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| MoriartyL |
 Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:15 pm |
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Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 69
Location: Israel
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It seems like most attempts at providing a unified theory of videogames assume that all types of games serve up the same type of content. For instance, Dan Cook's theory of game design (which I bring up because it's the most comprehensive one I've ever seen) assumes that the main content of all games is their addictiveness. Therefore, he determines the quality of all games by judging the various psychological qualities which make the experience addictive. Or there are those who assume that the main content of all games is the learning process, who tend to judge all games based on the effectiveness of the difficulty curve. Or those who hold the story highest.
Now, it occurs to me that actually where we should look for the main content depends on the type of game. For instance, in a virtual character (Nintendogs, Galatea), the content is the personality of the character, and the quality of the game depends on how well that personality shines through. In an exploration game (Myst, Metroid), the content is the world design, and the quality of the game depends on how good that world design is, and how well the player gets to know it. Simulations' (SimCity, Civilization) content is addictiveness. Adventures' content is story.
My first question is whether you would agree with this assessment, that all types of games have their content in a different area, and thus methods of judging games must be adjusted accordingly. Secondly, if you do agree with this, what is the primary content of other types of games: shmups? RTSs? Sports games? Metaludes (The Legend of Zelda, Beyond Good & Evil)? Platformers? |
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| Michael |
| Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 11:19 pm |
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Location: Gent, Belgium
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With a motto like there are two things in this world: good art and bad art, I'll have a hard time agreeing with this. 
To some extent, it is fair to judge things within their own category, I guess, but the problem is that everything can be good, then, as long as you make the category small enough. Maybe Doom 3 is not a good FPS, but it is the best FPS with lots of shadows, monsters and space marines. For example.
I'm toying with the idea of interactivity being the main means of expression in software. A software project would then be judged on how well it expresses its content through interactivity. So, in the Doom example, the game wouldn't be good if it would only scare you by showing or hiding scary monsters (like a movie) but it would be good in so far as it scares you as a result of the things you do and how it responds to those actions.
Addictiveness is an effect. It is not content. Content is always story (but story does not always mean plot or linearity). And it would be cynical to say that all games of a particualr genre would deal with the same story, I think. |
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| MoriartyL |
| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 12:36 am |
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Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 69
Location: Israel
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No, no, no, no. You have completely misunderstood me.
First of all, I don't see where you got the impression I was talking about "game types" so specific. I would, at this stage, consider all FPSs to be one "type". I think (from my very limited knowledge of FPSs) the main content of FPSs is intensity. By this measure, if a FPS has good graphics but is not intense, then it is a bad game. I'm a bit shocked to hear that you would think anyone would expect a Form to always deal with one story, so I'm not sure where that comes from either.
Your theory that the primary content of a game is the utilization of interactivity is a very very limited perspective, and exactly the sort of perspective I am rejecting here. Let me give you a few examples of the problems here:
-Myst IV: Revelation was one of the most inspiring works of art I've ever experienced, because its world design is brilliant and as I said I feel that the primary content of such "walkies" is world design. It has very little interactivity. By your measure, it would be considered a bad game.
-Grim Fandango was an excellent story. It was completely linear, and there were never more than one or two things to do at any one point. By your philosophy, it's a bad game.
-F-Zero GX was a fantastic racing game, because it challenged me immensely but was always fair, and because of a superb difficulty curve. From your perspective, it's a bad game.
Do you see the problem?- When you make a generalization like "Content is always story" to extend across all Forms, you miss the point in almost every Form. Your perspective may be good as a very limited approach to a very limited range of Forms, but it is in no way adequate for dealing with all of gamism.
Quote: Addictiveness is an effect. It is not content.
Hmph. Maybe I will need to figure this out for myself. No one seems to understand what I'm saying. |
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| Michael |
| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 3:26 am |
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I must admit that I don't think very highly of games as it pertains to their use of interactive media. I'm sure Myst and Grim Fandango are excellent games. But that doesn't mean they are good interactive pieces. And I consider interactivity to be the property that sets the computer apart from other media.
On the other hand, there have been plenty of less-than-optimally-interactive pieces for the computer that have been very entertaining and enlightening. But they have never achieved more than anything a good book, a film or a musical composition have achieved. Indeed, they always fall short. And in my opinion, they fall short because they do not utilize the unique properties of the medium and they settle for borrowing things from other media (games being also another medium to a large extent).
