“Game Time: Representation and Use of Time in
Video Games.” This is precisely the theme of this 4th season of the e-LAB at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris. But Bob will take it slowly, because some might feel a little lost.
Since I got a bit carried away with this article, a table of contents has become essential; you can jump directly to your favorite section!
Table of Contents
- Introduction to the e-LAB at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris
- Who are the People Behind Season 4 of the e-LAB?
- e-LAB Season 4: The Visit
- e-LAB Season 4: Bob’s Opinion
The e-LAB, what’s that ?
In Paris, there is a science museum, opened in 1986, with the mission “to spread scientific and technical knowledge to a wide audience, particularly children and teenagers, and to foster public interest in societal issues related to science, research, and industry.” This museum is the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, very popular with schools in the Île-de-France region, and I recommend visiting it with your family when you set foot in the capital. The Cité des Sciences offers permanent exhibitions that popularize scientific subjects like mathematics, robotics, and astronomy, as well as temporary exhibitions lasting about a year, which residents of Île-de-France can’t miss due to the ubiquitous advertising in public transportation. When I lived in Paris, I remember visiting a temporary exhibition on Star Wars, as well as “Jeu Vidéo, l’expo” on video games in 2013-2014, to which I devoted an article and which left me with mixed feelings. From this experience, let’s take away two things for now: having video games in a museum is no longer an event in itself, but exhibiting video games in a museum remains a challenging exercise.
Nevertheless, gaming enthusiasts who remember the early days of video games—those tough times when our hobby was mocked and scorned—can’t help but be delighted to see it finally accepted socially. This acceptance likely owes much to the economic weight achieved by an industry that has been growing for nearly half a century. In any case, video games have had their permanent space at the Cité des Sciences since 2019, an event widely reported at the time by both the cultural world, industry representatives, and geeks! Having left the Paris region a few years ago, I missed it: the Cité des Sciences remains very Paris-centric and usually doesn’t really seek to open up to the rest of France.
Let’s move past this recurring trait of many Parisian institutions and continue; created in 2019, the e-LAB is a 700 m² space located on level 3 of the exhibitions, with the goal of addressing and popularizing video games along three axes: technological, professional, and societal. This clear approach seems to exclude, at first glance, a heritage or historical approach: the e-LAB does not wish to be the National Video Game and Popular Cultures Museum desired by the association MO5.com, but rather a zone of experimentation decoding video games for better understanding: neither art nor historical object, video games are here an element of society. The approach is appealing, but what about the results?
Let’s stay focused. Upon its creation, the e-LAB adopted the theme “Interactive Generations”, then launched a season 2 on “The New Frontiers of Video Gaming”, followed by season 3, “Another Life in Game”. Simultaneously, themed conferences on various subjects related to our medium have been organized since 2022, every last Saturday of the month, called “Focus Video Games”, all freely accessible from the Cité’s website, which is nice. I skimmed through 2-3 of these videos, and they look quite interesting: I think I’ll watch them more seriously when I have 5 minutes!
e-LAB Season 4
We are already at season 4 of the e-LAB, which continues the initial objectives while adapting to a new theme: time. An interesting subject on which I delved in 2012, resulting in a citation in a Master’s thesis! The Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie has chosen to address this subject in the following way:
- Past, Present, Future: Travel Through Eras During a Game
- Play with Time: Manipulate Time to Outsmart Puzzles and Enemies on Your Path
- Intimate Time: Take the Time to Immerse Yourself in the Introspective World of Mobile Games
- Glance in the Rearview: Back to the Futuristic Gaming of the 90s!
- Agora JV, Off-Game, and Decryption: Permanent Sections Adjusted to the Current Theme
Four specific sections that rely on 16 games to demonstrate the hypotheses addressed, and three permanent sections adapted to the theme. A great project on paper.
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| e-LAB en 2025 | Jeu Vidéo, l’expo en 2013 |
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| Plan de l’e-LAB Saison 4 | Annonce de l’e-LAB en 2019 |
Interlude: The Women and Men Behind the Scenes
An exhibition doesn’t assemble itself: there is a whole team behind it that is interesting to know in order to get an idea of the skills and perspectives that may or may not make the exhibition a success. The e-LAB provides an exhaustive list (even including Maud the intern!) of said team. I apologize to the technicians; I didn’t scour the Net looking for their CVs: the center and right columns credit the staff from the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, whose technical work is indispensable but concerns the medium, wholly independent from the subject matter. The content is decided by the curatorial team, listed on the left. In his thoroughness, Bob took an interest in the members of this curatorial team, as while a few names from the advisory committee were familiar, most were quite unknown to him!
Curatorial Team of the Exhibition and Permanent Staff
Before diving into the curatorial team, let’s mention the unnecessary figures: two ENA graduates leading Universcience (the public institution managing the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie and the Palais de la Découverte), Bruno Maquart and Mélanie Joder, and a public management graduate in charge of “transmedia,” Hélène Charbonnier. In France, anything public tends to sustain a few non-essential figures; there they are!
