Syddansk Universitet

Play and Gameful Movies: Ludification of Modern Cinema

Larsen, Lasse Juel

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Games and Culture

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10.1177/1555412017700601

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2017

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Larsen, L. J. (2017). Play and Gameful Movies: Ludification of Modern Cinema. Games and Culture.
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Movies: The Ludification DOI: 10.1177/1555412017700601
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of Modern Cinema

Lasse Juel Larsen1,2

Abstract
The aim of this article is to advance a conceptual framework of ludification by
separating out current thinking to incorporate two noninteractive cinematic areas—
playful aesthetics and gameful narratives. Ludification is usually associated with the
construction of ludic identities and cultural practices in the usage of new media or
with application of game elements in nongame contexts known as gamification. This
overlooks, on the one hand, the influence of cinematic aesthetics on computer
games and, on the other hand, the extent to which play aspects and computer game
elements imprint and transform the narrative compositional structures of modern
cinema. The present study’s investigation will present an expanded conceptualiza-
tion of ludification, classified by playfulness and gamefulness through interactive/
noninteractive properties, aesthetic forms of expressions, and narrative composi-
tions under the respective headings of gamification and cinemafication. These efforts
unearth five traits of computer game influences on contemporary cinema presented
under the headings, (1) play worlds, (2) ludified quests, (3) controller and interfaces,
(4) play experience, and (5) game structure.

Keywords
ludification, play, computer game, interactivity, aesthetics, narrative, gamification,
cinemafication

1
Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
2
Social Technology Lab, Faculty of Engineering, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

Corresponding Author:
Lasse Juel Larsen, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense 5230, Denmark.
Email: [email protected]
2 Games and Culture XX(X)

Introduction
Ludification is a relatively recent and elusive term associated with research into
aspects of play and how computer games have proliferated and have become woven
into the fabric of modern culture. Exposing and disentangling such intertwined
influences is not without its difficulties. In making the attempt, it is important that
the point of departure should be as clear as possible. The current exploration under-
takes this task with the aim of branching out and creating a conceptual basis to
discuss how computer games are influenced by cinema and especially how computer
games influence the narrative structure of modern cinema. Such an endeavor can be
seen as an attempt to unpack remediating (Bolter & Grusin, 2000) tie-ins between
the mainstream film and game industry (Shaviro, 2010). It should be borne in mind
that the film and game industries are drivers of ludification and that the existing
synergies between them can be regarded as being subject to the logic of ludification.
Even though the starting point is relatively straightforward, further clarification
of the current perception of ludification is needed to fully appreciate the conceptual
framework presented here. The following will sketch out four influential ways of
understanding ludification.
The first addresses ludification from a vantage point focusing on the emergence
of playful identities that are associated with new cultural practices (Raessens, 2006),
which in turn are shaped by how new media is being used and how such usage
reconfigures, reshapes, and transforms media and identity (Frissen, Lammes, De
Lange, De Mul, & Raessens, 2015). Such an approach expresses a change of direc-
tion in research into media and game studies following a cultural shift “from a
predominantly narrative to a predominantly ludic ontology” (Raessens, 2006, p.
54). The impetus to reveal this shift has come from a growing research interest in
the role of play in culture (Raessens, 2014).
Seen through this analytical lens of play is ludification understood as an aspect of
media convergence (Jenkins, 2006) and conceptualized as the flow of content across
numerous media platforms with an emerging participatory culture, where users
playfully engage and traverse spread out content to make meaningful connections
(Jenkins, Ford, & Green, 2013; Kerr, Kücklich, & Brereton, 2006). Investigations of
ludic identity construction in new media practices have been the predominant driver
in conceptualizations of ludification.
The second regards ludification as gamification (Kirkpatrick, 2015). Like ludifi-
cation, gamification is a new and often hotly debated term (Bogost, 2011, 2014),
whose tentative and porous definition highlights the “use of game design elements in
non-game contexts” (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011, para. 1). Gamifica-
tion is associated with similar and even less well-defined terms such as “gameful”
(McGonigal, 2014), “gamified,” and “gamefulness,” which often appear in conjunc-
tion with “design” in phrases such as “gameful design,” “gamified design,” or as
“applied game” or “applied game design” (Schmidt, Emmerich, & Schmidt, 2015), to
mention just a few conceptual compositions from the tip of the gamification iceberg.
Larsen 3

