Category: Thesis

The end of the summer holidays and the lead up to starting my final major project was filled with two things: The first being block outs and mood board assembly for my FMP and editing my thesis. As I had mentioned previously my style for editing was to finish an initial draft first before going back and correcting spelling mistakes, reorganizing paragraphs and re-evaluating my arguments now that I had a complete image in my head and on paper of my argument.

The edit was slow, going through section by section and editing them collectively. It is something I’m very much used to given my background in film studies. Later on, during my final term, I submitted my work to some friends in the class for them to look over it and give me feedback. The feedback was really useful as they noticed some spelling mistakes or strange turns of phrase I had used and missed in my edits. The piece of advice I found the most useful was when someone asked me what I meant by the word ‘vehicle’. I was so used to this term from my time in academia that for people without much experience in academic writing it isn’t immediately obvious what this term meant so I added a quick description so that anyone should now be able to approach my work.

With that my work on my FMP begun in full swing and I worked away at it and later submitted my thesis. That’s the end of my thesis work.

The middle of summer break, in regards to my thesis, was where I spent most of my time just writing up the first draft of it. Everyday I would sit down and type out a section of it. Some days it would be writing an entire chapter and other days it would be just a paragraph or two. Slowly going through and writing what I wanted to explain and incorporating my sources. I went through my thesis in the order starting with things like title pages, introductions, abstracts etc and working my way slowly towards the conclusion.

I purposefully didn’t go back to edit large portions of my paper. While I’d allow myself to edit a sentence here and there I wouldn’t re-write any sections. This was because I felt it was more important to have a complete first draft before making any large changes as I would really only have a complete understanding of my topic once I’d fully written a first draft. It would be wasted effort to re-write and re-word sections to make it sound good if ultimately at the end of my paper I found that that section didn’t actually represent what I was trying to say.

Approaching the end of summer I would begin my major edits.

As I spent the summer concluding research, writing and rewriting my thesis this blog post will be written in three parts, documenting my early, mid and late summer and how I spent those respective time periods working on my Thesis.

As previously mentioned I spent my early summer concluding the research of my thesis and beginning to write my thesis. One of the first things I did for my thesis was finalize my questionnaire which can be seen here: https://forms.gle/THPKN1rEubAVoG2D7

The reason for pursing this first was to give as much time for the questionnaire to circulate and get responses while I wrote the sections of my thesis that did not require it.

In regards to my research I also sent out messages on social media and email to several different game creators whom I felt produced works that were particularly poignant to my essay and managed to secure an interview with Bloodborne PSX creator Lilith Walther. I recorded that interview with her but while I had tested that I would record her audio I neglected to record my own so I must later go back to devise what questions I had asked her as I have also seemingly misplaced the document I used to write up my questions before the interview.

Past all this I spent the rest of my time progressing through my thesis each day. Going through and writing up a small section here and there while giving myself time to digest what I was writing and making minor corrections here and there. I would not make any major corrections to my writing till after completing a first draft as I could easily get stuck correcting dozens of things and not progressing at all. I would have to correct any corrections made early on regardless as a clearer picture of my topic and points would only fully come in after writing everything.

Developing the literature review has been difficult mainly due to the fact that it is incredibly long and I very rapidly approached the word count of the thesis proposal and I have yet to write the draft chapter. I spoke with Nigel however and he suggested that I keep the literature review long as it is the part of the thesis I have the least experience with and would require the most input on. As such I will likely make the draft chapter only a paragraph or so long. Here is my literature review and bibliography:

Approaching this ‘false’ nostalgia is difficult, it as a feeling that while can be described has yet to receive a collectively accepted term to describe it yet. In addition to this applying this feeling to approach a media form that has yet to be agree upon if it should count as an art form or not has brought this paper into difficult territory. First to discuss the literature that raises the various arguments for and against video games as an art form.  

