Videogame Construction
What is a videogame? It’s a question that points at something, of which something videogame reviews base themselves on. This something doesn’t need to come forth as an articulation that describes what some of these things are, but merely articulate some things that allude to things conceived as videogame things. Words describing a plumber in a red attire could evoke the idea of Super Mario, as it pertains to Nintendo’s well-known character, which only comes forth as such in the context of videogames or when referred to by name. The idea of videogame is no different in needing a context or reference by name. But a context merely refers to some things thought to be related to videogames, without having to articulate or know what it entails. Pointing at some of these things by the word videogame is enough, as it is enough to point at Super Mario without having to describe his moustache, occupation or attire every time we’d like to talk about him. This shows that exhausting what the name of Super Mario points at is rather futile, as we only need to point at his moustache if we’d like to talk about facial hair as it pertains to a topic at hand, or his attire as it relates to his occupation, and so on.
What does it mean, then, to refer to videogames without specification beyond pointing at some of the things it entails, to say that, indeed, we’re describing things in relation to videogames. Consider any relational utterance, such as between videogames and Super Mario. As it pertains to some of its things, videogames are things of some kind, that’s like and unlike a thing that is located in this context. Super Mario is such a thing that’s a character like other characters and unlike videogames, for instance. It’s like a part of videogames and unlike the whole of videogames, which affirmation has nothing to say about the things the word videogame points at, as it affirms that a part is unlike the whole it is the part of. This utterance about Super Mario and videogames, then, affirms that videogame characters are unlike videogames, while alluding to a relationship between these things. Is it to point at this relationship, that it is, that this kind is worth pointing out? To say what?
The names of Super Mario and videogames point at some things related to Super Mario and videogames, that together point at some of the one and some of the other one without having to know what are these parts and how they relate to one another. For this reason, one may describe a plumber in a red shirt without having heard of Super Mario, as one may describe videogames without having heard of them either. Because parts of videogames are not videogames, but the likening them to parts of videogames to say that they have some relationship to one another.
This ambiguous likeness is a loose association which may have nothing to do with videogames or with any topic at hand. Say that two things invoke what one perceives as good. The utterance of “this is good” points at some parts of “this” and some parts of “good” to say that they’re like one another. But instead of uttering this ambiguous likeness, one says that they are, as such good and this.
Videogame is such a construction from video and game. They are such games which are played on a video screen. But now play arises as it pertains to games on video screens. What it produces is a form of play that becomes emptied in the word play that refers to some things unlike videogame play. As play is related to videogames in different modes and ways, this empty form changes to entail parts of video and games in videogames in relation to play.
Now that we see that videogame is constructed from an empty form of play that in turn fills this form with associations of video and game, this emptiness becomes the subject of play. As the emptying and filling is followed by emptying-like and filling-like movements, comes a point when these movements become unlike the initial ones. This may be related to why constructions of videogame conceptions often start with negation, as an articulation of resemblance to the emptying and filling movements. That is to say, they empty the conception in order to fill it with things related to video, game and play, without knowing what this emptying and filling entails. In case of resemblances to emptying, arguments reduce the conception to nothing, where with resemblances to filling, arguments construct something. Neither is capable of conceptualization, as the former makes us gaze into the remains reduction left behind by its resemblatory operation, whereas the construction makes an incomplete resemblance that it considers as a whole. Further argumentation remains ambiguous, and we’re left to pick from the remains of the negation’s detritus and the construction’s gaps.
These parts left behind by the argument is what we can work with, as conceptions of video, game and play, which point at things prior to them and at things that resemble them. Since the latter excludes knowing what is prior to resemblance as it affirms likeness and likeness-like operations as resemblance, it can only empty and fill these likenesses with resemblance. In our case, it is to empty and fill likenesses with likenesses as ambiguous likeness that’s only capable of likening emptying to filling and filling to emptying that affirms resemblance. This resemblance thus goes from saying that the resemblance resembles a resemblance in a resemblatory way to find its way to a resemblance that resembles itself. It is to undifferentiate between emptying and filling and the remains these leave behind in these resemblatory operations to affirm a self as itself with pointing that refers to this and that and these as itself: which is to say that it is and they are are without difference as the singular and the plural becomes something that just is, as itself.