Currently, consensus focuses on gamification as applied ludification targeting

accelerated learning, enhanced engagement, and motivation through interaction with
game-like features outside the realm of games (Huotari & Hamari, 2011; Walz &
Deterding, 2014).
The third and perhaps less well-known view of ludification has to do with cine-
matic aesthetics influencing the visual shape or rhetoric of computer games (Larsen,
2016; Friedman, 2015; King & Krzywinska, 2002; Stork, 2013). Such an approach
investigates visual compositional formations of cinema and tracks them across
media boundaries. In the present context, this extended influence is gathered
together under the heading of cinemafication and reflects the ways in which cine-
matic techniques advance visual drama and elevate suspense in computer games
without spilling over into related areas such as interactive storytelling or computer
game adaptations of movies. This view is loosely connected with transmedial worlds
(Jenkins, 2006; Klastrup & Tosca, 2004; Schell, 2008) and with reflections on
movies that thematically use games to frame their narrative composition such as
Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Gamer (2009) or Tron (1982), and Tron: Legacy (2010) to
mention just a few. Identifying the borderlines between those perspectives is a close
and often contextual call.
The fourth way of conceptualizing ludification is oriented toward computer
games influencing cinematic narratives (Grieb, 2002; Kinder, 2002). The focus
here is the question of how and to what extent play aspects and computer game
elements influence the narrative composition of modern cinema. Such a perspec-
tive traces patterns across boundaries of interactive and noninteractive media. This
calls for investigative caution to isolate clear examples of how computer game
logic is embedded in noninteractive cinematic narratives. It is vital to understand
that computer game logic in the present context is understood from a ludological
(Aarseth, 2003; Juul, 2005; Mäyrä, 2012) perspective and not from the dispersed
perspective of gamification (Walz & Deterding, 2014), where narrowly selected
aspects of game logic can be traced in the logic of movie production or inside the
movies themselves.
The perspectives on ludification are often hazy, which is why the presented
framework should be read as an attempt to iron out differences in an effort to clarify
conceptual borders even though they can be difficult to draw.
To achieve this ambition, especially on how computer game logic penetrates
cinematic narratives, five areas have been identified and outlined under the follow-
ing headings: (1) play worlds, (2) ludified quests, (3) controller and interfaces, (4)
play experience, and (5) game structures.
The composition of this article will clarify in greater detail the four ways of
understanding ludification in order to sketch out a conceptual framework of ludifi-
cation regarded from a predominantly ludological perspective. The main goal is to
present a ramified framework containing gamification on one side and cinemafica-
tion on the other, each with relevant subcategories under the main heading of
ludification.
4 Games and Culture XX(X)

Table 1. Conceptual framework of ludification.

Ludification
Gamification Cinemafication
Applicative Playful aesthetics Gameful Narratives
Culture and identity
(applied (influence of movie (Computer game
(interactive)
ludification) aesthetics on logic in movies’
Play/Playfulness Game/Gameness computer game narrative
(Play influence on (Game influence expression) composition)
identity, media on non-game (non-interactive) (non-interactive)
usage and creation) contexts)
Identity/Culture Object Expression Composition

The overall research goal is twofold. The first is to map out a conceptual land-
scape to clarify the current understanding of aspects of play and game and their
influence on culture, identity creation, and gamified applications. The second and
most important is to provide an outline of cinemafication by unearthing ways in
which (1) play aspects are influenced by cinematic aesthetics and (2) how computer
game logic influences the structure of selected cinematic narrative compositions.
The aim is to advance an expanded framework for the elusive concept of ludification
(see Table 1).

Ludification: Play and Playfulness

Ludification as a cultural and social logic at the intersection between play and
game reveals how games act as sites for cultural and social production (Lindtner
& Dourish, 2011). In this way, it places play and games at the heart of a
dispersed ecology of practice, which extends from local identity creation to
global cultural production and usage as well as general imagination and mani-
festation of imagery. This view of ludification bridges a lacuna in Huizinga’s
understanding and definition of play. Huizinga claims that play acts as an
organizing principle of culture when he writes that culture “arises in and as
play, and never leaves it” (Huizinga, 1938/2014, p. 173). This places play at the
heart of culture. Yet his description of its formal characteristics paints a less
clear picture, in particular when he highlights the separation of play and work,
drawing distinctions between the purposeless and the purposeful or, perhaps
most noteworthy, between the unproductive and the productive. Huizinga writes
of play that

. . . we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary” life as
being “not serious”, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is
an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It
proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules
Larsen 5

and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings which intend to
surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world
by disguise or other means. (p. 13)

The essence of this quotation is echoed by Caillois (1958/2001), when he describes

play as “pure waste” (p. 5).
Huizinga and Caillois’s epistemology of play as unproductive and wasteful activ-
ities rests on the traditional Protestant distinction between play and work (Weber,
1958). This is highlighted by Stevens (1978), when he points out that Huizinga’s
influential definition of play stresses the separation of play and work by placing play
outside ordinary life, adhering to its own rules and carrying no material interest. An
activity deprived of seriousness although it has the ability to intensely absorb its
participants.
According to Stevens (1978), Huizinga and Caillois’s distinction between play as
being unproductive and useless and work as productive and useful is “a false dichot-
omy” (p. 17). Both Huizinga and Caillois confuse formal characteristics of play with
the experience of being in play. Stevens argues that definitions of play that include
such polarity blur and confuse our understanding of play, or, as he correctly writes,
“we are taking the behavior for the experiencing of that behavior” (Stevens, 1978,
p. 21). He proposes untangling the “rut” (p. 21) by distinguishing between “play
form” and “play experience” (p. 20). Such a distinction is beneficial since it sepa-
rates the process of experiencing being in play (Gadamer, 1960/2013) from a formal
description (Larsen, 2015) of the structure of play seen and mapped out from a
bird’s-eye perspective.
The shift in perspective from external to internal workings of play experience
opens up a novel approach to play, especially if it is considered as taking place
during work activities (Stevens, 1978). This in turn allows play to be seen as a
particular and pleasurable attitude or sentiment from some kind of ongoing activity,
which presents play as “a mode of human experience [ . . . ] a way of engaging the
world whatever one is doing” (Malaby, 2007, p. 100).
This way of perceiving play has three beneficial implications. It positions play (1)
as a mode of experiencing, (2) as a particular way of engaging with the world, and
(3) as a potentiality in all kinds of places and/or activities.
In a more recent article, Malaby (2009) refines his stance on play by addressing it
as disposition “characterized by a readiness to improvise in the face of an ever-
changing world that admits of no transcendently ordered account” (Malaby, 2009, p.
206). Malaby’s formulation couples two aspects.
Firstly, it prioritizes play as a specific stance toward any given ordered
activity or practice. Such a conceptualization of play as a predominantly playful
attitude is similar to Sicart’s (2014) description of play. The difference between
them is that Sicart understands play as an appropriative dynamic that (1) “takes
over” any unfolding activity, (2) takes place contextually as a result of negotia-
tion, (3) is tied to a specific situation, and (4) involves particular themes such
6 Games and Culture XX(X)