Bourgonjon, Vandermeersche Rutten and Quinten in Perspectives on Video Games as Art discuss the arguments around video games as an art form. Bringing in a large collection of other works made by artists, critics and opinions of common peoples like gamers. Collecting an impressive mass of diverse opinions. While a great resources on the arguments for and against the paper ultimately takes no stance on either side of the argument and as result contributes greatly in knowledge but little in the way of persuasion on either side which this paper would require a focus on arguments for rather than against as this paper takes the stance that video games are an art form. In counter to this Smuts Are Video Games Art? offers a shallower range of arguments in contrast but actively participates in the debate on the side of video games as an art form and challenges the arguments presented against it. While this is useful for this paper with it being designed inherently for video games as an art form it is a paper that must be carefully tempered against using arguments that were not addressed as to keep this paper balanced.  

Another important framework for this paper is this idea of ‘false nostalgia’. While this paper has opted to use the word Anemoia this feeling has also been described with the phrases Sehnsucht and Nostalgia. Anemoia is most easily defined in Nostalgia doesn’t need real memories – an imagined past works as well, a shortened version of an essay previously published in The Moral Psychology of Sadness, outlines Anemoia and discusses this type of nostalgia closely. Unfortunately as a shortened version of an original article that access to has not been found it does not go into as much depth as it could and thus limits its application to this paper’s later points on why this feeling may be present and lacks the specificity of application to an artistic medium delivering it. Sehnsucht is addressed in detail in Kehl’s Writing the Long Desire: The Function of Sehnsucht in the Great Gatsby and Look Homeward, Angel. This article helps to cover the reasons why this feeling of Anemoia, here referred to as Sehnsucht, is present culturally. While this article helps to further ground and define this amorphous feeling it specifically addresses it in the context of literature and not video games thusly applying its conclusions to this paper’s analysis is something that must be handled carefully as the analytical frameworks would not necessarily apply. Howard’s Nostalgia is a useful resource as it delves deeply into nostalgia and specifices a distinction between nostalgia for an experience one has had and one that one hasn’t experienced. This is useful as these two nostalgia are sometimes conflated and frameworks for nostalgia Howard explains can be used to support this paper’s own arguments later on however Howard while making this distinction does clarify that the nostalgia his paper develops frameworks for is not the kind that includes Anemoia and as such limits the applicability of his frameworks.  

But how do these video games function as vehicles? Garda notes in Nostalgia in Retro Game Design that games can function as vehicles for nostalgia by recreating a perceived mythological essence of an era. As a specific example Hotline Miami and it’s ‘1980’s-ness’. Garda provides a through framework of nostalgia being carried by video games inclusive of anemoia under the guise of ‘reflective’ nostalgia. Though an issue is that this reflective nostalgia ‘does not demand personal memories’ (Garda, 4) which will includes anemoia is not exclusive to anemoia as one can have personal memories in this frame work. Craving Analogue Sensation in A Digital World: Exploring The Collecting Behaviour of Digital Native Vinyl Collectors aids in covering this gap as Dingelhoff speaks directly of Anemoia and how the medium of vinyl functions as a vehicle for this feeling, whether intentional or not on part of the musicians, though again something to be weary of is that this covers vinyl discs and not video games.  

Lastly why this feeling may be present is covered by both Makai and Suominen in Video games as Objects and Vehicles of Nostalgia and The Past as the Future? Nostalgia and Retrogaming in Digital Culture respectively. Each dealing, in part, with why both creators and players may engage with ‘retrogaming’ culture. Though neither deal specifically with anemoia they do serve to highlight how the reception of nostalgia can be independent from both creator and player, that while a creator may intend for their product to carry a nostalgic feeling this may not come across to the player and that a player may infer nostalgia or anemoia from a product that originally had no intention.  

 
Bibliography  

Aeon. (n.d.). Nostalgia doesn’t need real memories – an imagined past works as well – Felipe De Brigard | Aeon Essays. [online] Available at: https://aeon.co/essays/nostalgia-doesnt-need-real-memories-an-imagined-past-works-as-well.  

