A conceptual model for video games and interactive media

In this paper, we describe a conceptual model for video games and interactive media. Existing conceptual models such as the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) are not adequate to represent the unique descriptive attributes, levels of variance, and relationships among video games. Previous video game-specific models tend to focus on the development of video games and their technical aspects. Our model instead attempts to reflect how users such as game players, collectors, and scholars understand video games and the relationships among them. We specifically consider use cases of gamers, with future intentions of using this conceptual model as a foundation for developing a union catalog for various libraries and museums. In the process of developing the model, we encountered many challenges, including conceptual overlap and divergence from FRBR, entity scoping, complex relationships among entities, and to the question of how to model additional content for game expansion. Future work will focus on making this model interoperable with existing ontologies as well as further understanding and description of content and relationships. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Last year, 58% of Americans played video games and spent more than $14 billion on game content (Theesa, 2013; NPD Group, 2013). More and more colleges and universities now offer courses in video game design and development (Theesa.com, 2014), and in K-12 education video games are increasingly used as learning and literacy tools (Gee, 2003). Academic organizations like the American Culture Association and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies have legitimized video games as worthy of study. Video games are clearly important to American society as educational, economic, and cultural heritage objects, prompting institutions, such as libraries, museums, and archives, to collect and preserve video games. The Game Metadata Research (GAMER) Group at University of Washington Information School, in partnership with the Seattle Interactive Media Museum (SIMM), is working on a research project to build a standardized metadata schema and controlled vocabularies for video games. Organizational needs of cultural heritage institutions with video game collections demand a robust, media-specific metadata schema to describe a variety of video games, from historical to contemporary, and serve a variety of use cases. In addition to the SIMM, the conceptual model we report on here is expected to inform similar video game digital library initiatives at the Digipen Library Learning Resource Center and other venues. Since the project’s inception in 2011, GAMER, SIMM, and students at the Information School have worked in close collaboration. Phase I of the research consisted of an extensive domain analysis using empirical descriptive data about video games (Lee et al, 2013b). Analysis of existing information sources (i.e., video game-related websites and catalog records) revealed how the domain has been shaped, how it is currently described, and where gaps appeared. Six different personas (archetypes representing the needs, behaviors, and goals of a particular user group (Cooper, 1999)) were also developed epitomizing the most common types of users interested in games (Lee et al, 2013a). Based on these personas and several use scenarios, 61 metadata elements emerged, 16 of which were identified as CORE elements deemed to be most useful for all user personas. These elements were evaluated and further revised based on cataloging sample games. More detailed information on the research activity in Phase I can be found in Lee et al. (2013b). Phase II saw the establishment of a recommended set of elements (Lee et al, 2013a) and development of encoding schemes (i.e., controlled vocabularies) for select elements (Donovan et al, 2013). In addition to the CORE 16, 30 additional elements were recommended to describe video games to the level of thoroughness useful to the various user groups. During development and testing of vocabularies for these elements, many issues became evident. Differentiating among various editions of games was extremely challenging due to releases of the same game in multiple regions, for multiple platforms or systems, as well as special “collector’s editions” or other limited special releases. For example, a game like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time exists for multiple platforms—from the original Nintendo 64 to the GameCube to Wii Virtual Console to Nintendo 3DS. These games are all The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but are they the same video game? By the nature of the hardware, the games are very different: the Nintendo 64 version requires a controller while the 3DS version relies on touchscreen interaction with added 3D effects. This creates a very different gameplay experience, to the extent that some gamers consider them to be very different indeed. Different types of gamers and other user groups interpret video game editions and series in different ways, and these metadata elements currently do not accurately capture and represent the complex relationships among games. Test cataloging also revealed issues in describing digitally distributed video games (i.e., games accessed through digital means such as streaming or application stores that have no physical components like cartridges or discs) and their relationships to more traditional physical games (Lee et al, 2014a). While user studies reveal that much of the descriptive information in the schema is useful to users (Lee et al, 2014b), the current schema lacks the ability to represent the complex relationships that exist among video games, warranting additional research. In order to further identify and represent relationships among video games, this paper proposes a conceptual model for published video games designed to facilitate effective description, organization, and access from a user-centered perspective. This model decomposes the colloquial notion of a video game into analytically precise components, facilitating an effective and systematic reuse of information already available in the metadata of video game descriptions. REVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK The issue of determining conceptual boundaries is not unique to video games. Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) is a conceptual model illustrating the boundaries of bibliographic resources by defining and describing attributes of and relationships among bibliographic entities (Kruth, 2001). In FRBR, there are four different classes of bibliographic entities: work (intellectual/artistic creation), expression (work realized in the form of notation, sound, image, etc.), manifestation (physical embodiment of an expression), and item (an exemplar of a manifestation). This structure was developed to be a generalized view of the bibliographic universe independent of any cataloging code or implementation (Tillet, 2004). However, applying the FRBR model to video games presents fundamental problems: McDonough et al. (2010b) tried to apply the FRBR model to a classic computer game but could not easily determine how to distinguish and precisely characterize work, expression, manifestation, or item. Video games clearly diverge from the entities the FRBR conceptual model describes, although many descriptive elements deemed necessary in the current GAMER/SIMM schema echo FRBR attributes. Despite FRBR’s comprehensive set of attributes for describing bibliographic entities, there are still limitations due to missing characteristics germane to interactive media and other kinds of non-bibliographic entities. This is perhaps due to incompatibility of the established descriptions, definitions and concepts with those emerging from the specific domain of video games. Attributes derived from the context of a cultural object, like a user’s reaction to an object (e.g., mood) or similarity-based relationships—both of which can be significant in the context of video games—are also not represented in the FRBR model (Lee, 2010). Winget and Murray (2008) also argue for the necessity of describing the “context of use” for video games. Other bibliographic and cultural heritage standards, such as Resource Description and Access (RDA) and Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO) do not explicitly address a conceptual model of video games as an entity for description. Work in academia defining the nature of video games is still nascent and frequently focuses on aspects of game design (Wolf, 2001) or aspects distinguishing video games from more traditional board games and sports (Crawford, 1984), (Furner, 2007). Rather than considering video games as a unique form of media, contemporary cataloging practices in libraries frequently rely on reusing established models for traditional media when crafting metadata records for video games and interactive media. Such shoehorning of non-book objects, like video games, into existing bibliographic description standards creates less than useful descriptions (Hagler, 1980) and makes it harder for people to find what they seek. In the case of RDA, video games are considered containers of moving images and nothing more (CLA and ALA, 2010). In fact, there is no specific definition for video games in RDA. CCO is likewise agnostic with regard to the conceptual boundaries and definition of video games (Baca et al, 2006). Cultural objects, the purview of CCO, are left to the cataloguer and his or her institution to define. Contemporary library description standards and practices leave ample room for a more specific conceptualization of metadata required for video games. For instance, there are many elements of high interest to game users, such as the number of players that can interact with the video game, the franchise to which a game belongs, and the ability to play and connect with other users through online methods, that are not representable in current metadata standards.