Toward a Gameic World: New Rules of Engagement from Japanese Video Games

How are we moving toward a “gameic world,” and what does this mean? The title of Ben Whaley's book suggests that the rest of the world is gaining something from Japan via the game industry, so what is it that we are gaining? A “gameic” world, he argues, is one in which we come to a meaningful understanding of complex social issues by playing through them ourselves in digital narratives, engaging deeply with game scenarios and characters. Many video games designed in Japan explore pressing “social and personal issues, including traumas, such as natural disasters; a declining birthrate and aging population; nuclear proliferation; and youth social withdrawal” (3). The book examines the benefits of working through trauma via video games “and how games enhance and expand our understanding of these issues for the uninitiated” (3). Readers will find an interesting discussion here, not only of games but of ideas and cultural forces, actively constructed by Japanese game designers and sent out into the world, changing the way we think about how players engage with games, how consumers of any text engage with it on a sensory level, and how that text interacts with its own context in sometimes complicated and dizzying ways.Whaley argues that Japanese game design employs certain “mechanisms of emotion” to increase player involvement, determining and manipulating the player's sense of closeness or distance to the action as well as their emotional investment in the fictional narrative. He examines how “hallmarks of Japanese game design might simulate and let players experience new and different social situations, encourage them to reflect on their lives and values along the way, and maybe, just maybe, apply what they have learned outside the game to enrich their everyday lives” (3). Whaley draws on his own gaming practice as well as that of players who relate their experiences online. The result is a personal yet highly analytical reading of several well-known titles from Japan, spanning a range of genres: surviving an earthquake in Disaster Report (Irem, 2003), navigating romantic relationships in Catherine (Atlus, 2011), dealing with disability and nuclear anxiety in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Konami, 2015), and overcoming social withdrawal through connection in The World Ends with You (Square Enix, 2007).The argument centers on “rules of engagement,” or game mechanics that determine the mode of player involvement in the text. In “limited engagement,” the player experiences a lack of skills or knowledge, which simulates vulnerability to a situation. “Distanced engagement” uses “self-referential and intellectual elements designed to promote self-reflection” (132) on the part of the player, while “external engagement” deconstructs the usual positionings of player in the real world and game world “to destabilize the distinction between the characters in the game and the players outside of it” (132). In this technique the boundaries between reality and fiction collapse into questions, forcing the player to reckon with the emotional and ethical impacts of their in-game actions (including violence or other acts we might not perform in real life). Finally, “connective engagement” creates links between the player character and other characters in-game, which could motivate real-world social connections, a particular boon to those players who would otherwise avoid face-to-face contact with other people. The four methods of engagement provide useful ways to think about how players interact with and experience game narratives firsthand. What we get from Japanese video games, according to Whaley, is not only new rules of engagement but also new ways of experiencing social and personal trauma, allowing us to explore different sides of ourselves and how we may react to events around us. Moving forward into the future, “toward a gameic world” in which the digital becomes ubiquitous and perhaps even inescapable, it will be useful to have tools with which to examine exactly how game designers and tech gurus create fictional situations for us that sometimes seem all too real.Scholars including myself have often cited the doctoral dissertation on which this book was based, so Toward a Gameic World will undoubtedly be useful for the field going forward. The introduction has been thoughtfully expanded, and chapter 4, on The World Ends with You, adds a new case study. Game studies scholars who deal mostly with rules and the “ludic” in games will find much useful discussion of in-game mechanics and how player behavior accords with the way designers plan out their scenarios and player interactions for maximum impact, while scholars more interested in the players themselves will also find much detailed description of how players think through puzzles, answer survey questions, make (sometimes agonizing) decisions, and muster the will to continue right to the end of a game narrative, even when story progress may be incredibly difficult at times.From the first page, Whaley's writing style is open and engaging, enlisting the reader's empathy when describing difficult video game stages and levels. Clearly written, with plenty of examples from the case studies, the slim volume will be useful for undergraduate reading lists in game studies, media studies, Japanese studies, and Asian studies, as well as just plain interesting reading for a general audience. The book serves as an excellent entry point to any of these fields, as well as a good excuse to power up the PlayStation and engage with some great narrative material. Whether the games have a lasting effect on the player may depend on the nature of their engagement—limited, distanced, or otherwise—but it will be interesting for readers to reflect on their own gameplay and its aftereffects thanks to Whaley's engaging and expressive work.