On the Relevance of Video Gaming in Human & Social Sciences – Interview with Sébastien Genvo, game design expert
Sébastien Genvo: Indeed, I started playing video games when I was six, way before I became a researcher. I obtained a Master’s degree in Film Studies. At the same time, I was in charge of a short-film festival, and Vice President of an association that organized LAN parties, events that brought together around a hundred gamers during a 24-hour period. After graduation, I applied to Ubisoft, a multinational video game manufacturer, and ended up being hired as an in-house game designer for a year and a half. Afterwards, I decided to pursue doctoral studies in Communication and Information Science at the Mediation Research Center of the Université Paul Verlaine in Metz, France
My Ph.D. centered on an intercultural approach towards game design. I sought to find a way of rallying players from different cultural backgrounds in the same game by rethinking the way messages and ideology are conveyed. What are the mechanisms of game design? What makes game design a means of expression? What are the narrative specifics of game design?
Thierry Lehmann: In Médiamorphose, you wrote that “… the gaming community is central to questioning the cultural role played by the media, especially in an era where digitalization and convergence are soaring.” Could you elaborate further upon this?
“A fundamentally globalized media”
Sébastien Genvo: Video games have always been a fundamentally globalized media. Their success shows that those who have taken hold of the market reins are the very same ones who have grasped its inner workings. Nintendo is a fine example of this in how it conquered its target market thanks to Mario Bros. This game has a multicultural identity. Developed by a Japanese team, it is infused with Shintoism while featuring many references to Western culture: Mario is a New York-based plumber of Italian descent who climbs magical beanstalks just as Jack did in the British tale, and eats size-altering mushrooms like in Alice in Wonderland. Though but one example, it is far from being the exception for globalization is present on all levels.
Japanese visitors astounded by IRS (David Arenou) at IVRC competition, Tokyo, August 2010
The other reason for this convergence is that video games fuse together several types of media, which are then reintegrated into interaction- and action-oriented logics. Gaming is often compared to motion pictures. The very first photographers or pictorialists drew inspiration from paintings to turn photography into real art. Then, when movies came about, they derived their inspiration from theater. In turn, video games looked to motion pictures to convey a message, emotions, a story, etc. Video games provide users with a structure and space in which to explore. They also pack in social interaction logic like that seen in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) such as World of Warcraft, which gathers thousands of players within a single game.
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