6.2. Applicability

project’s methodology, combining literature review, game design practice, and empirical player studies, represents a novel, comprehensive approach to habitus research and to the development of a theory of a habitus, illustrating that habitus can be explored in a multi-method fashion centering around laboratory playtests, rather than just through fieldwork or survey studies. Furthermore, through its understanding of implied participants presented in the design reflections paper (Appendix IV), the project’s methodological reflections act as valuable insights for study design in research projects of various kinds that employ custom game prototypes. With this approach, therefore, the project offers an alternative to ethnographic and autoethnographic forms of research previously utilized to investigate certain kinds of habitus (see e.g. Wacquant, 2011).

Contributions to theory are one thing, however; in addition to those, the framework also has practical applicability. In the next section, I will use the general framework to examine a variety of specific gaming practices, on different temporal levels, which will illustrate how the framework can be utilized to help us understand players, games, and gaming in a novel, more detailed fashion.

6.2.Applicability

The analysis potential of the practice-theoretical approach to gaming has already been shown using the data from the three player studies, at various stages of data analysis and during the construction of the framework. However, as mentioned throughout this dissertation, the principal motivation behind the project was to create a general framework of digital gaming practice –meaning that its true test is in whether it can be used to account for different varieties of gaming practices. Let us take a look at some of those now, and analytically describe them using the framework.

In the introduction to the dissertation, I used the example of Niftski’s record in SMB to illustrate speedrunning, one kind or type of specialized practice that involves digital games. I also mentioned Rainforest Scully-Blaker’s description of speedrunning as a “practiced practice” (2014). To an extent, that is an accurate understanding of speedrunning; as a form of gaming practice centered around achieving the shortest possible time in a digital game from start to finish (or some other agreed-upon delineation), speedrunning a game does involve training and repeated play of the same title. Generally speaking, this repeated play results in highly attuned

and detailed perceptual models and sets of action competencies, as well as different preferences related to the act of speedrunning – among others, for types of games or categories that one runs, and for the kinds of software and hardware setups one utilizes (with some runners using specific controllers, or even specific methods of holding them during play). However, the concept of ludic habitus and the understanding of gaming practice developed as part of the framework in this research project can help us to differentiate between different kinds of speedruns and to describe their specific requirements and effects on the player, reframing speedrunning as a category of related activities rather than as a single, distinct, uniform practice.

Figure 28. Niftski’s record run in action, taken from Bismuth’s (2021) video explanation of the record.

As illustrated by Bismuth’s video deep-dive into Niftski’s record (Fig. 28), speedrunning a game like SMB involves training to the point of being able to perform frequent frame-perfect inputs, as missing a single one can result in a comparatively drastic loss of time. A short game like SMB usually has one optimal route or path from beginning to end, with very little variation along the way48 . Its player needs a perceptual model and action competencies that are deeply attuned to that one specific game and its one specific, optimal route, which can be broken down into a timely series of inputs that need to be performed with frame-perfect precision to reach or break a record49 . Consequently, SMB requires a deeply proactive ludic habitus to be successfully

48 This, of course, depends on the category which is being run. For example, Niftski is running the game in the Any% category, which allows for use of glitches and level skips in pursuit of the absolute shortest time possible from beginning of the game to its end. Another popular category of SMB, 100%, tasks the player with finishing each and every level of the game (not counting the Minus World and other non-standard levels) in as little time as possible. The categories of a speedrun are communally arranged, which is to say they are a matter of consensus among the runners of each particular game. 49 For this reason, games like SMB are particularly popular with developers of tool-assisted speedruns (TAS), which are executable programs running series of inputs optimally written for a specific route in a specific

competed in a speedrun setting, heavily favoring action competencies over perceptual skills at any given moment during a run. To put it another way, a speedrunner of SMB like Niftski, for all intents and purposes, has no time to think during their run, but also, ideally, does not need to –numerous prior attempts have resulted in a detailed and final perceptual model of the optimal route through the game, and, more importantly, a honed and specialized set of action competencies. The latter are attuned to a specific controller setup (in Niftski’s case, the keyboard) and a specific version of the game, played on a specific platform (in Niftski’s case, the emulated NES version played on a PC).

Much like other speedrun practices, the practice of SMB speedrunning, over a longer period of time, involves progressively attuning one’s ludic habitus to the game’s proactive requirements and developing the perceptual model and action competencies required for its optimal route. This attunement is conducted through trial and error in concrete acts of digital gaming practice, but also through broader contextual processes of learning about the game’s inner workings from its speedrunning community (for example, from YouTube videos, walkthroughs, or conversations with other speedrunners, all of which are vital for finding new and improved routes and strategies). In a moment-to-moment fashion, however, the act of speedrunning SMB involves a distinctly unbalanced functioning of ludic habitus, that sees all resources channeled into instinctive, immediate action – as even a single mistimed input can cause the run to be a failure.

Figure 29. A screenshot of Ninten’s run of Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix during the Summer Games Done Quick 2021 charity speedrun event, showing Sora (the game’s protagonist) in Beast’s Castle, one of the worlds in the game (taken from gamesdonequick, 2021a).

game. A TAS record is often notably faster than anything a living, breathing player can accomplish when playing in real life.