as balancing tensions between order and chaos, including the pleasures of

destruction.
Secondly, Malaby (2009) stresses that play involves navigating the indetermi-
nateness of an ever-changing world (Malaby, 2009), or, when applied to the realm of
games, involves handling randomness in input and outcomes (Burgun, 2014), lead-
ing to uncertainty either in player behavior or in outcomes (Caillois, 1958/2001;
Costikyan, 2013; Elias, Garfield, & Gutschera, 2012) in game systems.
The larger point Malaby attempts to drive home becomes even clearer when he
abandons the traditional dichotomy between work and play. Here games become
sites for establishing new cultural forms specific to the historic moment in which
they unfold. Malaby (2009) writes,
When the work/play distinction is left behind, we see instead in ludic practice a
more useful contrast between a cultural form (a game-like activity, no matter how
playfully engaged in) and a mode of cultural experience (a playful disposition
towards activities no matter how game-like). (Malaby, 2009, p. 209)
Malaby’s anthropological positioning of play resembles contemporary media and
game studies when stressing the absence of strict boundaries “between play and
everyday practices” (Roig, Cornelio, Ardèvol, Alsina, & Pagès, 2009, p. 93).
Although scholars see more or less eye to eye on the ludic presence in contem-
porary culture, few seem to agree on the ontology of a playful disposition. This
raises questions of how to understand such a playful disposition and the layering that
it consists of. Trammell and Gilbert (2014) try to address the issue by dissecting play
at the intersection of play as form and play as experience, highlighting play as
divided between “schemes,” “latitude,” and “slack.” Schemes characterized play
through the appearance of its objects in expected places and through a focus on
games and their “affordances, mechanics, organisation and industrial implications”
(p. 396). Latitude is a blurring of “the notion of what play is and where it happens”
(p. 396), thereby drawing attention to game spaces outside traditional boundaries
and loosening the perception of how play operates in popular culture. Finally slack
reflects ways in which “play is part of everyday life” (p. 396).
Trammell and Gilbert’s analysis of play experience derives from a particular
approach to Huizinga’s understanding of play, namely, how play entails both free-
dom from restriction and resistance toward conformity. Trammell and Gilbert
describe play(fulness) as oscillating between play and game activities in everyday
practices of media consumption and production.
Grimes and Feenberg (2009) on the other hand present a less innocent and more
critical perspective of play, playfulness, and ludification. Even though they focus on
play in relation to massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs), their approach is
highly relevant in the current context. This is especially true of their perception of
ludification as a form of social rationalization that takes place at the intersection of
play experience and game systems. Their perspective includes a reciprocal position
that outlines how play practices “themselves come to reproduce the larger processes
of rationalization at work within modern capitalist societies” (p. 105).
Larsen 7

Rationalization here should be understood as a compound of three types of play

practice taking place in MMOGs, namely, “(1) exchange of equivalents, (2) classifi-
cation and application of rules, and (3) optimization of effort and calculation of result”
(p. 106). This abstract description follows Silverman and Simon’s (2009) player-
centric description of power player behavior in MMOGs. The correspondence
between Silverman and Simon and Grimes and Feenberg is in their shared conception
of play as an act or activity of “machination” and sublimation of submission shaped by
the game system. Unlike Silverman and Simon, Grimes and Feenberg regard players
as engaged in a struggle with game corporations over game environments and content,
a perspective that emphasizes the players production of game content.
Grimes and Feenberg provide a view of rationalized play on two levels. First,
they consider ways in which games are addressed as a rational practice and, second,
they take into account “the social, cultural, and political conditions within which a
game is appropriated and contested by its players” (Grimes & Feenberg, 2009, p.
107). As in Stevens and Malaby, these two levels transgress the work/play dichot-
omy in pointing to the rationalization process and the different domains in which
play unfolds. It is important to keep in mind that Grimes and Feenberg conceptualize
games as a predetermined set of possibilities and constraints that together create “a
form of social order” (p. 108). It is possibly even more important that “it is not that
social order recapitulates certain features of games, but rather that games have
themselves become forms of social order” (p. 109). These quotations take into
account the reciprocal relationship between configurations of consumption and for-
mations of produced game content. They stress that play, playfulness, and ludifica-
tion unfold in an intricate dynamic between the players’ struggle to appropriate
game environments and the corporate commodification and instrumentalization of
play. It can be argued that this dynamic unfolds in a continuum ranging at the one
end from a “play mode” close to Malaby’s description of play as a disposition and on
the other end to a specialized stance required to play a particular game conceptua-
lized as “game mode” much in line with the arguments of Silverman and Simon.
Within this framework, Grimes and Feenberg flesh out how play is transformed
when moving from play mode to game mode. Play passes from an undifferentiated
playful state (play mode) to a rationalized mental configuration adjusted to “fit” the
game system (game mode). This is a transformative process, which takes place
through a series of differentiations (Walter, 2003, 2011). Such a perspective is close
to Caillois’s continuum ranging from paidia/impulsive/play mode to ludus/disci-
pline/game mode, the two poles being understood, respectively, as “diversion, tur-
bulence, free improvisation, and carefree gaiety [and] ever greater amount of effort,
patience, skill, or ingenuity” (Caillois, 1958/2001, p. 13).
The difference between Caillois and Grimes and Feenberg is that the latter draw
attention to the rationalizing process through the series of transformations and not
through increasing discipline. It is equally important that Grimes and Feenberg do
not see the rationalization process as mutual exclusion of either playing or gaming.
Instead playing a game should be understood as a “dual process” (Grimes &
8 Games and Culture XX(X)

