The initial versions of a number of the ideas in this book were developed when I was working on my dissertation. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my dissertation committee—Wendy Chun, Robert Coover, David Durand, George Landow, and Andy van Dam—as well as to Brown University, which provided a creative, welcoming environment and a dissertation fellowship.
Over time, the ideas from my dissertation have evolved quite a bit, with input from many others. In fact, it would be fair to say that the ideas that are in this book arose out of a community—specifically, the community of the Computational Media department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and within it the Expressive Intelligence Studio (also known as EIS, pronounced “ice”). Michael Mateas founded EIS, and we became co-directors when I joined him at UC Santa Cruz in 2008. This led to many conversations, and eventual publications, working through the ideas that developed into this book.
Or perhaps we could say that the ideas in this book helped lead me to EIS. I remember visiting Mateas in 2005, when I was still at Brown and he was still at Georgia Tech, and having a fascinating, hours-long series of conversations with him about them. Those conversations made it clear to me that there was more to pursue in these ideas and that Mateas would be an ideal partner in the pursuit.
Once we were both at Santa Cruz, we published a joint paper on these topics in 2009, and probably would have continued to pursue them, on and off. But what really pushed the conversation further was work with other members of EIS. In particular, Joseph C. Osborn, Mike Treanor, and Dylan Lederle-Ensign all led research that developed new aspects (and/or revised existing aspects) of these ideas and co-authored publications with us on them.
And beyond formal research and writing, many of these ideas developed through conversation, especially teaching. I am indebted to Melanie Dickinson, Matthew Balousek, and Joe Rossi, who as undergraduates (two of whom later became graduate student members of EIS) worked with Osborn, Lederle-Ensign, and me to reimagine a large, introductory game design class around the ideas in this book. And I am indebted to the students of that course—CMPM 80K: Foundations of Video Game Design—who have helped develop the ideas, and means of explaining them, through their questions, comments, and creations.
Other members (and alumni) of EIS have also contributed in many ways, from casual conversations to careful, creative reviews of draft chapters. Some of their contributions I remembered clearly enough to footnote, such as those from Aaron Reed, Jacob Garbe, and Adam Summerville. But these ideas have been in development within EIS for more than a decade, and it is only appropriate to acknowledge all those EIS members I have not yet mentioned: Devi Acharya, Bryan Blackford, Duncan Bowsman, Sherol Chen, Kate Compton, Mirjam Eladhari, Cyril Focht, Teale Fristoe, Chaim Gingold, Katherine Green, John Grey, April Grow, Alexandra Holloway, Ken Hullett, Martin Jennings-Teats, Nick Junius, Eric Kaltman, Max Kreminski, Sarah Fay Krom, Larry LeBron, Chris Lewis, Ronald Liu, Heather Logas, Paul Maddaloni, Jordan Magnuson, Chris Martens, Stacey Mason, Peter Mawhorter, Josh McCoy, Wes Modes, John Thomas Murray, Mark Nelson, Marcelo Viana Neto, Elisabeth Oliver, Alexei Othenin-Girard, Adrian Phillips, James Pollack, Allie Riggs, James Ryan, Serdar Sali, Benjamin Samuel, James Skorupski, Adam Smith, Gillian Smith, Benjamin Spalding, Dietrich Squinkifer, Christina Strong, Anne Sullivan, Brandon Tearse, Michael Thomét, and Ben Weber.
The EIS research described in this book was supported by a number of organizations. In particular, I wish to acknowledge those that funded the work that I helped lead and that I describe in some detail (rather than in passing). Each has specific language they prefer that recipients use:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 0747522, 1258305, and 1409992. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
This research has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor (under grant number HD-51719–13). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This research was supported by a Seed Fund Award CITRIS-2017–0187 from CITRIS and the Banatao Institute at the University of California.
