015, p. 2.

52 cf. Aarseth: Transgressive Play. 2007, p. 132.

53 Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter: Games of Empire. 2009, p. xxix.

54 Nguyen: Digital Games. 2017, p. 20.

55 cf. Zapf: Cultural Ecology. 2016.

56 Farca: Emancipated Player. 2016.

57 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 61.

58 Ensslin: Unnatural. 2015, p. 55.

59 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 62.

60 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 67.

61 Fortugno: Losing. 2009, p. 173.

62 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 83.

63 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 66.

64 see Cole: Tragedy. 2015, p. 4; Fortugno: Losing. 2009, pp. 174-175.

65 cf. Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 66.

66 Fortugno: Losing. 2009, p. 173.

67 cf. Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 66.

68 Fortugno: Losing. 2009, p. 174.

69 see Cole: Tragedy. 2015, p. 5.

70 Fortugno: Losing. 2009, p. 173.

71 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 68.

72 cf. Cole: Tragedy. 2015, p. 7 and Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 67

73 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 66.

74 Milburn: Green. 2014, p. 217.

75 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 67.

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76 Fest: Metaproceduralism. 2016, p. 9.

77 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 66.

78 Nguyen: Digital Games. 2017, p. 20.

79 Lehner: Videogames. 2017, p. 67.

80 This child actually has horns, resembling the children in Ico (Ueda: Ico. 2001/2011) situating Shadow of the

Colossus as presumably set in the same timeline and rendering the protagonist as one of the ancestors of these

cursed children.

81 Hennig: Spielräume. 2017, p. 146.

82 Gorsolke: Interaktivität. 2009, p. 281.

83 Hennig: Spielräume. 2017, p. 142.

84 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 81

85 Abraham and Jayemanne: Climate Change. 2017, p. 84

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