Spring 2023 Research Review and Summer 2023 Plans

 Spring 2023 Review

• Studied aesthetic analysis from the following philosophers:
• Mo Tzu
• Hsün Tzu
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Hume
• Kant
• Schiller
• Tolstoy
• Collingwood
• Dewey
• Bell
• Langer
• Weitz (covering Wittgenstein)
• Danto
• Wimsatt and Beardsley
• Sibley
• Walton
• Wrote a paper analyzing how each of the above philosophers might approach the aesthetic values of digital games, based on their published writings.
• Expanded an earlier paper about digital game modding, "playbor," the economic relationship between game modders and professional game developers, and how modding compares to the exploited labors of other types of hobbyist-turned-gig workers.
• Started a literature review for my upcoming digital project exploring spatial paradigms.
• Analyzed a published, reviewed paper and noted the discrepancies in the writing that point to the fact that we (as game academics, game critics, and game professionals) lack an agreed-upon, technical language to discuss game graphics and game spaces. This is an example of the sort of problem that my Taxonomy of Digital Spaces system is designed to solve.
• Began a review of graphic projection terminology (specifically in architecture and art history) from sources I hadn't previously studied. This is in order to solve what I see as a possible discrepancy in the wording from a source I adapted terms from.

No, I mean Plato, not the PLATO.
(PLATO IV image courtesy of The CRPG Book Project)

My research plans for the spring were diverted into a few new directions.

First, it was recommended that I present my research in a form factor that is best suited to my abilities: as a digital game. I started toward this work with the literature review, above, and now plan to start this work in earnest over the summer and continue into fall. 

Second, I felt that I needed to take a personal overview of classical, modern, and contemporary analyses on aesthetics. Thus, the above exercise in reading numerous philosophers known for their views on aesthetics and writing about how each of them might take an aesthetic analysis of digital games.

Finally, I updated a previous paper on digital game modding through an economic lens and expanded it to about 7,000 words, for possible publication.

The terminology issue was part of my spring plans and arrives from a discrepancy in what the word "oblique" is in relation to in graphic projection:

• The lines of projection from object to picture plane in relation to the facing of the picture plane.
• The facing of the object in relation to the facing of the picture plane.

Summer 2023 Plans and Beyond

As mentioned above, I will begin early production on a digital game project that serves as an overview of different spatial paradigms, which I posit may be used in aesthetic analyses of games.

With the development of the digital game, I will need to complete some of the tasks I had originally planned for spring 2023:

• Fine-tune Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces based on analysis of what attributes should be included or removed in order to be informative for my research. Make edits to Taxonomy document to match. (already started, as noted above)
• Complete existing qualitative analysis of game spaces for a broader selection of digital game titles using Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces.

Later development of the game (say, in fall) will better allow me to tackle the other two spring 2023 plans I had outlined:

• Analyze player navigation in the above games and develop system for codifying the results.
• Use statistical analysis to find patterns of similarity that signify Spatial Paradigms, Spatial Refinement, and Paradigm Shifts.