Bourgonjon, J., Vandermeersche, G., Rutten, K. and Quinten, N. (2017) ‘Perspectives on Video Games as Art.’, CLCWEb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 19.4. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.3024  

Dingelhoff, D.(2022). ‘Craving Analogue Sensation in A Digital World: Exploring The Collecting Behaviour of Digital Native Vinyl Collectors.’ Available at:   https://theses.ubn.ru.nl/handle/123456789/14120     (Accessed: 01 May 2023)  

Garda, M.B. (2013) ‘Nostalgia in Retro Game Design.’ In DiGRA Conference. Available at: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=3fb3134a29cdcf28a05cf5e6bd120ab5da295a7e (Accessed: 25 April 2023)     

Howard, S. A. (2012). Nostalgia. Analysis, 72(4), 641–650. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23359115  

Kehl, D. G. (2000). ‘Writing the Long Desire: The Function of Sehnsucht in the Great Gatsby and Look Homeward, Angel.’ Journal of Modern Literature, 24(2), 309–319. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3831913  

Makai, P. (2018). ‘Video Games as Objects and Vehicles of Nostalgia.’ Humanities, 7 (4), 123. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h7040123.  

Smuts, A. (2005) ‘Are Video Games Art?’ Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive), 3(1), 6.  

Suominen, J. (2008). ‘The Past as the Future? Nostalgia and Retrogaming in Digital Culture.’ In The 7^th International Digital Arts and Cultures Conference. Available at: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=9594059f378fd5c427eb151933429ec9509c8efa (Accessed: 01 May 2023) 

Due to the work for the group project as described in Week 8 I had skipped out on working on my thesis proposal for week 7 and as a result it has skipped to week 8. For this week I have spent it preparing an initial draft of my thesis proposal. It is not yet complete but this is what I have thus far:

Title: Video games as a vehicle for Anemoia: False Nostalgia and the longing for a constructured past 

Introduciton: 

Nostalgia has been a topic of discussion and research for a long time. As scholars and people we are constantly looking back into the past to inform our present and as such Nostalgia is something everyone will experience eventually as they look to their own perceived pasts and see how things were. However Nostalgia has become a more poignant topic today as cuturally and politicaly it is engaged with more and more. It can be seen that people are seeking the past today not to understand, learn or build from it but instead to return to it. For some the nostaligia that is sought is traditional in nature, one where they seeker wishes to return to their experienced past, a point previous in their life. For others though in this cultural landscape of nostalgia they are affected with a longing for a past not experienced. They experience a longing for a constructed past constructed not by their own experience but by the experiences of others conveyed to them through a variety of media. This kind of nostalgia is sometimes refered to as ‘sehnsucht’, ‘anemoia’, which is how from now this paper will refer to that kind of nostalgia as, and the purpose of this paper is to research Anemoia and see how and if video games function as a vehicle for it and why anemoia is a necessary field of study to address.  

Key Words 
Anemoia, Nostalgia, Sehnsucht, Video Games , Retroculture 

Research Design methods:  
 
This paper’s methodology will predominantly be a qualitative research focus. As the paper deals with something more abstract in nature, namely a person’s perceptions of the past and subjective feelings towards that past, a qualitative approach would make the most sense. As such this paper will focus research conducted by others scholars into several fields. Research into anemoia as that is the focus of the paper. Research into nostalgia as an experience as that will help difference it from anemoia and provide larger social context. Research into retroculture with a focus on retrogaming and specifically about how people interact with retroculture. This is important as it is specifically about cultural engagement with the past but the motivation for engagement is different for different people and provides bed for counter arugments to my topic.  

If possible and with enough forsight to develop this survey ahead of time, there would be room for quantitative data to be introduced. As stated anemoia is a topic that has not received as much attention as nostalgia proper and as a result it would be prudent to introduce a survey simply to cover that this feeling is being experienced by others and specifically, I would aim to target ‘gamers’ with it. I believe that the survey should ask for the individuals age, whether they have experienced anemoia after explaining it and what games or media at large has caused this feeling to manifest. Age is relevant as one might expect younger generations to feel anemoia specifically as they have overall less experiences to draw on and that older generations who are more likely to be the ones creating these works will instil that feeling in younger generations.  