Enough about the parasites, let’s move on to those who work; in the permanent team, the only one with a specialist profile in video games is the designer and project manager, Fabrice Lourie. After starting at Cryo Networks, which was Cryo Interactive’s attempt to break into the online game market, Lourie made his way to the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, where he seems to have become “Mr. Video Game.” He was involved in “Jeux Vidéo, l’expo” in 2013-2014 and is also behind the Video Game Masterclasses, a series of meetings with industry developers organized in partnership with JVM. Lourie defines himself as a digital popularizer, which seems fitting for a project like e-LAB. The other permanent team members, like Fabrice Lourie, are staff from the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie with backgrounds in event management, museography, or visual arts—profiles necessary for executing such a project but without a special connection to video games. Only Patrice Baudhuin, the mediation coordinator, seems to have built a slightly more specialized profile in video games, internally speaking.
Institutional Members
Before tackling the main part (the advisory committee), let’s quickly look at the institutional supporters backing the e-LAB; let’s skip over the support—mainly material support—since the partners are more interesting. The S.E.L.L., S.N.J.V., and A.F.J.V. faithfully play their roles as representative bodies of the video game industry in France, and their partnership ensures a positive—or at least neutral—treatment of video games. This is necessary, especially when noting that the exhibition is organized with the participation of MILDECA, the Interministerial Mission for Combating Drugs and Addictive Behaviors, whose website resides on the simple subdomain “drogues” of the governmental domain. Prejudices die hard, and I’m not sure PédaGoJeux’s support will suffice to change perceptions… In short, several partnerships demonstrate the e-LAB’s intention to validate its approach while also highlighting the industry’s interest in the exhibition; managing the image that video games project is a critical issue, particularly in a public establishment frequented by a young audience where its positions still carry some weight!
Programming Advisory Committee
Let’s start with what bothers Bob the most: out of 15 members of the advisory committee, almost a third (4 members) specialize in youth addictology. Among them are Thomas Gaon, a specialist in behavioral addiction; Vanessa Lalo, a psychologist; Denis Lejay from MILDECA, who advocates for a “policy on preventing addictive behaviors that respects individual freedoms” (a tall order!); and Olivier Gérard from PédaGoJeux.fr. I find the proportion surprising because, while cases of addictive behavior do exist, they are extremely rare among the large number of gamers and are often an externalization of other difficulties, frequently associated with very poor family and/or school contexts. This serves as evidence that despite having a permanent place for video games at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, video games are still poorly understood by public authorities. But let’s move on, especially since e-LAB’s Season 4 does not feature anything relating to this subject (although it might be addressed in lectures associated with the exhibition).
For the sake of balance, let’s note the presence of 3 representatives from the video game industry, likely committed to defending their team and engaging in some proactive damage control. Emmanuel Martin represents S.E.L.L., currently working at Ubisoft, and began his career at PEGI, the European video game rating organization established by the industry before government censorship took hold—a model of proactivity! Julien Villedieu represents S.N.J.V. and seems to have considerable experience in our microcosm. Lastly, Emmanuel Forsans represents A.F.J.V., a veteran who has been part of the French video game industry since 1986! They may not (or no longer) carry the sacred fire of passion, but they certainly know which language to use with bureaucrats and other pen-pushers in the public sphere!
Speaking of passionate individuals, let me list four who are well-known among gaming aficionados like Bob: Philippe Dubois, the tireless president of MO5.com; Jean-François Morisse, a video game journalist since 1991 known to older gamers as TSR, and notably the initiator of the aforementioned Masterclasses; Douglas Alves, another veteran of the French video game press who even wrote for Tilt, the pioneering but now-defunct French specialized magazine; and finally, Bertrand Brocard, one of the first French developers (in the early ’80s!) who, after a well-conducted career, dedicates his retirement to the preservation of video game heritage. A formidable quartet that probably isn’t ignorant of much in the gaming world, regardless of the era in question!
Seven professionals who balance each other out plus four walking encyclopedias of video games give us eleven members out of fifteen; so who are the remaining four elements of the programming advisory committee? To sum up: people experimenting in the field of video games! Hamid Bessaa is a researcher at Lutin (an internal research laboratory at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie), focusing on player behavior through various experiments. Michel Simatic is a teacher-researcher with a close interest in video games; Marion Coville is a researcher in economic and social sciences, interested in video games and digital technology in general; and Margherita Balzerani is an art critic intrigued by the connections between contemporary art and new technologies. These four profiles seem to bring a constructive perspective to video games, without being hopeless geeks.
