Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism (Paperback)

In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that can be used to analyze particular videogames. Moreover, this approach can be applied beyond videogames: Bogost suggests that any medium—from videogames to poetry, literature, cinema, or art—can be read as a configurative system of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and he illustrates this method of analysis with examples from all these fields. The marriage of literary theory and information technology, he argues, will help humanists take technology more seriously and hep technologists better understand software and videogames as cultural artifacts. This approach is especially useful for the comparative analysis of digital and nondigital artifacts and allows scholars from other fields who are interested in studying videogames to avoid the esoteric isolation of "game studies."

The richness of Bogost's comparative approach can be seen in his discussions of works by such philosophers and theorists as Plato, Badiou, Zizek, and McLuhan, and in his analysis of numerous videogames including Pong, Half-Life, and Star Wars Galaxies. Bogost draws on object technology and complex adaptive systems theory for his method of unit analysis, underscoring the configurative aspects of a wide variety of human processes. His extended analysis of freedom in large virtual spaces examines Grand Theft Auto 3, The Legend of Zelda, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Joyce's Ulysses. In Unit Operations, Bogost not only offers a new methodology for videogame criticism but argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.

在《單元操作》一書中，伊恩·博戈斯特（Ian Bogost）主張文學理論和計算機科學背後存在著相似的原則，提出了一種文學技術理論，可以用來分析特定的視頻遊戲。此外，這種方法也可以應用於視頻遊戲以外的媒體，博戈斯特認為任何媒體，從視頻遊戲到詩歌、文學、電影或藝術，都可以被視為一個由離散、相互鎖定的意義單元組成的配置系統，他通過這些領域的例子來說明這種分析方法。他認為文學理論和信息技術的結合將有助於人文學者更加重視技術，並幫助技術人員更好地理解軟件和視頻遊戲作為文化產物。這種方法尤其適用於數字和非數字產物的比較分析，並使其他領域的學者避免陷入“遊戲研究”的專門孤立性。

博戈斯特的比較方法的豐富性可以從他對柏拉圖、巴迪歐、齊澤克和麥克盧漢等哲學家和理論家的討論中看出，以及他對包括《乒乓球》、《半衰期》和《星際大戰銀河》在內的眾多視頻遊戲的分析。博戈斯特利用物件技術和複雜適應系統理論來進行單元分析，強調了各種人類過程的配置性方面。他對大型虛擬空間中自由的延伸分析涉及《侠盗猎车手3》、《塞尔达传说》、福樓拜的《包法利夫人》和喬伊斯的《尤利西斯》。在《單元操作》中，博戈斯特不僅提供了一種新的視頻遊戲評論方法，還主張人文學科和信息技術之間存在真正的合作可能性。