The Form of Game Formalism

Abstract

This article explores how the concept of formalism and the resulting method of formal analysis have been used and applied in the study of digital games. Three types of formalism in game studies are identified based on a review of their uses in the literature, particularly the discussion of essentialism and form that resulted from the narratology-ludology debate: 1) formalism focused on the aesthetic form of the game artifact, 2) formalism as game essentialism, and 3) formalism as a level of abstraction, related to formal language and ontology-like reasoning. These three are discussed in relation to the distinctions between form and matter, in the Aristotelian tradition, to highlight how the method of formal analysis of games appears to be dealing with matter rather than form, on a specific fundamental level of abstraction, and in turn how formal analysis becomes a misleading concept that leads to unnecessary confusion. Finally, the relationship between game essentialism and the more computer science-centric approach to ontology is studied, to account for the contemporary trend of identifying the unique properties of games and opposing them with properties of, e.g., traditional storytelling media like literature and film, explored through their aesthetic form.

What is Videogame Formalism? Exploring the Pillars of Russian Formalism for the Study of Videogames

“…First of all, as Myers (2010) rightfully notes, Russian Formalism is 'one of the clearest and most influential statements of formalism in the arts' (p. 40) and has consequently been the one most explicitly taken up in our field (e.g. Chew & Mitchell, 2019;Mitchell, 2016;Mitchell, Kway, Neo, & Sim, 2020;Mitchell, Sim, & Kway, 2017;Myers, 2010;Pötzsch, 2017;Willumsen, 2018). Secondly, the approach provides a highly flexible toolkit capable of guiding research into form aspects without predetermining their relevance or their functioning.…”

“…In game studies, formalism has often been used as an all-embracing term covering a range of methodological and ontological approaches. Willumsen (2018), for instance, shows how formalism is used for three different approaches in game studies: an aesthetic game formalism identified with those scholars looking for a 'narrativeness' in games (cf. Murray, 1997); a game essentialism identified with those scholars interested in finding the 'gameness' in games (cf.…”

“…Myers (2010), for example, gives an extensive overview of the Russian Formalist tradition with the aim of positioning it within semiotics and as 'the initial step in establishing a relationship between aesthetics and cognition ' (2010, p. 48). Willumsen (2018) delves into the literary tradition of Russian Formalism and gives a great explanation of the difference between material and form referencing Aristotle's different causes in order to point out different formalisms in game studies. And Pötzsch (2017) and Mitchell (2016) and his co-authors (2017; 2019; 2020) explore the Russian Formalist idea of ostranenie (defamiliarization) for the study of (an aesthetic experience) of games.…”

Toward a Visualization of Video Game Cultural History: Grasping the French Touch

“…Some systems can be very economical (10 gameplay bricks, Djaouti, Alvarez, Jessel, Methel, & Molinier, 2008), while other approaches are incredibly expansive in scope (hundreds of concepts in Björk and Holopainen’s [2004] Patterns in Game Design and dozens in Juul’s [2016] inspection of tile-matching games). As Ea Christina Willumsen (2018) points out in a recent contribution, many examples of game formalism seek to achieve an ideal level of abstraction, “related to the need for a formal language that accounts for—and helps categorize—the specific elements of a system” (p. 140) while keeping a focus on the essential property that games are meant to be played. Björk and Lankoski (2015) recommend a meticulous formalist description of game content, acknowledging that some modern games are too large to be described with such a technique.…”

Book Review: Jason Hawreliak, Multimodal Semiotics and Rhetoric in Videogames

“…156–157). What is more, though the author at several points levies a critique towards what is inaccurately called the ‘formalist’ strand of game studies (see Willumsen, 2018) for favouring rules or procedural systems as defining properties of games at the expense of other game components, some of the multimodal analyses present in the book unfortunately end up making a similar claim. One example is the analysis of a mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , where – as pointed out even by the author – multimodal dissonance disappears over time and, crucially, through play .…”