Bogost: Unit Operations

I just got my copy of Ian Bogost's new book, Unit Operations: An Approach to Video Game Criticism. My jacket blurb says "Bogost challenges humanists and technologists to pay attention to one another, something they desperately need to do as computation accelerates us into the red zones of widespread virtual reality...Highly recommended." Reading it over again, that's still how I feel. A tough and important subject, handled really well, chock full of arguments relevant to the virtuati.  Read it!

Comments

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

1.

Why do technologists have to pay attention to humanists? Or rather: what is the argument raised in the book?

[Barry Joseph]

2.

I am not an academic, but I did a long enough stint towards an MA in Cultural Studies to at least understand why I can't follow much of Ian's book. This is not intended as a critique - I am just not versed in the internal philosophical discussions that inform the text.

I work with high school students and explore how to use games for learning. The subtitle of the book is "An approach to video game criticism." I look for theoretical tools I can use in my work, and I just don't have my head around this one just yet. Looking for help...

I get that it is about understanding the constituent parts of something larger, and how those parts are inter-related. I also understand his contentions that game criticism need not be a discipline of its own and that his approach can be used for all sorts of media.

But while I enjoyed reading many of his analyses of various games, it is not clear to me, when confronted with a new game, how I would actually apply this Unit Operations perspective as a practical tool. Can anyone give some more examples?

[Dan S]

3.

As one with an A.M. in English Language and Lit from Univ of Chicago, my advice to technologists is this:

Do NOT listen to humanists.

Theory is fine; theory of the theory of the creation of theory is not.

What a humanist thinks is fun is far removed from what the market and consumers do.

As far as humanists paying attention to technologists goes... good luck. That would imply the humanists can deal with things like, oh, numbers, statistics, science, um, facts? "Facts" are just perceptions; perceptions depend upon the perceiver.

I think I will burn all my books on critical theory. Should have occurred to me before. I actually enjoy reading fiction again; like to keep that. I'd enjoy gaming more if I didn't feel the urge to criticize it constantly too.

[John Bilodeau]

4.

"As far as humanists paying attention to technologists goes... good luck. That would imply the humanists can deal with things like, oh, numbers, statistics, science, um, facts? "Facts" are just perceptions; perceptions depend upon the perceiver."

Is there a new definition of 'humanist' i'm unaware of?

[Paolo Cuccurullo]

5.

Barry I understand your problem. I was very excited to read the book from the blurb, but when I went through it...I enjoyed reading parts of it but cannot say it left me with anything useful. I am embarrased to say I cannot even claim to have grasped a clear meaning of 'unit operations' in a solid way after reading a whole book about it. I think this boils down to my ignorance, but I do have a good background in literary criticism and still couldnt point to a useful approach to video game criticism that came out of the book. Sure, there are some interesting points, but even the emphasis and structure at times feels arbitrary, not to say tangential.

Could someone explain where is this method of criticism? And how does the idea of unit operations differ from the idea of a motif in other forms of analysis, because the examples given all rest on filtering the given text through a particular motif (Terminal - waiting) and there is absolutely nothing innovative in this, at least for anyone with a basic knowledge of literary or film criticism...

[Prokofy Neva]

6.

I look forward to finding and reading this book, and want to ask whether underlying it is Chomskyist stuff. It hardly seems surprising that literature of the old fashioned verbal and literay type is like the units of games, or narration of gaming stories.

Is he saying that human consciousness is structured in such a way that narrative, whether in literature or in ludic activity, always follows a certain pattern, like a language? That seems fairly self-evident. Does he believe such structures dictate consciousness, however? Is he willing to posit anything beyond these structures? Does he believe that mentation or belief or perception can be restructured and "the ending of the story changed" by manipulation of the structures of consciousness through games, as in literature?

Literature has long been held to have an edifying effect in a general sort of benign way; will the affects of game narration and play be more thoroughly transformative in ways that will be easily manipulated?

[illovich]

7.

Is there a new definition of 'humanist' i'm unaware of?

I think he meant humanities-ist, or something similar. Given the response so far, I guess I'm looking forward to getting angry at this book =P