ABSTRACT
So far, we have explored a range of practices that repurpose videogames through the manipulation, extension and adaptation of their representational systems or reconfigure them through the transformativity of sometimes radical play. In Part 2, in particular, we noted that this configurative play frequently involves a close scrutiny and analysis of the operation of the game system that exposes a clear consideration of the videogame as algorithmic rather than representational, as malleable material for playing with rather than static text, and as a nonetheless bounded system that is exploitable due to the permeability and minute imperfection of the underlying program. The hunt for and use of glitches and the production of detailed Game Guides speak of an engagement with the game as code, its operation, rules and inconsistencies. The practices we have seen so far involve scrutiny of the manifest effects of the program, whether these outcomes are intended by the developers or not, assuming that it is even possible to discern the intended from the glitch. In Part 3, we will turn our attention to some of the ways in which gamers may modify the actual program itself. The authors of Game Guides and walkthroughs seek to understand, analyse and virtually decompile the code, interpreting and re-presenting the complexity of routines, subroutines, contingencies and loops as plain advice, guidelines and principles that can be understood by gamers and, most importantly, used in their gameplay. Practices such as ‘modding’, however, in which commercial games are literally modified or even remade using software tools, involve tinkering with and directly affecting the codebase of the program, altering its operation, creating different and sometimes wholly new playing experiences.