To summarize: the curatorial team comprises many interesting profiles, but if you remove the multidisciplinary specialists from the permanent team and the two counterbalancing groups (“video games are addictive” psychologists and the “nah, everything’s fine” businessmen), you are left with 9 useful members: the project leader, the 4 nerds, and the 4 mad scientists. That’s enough to steer the ship toward its destination, and even promising given the work of these members. So, is e-LAB Season 4 a groundbreaking success or a damp squib?
Bob’s Visit to e-LAB Season 4
To be honest, I visited e-LAB during its Season 4 completely by chance; the family visit to the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie was planned, but I discovered e-LAB only on site. With a particularly neutral perspective, I explored the exhibition, located on the 3rd floor of the exhibitions. It is a 700 m² mezzanine space accessible by a spiral staircase, with a capacity of 100 people. A downside—also noted in Google reviews—is that the exhibition isn’t accessible for People with Reduced Mobility (P.M.R.); it’s surprising for a public establishment showcasing one of the most accessible pastimes for P.M.R. and lecturing us in its conferences about pointless progressive topics on accessibility, representation, and inclusivity in video games… And in Bob’s small business, he’s served with a compliance notice from the State if P.M.R. access isn’t ensured. Once again, the French administration is pitifully incompetent. Anyway, let’s move on. The exhibition is divided into several zones, which I will present to you.
Past, Present, Future
Travel through eras during a game.
This section offers the opportunity to play through different eras, utilizing five games:
- Horizon Forbidden West
- The House of Da Vinci III
- Polylithic
- Flight Simulator 2020
- Blazing Chrome
Good games that are supposed to represent the diversity of eras in video games. Almost. But what’s Flight Simulator doing in the mix? The information panel explains that Flight Simulator happens in real-time. This seems a bit off-topic, my good lady! From the list provided, only Polylithic seems relevant to me: the style of the game (survival game) fits well with the era chosen. The House of Da Vinci III is still acceptable, as the chosen era is original and well-suited to the puzzles presented. I know this because I’m familiar with the game—not from my experience at e-LAB: the controller wasn’t working…
Sure, Horizon Forbidden West is set in a post-apocalyptic future, but a visitor unfamiliar with the game might just remember making a girl run across a plain on a huge screen: it’s not the type of game suited for an impromptu session of a few minutes. Blazing Chrome, a solid run’n gun, is more fitting in that regard, but its relationship with time is rather tenuous—it’s set in a futuristic version of the 1980s, the placard tells us. The game was released in 2019… Plus, the setup was for face-to-face co-op, making it impossible to play solo!
That leaves Flight Simulator, placed in a section focusing on the eras of video games… The concept that the game runs in real-time holds up, but to fully execute this idea, it would have been interesting to include a third-party extension offering real-time traffic within the game: a simulation allowing you to take off from Roissy between real commercial flights would indeed be impressive. However, the game, installed in a mini cockpit setup, wasn’t operational due to the absence of an animator…
Decryption, Agora JV, and Off-Game
I’ll skip the laboratory, which was closed during my visit and appears to be dedicated to group activities (likely with school groups). I’ll group the following three spaces, present in each of the e-LAB seasons but adapted to the current theme. No game supports, but several interesting showcases and presentations. The Agora offers cooperative play sessions of Overcooked!, which must be quite fun if well organized. For the rest, three showcases display various physical media of the gaming sphere, the written press, and games/toys. A digital jukebox plays background music in the exhibition, and the mechanical Pong seen at Jeux Vidéo, l’expo is present. Though out of service, it’s starting to become recouped. The only part somewhat related to time is the display of a documentary on speedrunning on a big screen (here featuring three versions of Mario). Good, but a bit light, right?
Play with Time
Manipulate time to outsmart puzzles and enemies on your path.
We’re finally starting to align with the theme, with four supporting games:
- Superhot
- Rogue Legacy 2
- Minit
- Braid
Nothing to say about Superhot, which has based its gameplay on the flow of time. The same goes for Braid. Minit, which I wasn’t familiar with, gives the player one minute to complete the adventure: a sort of modern try-and-die fitting quite well within the theme. For Rogue Legacy 2, the informational card explains the inheritance system of this rogue-lite: after the player’s death, the game continues with the protagonist’s descendant who inherits his qualities and flaws. The subject is certainly respected, but perhaps the section isn’t the most fitting.
A positive aspect of this section: all the games functioned smoothly, and except for Rogue Legacy 2, they offer easily understandable gameplay systems that are well within the theme and suited for short sessions. In my view, this is the best section of the exhibition.
Intimate Time
Take the time to immerse yourself in the introspective world of mobile games.
