Game Action, Four Moments by Alexander Galloway
- A video game is a cultural object, bound by history and materiality, consisting of an electronic computation device and a game simulated in software.
- Video games are an action-based medium
- Foundation of video games is not looking and reading but in the instigation of material change through action
- Two basic types of action in video games: machine actions (performed by hardware and software of computer) and operator actions (performed by players)
- Algorithmic cultural objects
- In video games there are actions that occur in diegetic space (world of narrative action) and nondiegetic space (game elements that are external to narrative and outside the portion of the apparatus that constitutes a pretend world of character and story)
- Four moments of gamic action:
- 1. Diegetic machine acts: The machine is up and running- no more, no less. This includes “ambience acts” in which the game is on and running but the no stimulus from the game environment will disturb the player. Also includes cinematic interludes that progress the narrative.
- Action experience of being at the mercy of abstract informatic rules
- 2. Nondiegetic operator acts: Nothing in the world of the game can explain or motivate the action when it occurs. Ex. Pausing, cheats, hacks
- These acts are an allegory for the algorithmic structure of today’s informatic culture. Video games render social realities into playable form.
- Action experience of structuring subjective play, working with rules and configurations of game
- Instead of experiencing the algorithm, one enacts the algorithm
- Ex. World of Warcraft
- 3. Diegetic operator acts: Moment of direct operator action inside the imaginary world of game play. Appear as both move acts (change physical position or orientation of the game environment) and expressive acts (select, pick up, get, rotate, unlock, open, talk)
- Defined through intensities, or vectors of agitation: the time-based unfolding of a game is never smooth or consistent but is marked by a wide variance in the agitation of movement, where one moment may be calm and another will be action filled.
- 4. Nondiegetic machine acts: Actions performed by the machine and integral to the entire experience of the game but not contained within a narrow conception of the world of game play.
- Disabling act: Any type of gamic aggression or gamic deficient that arrives from outside the world of the game and infringes negatively on the game in some way. Ex. Crashes, bugs, slowdowns, temporary freezes
- Enabling act: Action offered by the machine that enrich the operator’s game play rather than degrade it. Ex. Pieces of information, increased speed, extra life, increased health, teleportation, points.
- Machinic embodiments: Emanate outward from the game to exert their own logic on the gamic form. Ex. Shape and size of Mario in Super Mario Bros is determined by design specifications of the 8bit microchip driving the game software.
- Nondiegetic machine acts can be defined as those elements that create a generative agitation or ambiguity between the inside of the game and the outside of the game, between what constitutes the essential core of the game and what causes that illusion to be undone
- 1. Diegetic machine acts: The machine is up and running- no more, no less. This includes “ambience acts” in which the game is on and running but the no stimulus from the game environment will disturb the player. Also includes cinematic interludes that progress the narrative.
In what ways do video games blur the distinction between diegetic/nondiegetic acts?
In what ways do the concepts of diegetic/nondiegetic acts complicate the notion of play?
mdeseriis, and 1 other are discussing. 
Mediated Subjectivity 
Veronika Höglund 1:14 am on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
To further clarify, Galloway’s article highlighted four quadrants that can be used to better understand the structure of the virtual gaming world, diegetic machine, diegetic operator, non-diegetic machine, and non-diegetic operator. Diegetic machine actions occur while the video game software is running, however, there is no operator is present. The game is running on its own in a purely aesthetic sense, like Mario mentioned, in a nature similar to watching cinema. Diegetic operator, are simply the actions that the operator perform while within the gaming world. These actions are intentional and are extended from the operator to their avatar. Non-diegetic machine are actions taken by the machine/game itself outside of the interior of the game. The actions are intended to fix internal problems such as bugs, and other software related issues, including cleaning the system as a whole. Non-diegetic operator acts are performed by the operator, located outside of the gaming realm, but whose activities are still concentrated to the boundaries of the game world, such as hacks and cheats.
With this in mind, it is very possible to see the blur between the line that separates the operator and the machine, the internal and the external. As the game only functions through the interaction of both the operator and the machine, right away one can consider the operator as a machine themselves. This association is even more appropriate given the operator is entirely immersed in the virtual gaming world and strongly identifies with the avatar they have created. The operator can be further identified as a machine when hacks and cheats are performed, as the operator must take action from outside of the game within actual reality, the repercussions of such actions effecting the realities of the game world.
briej102 12:00 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
to piggy back of Veronica, another element of where the line is blurred is the extra life of virtual gaming. The operator can continuously “gain life” with in the machine as well as outside the machine.
maxschneiderschumacher 11:42 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This article really reminded me of an essay musician/producer Brian Eno wrote for Wired years ago called, The Revenge of the Intuitive. The similarities between these two lays in the analysis of the relationship between operator and the machine. In Eno’s article, he speaks of his experience using a new digital console in the studio, which was supposed to give the artist an infinite amount more options and capabilities in order to advance creativity and output. He, however, found the opposite to be true; these advances, which he calls “a new layer of bureaucracy,” made him feel more distance from his work than ever before. All the necessary mechanical and complex actions necessary forced him out of the creative head space rather than enforce it.
In relation to Galloway, the question seems to be, how does the growing complexity effect the operator with his tools/machine? How do these relations effect the thought process of the user with his physical diegetic actions?
The Revenge of the Intuitive: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/eno.html