Terminology Analysis of Coming of Age in Second Life, part 4

Continued from part 3.

After a long, drawn out examination of "virtual," it's time to move on and examine the other terms that Tom Boellstorff posited definitions for in his book, Coming of Age in Second Life (2010).

Homer Simpson in the CyberWorld
Intel and Pacific Data Images, "Homer³," CyberWorld 3D (2000) 

WORLD: As I mentioned before, Boellstorff refers to Second Life as a "Virtual World," following the "Synthetic World" characteristics defined by Edward Castronovo (2010, pg. 17) that assume all virtual worlds are:

1. Places
2. Inhabited by people
3. Enabled by online technologies

Removing the "virtual" (online) aspect of this definition, we are left with Boellstorff's understanding of a world as a PLACE that is INHABITED BY PEOPLE.

I define PLACE as any space that holds meaning or use to someone. Usually, this means it is the location for an event that somebody remembers (as in, "the town where I was born," or, "under the bleachers where I had my first kiss") or makes use of ("the perfect parking spot") or is maybe aspirational ("my dream home").

Boellstorff admits that "world" is less defined than the words it is often paired with (like "cyber"). He sees world as referring to "large-scale social contexts with visual and interactive components, somewhat like 'environment' and 'space'" (2010, pg. 17). He warns against the "naturalistic metaphor" of world, which implies a self-contained entity created without human agency.

[Update 3 Dec 2022]

Game researcher Stefano Gualeni gives a phenomenological definition for WORLD. 

"The term 'world' generally indicates a set composed of beings that are understood together with all their (detectable) properties and mutual relationships... a world comprises of the set outlined above as experienced by one of the beings involved in it. To be identified as a world (and thus to have the quality of 'worldliness'), such experiences need to be meaningful in the sense that they need to be persistently perceivable and behaviorally consistent (thus intelligible, to a degree) for the being experiencing them. This interpretation establishes a distinction between the experiences of virtual worlds and those of dreams or hallucinations. The virtual worlds of simulations and videogames are in fact recognized as worlds precisely because they can be accessed, experienced, and returned to at will: they emerge in ways that are repeatable and relatively stable in their mechanical and aesthetic aspects" (Vella and Gualeni "Virtual Subjectivity: Existence and Projectuality in Virtual Worlds" Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 2019 vol. 23 no. 2 pg. 131).

This definition precludes Boellstorff's need for a world to be simultaneously inhabited by multiple humans and require online connectivity. A world can be a world to just one person.  

[End update 3 Dec 2022]

GAMEWORLD: is related to "world" and is a term that I've adapted, but appears to be infrequently used by others. A gameworld is the entirety of a game’s navigable space that is tangible to the player to interact with and navigate (often through an avatar) as a connected whole. A game may, and often does, feature several gameworlds divided into separate “worlds,” “levels,” or “campaigns,” depending on the game’s terminology.

A gameworld is defined by its topology, dimensionality, spatiality (continuous or discrete), and other characteristics (like, does the game have gravity?). Typically, the gameworlds of a specific game will all feature the same qualities, but not always. 

Konami, Contra (1987)

Compare the images above of Stage 1: Jungle and Stage 2: Base 1 from Contra. I define the Jungle as a continuous 2-D game space with rectangular mapping and gravity downward. Base 1 is a continuous 3-D game space (also with gravity downward) in which the player navigates into the screen space rather than across the space. If not for the similarity of the main character sprites, these could be mistaken for two completely different games.

Digital games, like all digital media, are hybrid in nature. Various symbols appear on the screen, sometimes using different means of projection or perspective, yet the player views all the disparate objects as part of a cohesive whole. As we see, there may be a hybrid collection of gameworlds within the scope of a single game, requiring different rules of movement and interaction to successfully navigate those worlds. Yet, they are still part of a cohesive whole "overworld" of the entirety of the game.