Introspective isn’t the term that comes to mind when I think of smartphone games. You know, those games played in sessions of a few seconds between public transport stops, in a waiting room, or during a visit to the restroom—uncomfortably, with little concentration, and without sound. Anyway, the supporting games number four:
- Daily Dadish
- Old Man’s Journey
- To the Moon
- Underground Blossom
It’s worth noting that, apart from Underground Blossom, these games are all multi-platform, and I’m fairly certain that smartphones weren’t the developers’ primary platform of choice. I wasn’t familiar with any of these games, but they are indie productions with a certain charm. It’s not impossible that I might play them in the near future, but certainly not on a piece of sticky carpet, in a gloomy hallway, on a grimy tablet as offered by e-LAB.
This section makes no sense to me. The presentation card states that “the intimacy provided by mobile devices allows for a more individual gaming experience, conducive to personal immersion.” My idea of personal immersion in a game is in my dimly lit office on a Saturday night, headphones on, door locked, window cracked open for ventilation, water bottle at hand, a good chair, a good controller, a good screen, with the night to myself and Sunday for sleeping in. Not curled up on the living room couch, with the dog barking to go out, something trivial on Netflix, and my wife coming to bug me every five minutes… Plus, two tablets weren’t even working!
Glance in the Rearview
Back to the Futuristic Gaming of the 90s!
Here we are. It’s difficult to offer something related to video games without resorting to the simplicity of placing 2-3 arcade machines. In this case, there are three:
- Super Sidekicks
- Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon
- Street Fighter II The World Warrior
Why this selection? No idea. SFII is always justified due to its historical importance, but the other two don’t have anything particular to stand out from thousands of others. I doubt anyone under 35 remembers Sailor Moon today, and soccer isn’t exactly the most representative genre of arcade… And the machines aren’t even from the era; they’re Vizion machines produced by Neo Legend (which absolutely doesn’t detract from their quality!). Sure, the three machines were functioning (this was the only section without any technical issues), but how does this relate to the theme? Answer: it doesn’t matter, it’s the end of the exhibition, go home!
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Conclusion: How Does e-LAB Season 4 Measure Up ?
Let’s be clear: e-LAB Season 4 isn’t worth much, despite having a curatorial concept that looks appealing on paper. Like all gaming enthusiasts who experienced the lean years of the medium in the ’80s and ’90s, Bob would prefer that video games be left alone rather than used without intelligence or respect just to be trendy.
e-LAB, in my opinion, suffers from several critical flaws. Firstly, the staging is mundane and uninspiring: a room plunged in semi-darkness, activity stations ranging from the ridiculous (Da Vinci House III’s prison stools) to the pitiful (the carpet squares in the tablet corridor or the torn faux-leather bean bags at the arcade machines), and not to mention the useless (the triple screen for Horizon with a token seat in front). Furthermore, the equipment is poorly maintained and often faulty. Additionally, the limited number of stations must make the place unbearable when swarms of overexcited Parisian kids invade on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons (Bob is smart, Bob visits when others are still asleep!). Finally, the information panels are incredibly brief, utterly uninteresting, and very poorly placed (most were simply physically unreadable for my fifth-grade daughter because they were too high or too far away). That’s for the presentation.
As for the substance, besides a poorly exploited theme, where is the scientific approach? During “Jeux Vidéo, l’expo,” which wasn’t perfect, several creations helped explain how games work: a simplified version of ‘Evoland,’ a racing game evolving from a pixel to a PS3, interactive workshops that truly provided scientific popularization. Here, they’ve merely offered 16 games roughly grouped into largely ignored sub-themes, without real explanation or depth. Those familiar with the presented games might manage to trace the thin thread linking them to the theme, but for others, it’s essentially “go figure it out yourself!”
I’m surprised that such a high-quality curatorial team appears to have overlooked demonstrations that seem obvious when wanting to connect time and video games: nothing on timing (a workshop allowing modification of a platformer would have highlighted how challenging it is to fine-tune a game for precision and playability; any 2D Mario or Meatball would have made for a perfect test subject); nothing on time as a constraint (old-school game timers and techniques used by developers to pressure players, like music speed-ups); nothing on major milestones in time management in video game history (from the introduction of saving for long sessions to persistent worlds, and bullet time or time manipulation like in Prince of Persia or Blinx); nothing on using time in storytelling (plenty of examples from Majora’s Mask to Chrono Trigger, not forgetting Final Fantasy); nothing on the relation between real-time and in-game time (as failed with Flight Simulator discussed earlier or games considering the real clock)… In short, many topics were completely ignored…
What I take away from e-LAB Season 4 is a great waste; while I haven’t attended any debates related to the exhibition, the majority of visitors will see only what I saw: a questionable selection of games haphazardly thrown into a soulless space, a complete lack of scientific approach or in-depth exploration, an exhibition that won’t teach anything to connoisseurs and won’t enlighten beginners either. At the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, it perpetuates the caricature held by detractors of video games: that gaming is an obscure and intellectually void activity indulged in by antisocial individuals in a dirty and dim attic. Another point for State Science!
Bob Dupneu
