Un autre coup de des: multimedia and the game paradigm

Our engagement with interactives is driven by the cybernetic principle of feedback, the ability of the program to respond to external input, assess those interactions, and precipitate further action on the basis of this information. Feedback, generally, assumes memory of expected outcomes within certain situations. But it also takes into account conditions of unpredictability, the assumption that information received in unexpected or new situations will yield an actual performance based entirely on that information. This behavioural contract between the responsive ecology of the computer and the agency of the user recapitulates something else with which we are familiar, the structures of games and game play; that is, two participants competing with each other strategically within a framework of contingencies. Games are dialectical in that roles are determined around the competitive dynamic of crating/overcoming obstacles that precede the achievement of a goal or outcome. They are effectively a battle for control of the flow of information, or misinformation, as the case may be. The strategies deployed within a game playing environment involve process of adjustment and readjustment, strategic responses to the actions of an opponent. Taken together, these features of control and feedback indicate that games also fit under the general rubric of cybernetics, the science of control and communication within organic and inorganic systems. [Introduction].