Critical Games Studies - Paida and Ludus

In the lecture, there were a few words words that I was introduced too from a book James Newman published "What Is A Videogame?", and this entry will be about what they are and a few examples of what they were. So, im going to start with these two words: Paida and Ludus.

Paida - means casual play. Playing for pleasure, free play. So, in some respects, The Sims is a good example here. There really isn't a clear outcome to the game, and you can pretty much play it too your hearts content, there is no end and you can play without having an outcome.

(Picture of The Sims, Paida game)


Ludus - is the complete opposite. It's more constrained by rules and has a clear outcome. Online gaming for First Person Shooters are a prime example of this (I.e. games like Call of Duty, Killzone, Resistance, so on). There are rules for the type of online play you decide to play on, taking a Team Deathmatch as an example, you and say, 5 - 7 other players are in a team and you have to get more kills on the opposing team within the time limit or hit the max amount of points before time runs out by killing the other team. It sounds like a pretty basic idea, but at the end of the day, there is a rule; to kill the enemy to rack up points for your team and the outcome being if you and your team succeed in this, you therefore win and the reward will be a fair bit of EXP.


However, there are some cases where you can get some games that do offer both Paida and Ludus. I am going to go on a whim and say Grand Theft Auto could be an example. My reason for htis is simple, the game is free roam and instead of playing for the story, you have the choice just to go around freely doing whatever you want to do from hijacking cars, attacking the innocent or exploring the surroundings of Liberty City (or wherever it is that the game is taking place in) or you can play for the story which the main outcome being that you advance in the story and unlock more weapons, cars and so fourth. Another example is Burnout Paradise, you have the choice to explore the "open world" you can drive around in or you can do the races which unlock cars which will benefit you online when in competition.


Newman also goes on to talk about how games can be described using concepts like:

Agon: competition.


Alea: chance/randomness.


Illinx: movement.


Mimicry: simulation, make believe, role-play.


He gives a couple of examples of games that have may one or two of these examples. The first example he gives is Tetris as it has elements of Agaon as players will see if they can beat the other's score, while the Alea aspect is the blocks that come down on the screen, you don't know what order the blocks come in you can only wait and see what comes down and you have to then place the square in the right place.
(A picture of Tetris)


He also uses the Sega coin-op R360 as another example as it does have agon, there is competition involved against players, but there is also a sense of mimicry involved as the player adopts the role of the flighter pilot and spins around inside a motorized cockpit.


One example I thought of was Dance Dance Revolution (or DDR for short). There is Agon involved, players do go head to head to see who can get the most points, there is Illinx involved if you think about it, the player has to move there foot onto the right arrow in time with what they see on the TV screen as it shows where there foot has to go, and then it can be argued that there is some form of mimicry involved as it to make the player believe that they are dancing (hence the name).

(a screenshot of Dance Dance Revolution)