On Tuesday, May 30th, MultiPlay hosted an hour-long event called “Poké Lab,” which was chaired by Stephanie Farnsworth and featured four short but highly engaging academic talks that were centered around a multidisciplinary investigation of the game, Pokémon. (The Poké Lab event is the first of five events taking place in the “Massively MultiPlay” series, which is an online conference broken up into smaller sessions across May and June.) Poké Lab was a terrific way to launch Massively MultiPlay. It not only took a well-known cultural artifact and renewed interest in it by putting it in conversation with its contexts, players, and new approaches. It was also, in my opinion, a session that expressed our shared appreciation for Pokémon’s capacity to have “interfaced” with us—as Aubrey Anable might say (2018)—in different ways.
Engagement levels were high as the first talk took off. The first presentation was titled “PokéEarth Sciences,” and in this compelling talk, Lewis Alcott and Ed McGowan, who come from geology and earth science backgrounds, argued that Pokémon has the potential to play an educational role—specifically in teaching about geology. Geology, as Lewis pointed out, is a field that could do with better diversifying within its cohort (as illustrated by the following stat they gave: only 1 out of 10 geologist faculty members is female-identifying), and Pokémon, with its many geological lessons couched in anime and game terms, seems to be a good way to nurture curiosity and sympathy. The talk touched on many examples of things you might learn from Pokémon, which include map-reading skills, aspects of historical geology (as Pokémon oftentimes models the geological features of a place based on real histories), physical geography, new vocabulary (gained from the names of pokémon “moves”), social skills, and awareness of real-life crises such as climate change.
Our next presentation was very much adjacent to the first, in that it also looked at Pokémon from a scientific angle. In this wonderfully high-quality pre-recorded talk, titled “Pokémon Conservation: Conservation through Gaming,” Lucas Hernandez focused on the topic of how Pokémon is deeply entangled with the real-life context of environmental crises such as climate change and pollution, which cause changes and destruction for animal populations. Whereas the first presentation by Lewis and Ed was overall quite optimistic about Pokémon’s ability to instruct audiences, Lucas, while agreeing that Pokémon opens the door to these needed conversations, expressed the stance that Pokémon needs to do even more to signal things clearly. In a series of fascinating examples, Lucas showed how certain Pokédex entries could be revised in order to give particular pokémon (such as Yungoos, Alolan Rattata, Corsola, Sandslash, Walrein, and Zubat) more focused backstories. These backstories would inform how the animal species they are modeled after have been affected by environmental crises.
The next talk was titled “Pokémon Crystal’s Hybridizing Gender Style: A Source of Liberation and Social Trauma,” and it was given by Luis A. Aguasvivas. Using an autoethnographic approach, Luis traced his own historical relationship with Pokémon, which was one that was affected by his father’s leanings towards games and lifestyles that were marked with “machismo” (Hurtado & Sinha 2016) or are “macho” (Octavio Paz 1950). Pokémon, particularly the Crystal edition (2000) which gave players a choice between genders for the first time in its franchise history, paved the road for a more “hybridized” play that refused to adhere closely to gender norms and gendered categories, and especially to the standards of normative “macho” play that is characteristic to a game such as Street Fighter II (1991). Citing Ito (2006), Luis pointed out that Pokémon—with its creatures that can be “cute” or “cool,” its hybrid mechanic that allows for both competitive battles as well as pet care and nurturing, and its capacity for social networking—enables a multiplicity of play that blurs “gender lines.”
In a final segment, Joseph Tobin—editor of Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokemon (2004)—concluded our Poké Lab event by giving some insightful final comments about the presentations that had been given. Joseph pointed out that there is a tendency to demonize or idealize Pokémon, as the case might be for any cultural form that has had such levels of staying power and appeal. Joseph suggested that in any study of Pokémon, we should be careful to use empirical evidence when possible in forming the terms and conclusions of our analyses. As much as he appreciates the excitement surrounding the potential of Pokémon to be beneficial, a “text full of good messages” and mechanisms perpetuating learning opportunities, however well-designed, do not always lead to the intended effect. Empirical study (coupled with theory) is what can lead to insights about what Pokémon is and how people use it.
Followed closely by the success of Poké Lab was the second session of Massively MultiPlay, held on May 31st and called “Psychology in Games.” Chaired by Lisa Meek, this session saw Matthew Higgins give a talk titled “The Psychology of Narrative,” after which we had a lively and fruitful Q&A session. In his presentation, Matthew outlined in very clear terms some introductory concepts in psychology that are relevant when understanding and planning game design. He started off by arguing for the fundamentally “active” and “psychological” potential of narrative in games, which is contrasted against older, misconceived notions of narrative and certain forms of narrative play which pitch them as leading to passive experiences. The “interpretive” work that goes into narrative experiences makes them complex and makes them “play,” and Matthew argued that this play is moldable and capable of being stimulated or guided through intentional game design.
Throughout the rest of his talk, Matthew tackled the key question, “How can we intentionally facilitate interpretation as play?” by examining two additional questions, which were the following: “How do players interpret narrative?” and “How do players derive pleasure from it?” Using a series of informative graphic charts, Matthew outlined in specialist as well as layman’s terms what occurs in a player’s mind as they interpret narrative. As Matthew puts it, “stimuli” (or the presence of narrative information) meets “inference” (which is enabled by the player’s long-term memory) to form “working memory” (or the cognitive process currently at work when you are interacting with narrative).
Ultimately, the game designer can control this process at the level of “inference” through a variety of methods, which results in what Matthew calls “controlled inference”—a key term for the presentation. These methods of designing what players experience can include limiting the information given to them in the game, surprising them with twists and genre subversions, using discontinuities (in settings, protagonist points of view, or time), using analogies and abstractions to point to broad concepts, giving excess info strategically, and adding complexity. Describing how these processes harness “fun” took a different but related mapping of player psychology: depending on how much novel information the player receives, the player engages with it or evades it, which determines how much pleasure they receive from it. Engaging with new information and forming “inferences” are linked with what is called an “arousal boost,” and closure leads to “arousal reduction.” In a nutshell, more thinking in a game leads to more pleasure.
Overall, it was a fascinating presentation that broke down gameplay in psychological terms, and it ended with Matthew encouraging game designers to “be brave with your storytelling.”
Thank you so much to all the presenters and attendees of our first and second sessions of Massively MultiPlay!
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