Understanding single player computer games as experimental systems

Abstract

This paper analyzes and theorizes the conditions which allow to understand single player computer game play (SPCGP) as part of a knowledge production practice called experimentation. It therefore draws on Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s theory of the experimental system. This approach is a useful contribution to the field of computer game hermeneutics as it allows to understand game play as a hermeneutic process as well as describing the hermeneutic game play circle in more detail. The paper argues, that so far experimentation in game studies and game hermeneutics has been equated with standard game play processes. In other words, all game play is experimentation. The examples often mentioned in those cases are, however, mere testing devices according to Rheinberger’s theory. In order to be an experimental system, computer games themselves have to be capable of producing true novelties. This depends, on the one hand, on the level of complexity a given game exhibits and, on the other hand, it depends on the degree of creativity of a given player. Eventually the paper suggests that there are only four different cases in which computer games become true generators of surprises and thus qualify as or participate in experimental systems which I will present and discuss: glitches in games which facilitate so-called exploits in SPCGP, sufficiently complex games with a high degree of emergence, the game production process, and computer games which have historically participated in the advancement of science.