GAME AND CULTURE. SOCIAL ONTOLOGY AS A TOOL FOR ANALYSIS (original) (raw)

A theory of social ontology: Explaining the emergence of society, culture, and economy.

The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, 2013

This paper proposes that society, culture, and the economy can be understood by taking a transdisciplinary approach to social ontology. Using the framework of the complex adaptive systems model, it proposes that culture is emergent from social and environmental interaction. Embedded in each transaction is an element of interpretation, evaluation, and negotiation. With each transaction, there is a continual reinterpretation, renegotiation, and reevaluation, however small or large, of social structure. Even if the result is no change, reinterpretation, renegotiation, and reevaluation takes place. Thus, there is a continual emergence of social constructions, culture, economy, and social structure. This theory of cultural ontology, and as a byproduct the ontology of society, the economy, and other social institutions and structures, is grounded in several diverse disciplines. By combining the work of theorists from several different disciplines, a new perspective on social ontology can be developed. These disciplines include complexity science, Mead’s social theory, Dewey and Bentley’s transactional strategy, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Strauss’ negotiated order.

Towards an Ontological Language for Game Analysis

Technology, 2005

The Game Ontology Project (GOP) is creating a framework for describing, analyzing and studying games, by defining a hierarchy of concepts abstracted from an analysis of many specific games. GOP borrows concepts and methods from prototype theory as well as grounded theory to achieve a framework that is always growing and changing as new games are analyzed or particular research questions are explored. The top level of the ontology (interface, rules, goals, entities, and entity manipulation) is described as well as a particular ontological entry. Finally, by engaging in three short discussions centered on relevant games studies research questions, the ontology's utility is demonstrated.

The Word Game: The ontology of an undefinable object

2015

In this paper we address the problem of defining games formally, following Wittgenstein's dictum that games cannot be defined adequately as a formal category. Several influential attempts at definitions will be evaluated and shown to be inadequate. As an alternative, we propose a descriptive model of the definable supercategory that games belong to, cybermedia, that is pragmatic, open, and capable of meeting the needs of the diverse, intensely interdisciplinary field of game studies for a uniting conceptuallization of its main phenomenon. Our approach, the Cybermedia model, consisting of Player, Sign, Mechanical System, and Material Medium, offers a medium-independent, flexible and analytically useful way to contrast different approaches in games research and to determine which aspect of the phenomenon one is talking about when the word ‘game’ is used.

An Ontological Meta-Model for Games Research

2018

The subfield of game ontology has seen many models and structural hierarchies, but few that actively build on each other, or even attempt comparisons. This paper introduces a meta-model, which in addition to being an ontological model of its own, also offers a method for comparison between competing or isolated models and concepts. It does so by treating games as mechanisms (Craver 2007) with multiple levels of description, and differentiates between four main layers of the game-mechanism. In the first part of the paper we present the model in detail. In the second part of the paper we show applications of the model-we present how some of the existing approaches to game ontology can be compared within it and how it can be used to describe two case examples: the ancient Egyptian funeral game Senet and the difference between game mechanics and game rules.

A Unified Social Ontology

Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming)

Current debates in social ontology are dominated by approaches that view institutions either as rules or as equilibria of strategic games. We argue that these two approaches can be unified within an encompassing theory based on the notion of correlated equilibrium. We show that in a correlated equilibrium each player follows a regulative rule of the form 'if X then do Y'. We then criticize Searle's claim that constitutive rules of the form 'X counts as Y in C' are fundamental building blocks for institutions,

An Ontological Meta-Model for Game Research

Proceedings of DiGRA 2018, 2018

The subfield of game ontology has seen many models and structural hierarchies, but few that actively build on each other, or even attempt comparisons. This paper introduces a meta-model, which in addition to being an ontological model of its own, also offers a method for comparison between competing or isolated models and concepts. It does so by treating games as mechanisms (Craver 2007) with multiple levels of description, and differentiates between four main layers of the game-mechanism. In the first part of the paper we present the model in detail. In the second part of the paper we show applications of the model - we present how some of the existing approaches to game ontology can be compared within it and how it can be used to describe two case examples: the ancient Egyptian funeral game Senet and the difference between game mechanics and game rules.

Games in Culture Revisited: A Replication and Extension of Roberts, Arth, and Bush (1959)

Cross-Cultural Research, 1998

In their classic cross-cultural study "Games in Culture," Roberts, Arth, and Bush (1959) delineated a three-category classification for games (i.e., physical skill, strategy, and chance) as well as a definition of games. Both the classification system and the definition have become anthropological standards. Roberts et al. also found that several variables correlated with the presence-absence of different game types. However, the sample that Roberts et al. used was relatively small (50 societies) and nonstandard. The purpose of this study is to replicate the Roberts et al. study using codes for games for the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. In addition, minor extensions of the results found by Roberts et al. are presented.

The Ontology of Gameplay: Toward a New Theory

Games and Culture, 2020

The goal of the article is to present a new theory of the concept of gameplay, a term everybody uses without ample definitions and with little consistency. The aim is to provide an understanding of gameplay outlining the inherent complexities and convoluted layers of play and game which exist in the playing of a game. The theory is inspired by phenomenology and Martin Heidegger's concept of Dasein. We do not intent to resolve the paradox that games are both objects and activities. Instead, we offer an analytical and methodological guide to the ontology of gameplay resting on an oscillating relationship between a double-layered structure of "here" and "there" in playing and gaming.

Social ontology Some basic principles

This article extends and develops a theory I began in my book, The Construction of Social Reality. Its aim is to explore social ontology in a way that will make it clear that social ontology is both created by human actions and attitudes but at the same time has an epistemically objective existence and is part of the natural world. The fundamental concepts necessary to explain its creation and continued existence are: the distinction between observer-relative and observer-independent phenomena, the distinction between the epistemic and the ontological senses of the objective–subjective distinction, the notions of collective intentionality, the assignment of function, and constitutive rules. The upshot of the discussion is that the basic notion in institutional ontology is that of a status function. Status functions are the glue that holds society together because they create deontic powers, powers that work by creating desire-independent reasons for action. Thus, social ontology locks into human rationality. I discuss some of the implications of this work for sociology and anthropology.