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Short abstract:

What aspects of their underlying databases do video games communicate to players, and to what extent can such aesthetic judgements about data help publics to perceive, engage with, and comprehend the logics that increasingly order our technogenic world?

Long abstract:

This presentation explores how the databases of video game design operate as information infrastructures that produce aesthetic experiences for players. An implication of many of the earliest discussions of database aesthetics was that a database—as simply a structured collection of data— cannot itself have aesthetics. In this view, any aesthetic effect comes from the database’s interface, or from how data is selected and presented. However, there has been considerable development in the world of data management since these discussions, including the emergence of new ways of ordering and structuring data, as well as a change in the scope and scale of databases: to wit, we live in a world increasingly digitized and penetrated by the logics and effects of data processing. In this context, I will argue, video game databases comprise smaller-scale models that encourage players to intuit the structure and logics of data. Specifically, the position I explore in this talk is that databases can and do have aesthetics, and that video games train players to comprehend databases by reading for database aesthetics. I explore examples of video game databases directly via code, data structures, and database entries; and indirectly via objects, inventories, lists, and interactions in gameplay. I ask the following question: what aspects of their databases do video games communicate to players, and to what extent can aesthetic judgements help publics to perceive, engage with, and comprehend the logics that increasingly order our technogenic world?