General Outline for each chapter:  

• Literature Review – Simple, this will be a literature review where I go over the resouces I plan on using with my paper and critically engage with them 
• Intro – I will introduce my paper’s topic and why I believe that it is it a topic worth addressing. I will also set out my paper’s structure here  
• Justify Games as art – As games as an art form is still a topic of debate today it was felt by my instructor that it would be pertinent to address that topic. This chapter is dedicated to addressing the arguments for and against art though ultimately I will side with arguments for as I am enaging with games as an art form.  

• Arguments For 
• Arguments Against 

• Define Anemoia – It is important that a clear understanding of what anemoia is and how it relates to nostalgia is in place as the entire paper is about this topic. Since it isn’t a common term or one with much coloquial agreement it is important that I define it properly.  

• What is it? 
• Why relate it to nostalgia? 

• How is Anemoia carried in Video Games? (Vehicle)  – The second part of my topic. This chapter will be dedicated to how video games can function as a vehicle for anemoia and how they acheieve this.  

• Player’s Perspective 
•  Developer’s Perspective 

• Why is Anemoia Present? – Now that anemoia has been defined and video games aruged as a vehicle for them this part dives into why this might be present. Why players may experience it and why game creators may, intentionally or not, put this into their games.  
• What does this interest in it mean? – Here is where I explore the sociological reasons that this feeling is present and what the instreast in it could mean for our perecptions of the current political and cultural climate of the world.  

• Conclusion – I draw my conclusions and address counter arguments and gaps in my study.  

After my one on one with Nigel I left more confident in my thesis and what was required of me moving forward. Given how quickly the final june submission date was approaching I know now that what I need to do is move on from research and, with what I currently have, start to develop my thesis proposals. Part of that was developing the draft chapters. My current draft is like this. The next major step I need to take is develop my literature review and in that case I have been reviewing the resources given to us on writing a literature review as that was the weakest aspect of my report from the first semester.

Draft chapters:

• Literature Review
• Intro
• Justify Games as art
  • Arguments For
  • Arguments Against
• Define Anemoia
  • What is it?
  • Why relate it to nostalgia?
• How is Anemoia carried in Video Games? (Vehicle)
  • Player’s Perspective
  •  Developer’s Perspective
• Why is Anemoia Present?
• What does this interest in it mean?
• Conclusion

As we are having one on ones this week and mine is scheduled for next week I instead spent the week preparing the template for my one on one with Nigel so that I can make the most the admittedly short time that I have with him.

After a meeting last week with Nigel he informed me that I needed to also make a decision on how I would like to approach games as a medium. Namely do I approach it as a form of art or from a purely commercial stand point. As I was dealing with the emotions of people and with this being a topic with very little hard data I can find, as the ‘brand’ of nostalgia I seek is still not properly defined in the general consciousness, I have opted to seek this out as a form of art. With that in mind Video Games ‘as art’ is still a hotly debated topic. As such I have had to go out and research for arguments and citations that could support my reading of games as an art form.

That is honestly a new experience for me. Coming off of film studies, a field that has unquestionably been integrated into an art form, I have never had to spend time justifying the medium of study as ‘art’. Though I was able to find some very useful papers to support my reading of games as art.

Their citations are:

Bourgonjon, J., Vandermeersche, G., Rutten, K. and Quinten, N., 2017. Perspectives on video games as art. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 19(4), p.1. 

and

Smuts, A., 2005. Are video games art?. Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive), 3(1), p.6. 

Both provide a wide range of arguments to support video games as an art form while also addressing counter-arguments. This will likely serve as the first part of my thesis after the introduction. Though I have to be careful as that question itself could be a thesis on its own.

This week was spent further researching my addressed topic and refining my question which has been difficult. Currently I’d say my largest issue is there’s too many threads and methods of approach to my topic of ‘manufactured nostalgia’ in media which itself is difficult to define.

