For the past few months I have been attempting to write critical and mostly formal essays about games, hopefully to some success. I have been treating games as any other medium and I have tried to analyze them as I would any other work. However, the more essays I write and the more I attempt to use standard writing practices like quotations and citations, the more I have bumped into a number of problems that I feel must be addressed before writing about games can become more widespread. In each issue of this blog I will address one of the problems I think could arise and then offer some possible solutions.

Problems with Citing Quotations

Currently, when writing about a book, if a quotation is used the writer is expected to provide the page number of the page on which the quote was found. This allows someone reading the essay to find the quote. This prevents academic dishonesty (such as inventing a quote or misappropriating a quote) and also makes the job of the reader that much easier as they can easily turn to the page on which the quote is located and read it in context. This can also be done with time stamps when analyzing a movie. But, when writing about a game there is no easy way to denote when an action occurs in the game. You could use the level or chapter in which a quote or moment occurs to mark the quote; however, if the quote is not provided by an unavoidable story event, more guidance must be given to the reader since they could easily walk right by it. For example, how do I tell someone in a short and succinct way that the quote I am using comes from an npc in a town, but the quote only happens after some story event, and the npc disappears once you leave town? That example may be general, but I think problems of that general mold come up frequently in story driven games.

Another problem with citing a quote is that a citation is supposed to make it simple for the reader to find a quotation in the primary source. However, for a game, even if a moment is perfectly cited and there is no ambiguity about how to find the quote or the moment in the game, there is still the problem of a reader having to play all the way through the game to reach that quote. It is not like a book where the reader can simply skip to the section cited, or like a movie where the viewer can fast forward to the proper time. There is no fast forward in games without providing an actual save file. Also, there could be aspects of the quotation that require playing the game to see, meaning that the reader must also have some degree of skill with the game to even view the quote. For example, if you quote a section that occurs after the final boss fight in a game, the reader of your essay would have to beat the final boss to actually view the quote as you did. Video could be used here to mitigate this problem, but there can be a distinct difference between watching a video of a game and physically playing it. In fact, the act of playing could be essential to the moment, like the microwave tunnel in MGS4. All of these issues make citing a quote in a game difficult in the first place and they make actually finding a quote in a game equally challenging.

My solution for this problem is not an easy one. I think that the writer must provide a save file for each of the quotes they reference as well as some instructions for the reader, so that they may find the quote. This may include providing some guidance on how to play the game, thus ensuring that the reader can view the quote as easily as possible. This may include writing step by step instructions on what to do. Thought a writer may assume the reader actually is familiar with the text about which they are writing, I think it is a logical leap to assume that all readers have seen everything there is to see in a game.

Even though going through the game collecting saves may not be the most practical option (it does create a lot of added work for the writer), this level of detail is definitely warranted in any case where that act of seeing a moment in a game and playing a moment in a game are different. By providing saves to the reader, the writer of an analytical essay can both prove that the quotes are valid and provide the reader with a convenient way to access them.