Along the way to the book, as noted above, we made several collaborative conference publications about its topics. I wish to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who asked questions and presented issues that made the work stronger. As this manuscript moved further along, I also made four further publications on its topics. First, during a 2011 trip to visit Cicero Inacio da Silva and Jane de Almeida in Brazil, I took part in the Seminário Internacional Regiões Narrativas (International Seminar Regions of Narratives) event organized by Ilana Strozenberg and Teresa Guilhon. There I met Arthur Protasio, who later invited me to contribute to a book he and Guilherme Xavier were editing that asked authors to focus on their experience of a particular game they’d played. The result was Jogador de Mil Fases, to which I contributed an early version of the section of chapter 1 on Passage (“De passagem por Passage,” in Portuguese translation).
Second, drawing on chapters 1, 8, and 9, was “Beyond Shooting and Eating: Passage, Dys4ia, and the Meanings of Collision.” This was first developed as a talk for Shift CTRL: New Perspectives on Computing and New Media, an event organized by Tom Mullaney and Ben Allen at Stanford University on May 6–7, 2016. As I was working on the talk, I had lunch with Wendy Chun (who, as noted above, had helped guide my dissertation a decade before) and she suggested that readers of Critical Inquiry might find it of interest. This was exciting to me—and resulted in the publication of a “triptych” of game studies contributions from Patrick Jagoda, Soraya Murray, and me in the Autumn 2018 issue (Volume 45, Issue 1). The revised versions of these chapters have benefited greatly from the feedback of Jagoda, Murray, the Critical Inquiry peer reviewers and editorial staff (particularly Hannah Christensen and Hank Scotch), and the Shift CTRL organizers and participants.
The third nonconference publication, drawing on chapter 7 and the conclusion, was “Gravity in Computer Space.” This article appears in the December 2019 issue (vol. 1, no. 2) of ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories. The revised version of this chapter was greatly improved by feedback from reviewers and editors Raiford Guins, Henry Lowood, and Laine Nooney. I also appreciate the feedback of copy editor Mary Reilly.
The fourth non-conference publication, drawing on this book’s chapter 3 and conclusion, appears as the chapter “You Can’t Make Games About Much” in the book Your Computer Is on Fire: The Politics of Computing and New Media, edited by Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, Mar Hicks, and Kavita Philip, to be published by the MIT Press in 2021. Both the conclusion and other chapters in this book were improved by a peer review and discussion (with the editors, other contributors, and Jennifer Light) held the day after the February 9, 2018, event “Your Computer is on Fire: Critical Perspectives on Computing and New Media,” which took place at Stanford University.
Along the way, some brave souls were also willing to engage the full, in-process manuscript. In particular, I received invaluable guidance and feedback from Nathan Altice, Joris Dormans, Eric Kaltman, Jennifer K Mahal, Robert Zubek, and the anonymous reviewers recruited by the press. I should also thank the anonymous peer reviewers of the book proposal, who pushed me on the questions that resulted in chapter 6.
At the MIT Press, I particularly thank Doug Sery, who always reminds me to focus on what makes the best book and who has supported the idea for this one since I first described it, in snatches, over a group meal near UC Irvine, probably about a decade ago. I also appreciate all the contributions of Noah J. Springer (the “other Noah” in so many email exchanges), Susan Buckley, Michelle Pullano, Elizabeth Agresta, Emily Neiss-Moe, Susan Clark, Yasuyo Iguchi, Mary Reilly, Kate Elwell, and Kendra Millis. There would be no book without them.
I was able to actually finish the book only because Roselle Abraham listened thoughtfully and pursued relentlessly, until I was literally back up on my feet. And it is thanks to Paula Glickman’s engagement that I got there metaphorically.
Finally, the inspiration, support, and understanding of my family was essential. My partner (and wife) Jennifer K Mahal, my parents Carolyn Wardrip and Mark Fruin, my brother Nathan Wardrip-Fruin and his family, and my kids Max and Zoe—to whom I dedicate this book.