Feenberg, 2009, p. 111), involving the delicate balancing acts of playing and gaming
simultaneously.
In that way, Grimes and Feenberg’s play mode and game mode resemble Mala-
by’s “cultural form” and “mode of cultural experience,” which could be said to
unfold in an overlapping continuum that keeps both aspects open for ongoing
configurations.
Yet Grimes and Feenberg (2009) go one step further. They carve out ways in
which the process of social rationalization passes from play mode to game mode. It
does so by virtue of five properties:

(a) reflexivity (play becomes increasingly self-referential), (b) boundedness (play is a

differentiated activity), (c) rule governedness (play is transformed into a game by
specific rules), (d) precision (play is standardized enabling measurement/optimization),
and (e) playfulness (play as undifferentiated activity in everyday communicative prac-
tices). (p. 112)

These five properties constitute the elements in the process of ludification as

transformations from undifferentiated to differentiated activities that rely upon
optimization, discipline, and excluded self-referential realities outside everyday life.
Together, they facilitate formations of new manifestations of social order while at
the same time creating opportunities for user resistance and innovation. These are all
aspects that influence this article’s perception of playful aesthetics and gameful
narratives.

Ludification: Game and Gamefulness

Gamification understood as an aspect of ludification is less concerned with tracing
ludified cultural traits and identities and more concerned with applying game ele-
ments in everyday activities outside the realm of games. This means that gamifica-
tion is particularly interested in game-like traits of interactive systems. Of special
interest is the question of how to use game elements to motivate and engage users in
some manner or degree to enhance or accelerate involvement or performance
(Bogost, 2011, 2014; Seaborn & Fels, 2015).
Buried within such broad descriptions are a number of questions addressing
different aspects of gamification: (1) How are interactive systems and there prop-
erties understood? (2) Is the gamified system comparative, evaluating or surveying?
(3) To which domains does the system belong? (education, online communities,
social networks, health, sustainability, research, finance and marketing to mention
just a few; Deterding, Sicart, Nacke, O’Hara, & Dixon, 2011; Huotari & Hamari,
2011), (4) What is the epistemology of motivation? (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), (5)
How are rewarding game design elements conceived? (e.g., badges, leader boards,
levels, resources, clear goals, and challenges; Deterding, Dixon, et al., 2011), (6)
How is the experience of engaging with the system described? (Hunicke, Leblanc, &
Larsen 9

Zubek, 2004), and (7) Perhaps most notably, how are formal game elements
understood?
Many of these questions are under debate and have yet to be answered unequi-
vocally. Of particular interest in the present instance are the questions related to
game properties, namely, its reward system, interactivity, and player experiences,
since they address key elements of gamification and clearly set gamification apart
from playful identity creation and new media practices.
Gamification is heavily concerned with reward systems as motivational drivers
for behavioral changes. Yet almost all research on gamification refrains from
explaining how a reward system should or could be designed beyond giving the
player a badge for a job well done. But details about how to design a reward system
have already been identified and explained as clearly demonstrated by Hopson
(2001). He outlines how reward systems can be designed through tasks/assign-
ments/quests with either/or fixed and variable ratios and intervals (Larsen, 2012).
When translated into the reality of practical application, the reward system sounds
something like this: Game Presents the player with a quest of killing  Orcs or
solving  Math assignments (Larsen, 2012). In both cases, rewards are distributed
through a fixed ratio. Such a scenario can be coupled with a variable ratio that
ensures rewards after each player action. Every time the player kills an orc or solves
a math problem, a reward presents itself. This model can be expanded by fixed or
variable time released rewards so that the player receives rewards either after a fixed
or a random time period. This is called layering rewards according to fixed and
variable ratios. Layered rewards are heavily invoked in MMOGs, including World of
Warcraft (2004). Such a system creates correlation between object meaning, game
progression, and new rewards to ensure player motivation and engagement. This
description is far from exhaustive, but it demonstrates how particularities of one of
the key elements in gamification are seldom satisfactory described even though it
has been brought into focus and analyzed.
Another example of lack of clarity relates to interactivity, which, while often
referred to as a key component of computer games, is rarely explained. Yet Crawford
(2003) has illustrated interactivity as being similar to having a conversation with
another human being. His point is that interactivity depends on a fluent exchange
between player input and system response or, as Crawford writes when defining
interactivity, it is “a cyclic process in which two active agents alternately (and meta-
phorically) listen, think, and speak” (p. 76). The challenge of interactivity is respon-
siveness. The system should ideally respond “as if” or in just as “lively” a way as a
human counterpart. This presents a difficult task even for triple A game producers.
This fluent dialogue between player input and system response is overlooked or
neglected in relation to gamification. This formal description of interactivity says little
about player experience or how players or users feel when interacting with a particular
game or gamified system. This article claims that interactivity is associated with how a
particular system feels when engaged with. This feel is often referred to as game feel
and, like reward systems and interactivity, it has been addressed in game studies.
10 Games and Culture XX(X)

