What Games Are

Tolstoy, Art, Divided Brains and Roleplaying Games

I had the pleasure of attending a talk by the founders of Bioware at BAFTA. It was about whether games are an art and if so, how. Starting with a definition from Tolstoy, they explained that the ability to create key choices and moments within games to evoke emotion is what they consider art. They then invited members of the audience to share their own emotional play experiences.

However something bothered me about the definition and its application. Both speakers and audience were equating art with player emotion, beauty and experience and that’s not really what Tolstoy meant. It can’t be denied that many players of roleplaying games feel that their play experience should be regarded as art, but is it? Or are they actually searching for validation?

This is a post about definitions of art, emotional validation, the duality of play, Iain McGilchrist and whether roleplaying really is what its proponents think it is.

100,000 Players for 60 Days [Traction]

‘I don’t really care about being right’, Steve Jobs said in an interview for Triumph of the Nerds, ‘I just care about success.’

There are infinite ways to kid yourself that a game is successful, but there are also many ways to misinterpret success as failure. Here’s what I think: If your game can attract 100,000 players who each play for 60 days then it’s a success. It might take time to realise its value, but you’re definitely onto something.

It has traction.

All Great Marketing Stories are About the Future

Many game makers look at figures like Peter Molyneux and wonder why he gets all the press and they get none. And the answer is that Molyneux understands marketing stories and how to tell them. Most industry legends are the same. They get that the public does not just see a game as a thing, but in context.

You might think you’re just making a game, but you’re not. You’re either creating or contributing to a marketing story, whether intentionally or otherwise, and it’s increasingly important to tell the one you genuinely believe in. Especially if it’s about the future.

The Storysense of Call of Duty MW3

I often say that videogames are not a storytelling medium. They can’t tell tightly structured tales because the player gets in the way, and this is why there are no great game stories.

However I also often say that videogames are a great medium for storysense. An excellent example is the new Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3. This article looks at how Modern Warfare 3 conveys its sense of story, and how it sometimes gets it wrong, as a lesson for what you might do in your game.

(PS: Watch out, there are spoilers.)

Why Not Brandification Instead? [Gamification]

My sense is that brand managers are approaching games in the wrong way. A few years ago they were all into creating virtual worlds but that didn’t really work out. More recently they went through a phase of creating social games, but again no luck. Now they’re keen to commission digital agencies or game developers to create gamified sites or software for brands, which will inevitably become coupon schemes, badges and leader boards.

The vast majority of these projects are utter failures because they end up creating vapid digital services with no soul. The ones that do succeed often do so accidentally (for example, because they were unexpectedly fun). Games are a cultural product, and like any other culture there is a line where commercial relationships become nakedly self-serving, and no customer finds that sexy.

Perhaps the branding industry should consider branding games rather than gamifying brands instead, if only for the reason that it’s more likely to work.

Interactivity Means Doing Stuff [Narrativism]

In discussing some of my older posts on players, characters and stories, I often come across a logic that says stories are interactive, games are also interactive, and therefore games are stories. Which makes sense except for one crucial detail: Stories are not interactive.

Interactivity is not how you react to what you see. It is how you change what you see. To be interactive, a game (or any art) needs to be capable of being intentionally altered by the viewer’s actions. It may sound obvious, but games are about the doing, not the viewing.

The Law of Fascination [Game Design]

It don’t mean a thing if it aint got that swing.

Duke Ellington’s point was simple: Across all genres and eras, music needs to swing. It’s a creative constant. I make a similar point about fun, arguing that it too is a creative constant and a game is not a game if it lacks the joy of winning while mastering fair game dynamics.

But some kinds of fun are more appealing than others. Some are innately fascinating and inspire the play brain to play, where others just don’t. I call it the law of fascination.

Weird Controls, or Reinventing the Wheel [Indie Games]

Experimenting with new interaction is important. Without it, we would never fully explore new interfaces. And yet, new ways of controlling games often feel forced.

The developer reinvents how to jump by tying it to the release of a button rather than pressing it. She crafts a system for issuing orders to units through complicated gestures rather than selection and clicking. Weird controls turn perfectly natural actions into arcane ones, forcing players to re-learn skills for no good reason.

Developers (particularly indies) seem to assume that clever interaction is the key to making great games. Sometimes it is. Mostly it's the opposite. Standardised interfaces form over time for a reason, and running counter to them is usually bad game design.

A Simple Reason Why Games Aren’t Finished

CNN recently asked why games are never finished by most players. In an age when production values are so high, it’s a very valid question. The industry response is often that older players with work and family commitments simply can’t play as much as they used to, so this makes the case for shorter, more intense, games.

I disagree. In my experience, players find the time to play just as readers find the time to read. Online games also indicate that games can occupy many hundreds of hours for motivated players in the right circumstances.

The uncomfortable question to ask is whether the problem is the games rather than the players. Simply put, are players not completing games because they’re boring?

Do Your Players Know Their Role? [Game Design]

Some games are made of smaller games, like Wii Sports or the Total War games. Other separations are softer. Vehicle play in Grand Theft Auto feels quite different from on-foot, and GTA is essentially two games which link strongly.

When games mix they can create exciting new experiences, but many mixes just don’t work. Rather than being enhanced by their interaction, these games pull on each other, leaving the overall experience to be one of dysnergy, the opposite of synergy.

Perhaps the game design has forgotten the importance of the player’s role. Role is not a marketing issue. It is how players understand your game and why it's awesome