Since Critical Videogame Studies is a relatively new field compared to many other classical artistic & cultural theories, one of the elements missing from the field is a Canon: a body of high culture works of art that is highly valued in the context they are placed in. There’s discourse in all cultural theories regarding the origin, necessity, and inclusivity of their Canon; that discourse takes on a new form for videogame studies due to the novelty of the field. The lack of an established Canon causes problems during discussions: students from different backgrounds might find themselves with no overlap of playing experience, when someone gives an example from a game they’ve played, there is no way of knowing how many people will understand the reference. There will of course be no way of making sure everyone understands a reference in any cultural discourse due to the diversity of experiences in any student body, but the existence of a Canon at least allows for common ground of texts and vocabulary that facilitates discourse. It also creates a barrier of entry to the field by requiring indoctrination through a set of old texts.
When teaching or theorizing about videogames, one is presented with the unique opportunity to actively shape the course of the field, and perhaps make it more inclusive and less elitist than other art cultures by helping to define its. All other fields exist in a continuum tied to a distant past, they can re-negotiate the terms of their Canon, but they can’t outright escape from its shadow. This week in class, Jagoda and Sparrow offered us a glimpse into the reasoning behind some of their pedagogical practices: their choice of core texts studied in this class, the modality of student interaction they incentivize with those texts and their preferred media for communication & discussion. They have taught critical videogame theory classes before, with different ludic, narrative, and historic foci, but its not their specific choice of texts for each class that’s interesting, it is the way in which they try to create common ground of texts for discourse. Instead of requiring a few big up-front readings or familiarity with a set of canonical texts, they assign large chunks of playing/close reading of texts during the course. There is great variety in their core text assignments both within a week, a quarter and throughout the years, and this reflects some of their pedagogic philosophy.
You can’t teach someone about the entire Western Canon within the time frame of a quarter: all of Shakespeare, biblical references, the Renaissance and Enlightenment and whatever else old white men loved and cherished as the foundation of their notion of the “West”. But perhaps, you shouldn’t. Maybe a new field like critical videogame theory has something to teach older fields in that there is a new solution to the problem of common ground, a “version of canon that is a way of thinking more than a particular list of works” (Jagoda inspired by Samuel Delany, 2021).
Coming from a STEM background, their approach is not surprising. The best approach to STEM is not bombardment of students with knowledge to memorize, but to equip them with the right tools to tackle any scientific question. The old school humanities could take some notes, both from STEM and critical videogame theory pedagogy.
Kaan,
The argument brought up in your post about how to reconstruct the notion of Canon within a post-modern field is fascinating. I agree that elitism runs rampant within many academic fields and just because video games are perceived of having a more casual nature does not allow this field to evade the problem. I extremely like the actions taken in class to preface all technical gaming jargon with an explanation to the class; this is a great way to create an equal playing field for discussion and remove this sense of previous indoctrination needed. I often find that while we can help do this academically, it will be harder in a social sense, for video game communities are still rife with exclusionary practices and beliefs that disproportionately affect groups and specific demographics.
There really is something great about taking advantage of a lack of canon to teach more broadly. That said there’s certainly something to be said for the usefulness of a shared experience, if not for an introductory class, at least for a more in depth look into the field.
I remember my friends in a video game design program having a class that was almost literally learning examples of games in different genres by year. That seems certainly like an extreme! However….
Video games are really self-referential as a medium. There’s a lot of history behind different games, and genres, and I feel like our professors have taken advantage of the curriculum to select games that *can* be taught without much background, or a historical look at the genre from a mechanical standpoint. For example, a game like Mega Man X, or Dragon Quest IX, is pretty much inseparable from its history from a certain standpoint. Likewise, I cannot imagine teaching Death Stranding seriously without some sort of lesson or reading about Hideo Kojima, its famous creator.
There is a metaphorical wall to be climbed, perhaps much further off, perhaps one that will never have to be confronted by anyone in this class, that will require familiarity with a certain group of games. Maybe not having played them personally, maybe not having even watched them be played, even knowledge might be enough. But like properly appreciating certain classes of movies, films or books, certain games require context.
There’s a mechanical ingredient in games that makes this significantly harder to confront in video games in general. Unlike books or film, which can be experienced without interaction, there are games which are just not able to be played without proper grounding, like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, (A rather droll player-hostile text-based adventure game based on the Douglas Adams books) or even games which are considered to be “masterpieces” (even ignoring them as possible inclusions in a canon) like Starcraft (a notoriously technical real-time strategy game with a gripping storyline and dedicated modding community), or Mass Effect 2 (a long space-based roleplaying game based on the lasting impact of choices across games in the franchise, with some shooting game elements), or Diablo II (a top-down game where character fight monsters and obtain weapons as they seek power.)
To sum it up, there needs to be some basis for a canon, but as you said, it can be flexible, fitting the needs and relevant genres of the modern day. Such a canon need only equip players and students with the basic analytic skills to understand a work, the general background to appreciate the field, and the essential mechanical skills to appreciate games for what they are.