But I think you mean something other than what I think when you use the word "content". I guess I should read this Cook person. But if addiction is his norm, then I'm already not very attracted to it. I dislike any form of addiction with a passion.
Anyway, I think you are talking about games. And I am not. Hence the misunderstanding.
I find games interesting. But I don't care too much about them. |
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| MoriartyL |
| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 11:44 am |
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Joined: 05 Nov 2005
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Location: Israel
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Oh well. It was worth a shot, but I guess I will have to work this out myself.
Maybe "content" isn't the right word. I'm looking for the design element of each Form which defines it. The content of music is sound. The content of dance is movement. A dance may have music, but it is just a background for the movement. A dance may have props, but they are not the primary content either- they merely add a layer of complexity and meaning to the movement. It may be very challlenging to perform this dance, but the challenge is not the content; it's only there because it's necessary to ensure the best movement on stage. Similarly, an exploration game's content is world design. It may have music, but that's only a background to the world design. It may have puzzles or action, but that serves the world design by making it more linear. It may be challenging to find your way around, but that challenge is not the content, either.
I'm not sure whether this line of thinking holds up in every case. I'm going to try a few.
Adventures' content is story. The puzzles should serve the story, or else they are bad puzzles. The exploration is only there because it's necessary to have more than one "set" in the story. The characters are there as part of the story. The quality of an adventure depends on the quality of the story, and how well the other elements of the gameplay serve it.
Simulation's content is addictiveness. There is a challenge involved because challenges keep the player invested in the game. There may be a story, but it is only a backdrop to the player's personal experience. The quality of a simulation depends on how addictive it is.
I think the content of shmups is the challenge. Without a challenge, you could have the prettiest graphics in the world, and the most brilliant AI, and lovely music, and still have a worthless game. The AI serves the challenge. All other elements- well, are there any other notable elements to a shmup? The quality of a shmup depends on the quality of the challenge, which is to say fairness, a solid difficulty curve, and the demanding of tremendous skill.
A sports game's content is... hm, does a sports game have any content? Maybe I should say it's realism and leave it at that. I have no experience with which to speak from.
A platformer's content is its control, I think. World design is a playground for the player to try out all his moves. The (generally mascot-ish) character is an excuse to give wacky controls. Action/puzzles/whatever other type of gameplay the game throws at you are attempts to get as much out of the control as possible, exploring all possibilities for their use. The quality of a platformer depends on how fun the controls are, and how well the gameplay uses those controls.
A multiplayer online game's content is, I think (and this "I think" is made more pronounced by the fact that I've never played an MMO) its virtual society. Any gameplay serves the social aspect, even solo gameplay, because what kind of a society has nothing to do all day? People are brought together in their common activities. Chats also brings people together; interaction is a vital part of any community. The quality of an online game depends on how much support it gives to the growth of a community, and the quality of the community, which is to say that it is suitable to its purpose and reflects the artist's wishes (for instance, a hostile environment when that was the intent of the designer).
Identifying the primary content is a necessary step in defining a Form. If an "adventure" does not try to tell a story, then it is not an adventure. It may be a puzzle game, and should be judged based on the measures of a puzzle game (I can't be more specific than that, having very limited experience with puzzle games), or it may be an exploration game, in which case it should be judged, as I said earlier, by its world design.
This discussion of primary content is not enough to describe all games. First of all, I need a term to describe elements such as I have described, which serve the primary content. "Assisting content"? "Servant Elements"? I can't think of what to call it that doesn't sound ridiculous. I would be very appreciative of any help in getting my terminology straightened out. Maybe "subordinate element". Yeah- that works.
Then there is the question of what happens when a Form is so complex that no element of its design is dominant. For instance, a film is made up of pictures and sounds- the two complement each other so well that it cannot be said that either one of these elements is the primary content. What video cannot tell the viewer, the audio tells the viewer, and vice versa. In combining the strengh of the visual and the auditory, the film Form becomes something greater than either one could be alone. An interactive example: Metal Gear Solid combines stealth, film, and audio show. The three complement each other by being used only when they are best suited for what is going on in the story. Tense moments are dealt with in stealth, big story moments are dealt with cinematically, and audio is used for backstory and other conversations where video would only get in the way. When one "contained Form" is not sufficient, it switches to another, and so they complement each other and MGS is greater than the sum of its parts. Where is the primary content?
