Discussing games earlier today -as Auriea and I often end up doing, even to the point where we run out of gas on the highway- we became aware of a difference between computer games and other games that we hadn’t noticed before. It’s related to the fact that most non-computer games tend to require multiple players, while computer games allow you to play on your own.

It’s hard to believe that despite of all the potential that interactive technologies offer, the most prevalent structure in games is the binary one: you win or you lose. And much like the computer’s binary system, it is a false duality because the couple simply consists of a single possibility and its negation, a one and a zero. As a result, for all the talk about meaningful choices, most games only lead to a single outcome: winning.

Because you can’t really lose a computer game.
At least not the typical linear sort that is still the bulk of the offer.

There is only one way to end such a game. And it’s by winning. Or only one way of winning and it’s ending it. If you fail to win a level, you cannot progress in the game. If you stop playing after this, you haven’t really lost. You just gave up mid-way.

In games we play without computers, you generally lose when somebody else wins. This concludes the game. You have really lost. The virtual opponents in computer games cannot replace actual players because they tend to be part of the story, and as such not on the same level as the player.

This diffference does not necessarily make computer games inferior, but it’s another illustration of the fact that many game designers are trying hard to deny: that computer games are an entirely new form of entertainment only vaguely (and probably temporarily) related to traditional games.

Everybody gets carried away with the technology. When the technology gets more usable… Then the story tellers get more to the forefront. My hope is, but I can’t tell you when it will be, that we reach the peak in perfection so that the consumer doesn’t see the difference in technology anymore – then it is a pure race for entertainment.

Chris Crawford Michael Samyn Gerhard Florin (Electronic Arts)
Source: News.com via Gamesindustry.biz

Indeed. I can’t wait for the arms race to be over. But Mr. Florin is smart to not put a date on this. The truth is that, despite the glossy pictures from the next gen consoles, the technology is actually still quite crude. In fact, it is still so primitive that it takes entire teams of engineers to make the hardware respond in an acceptable fashion. The technology needs to become excessively powerful so that everyone can experiment with it without the risk of bringing performance to a crawl or crashing the machines. We’re still a long way from that level.

And when we achieve such extreme hardware performance, we can finally start working properly on solving the real problems of interactive entertainment. I agree with Mr. Florin that things will get interesting then. But just making way for “the story tellers” is not enough. They need to learn how to work with this technology, how to tell stories in interactive media, how to make things look and feel and sound the way we want. There’s a lot of work to be done. I can’t wait for the builders to leave the kitchen, so we can finally start cooking!

A discussion about experimental gameplay or games as art, often deteriorates into a discussion of the definition of the word game. Many people insist on using a rather strict definition of the word to avoid having to form an opinion about different forms of play and interaction.

I get so tired of that.

Games have been around for thousands of years. I don’t see why we need to discuss them anymore. They are a known fact, a well-documented craft, a historical art form, etcetera. Everything there is to be known about games, is already known.

Or is it?

It seems to me that there’s actually very little books about games that were written before computers. There’s Huizinga, and there’s Callois. And probably one or two hippies. And that’s it. For an age-old artform that strikes me as very little.
But since computers, we’ve seen an explosion of books, guides and documentation. Is there perhaps something about computer games that is not covered by the age-old game-wisdom? Something that does need to be discussed?

I think so.

There is something about computer games that makes them infinitely more compelling than traditional games. At least for a part of the population. It is not the gameplay. Because gameplay can be found in many non-computer games, in much purer forms. Only a small fragment of the group of computer gamers also plays chess or board games. And very few of them play those with the same dedication as computer games.

So please. Stop nagging about goals and rules and missions and levels. They are clearly completely besides the point!

Let’s start discussing the things that make computer games different from traditional games! There’s a lot of things to be said and researched and discovered and discussed on that terrain. The ancient craft of game-making can take care of itself. Let’s talk about the things that really draw people to computer games.

It’s quite vital. We know next to nothing about those things. We don’t even know what they are.

It makes my hair curl to hear some macho-programmer say things like “Next Gen Games are beautiful but brainless“! I think they’re just saying these things to make a point but let it be known that I declare it an objective fact that Next Gen games are NOT beautiful! Their visuals may be “impressive” or “stunning” or “amazing”. But they are not, not by any means, “pretty” or “beautiful”. I’m not going to have Beauty dragged down with the industry’s obsession with photographic realism.

Yes: there is an extreme focus on graphics in games technology. And this does indeed seem to happen at the expense of evolution in A.I. and gameplay. But this is by no means a battle between looks and wits. Because these high-tech games are U-G-L-Y!! Technology does not make things beautiful.

There is a lot of research needed in the realm of realtime 3D aesthetics. This is indeed partly a technological problem but not one that can be solved by hair shaders (though I admit that these could be abused for good). To a large extent because it’s not simply about visual aesthetics but about the mostly unexplored aesthetics of an interactive/generative real-time multi-sensorial experience. But even in terms of pure visual aesthetics, technology can never be the solution. Especially since this technology only seems to be concerned with a recreation of factual reality. In other words: Next Gen technology is a scientific project, not an artistic one.

I agree with Steve Grand that as game characters start looking more and more realistic, the lack of sophistication in their behaviour becomes more and more of a problem. I realized this first when I saw Prince of Persia: Sands of Time in which the realistically rendered character of the prince bounces off the walls like a rubber ball in a pin ball machine. But the game went on to become a success nonetheless and spawned sequels that were so bad they made the “first” one look like an artistic masterpiece.

