Issue Five
‘It’s in the cinema studies department … ‘: Studying videogames
Daniel Golding’s ‘Not Art, You Say? In Defence of Videogames’ appears in Kill Your Darlings Issue Five. For a growing portion of the entertainment market, videogames no longer need to be defended. But how do people respond when you tell them you’re doing a PhD on videogames? For Killings, Daniel let us in on those conversations.
It was a long time before I started telling people that I studied videogames. Sometimes, I still don’t. At parties, when meeting new people, the inevitable, dreaded question comes: ‘A PhD – wow, that’s exciting! What are you writing your thesis on?’
I used to lie and give broad, general answers that could mean anything. Cultural studies was my undergraduate major, so that was often an easy option. The labyrinth of university bureaucracy means that I’m now within the department of Cinema Studies, so that also quickly became a frequent fallback position.
‘It’s in the cinema studies department,’ I’d say.
Persistent listeners would usually want to know more. Does that mean I make films? What do I mean by ‘cultural studies’? I’d try to be specific enough to deflect the question without plainly mentioning games. It wasn’t difficult. One of the benefits of academia is having a close relationship with meaningless jargon. Sometimes, I was studying screen media. Sometimes, it was the digital humanities. Once, in a moment of panic, I told someone I was writing on the films of Hitchcock – a wild, irrational non sequitur that was only barely maintained until the conversation moved on.
My unwillingness to reveal my interest in videogames was partly based on the kinds of reactions I imagined I would get. Nobody wants to be the videogame guy. Or, more to the point, nobody wants to talk to the videogame guy. And, worse than that, I’m the videogame guy who thinks they’ve an interesting enough topic for a doctoral thesis. In dinner party stakes, I’m only a few steps up from the editor of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Philosophy or someone who writes Star Wars fan fiction.
Partly, though, my hesitation was also based on real reactions. You can try to predict how someone will take the news that you’re attempting to enter academia on the coattails of society’s most derided entertainment medium, but you’ll rarely get it right. Occasionally, I would chance it and reveal my dirty academic secret.
‘Oh.’
Sometimes, that would be an excited and genuinely interested exclamation, but mostly it would be a gut-punched exhalation; an involuntary verbal ellipsis accompanied by a confused array of facial expressions as my conversation partner attempted to provide an appropriate response.
I’ve had the otherwise artsy and open-minded mother of a friend reduced to body-shaking tears of laughter that lasted so long that her husband was felt it necessary to apologise to me. An ex-girlfriend gave me such an unguarded and clear look of dismay that she might has well have commissioned a skywriter to burn ‘You’re wasting your life!’ into the cloudless sky that day.
Eventually, I’ve learnt to treat these kinds of responses as a challenge.
Videogames are one of the most interesting and diverse media forms in existence. They are a unique artefact of our digital era, an intersection of cinema, play, architecture and computers – the ‘convergence of everything’, as one designer put it. Even more excitingly, videogames have been undergoing a Cambrian explosion for the last twenty-five years, and are now available for more audiences, interests and levels of depth than ever before. It seems like almost every day a videogame is doing something new, something we haven’t seen before. As a videogame researcher, one of the challenges is to simply keep up.
Those who respond to videogames with derision, confusion or outrage are usually those who are the most unfamiliar with the medium. Their response is the too-easy, neophobic option, and is the least interesting perspective in a nascent and absorbing conversation. It can be difficult to put away the cheap jokes and the bullying tendencies, but once done, it opens up a whole new framework for worthwhile discussion.
I should know. It’s why I study videogames.
5 Responses to ‘It’s in the cinema studies department … ‘: Studying videogames
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Kill Your Darlings, No. 9
April 2012 The Stella Prize
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9:02 am, June 14, 2011
Daniel, be proud of your field of research. Video games should be a reputable area of study, especially with all their effects on humans and society. Gamification is being used in more applications of education and learning. Jane McGonigal is researching how collective intelligence from gaming communities can solve global issues.
I started my PhD program a year ago, so I can empathize a little bit with you. Good luck to you and your dissertation!
6:47 am, June 30, 2011
I totally agree with Lonnie. I work as a translator, but my hobby involves playing computer and video games and I tend not to hide my affection for this field of entertainment. I also like the fact that I am usually the only girl at a party guys can talk about games with ;) I don’t think loving games is demeaning or makes us inferior to literature, film or music lovers. I would love to pursue my PhD in videgames (culturally- or linguistically-wise), but unfortunately, it is still a niche area in my country, so it would be very difficult. From my point of view, you have an opportunity other people don’t have, so use it and be proud of it :)
4:32 am, July 9, 2011
I actually found that young people (18-30) were more likely to openly ridicule my PhD than older folk, which still strikes me as odd. I guess people tend to simmer down with age, maybe it’s nothing more than that.
And yes, people whose experience of games is passive, second-hand, my-brother-plays-them-but-I-don’t… these people will always be the most dismissive. There are still a significant number of people, young and old, who do truly think videogames are a childish/adolescent plaything and nothing more. Trying to convince them otherwise is a waste of time.
As for me, sometimes I’d say I was studying “music and sound in interactive digital entertainment”, maybe throw a “diegesis” in there, or “art forms” instead of “entertainment”, you can have some fun with this stuff. When most people ask about a PhD they’re getting ready to glaze over, regardless of what you say… but it was always fun to see the smirk of realisation from the sharper ones.
Good luck with your studies.