Swink (2009) has defined game feel as “real-time control of virtual objects in
a simulated space, with interactions emphasized by polish” (p. 6). The definition
needs a bit of unpacking. Real-time control of virtual objects more or less
covers interactivity involved in handling objects and experiencing how they
respond (the input–output cycle mentioned above). Simulated space concerns
the virtual space and how objects behave, while polish points to particular ways
of experiencing the digital objects. Polish is also called juice (Jonasson & Purho,
2012). Generally speaking, polish/juice directs the players’ experience of digital
objects. Are they perceived as heavy or light, easy or difficult to break or
shatter, or are perceived as alive or dead? Sketching out complexities of reward
systems, interactivity, and player experience points to a further need for clar-
ification in relation to both the applicative and conceptual dimension of
gamification.
In spite of design and conceptual shortcomings offers gamification valuable
insights. Firstly, it indicates how playfulness and gamefulness operate in the ludic
turn. Secondly, it addresses the ongoing efforts of gamifying existing activities.
Thirdly, it manifests itself on an epistemic level as the ideological driving force
behind the ongoing applicative and ludic transformations. Fourthly, both the appli-
cative and the epistemic level deliver fuel to ludic identity and to culture creation,
since they take place through playful applications and gamified systems and thereby
intertwining gamification and ludification.
Together, gamification and ludification could be said to act in a circular and
recursive formation accelerating and expanding the ludic presence of game-like
traits outside the realm of games engaged with playful attitudes.

Cinemafication: Playful Aesthetics

Ludification understood and investigated as the impact of cinematic aesthetics on
computer game expressions have until now been sparsely addressed, although such
influences are plentiful (King & Krzywinska, 2006; Kirkpatrick, 2011; Stork, 2013).
One way of addressing cinematic significance is by outlining the comprehensive
catalogue of computer games that incorporate narrative compositions and storytell-
ing (Façade, 2005; Mass Effect 1-3, 2007–2012; Skyrim, 2011; The Stanley Parable,
2013) in their game structure. These attempts demonstrate how techniques and
themes from contemporary cinema are being “transported and “converted” to fit the
interactive framework of computer games, even though such efforts are often chal-
lenged, most notably by the controversy between “ludologists” and “narrativists”
(Costikyan, 2007; Crawford, 2003; Eskelinen, 2001; Frasca, 2003; Juul, 2005;
Kücklich, 2006; Mukherjee, 2015), discussing whether games should be understood
in their own right (Aarseth, 2003) or as expressions of narrative configurations
(Ryan, 2006).
The present discussion is less concerned with narrative in computer games than
with drawing parallels between selected and exemplary aesthetic cinematic
Larsen 11

techniques and exploring how computer games incorporate them. In this, I am

following an early and important venture presented by King and Krzywinska
(2002) in which “games-in-the-light-of-cinema” (p. 2) was investigated.
In the present context, interfaces between cinema and computer games are “read”
using Fiske’s (1993) interpretation of Kristeva’s (1980) conceptualization of inter-
textuality. In particular, I use what Fiske coined “vertical intertextuality” (Fiske,
1993, p. 117), which traces the dialogical synergies across different media high-
lighting how meanings and, in this case, how aesthetic techniques are shaped by
other “texts”/media.
A vibrant case of vertical intertextuality can be found in the Max Payne game
series (1-3; Remedy Entertainment, 2001–2003; Rockstar Studies, 2012). Three
playful influences worth mentioning are cut-scenes, voice-over, and game
mechanics, exemplified by the Max Payne series creation of bullet time.
Firstly, cut-scenes are digitalized animated sequences that often interrupt the flow
of play to inform players of upcoming conflicts or challenges (Costikyan, 2002;
Howells, 2002; Tong & Tan, 2002). It is a well-known technique. Secondly, voice-
over is a film noir technique that has found its way into computer games. It creates
ambience and builds drama by enhancing suspense. The third and perhaps most
notable cinematic imprint can be traced to game mechanics (Burgun, 2015; Sicart,
2008). In the Max Payne series, the famous game mechanic is called bullet time.
When it is activated, time is slowed down along with enhanced visual cues and
effects already described as polish (Swink, 2009). Bullet time is, in essence, a game
mechanic distilled from the technique of slow motion—except for the fact that Max/
the player can take aim in real time giving Max/the player an edge over approaching
enemies. Bullet time is directly tied to cinematic techniques in movies such as The
Matrix (1999) or X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), where scenes are slowed down
to a near standstill.
The bullet time resembles the reverse motion game mechanic in Jonathan Blow’s
indie game Braid (2008), where the player can move the protagonist, Tim, backward
in motion to solve otherwise insolvable puzzles. The reverse motion game mechanic
is a digital translation of movie scenes using reverse motion as in Funny Games
(2007) or Cocteau’s movies Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Testament of Orpheus
(1960). Bullet time and the reverse motion mechanic both express playful conver-
sions of movie aesthetics. Bullet time and the reverse motion mechanic are examples
of playful aesthetics juggling with temporality, here also being used existentially to
reverse the flow of time and escape death.
Cut-scenes, voice-over, and game mechanics such as bullet time and
reverse motion display an organization of the audio-visual material (Mulvey,
2009) inspired by mainstream movies. Together, they outline playful aes-
thetics as multimodal (Gee, 2015) remediation (Bolter & Grusin, 2000) of
cinematic aesthetics, and in doing so, they exemplify one aspect of what this
article has termed the cinemafication of computer games under the heading of
ludification.
12 Games and Culture XX(X)