Contrast this to a speedrun of an action RPG such as Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix (KH2; Square Enix Product Development Division 1, 2007; Fig. 29). The current world record for the game, in the fastest, Any% category, is around two hours and fifty minutes (Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, n.d.)50. The speedrun of KH2 is much longer than that of SMB; broadly speaking, there is still a single optimal or preferred general route through the 3D environments of this game, but along the way, the runner takes part in many battles with enemies whose AI might behave differently from one run to the next. In addition, the player’s position and movement in these battles, and in other moments of spatial navigation, can add or take away valuable seconds from the run’s total time. Apart from skill training to develop specific action competencies, learning to run KH2 involves familiarizing oneself with much more information about the game’s level layout and navigation, abilities, player character level progression, and enemy and boss behavior and stats, among other things – as well as paying attention to all of these during the run. Said run can take a turn for the worse in many instances. For example, if a player misperceives an enemy’s movement and responds with an inadequate course of action, they might be forced to restart from an earlier point, thus delaying their progress. When a speedrun of SMB goes wrong, one loses minutes needed to restart the run; when a speedrun of KH2 goes wrong, one can lose hours51 .

For this reason, speedrunning a game like KH2 requires a finer balance between perception and action in one’s ludic habitus than was the case with a shorter game like SMB. Action competencies are obviously still very important – without quick, timely inputs and the skills to defeat enemies and bosses quickly, the speedrun of KH2 might take a very long time –but the perceptual component of ludic habitus must pull its weight as well. When something goes wrong in a boss battle or other situation, the player will need to draw on their perceptual model of the game as well as on situational audio-visual cues, and improvise a new strategy on the spot, in accordance with the current state of the game. In simpler terms: in a moment-to-moment fashion, the act of speedrunning KH2 differs from that of SMB in that it involves a player’s ludic habitus spending comparatively more time and resources on perceptual processing of the game

50 The record is taken from the PS4 version of the game, which features shorter loading times than the original PS2 version.Both versions have their respective runner base, with overlaps between the two being common. 51 Though KH2 allows for continues after losses in a battle, setting the player back several minutes, there have been more drastic cases of time loss, with the player becoming “softlocked” – i.e. unable to continue playing due to a glitch or because they otherwise have no way of progressing past a certain point.

state, as said state can vary far more that the ones Mario encounters on his journey to save the princess.

Figure 30. A screenshot of JHobz’s run of Kingdom Hearts 2 Randomizer, showing Sora in the Garden of Assemblage, the starting area which contains portals that allow access to all of the game’s worlds. JHobz has just collected the first Proof (upper left corner of the game), one of the three items needed in the randomizer to open the path to the game’s final boss; depending on the randomizer’s settings, these items can be located in any location in any of the worlds (taken from gamesdonequick, 2021b).

The perceptual requirements are even greater in specialized subcategories of KH2 speedruns, like those involving the KH2 Randomizer (Fresquet & Sonicshadowsilver2, 2021; Fig. 30), which grants the player access to all of the game’s worlds early on, but shuffles the items that are found therein. Here, the perceptual model of the game and of the fastest route through it (developed for the speedrun of the original, “vanilla” version of the game) are not adequate for a successful run, as the player cannot rely on certain abilities or weapons being in their original places. For this reason, the set of action competencies developed for the original speedrun is also not sufficient, as the player often has to resort to different tactics and patterns of behavior to progress past a certain situation. For example, if a player cannot find and equip an ability called Second Chance, which prevents dying from powerful individual attacks if Sora’s health is above 1 HP, they might lose certain boss fights that would be very easy to win in the vanilla version of the game, where that ability is certain to show up beforehand. For a runner familiar with KH2’s vanilla speedrun, the act of speedrunning a KH2 randomizer involves creating a parallel, flexible perceptual model of the game (a possible route through the game’s many worlds, with numerous variations in case of lack of items or abilities) and a parallel, flexible set of action competencies (more reliant on starting abilities and on-the-fly improvisation). Over the course of a given run of this kind, the player needs to continually

process the game state, paying attention to the collected items and abilities for every chest they open and every boss they defeat, and adjust their routing and order of progression accordingly in order to successfully complete the game in as little time as possible. Taken together, these qualities make the act of playing a KH2 Randomizer an experientially different practice to the standard KH2 speedrun52 .

Figure 31. A screenshot of Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (The Chinese Room, 2015), a game often labeled as walking simulator (taken from MKIceAndFire, 2015).

But what about when time is not really a concern? On the opposite end of the speed spectrum are contemplative, exploratory gameplay practices such as slow strolling (Ruberg, 2019) – the flâneur-like engagement with certain types of digital games, such as walking simulators of the kind illustrated above (Fig. 31). For Bonnie Ruberg, speedrunning and slow strolling are both examples of queer play practices, which propose “alternative desires and logics of moving through time and space” (Ruberg, 2019, p. 206) and thus challenge the chrononormativity of traditional gameplay. Much like speedrunning, this kind of practice requires a specific kind of player and a specific kind of game. While speedrunning entails completing the game or one of its sections as quickly as possible, slow strolling is – to use the vocabulary of the digital gaming practice framework – not concerned with swiftness of action so much as with the indulging of one’s perception. To slow stroll through a game is to engage with it reactively, to devote more time to perceiving and considering, and less to inputting commands in a time-critical fashion. In a moment-to-moment fashion, the slow stroller might not even act,

52 At this point, I could also mention the KH2 Randomizer Blackout Bingo runs, which increase the perceptual demands on one’s ludic habitus further by introducing a random set of 25 objectives for the player to accomplish during their run – but, in the interest of variety, I will move on to other practices.