I didn’t mean to say that abstraction is antithetical to emotion. Just that music, and sound in general, often carries a lot of information, that may or may not trigger emotions. The abstract, by definition, does not carry such information. The abstract can rarely be described as “spooky” or “otherworldly” for instance. I think some people enjoy abstraction a lot. I tend to prefer the anecdotal. :)

It’s true that instrumentation and (of course) lyrics can carry a lot of information about the origin or intent of a piece but, personally, that kind of information tends to have very little to do with the reasons I care about music. For example, I enjoy Gagaku, ancient japanese court music, because of the spooky, other-worldly instruments and glacially slow pacing, not because I’m especially interested in ancient japan.

By the way, thanks for indulging me in these tangents!

Maybe that’s why I like ‘em!

The idea of games PREVENTING thinking is a provocative statement. It isn’t a statement that feels true, however; more likely this is a reflection of the kinds of thoughts that you personally find valuable or interesting. I’m not sure that it is fair or wise to claim that thinking about the most efficient way to break some circles in drop7 is somehow less valuable than thinking about the latest adventures of Sasha Cohen, or attending a performance of Petrushka.

Personally, the glassy-eyed stare of the tv or movie viewer lulled into a childlike state by the expert use of timing and musical queues makes me far more uncomfortable. Maybe it’s simply an illusion created by the fundamental differences between passive vs active entertainment/art/whatever.

All that said, I too find myself wishing I could have those dozen hours back that I spent on a not-so-rewarding game (although not in the case of drop7!). However I also wish I hadn’t bothered to watch movies such as AI, or read books such as The Count of Montecristo.

I enjoy Drop 7, I think, because it makes part of my brain do things that it likes to do without having to think about it much. But, unlike doing nothing, it also seems to actively prevent thinking. This is how I end up feeling empty inside after playing.

Other sorts of entertainment not only require me to think but they stimulate and trigger all sorts of thoughts, that may or may not have anything to do with the game/painting/novel/music etc. And that’s how I end up feeling full afterwards, not empty.

I think games, as an ancient form, are not the ideal vehicle to research the potential of computers. The risk exists that we get stuck in perfecting game design as such, with the aid of computers, and not go beyond that and find out what else, what new the computer can do, in terms of entertainment and art. That’s what I mean when I say that games are holding back the medium, or that they force certain formats (such as linearity).

I agree that games are a field worthy of study. In and of themselves and with relation to designing interaction with computers. All I’m saying is that we should not stop there. There’s many other fields that can be equally inspiring when designing interaction with computers.

For example, I can gather from your response that you associate the term ‘interactivity’ with computers. This is fine and I think is actually a widely held association. I happen to not agree with it. I think that all games are interactive systems whether they’re governed by computers or human beings.

Which brings me to my original point that if you’re interested in rule based interaction between human beings you have to look at games, because they’ve been dealing with it for several thousand years.

And we can have a discussion about that, and exchange ideas, because now we both know what each one of us means when we use that word. So I guess I’ll ask again, because I’m genuinely curious, what did you mean when you said “In the case of video games, the game backbone forces games to be linear…”?

Instead, allow me to be fascinated by the diversity of meanings that humans give to words. I wouldn’t want that to go away. :)

I’m not sure if, at the end of the day, I’m interested in interactivity as such. I like how a computer can do things and a person can do things together with a computer. I like how fiction and reality melt into one. The player does something and the computer interprets it and does something back, etc. I like this kind of conversation with a story.

I don’t particularly like playing games with a computer. I think humans are better at that. Playing games with humans is much more fun.

You also didn’t answer my question of why you claim there’s a lack of experimentation in games or interactivity in general.

Anyway, it’s fine to not be into games, but if you’re interested in interactivity you MUST be familiar with them. Games are one of our oldest forms of culture; they’ve been dealing with interactivity in more depth and for longer than anything else.

I’m afraid games as such don’t interest me much, experimental or otherwise. I’m more interested in what else can be done with the interactive medium.

Also, what evidence do you have that there’s no experimentation going on in games? I hear this phrase thrown around a lot, usually by people who are only paying attention to what’s being released on the consoles. There’s much more going on than just what appears on the major platforms.

The Path was designed to be as successful as possible. I agree there is some merit in appealing to a big audience. But public success is by no means a proof of artistic quality.

More importantly, though, I think we need to experiment with this new medium. I understand that being conservative is somewhat trendy these days. But I think it’s a shame and a waste that we keep doing the same old thing over and over again instead of exploring the enormous new potential that this medium is giving us. Obviously exploration experiments will not be as successful as products that re-use conventions. But that shouldn’t stop us.

I believe that there’s something out there that is huge. And we won’t find it by running after our own tails.

Also, I would point out that Tale of Tales most successful release, The Path, is also your most ‘game-like’, with puzzles and goals and winning and losing. How do you explain that?

You said, ToT tries to “remove gameplay as much as possible.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but in The Path, you do have traditional game rules. I “failed” one time because I didn’t collect enough objects. I wasn’t even told I was supposed to do that. I was so angry and disappointed I never played it again.

Maybe 3D video games will evolve into immersive, interactive, real-time story-spaces without the competition, challenge, and winning and losing of games. It’s possible. But I don’t see a lot of evidence of it. I don’t see a lot of promising embryonic examples of this type of thing, I don’t see a ton of green shoots in this direction.

Then you are blind, Mr Lantz. Video games are filled with examples of this! Almost every commercial game is a demonstration of the immersive and narrative power of realtime technology. It’s true that most video games still have a game as their backbone. But that’s just a detail. It may go away. Or it may not. What matters is the other things that happen. And sometimes videogames, even today, allow us to enjoy them, despite of the game structure (or in rare cases, the game structure contributes because it happens to be a story about conquest or another game-related theme).

At Tale of Tales, we may be a bit too extreme in our desire to remove gameplay as much as possible. But I’m sure that in the next generation of video game designers, there will be people who will solve this problem. And then video games will become a true medium that will rise above its current status of comic book equivalent and rival literature, theatre and cinema.

That doesn’t mean that games are not a perfectly fine thing to make and play. It just means that something new has entered the world. And it’s fascinating!