Cinemafication: Gameful Narratives

The second aspect of cinemafication addresses a research area that until now has
attracted little attention. It concerns how computer game logic influences cinematic
narrative compositions.
The work that has been done has focused primarily on narrative convergence
between the cinema and computer games (Kinder, 2002). Less attention has been
devoted to how cinema employs game structures in its narrative compositions. One
early example of cinema applying game structures is the movie Lola Run Lola
(1998), where the narrative unfolds as a puzzle “game.” The main character, Lola,
strives to successfully arrange a series of narrative events into a coherent whole with
a positive outcome not only for herself but also for her boyfriend and several other
characters involved in the story. After three repetitions (Grieb, 2002) or respawns,
she is finally successful in placing the narrative sequence in the correct order and
thereby “solving” the story?
The present context follows such an approach and identifies how computer games
influence mainstream cinema on two levels, a semantic and a structural. The sematic
level uses games to frame the narrative as in the abovementioned movies Wreck-It
Ralph (2012), Gamer (2009), Tron (1982), and Tron: Legacy (2010), to mention just
a few. These movies more or less construct a fictional dyad distinguishing between
events taking place inside or outside a game or game-like world. Generally speaking,
the fictional dyad plays with the fictional content by intertwining the stratification of
diegetic levels of the narrated events in the story world. Less explicit examples are
cinematic expressions using games to propel the narrative as in the cases of using
tarot cards to build drama as in Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962) and Live and Let Die (1973)
or using the game of chess as narrative anchor as is the case in the The Seventh Seal
(1953) or less explicitly in Blade Runner (1982) just to mention a few cases, where
chess plays a part in the narrative composition.
The structural level is concerned with formal similarities between computer game
elements and the narrative composition. It is that level this article is concerned with.
In the following investigation of computer game influences, five traits of such
influence have been identified, (1) play worlds, (2) ludified quests, (3) controller
and interfaces, (4) play experience, and (5) game structure.

Play Worlds
Play worlds can be outlined from Huizinga’s definition of play. An exemplary case
is the Mission Impossible universe from the TV series (1966–1973, 1988–1990)
and movie installments. They are all organized according to similar ritualistic
patterns. In Ghost Protocol (2011), the protagonist Ethan Hunts crosses the line
separating everyday life from a play world where he is hero, a savior of the world.
Hunt enters the magic circle of play (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004; Zimmerman,
2014) by voluntarily accepting a secret mission placing himself and his Impossible
Larsen 13

Mission Force (IMF) group outside normal life and firmly in a scenario abiding by
its own rules.
This is especially evident each time Hunt receives a mission. This is always
communicated in the same recognizable way by structuring the content in same
order. Each mission statement contains an identification of Hunt followed by a
mission requiring a break-in to a particular space within a specific time frame—the
Kremlin in Ghost Protocol (2011) and the Vatican in Mission: Impossible III
(2006)—to affirm, steal, or retrieve something or somebody. The mission statement
always ends by emphasizing that Hunt and his team will be disowned if captured or
killed thereby stressing their secrecy.
Acting out missions often centers on dressing up and impersonating villains by
pretending. Dressing up emphasizes the continuous “play” with identities, from the
initial mission confirmation of Hunt being Hunt to the identification of the villain.
Dressing up and impersonating is, by the way, one of the most salient features of
Mission Impossible. Not only can disguised members of IMF mimic the visual
appearance of alleged villains, but they can also impersonate voices making them
impossible to distinguish from the real thing and in so doing enact a pivotal aspect of
play (Larsen, 2015; Sutton-Smith, 2001).
Taken together, the Mission Impossible universe exhibits a play world character-
ized by voluntary actions taking place outside everyday life within a specific time
and space frame in a specific enactment as a secret group separated from everyday
world by disguise. All words in italics point to crucial aspects of Huizinga’s defi-
nition of play and justify a classification of the fictional universe of Mission Impos-
sible as a play world.

Ludified Quests
The main challenge of conceptualizing ludified quests lies in separating them from
the well-known traditional quest (Todorov, 1971/1995). The formal quest scheme
(Tosca, 2003) is about transporting the player’s avatar from Point A (beginning) to
Point B (end) through Point C (challenge/conflict) just as when Jumpman (later
Mario) has to defeat Donkey Kong to reach The Lady (later Pauline) in the Donkey
Kong (1981) arcade game or the later Mario game installments. Such a quest tem-
plate fits many games and many narratives.
Ludified quest is dependent on vertical intertextual game references, as is the case
in the movie Getaway (2013).
In Getaway, the ex-racing car driver Brent Magna is being forced to drive a
Mustang Shelby through the city of Sofia completing a series of quests to satisfy
the kidnappers of his wife. One quest is a drive, control, and speed test, where
Magna has to get from Points A to B in less than 4 min. Driving recklessly
through a densely populated city completing a timed quest places the scenario
very close to the highly proclaimed and debated computer game series Grand
Theft Auto (GTA; Rockstar 1997–2014). As in the computer game GTA, Magna
14 Games and Culture XX(X)

crashes his car into police cars with screeching tires and people fleeing to avoid
being hit by the vehicle. The vertical intertextual similarities between the movie
Getaway and the GTA series show how the traditional quest scheme is trans-
formed from standard quest to ludified scheme and in the process describes how
formal quests are ludified.