The truth is that as long as this technology is used for games, not many people will care much about the believability of the characters, with the possible exception of a desire for enemies that can dodge bullets creatively. Raph Koster has pointed this out painfully clearly in his Theory of Fun: once people start playing, all they see is the system. This often leads game designers to think of beauty as unnecessary icing on the cake. For me it totally invalidates games as a worthwhile use of this technology. If we cannot create something beautiful that people will just “play” for the enjoyment of that beauty, the technology does not even deserve to be called a medium.

The past years have been good for real-time 3D. The technology has become more accessible and more powerful. This has allowed many people to experiment with the medium, which lead to interesting experiences and stimulated creativity throughout the games industry.

The Next Generation of hardware threatens to put an end to this.

Why? Because rather than making the technology easier to use for normal people in small numbers, Next Gen makes it easier for the machines to crunch larger amounts of numbers, faster. So the humans need to keep up.
I’m not a fan of the current aesthetic per se but the results are impressive so far. It’s not just a matter of more polygons, but also simply of more stuff (large quantities of objects that are all different) and extreme polish. Everything is shiny in Next Gen…

And while all of this may not exactly be beautiful, it does put the bar a lot higher for everybody else. There is absolutely no way that an independent game developer can create anything even remotely next gen. They just don’t have the man power, money or time for this. As result they will be -and are- returning to, or sticking with, old technology. 2D Scrolling games are already making a come-back. Not to mention all the other retro-inclinations and -fads.

Some of these might be interesting in creative terms in and of themselves. But retro is not exactly where you want the avant garde to be!… The level of polish that a big company can achieve with next gen hardware turns the medium of realtime 3D into something that is only accessible for the rich and conservative. And that’s a shame. Not just for a wasted technology but also for the games industry itself which will bleed to death without lively experimentation.

This is a thought that I wanted to elaborate on later but a recent post on Raph Koster’s blog prompted me to talk about it now. The post is about that really good violinist playing in the subway ignored by a thousand passers-by. Somehow, Raph thinks this is relevant to games. And I can see how he would think that.

I think this is about the apparent conflict between the goals of a game and the enjoyment one might find along the path, in those “little niceties” that the artists in the basement of the game developers have added to fluff things up. This conflict is another case of mistaking an opportunity for a problem. Remove the goals from games, and the problem disappears. It’s as simple as that.

Silmple is obviously relative. It’s in fact probably a lot harder to design an environment where people can enjoy the journey instead of hurrying towards the goal. In the case of music, this environment is a concert hall in which performances are organized. A lot of work, indeed. But well worth it, if you ask me. As opposed to walking from the metro to your office in the morning, sitting down in the opera with your wife in the evening is a very convenient situation for enjoying beautiful music.

The original thought was this:

Everyone enjoys a beautiful photograph, a beautiful drawing, a beautiful painting. So why should a realtime piece need to be a game before you can enjoy it? Can it not just be beautiful?

In the discussions triggered by our recent post about reviewing games, the topic of consumer advice came up regularly. The function of the game review was to tell the potential customer whether or not the game was worth the price asked for it. Hence the desire, I guess, for a more or less objective analysis of a game. And since a game’s structure (aka gameplay) is about the only thing that can be judged objectively, all the other elements are disregarded or underappreciated.

I remember a pathetic moment in the 1Up Show (I believe it was Episode 02/23, view the segment in question here.) where one of the journalists exclaimed that Flow -yes, thatgame again- wasn’t worth the 8 Dollars Sony was asking for it.

Eight Dollars… that would be six Euros. I can buy 3 or 4 loafs of bread with that. Or a single beer in a bar, maybe two if it’s a cheap bar. It might just get me a cinema ticket, but not my date. Or I could spend it on a set of postcards in the second hand bookstore, a magazine perhaps (not a glossy one though). I don’t think I can buy underwear for that price. But I could get some cookies.

What’s up with gamers and their money?

Why are they so skimpy when it comes to games? As far as I can tell, people who play games -and especially those who can afford a PS3 and the HDTV- are plenty rich. It’s not like they cannot afford buying a game that they might end up not liking. Even only vaguely entertaining games give plenty of value for money, in comparison to books, cinema, food, transportation, clothing, etc.

How many times are you heart broken when leaving the cinema realizing that the film you saw wasn’t that good? Do you wish you could get your money back after being disappointed with a novel’s plot? No. You paid the money for the experience. With no garantees. Somebody offered you a product or a service. And you take the risk. You can afford it.
But not when it comes to games. When it comes to games, we need to know exactly if it’s going to be “worth our money”, even if it only costs a measly 6 Euros.

Why is that?

I might read movie reviews to see if anything good is coming out. The truth actually is that I never read movie reviews. I just go to the cinema if the stills and story appeal to me. If not, I don’t go to the cinema. Gamers seem to work in a different way. To game does not seem like an optional activity. They need to game! And so they need the review basically not to recommend a game to them, but to tell them which games they should not spend their money on. Because they will buy a game.

Is this why they are so skimpy? Are they looking for the cheapest fix?

And if it really is about value for money, would you pay 200 Euros for Halo, or 300 for Grand Theft Auto or Spore? Surely, considering the work that goes into these products, and the glowing reviews, they would be worth every penny!

The pricing policy also has effects on the design of the game. In a world where the price of a game is relatively low, a developer can only make an ambitious game if it is going to appeal to the masses. If gamers would be prepared to be pay more for a game, then the designers would be able to work in a much more focussed way without caring about mass appeal. They could make a game just for you, or you and your friends!

But would a gamer pay more for a better game? I think not.

Somehow this leaves a bitter aftertaste in mouth that we don’t think very highly of this form of entertainment. That basically, deep down, we all know that all games suck…