The second issue of G|A|M|E investigates 3D technologies and their implications for the video game world. The concept of 3D, in this context, refers to both stereoscopy and, more generally, tridimensional systems of representation that have been dominant in video games since the early 1990s. The contributions to this issue seek to provide a better understanding of the evolution of the technological and technical systems of representation. The articles individuate a time continuity inscribed in these systems, which — using Bolter and Grusin’s influential definition — refashion throughout multiple media. For this reason, G|A|M|E wants to build a parallel reflection between new technologies such as stereoscopic 3D, and established ones such as polygonal 3D.
The merging process between these two technologies is not only evident on an ontological level, where the stereoscopy often works optimally in conjunction with CGI, but also on a taxonomic level, calling for a discussion and clarification of the interplay between the two. In fact, while the history of 3D and stereoscopy is long and varied, the past few years have witnessed an increasing diffusion and commercialisation of stereoscopic devices, from the rise of stereoscopic cinema to the spread of 3D home screens and projectors. As a consequence, the concept of 3D — in relation to film production, distribution and exhibition — currently univocally identifies the phenomenon of stereoscopic vision. On the contrary, this same concept is problematic when applied to the video game medium. For instance, while the definition of 3D in video games historically addresses the shift from bidimensional to tridimensional graphic engines, this term has more recently been adopted in its cinematic acceptation – the one of stereoscopic vision – also in relation to the video game medium.

In a time when 3D presents itself as a problematic and ambiguous conceptual label, G|A|M|E intends to investigate its nature as both tridimensional graphic and stereoscopic vision. In this context, we want to reflect on the idea of tridimensionality, intended not only as the development and implementation of the stereoscopic vision. Instead, we also consider tridimensionality as a regime of representation which has been dominant in video games since the early 1990s, and is hereby reframed within the larger tradition of representation techniques that found its roots in the 15^th century with the rise of the Albertian perspective.

We aim to develop this analysis on two layers. The first layer is external to the text and questions the nature of the video game as dispositif: a structure that requires a configuration between the player, the interface and the machine, and also takes into account the roles played by perspective and depth in this process. The second layer is internal and envisions an analysis within the text and its contents, working to critique the development of spatial depth and perspective in video games.

The issue is organised in two main sections. The first section reflects the interdisciplinary nature of this publication, its interest in the exploration of video game artefacts and video game culture in different fields of knowledge, and through a variety of methodological paradigms. Here, we propose a primary research line that focuses on the influence of the medium’s structure (the gaming machines and devices) over the spatial dimension of the text. It is characterised by a technical approach and discusses some key points in relation to the uses of stereoscopic 3D in contemporary video games.

Daniel Pietschmann, Benny Liebold, Georg Valtin and Peter Ohler examine the issue leading of the technical affordability of stereoscopic technologies. The authors discuss the application of cognitive mapping models which provide a functional deployment of depth cues in stereoscopic 3D video games. This operation — together with the implementation of NUIs (natural user interface) — is argued to be able to enhance and improve the UX (user experience) in effective and efficient ways.

Athanasios Petrovits and Alessandro Canossa discuss the paradox of impossible spaces in 3D systems of representation, presenting an account of the mathematical and geometrical implications of tridimensional representation. The article establishes an excursus on the development of perspective in video games, challenging the definition of impossible space in relation to each technology.

In the second section of this issue of G|A|M|E, the specific debate around stereoscopy and its technological application is contextualised within a wider theoretical framework. This second research line examines the aesthetic and structural repercussions in the development of the techniques of spatial representation. We wish to analyse the aesthetic, functional and economic reasons behind the development of new “perspectives” throughout the history of media leading up to video games. Moreover, these essays discuss the evolution of technologies and representational strategies in visual arts, debating their validity and applicability to the video game medium. Here, the authors argue the necessity for a theoretical debate that acknowledges a history of visual perception in order to provide a better understanding of the present and its contemporary forms of expression.

Audrey Larochelle questions the concept of graphical projection as used so far in video game critique, recasting its definition according to the different application of these techniques in the video games: from the establishment of perspective to the distinction between isometric, diametric and trimetric projection, the article operates a taxonomic study of the point of view construction in video games.

Dominic Arsenault and Pierre-Marc Côté investigate the concept of “graphical regime” in order to synthesise the aesthetic and functional aspects that determined the evolution of forms of representation in video games so far. The authors stress the need to surpass the materialistic interpretation of graphic evolution in video games, criticising the notion of “novelty” and its supposed ontological imperative. This discussion is surpassed — in a historical perspective — by a sense of “cementification” of the techniques of representation. The concept of graphical regimes is used to explain the interplay between technology, representation techniques and gameplay. The authors provide an interesting nomenclature for different visual and aesthetic levels of game design, introducing the process of mise-en-image as the concept that ties the representation to the interaction.

Altuğ Işığan elaborates a reflection in the problematic allocation of subject identity in linear perspective according to Lacanian theory. A considered analysis of the relationship between the establishment of subject identity and the access through the means of the perspective intends to surpass the inside/outside duality between the construction of the subject and the space building process through a comprehensive theory of gaze.

In the last feature article of this issue, Zoya Street presents a historical and critical account of game design in Dreamcast’s title Skies of Arcadia. Through a number of interviews with the designers of the game, the author describes the network and interplay between the software house and the production company. This eventually led to experimentation with 3D polygonal graphics, not only for technical reasons — the software house were required to showcase the graphic capacity of the console through the development of new titles –but also in order to achieve new levels of narrative design.

Finally, the last special section, titled Documents, contains two extras that complete this issue by providing alternative perspectives on this subject. Here, we present a research project run at the University of Montréal under the supervision of Dominic Arsenault. The project studies the connections between the technological evolution and the graphic innovations in the video game industry. In the second document, Antonio Catolfi and Enrico Menduni close the issue with some suggestions concerning the fringes of this topic, highlighting the need for historical reflection (on a diachronic level) and the importance of an intermedial dimension (on a synchronic level) of this debate, interpreting the provocative intellectual objective of this second issue of G|A|M|E.