Controller and Interfaces

Getaway is ludified not only through vertical intertextual references to the GTA
series but also in the way the movie addresses the relationship between protagonist
(Magna) and antagonist who is an anonymous voice on the phone. This relationship
is similar to that between player and avatar. In Getaway, Magna is avatar, while the
anonymous voice acts as the player. The phone acts as a gateway for input and
output. Such a setup can be found in several movies, but in this case, the persona
behind the anonymous voice has installed several cameras in the Shelby, making
Magna visible on the anonymous voice’s computer screen. This adds to the sensation
of Magna being an avatar. When this relationship between controller and controlled
is seen against the backdrop of the GTA series, it becomes an expression of a ludified
construction.
The intersection between controller and controlled reflects the relationship
between software and hardware as a point of transition that relays the feel (Swink,
2009) of the game. Magna as avatar is a tool acting out each of the voice’s input
commands, but falling to do so would break immersion (Murray, 1997; Salen &
Zimmermann, 2004) and flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) and would reverse the
relationship of power between protagonist and antagonist. The moment Magna
breaks free of the voice’s hold over him, he transforms from avatar to character,
marking the point where ludification ends and traditional movie composition begins.
Such considerations encourage associations with the title. Getaway pays lip ser-
vice to Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway (1972) and later versions, but more notably it
relates to the term gateway, understood as a link between two computer programs or
as a node acting as interface between user (voice) and content (Magna).
Getaway illustrates how controller and interfaces find a way and an expression in
the narrative composition of modern movies. In this case, as an interface, they relay
an input–output circuit between controller and avatar.

Play Experience
Play experience as the fourth aspect of gameful narratives can be found in the
mainstream sci-fi movie Edge of Tomorrow (2014). The narrative composition
enacts the play experience and the structure of a particular computer game genre,
real-time strategy (RTS) games.
This section is concerned with tracing and unearthing the formal structure of play
experience in the narrative composition.
Larsen 15

In Edge of Tomorrow, William Cage, played by Tom Cruise, a major in public

relations who knows very little about being a soldier, is thrown against his will into a
battle against the alien invasion force The Mimics.
Cage quickly finds himself in a unit of unfit soldiers in the middle of the
chaotic battlefield on the dawn of the final battle against the Mimic force or so
the military command thinks. However, the battle is an ambush. On the day of the
final assault against the Mimics virtually all the soldiers are slaughtered. Cage’s
unit get killed frantically firing their weapons in panic in all directions without
hitting any Mimics.
In his final seconds, Cage detonates a claymore mine, killing himself and an
attacking a Mimic. The audience see Cage screaming as he dies with his face
drenched in Mimic blood. We are 24 min into the movie. Seconds later, Cage wakes
up at the Heathrow airbase one day before the assault just witnessed. Cage relives the
same day and ends up getting killed once again. This pattern repeats itself. At each
repetition time is reset, placing Cage 1 day before the final battle. Later in the movie,
Cage learns that he accidental killed a rare a Mimic who controlled time. By killing
it, he derived its ability or game mechanic.
After several attempts to survive the battlefield, he joins forces with Rita Vra-
taski, played by Emily Blunt. Vrataski is a highly decorated and respected soldier.
Together, they fight their way through the massive presence of Mimics, trying to
locate the controlling force behind the invasion, the Omega.
The ludic influence on Edge of Tomorrow includes the formal respawn mechanic
activated every time Cage dies. Such a structure is similar to the one applied in
computer games. Each time the player dies, he or she starts over again. Same pattern
as in the before mentioned Run Lola Run.
Besides the die-respawn mechanic, Cage engages in a learning process to prog-
ress through the battlefield. He trains, fights, and dies without risk (Gee, 2003, 2005;
Shaffer, 2006) always starting from scratch after dying. Once again, this resembles
players trying to progress in a computer game.
Cage trains and learns to perform action sequences by memorizing. Each encoun-
ter with the enemy constitutes a countermove (Sirlin, 2008). Just like computer
players learning to fight an Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Game design Koster (2004) calls the learning of repetitious patterns grokking
(2004). This refers to developing an understanding of something, “so thoroughly that
you have become one with it and even love it. It’s a profound understanding beyond
intuition or empathy” (p. 28).
Such patterns are needed to combat fast and complex AIs in RTS games. These
learned patterns could be divided in sequence and composition and, as Engeström
(1986, 2001) points out, they are reminiscent of Bateson’s (1987) description of
learning. Sequence is first and foremost about memorization of repeatable actions in
stable contexts (the same battle each time). Composition is about changing
sequence, adapting to change by recontextualizing and so instantiating and creating
new memorization of new sequences.
16 Games and Culture XX(X)

Oscillating between memorizing sequences and recontextualizing the same

sequences (composition) constitutes the play experience (Larsen, 2015) of almost
all computer gamers, when they try to find a way through or repel overwhelming
forces generated by an AI.
Such player behavior exhibits what Juul (2013) characterizes as the paradox of
failure. Faced with failure in a computer game, the player becomes aware that he or
she is not good enough to overcome the challenge at hand. This is unpleasant. Yet
players continue because “games promise us a fair chance of redeeming ourselves”
(p. 7). In the case of Cage in Edge of Tomorrow, success hinges on nothing short of
saving mankind.