When it comes to terminology two terms I have found that address this specific kind of nostalgia, one for a time not experienced, is ‘Sehnsucht’ and ‘Anemoia’. The issue is that neither of these terms have any large mainstream use and sometimes the nostalgia I refer to is simply called ‘nostalgia’ making papers and data to find in regards to this topic difficult. The next question is ‘what is my approach’ to I examine how games as a product are being made to exploit this feeling for sales? Do I approach games as art forms and examine why this emotion might be being explored in games. Who do I place the onus on? The players for engaging with it and that engagement resulting in it’s exploration? Is it the makers who themselves wish to explore it and the player’s engagement is not a factor? Do I address it as a mix of both?

As I continue to research the topic I have come to a current interpretation of what I believe I wish to explore with this topic. I wish not to explore the ‘games’ themselves but rather use them as a point of example as a vehicle for this emotion. I wish to argue that games are vehicles for this emotion that both creator and player engage in and reflect towards one another.

 A short explanation of what you’re researching? how you’re researching it?

I want to research Nostalgia and specifically it’s use and creation in modern media. I will have to narrow it down to a specific media group and currently I think I will limit it to games. The idea being that I personally have observed lots of projects in the indie/AA gaming landscape that harkens back to a lot of ‘nostalgic’ mediums for games such as the rise of what has been dubbed ‘boomer shooters’- emulating games like the original Doom, and games specifcally designed to emulate the restraints of the PS1. My question is still taking form as I continue my research. I will be researching it via two methods, the writings of published scholars on the topics of nostalgia and its presence in the games industry and if possible via interviews with indie devs that have created the more popular versions of these ‘nostalgia’ games. I say ‘creation’ of nostalgia because some of the consumers of this media are people that belong to my generation or younger who would not be old enough to have ‘nostalgia’ in the proper sense of having actually experienced and grown up with these games hence the ‘nostalgia’ I refer to is one of something never experienced. This can be seen with the popularity of films like The Guardians of the Galaxy or Stranger Things that make plenty of musical and visual reference to 70s and 80s and aim to create a nostalgic sense for its audience despite the primary audience being too young.

why it is important to research this subject?

I believe this is important to address as I and others have seen a sharp rise in ‘Nostalgia’ and its presence in culture here in the west. This is ranging from popular media such as games, television, film to more cynical spaces such as politics with slogans like “Make America Great Again” and general allusions to a ‘better past’ that needs to be recaptured by conservative parties in the United States and the United Kingdom. I believe it’s prominence in the current cultural zeitgeist is more than enough reason to critically engage it and analyze it.

Keywords

Nostalgia, Games, Retroculture, Sehnsucht

Sources

Howard, S. A. (2012). Nostalgia. Analysis, 72(4), 641–650. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23359115 

This source provides multiple academic frameworks for nostalgia such as the Naivete model or the Poverty of the Present model which are important for my proposal as we need to define Nostalgia more concretely to engage with it.

Makai, P. (2018). Video Games as Objects and Vehicles of Nostalgia. Humanities. [Online]. 7 (4). p.p. 123. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h7040123. 

This one provides an initial view into video games as vehicles of nostalgia and talks about retrogaming culture. It also engages with games and the retrogaming culture as to why these nostalgic movements may have come about.

Garda, M.B., 2013, August. Nostalgia in Retro Game Design. In DiGRA Conference. 

Another one discussing retro game design with a heavy focus on Nostalgia’s presence in it, talking about constructive and recreative nostalgia. One being engaging with them to critically develop on them or critically engage and the other being the recapture of that era with rose tinted glasses.

Kehl, D. G. (2000). Writing the Long Desire: The Function of “Sehnsucht in the Great Gatsby” and “Look Homeward, Angel.” Journal of Modern Literature, 24(2), 309–319. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3831913 

While not engaging with modern media or games directly it goes in detail over the function and definition of “Sehnsucht” a nostalgia or longing for something never have been experienced. A longing based on the sterilization and redefinition of historical periods.