You could say that in such cases, the primary content is always the story. I'm not sure. Disney's Fantasia wasn't about the story, but- Hey! It actually shifted the roles around! By sticking in a complete piece of music, which could stand on its own, into the film, it pushed the animation into a subordinate position. So there actually is a dominant element, and this is no longer a complex Form! So bad example. Let's see: 2001 wasn't about the story, not really. It was more about the pictures and the music. Hmmm, that may be because they weren't so complementary, what with there being so little dialogue. The role of dominant element sort of switches back and forth between them, which makes it similar to MGS. But the pictures are in a clear order, so that you see a progression between them- maybe this really is a story. Hmph.
Okay, I'll try an RPG instead. My favorite RPG: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. (RPGs are a very complex Form, often with as many as four completely self-sustaining types of gameplay, which complement each other perfectly.) Now, the story of M&L is given a lot of attention, but I'm not sure that's the primary content. There's a lot of fun to the battles themselves: the challenge and the difficulty curve were often more appealing to me than the story. Have battles become the dominant element? Not really, since the story doesn't serve them very much and the exploration is good for its own sake. And yet the primary content of the game isn't the story, so much as the experience. Or maybe it is the story- the challenge is just the primary content of the battles, even though those battles are contained in the larger complex Form. Okay, fine, in any complex Form the primary content is the story. I'm glad that's settled.
Finally, there is occasionally the issue of "secondary content". Secondary content is specific to a particular game, not the Form as a whole. Generally a game with secondary content can be expressed as "a X serving the purpose of Y". For instance, The Sims is a simulation serving the purpose of a dollhouse. Its primary content is addictiveness, since it is a simulation. But its secondary content is inherited from the dollhouse: a reflection of day-to-day life. Pokémon is an RPG serving the purpose of a collectible series such as sports cards. Though the primary content of an RPG is a story, that is only because it has no dominant element, so it got it by default. Therefore, what would have been the secondary content becomes the primary content and the primary content of Pokémon is the ability to collect. The Endless Forest is an online game serving the purpose of a painting, so its primary content is its community, but its secondary content is the artistry of the graphics and the atmosphere.
I think that just about covers it all. |
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| Michael |
| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:46 pm |
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Joined: 07 Jun 2002
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Location: Gent, Belgium
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Why is it so important to you to define this "Form"?
(And how are these different than the game genres that, in my opinion, are the death of creativity?)
And do you think "content" is the same very every player?
(I know I like to play Tekken for the characters and for the love affair that I imagine between Jin and Xiaoyu. Is that wrong?) |
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| MoriartyL |
| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 2:17 pm |
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Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 69
Location: Israel
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Michael wrote: Why is it so important to you to define this "Form"?
I'm sorry if my usage of that term confused you. I've used it here many times in the past, so I didn't want to spell out again that it's short for "form of art or entertainment". I'm not trying to define any Form in particular at the moment; I'm trying to put together a way of thinking with which I can define any Form. This is vitally important for me because I have always been very aggravated by theorists who place a little box around themselves and only deal correctly with works inside that box. They see only a tiny part of reality, not nearly enough to see where progress must be made. I need an alternative which encompasses all of art so that I can see how it all fits together, and use that knowledge in the design of new types of games.
Quote: (And how are these different than the game genres that, in my opinion, are the death of creativity?)
So as I said, I'm not trying to revolutionize gamism; I'm trying to understand it. There are so many people with ideas about what they would like to see, but it seems to me that none of these people have any understanding at all. Does this seem right to you? I'd like to understand what relationship the RPG has to the metalude (so I can judge whether the metalude is in a good position there, or if it should become its own entity), where Animal Crossing fits in (to get a sense of where the lessons learned from it can be applied), what methods are at my disposal to tell a good story, what role adventures play in the larger scheme of things, where such wacky inventions as The Endless Forest fit in (so that I can see where its lessons are applicable), etc. Do you know how much of this I can figure out by ignoring everything that's ever been accomplished? That's right: Absolutely nothing.
Quote: And do you think "content" is the same very every player?
(I know I like to play Tekken for the characters and for the love affair that I imagine between Jin and Xiaoyu. Is that wrong?) |
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