Game Structure
As I have already pointed out, the structural layering of the invading Mimic force in
Edge of Tomorrow is similar to the game structure of RTS games such as the Star-
Craft series (1998–2009), the Warcraft series (1994–2014), or the Command and
Conquer series (1995–2013). The Omega (AI) sends waves of Mimics (equivalent to
Zerg rush in StarCraft), while Cage and Vrataski (players) try to counter the attacks.
In The Art of Computer Game Design (Crawford, 1982), Crawford highlights a
number of computer game design techniques based on computer properties. They all
serve to put pressure on the player. This is done (1) by using vast resources, under-
stood as the computer’s ability to create endless numbers of enemies; 2) by present-
ing limited information to the player, he or she is held in partial darkness; (3) by
increasing pace, unit respawn times, and movement speed; (4) by asymmetrical
relationship between computer and player (each side having different strengths and
weaknesses); and (5) by using indirection (triangularity), which means presenting a
special unit for the player to create a choice (Fullerton, Swain, & Hoffman, 2004;
Meier, 2012) between following the current action or changing course and going
after the special unit. Indirection (triangularity) creates a “mixed offensive-
defensive relationship” (Crawford, 1982, p. 62).
In Edge of Tomorrow, all five design technics can be found: (1) the Omega/AI
controls vast resources in the form of huge numbers of Mimics, (2) the players’ (Cage/
Vrataski) actions are based on limited information (Mimics hide in the ground [similar
to the Zergs in the StarCraft series]), (3) mimics move with overwhelming speed, (4)
there are asymmetrical relationships (a) between two players (Cage/Vrataski) against
an army of vast resources and (b) in the possession of an asymmetrical ability (or game
mechanic: (Burgun, 2015; Sicart, 2008), the ability to control time. The time-reset
mechanic shifts from Mimic to Cage and later in the movie back to the Mimics again,
and (5) in the final encounter with the Omega, an a Mimic is present enacting a
triangular relationship, creating a choice scenario where Cage/Vrataski have to deter-
mine whether to pursue the a Mimic to regain time-reset mechanic or go for the final
kill (known as an a strike in game communities) by destroying the Omega knowing
Larsen 17

they will die trying. Such similarities between computer game elements and modern
cinema expose the dynamics of structural ludification.

Conclusion
This article has presented a conceptual framework of ludification as an answer to the
elusive question “What is ludification?,” especially as regards the ludification of
modern cinema.
Until recently, ludification has been investigated mainly for its ludic significance
for playful identity creation as an expression of new participatory dynamics, pat-
terns, and strategies in media practices. Such an approach has been set against the
widely applied dimension known as gamification, especially when conceived as
converting nongame content and contexts into game-like scenarios. There have been
discussions about ways to position the concepts of ludification and gamification
relative to each other, and especially which term should be considered as overarch-
ing (Walz & Deterding, 2014). This article has proposed placing ludic identity and
playful media practices parallel to applied game aspects on nongame content and
context under the heading of gamification as shown in Table 1. Such a step opens up
avenues for horizontally expanding conceptualizing by including two identified and
equally important areas of ludic influences. These two areas constitute oppositional
channels of influences wandering between modern cinema and computer games.
They have been called playful aesthetics and gameful narratives.
Playful aesthetics is concerned with investigating and tracing how cinematic
effects are being adapted and utilized in computer games. Cut-scenes and voice-
over techniques demonstrated direct adaptation, while game mechanics exhibited
complex indirect conversions of established cinematic aesthetics.
Gameful narratives constitute the prime concern of this article and reflect ways in
which narrative compositions of modern cinema are more or less explicitly being struc-
turally effected by computer game elements. Five such structural influences have been
identified. These were identified as follows: play worlds, ludified quests, controller and
interfaces, player experience, and game structure, all pointing to different aspects of
computer game elements that influence the narrative composition of modern cinema.
Future work should focus on continuing unearthing, identifying, and clarifying
additional aspects of computer game elements and their influence on modern
cinema. Especially from the proposed structural level where the influence is far less
obvious than on the semantic level, where computer games frame the narration as in
the abovementioned cases Tron series, Gamer, or Wreck-It Ralph highlight.
Finally, to get at a clear grasp of the complexities of ludification, the dynamic
influences that mutually effect cinema and computer games (playful aesthetics and
gameful narratives) have been placed together under the heading of cinemafication
(Table 1) in contrast to gamification, thereby outlining the otherwise porous and
elusive concept known as ludification, giving it substance and presenting it in a
ramified conceptual framework.
18 Games and Culture XX(X)

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding.
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

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Ludography

Braid (2008, Jonathan Blow)

Command and Conquer (1995–2013, Westwood and EA Games)
Donkey Kong (1981, Nintendo)
Larsen 23

Façade (2005, Mateas, M., & Stern, A.)

Grand Theft Auto (1997–2014, Rockstar)
Mass Effect 1-3 (2007–2012, BioWare)
Max Payne 1-3 (2001–2003, Remedy software; 2012, Rockstar Studies)
Skyrim, (2011, Bethesda Game Studios)
StarCraft (1998–2009, Blizzard Entertainment)
The Stanley Parable (2013, Galactic Café)
Warcraft (1994–2014, Blizzard Entertainment)
World of Warcraft (2004, Blizzard Entertainment)

Movies and TV Series

Beauty and the Beast (1946, Jean Cocteau)

Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)
Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962, Agnès Varda)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014, Doug Liman)
Funny Games, (2007, Michael Haneke)
Gamer (2009, Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor)
Getaway (2013, Courtney Solomon)
Live and Let Die (1973, Guy Hamilton).
Mission Impossible—TV-Serien (1966–1973, 1988–1990)
M: I-2 (2002, John Woo)
Mission: Impossible III (2006, J. J. Abrams)
Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011, Brad Bird)
Run Lola Run (1998, Tom Tykwer)
Testament of Orpheus (1960, Jean Cocteau).
The Getaway (1972, Sam Peckinpah)
The Matrix (1999, The Wachowski Brothers)
The Seventh Seal (1953, Ingmar Bergman)
Tron (1982, Steven Lisberger)
Tron: Legacy (2010, Joseph Kosinski)
Wreak-It Ralph (2012, Rich Moore)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014, Bryan Singer)

Author Biography
Lasse Juel Larsen received his PhD in learning, play, and computer games in 2013. He is
currently teaching at the Department for the Study of Culture and at the Faculty of Engineering
as a research assistant. He has been the main driver in establishing the interdisciplinary Social
Technology Lab. His current research focuses on game design and development, computer
game aesthetics, playful interactions (transmedia worlds, wearables), play, and learning theory.