Mature games and "Hard" questions
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Mind talking about it for a little bit? I know the summary (criminal forced to fight his way through a bunch of guys trying to kill him as some kind of snuff film; lots of gore), but what are the "hard questions" it explores?ohmz said:
-- Alex
I still think the medium belittles the message. Sure, you could play a raving lunatic in Deus Ex, but you did it for fun, to see what it felt like, not because you felt the need to explore the complex inner workings of a sociopathic mind and reform your perspectives based on the experience.
It's not that I don't think games can tell interesting or compelling stories; I just don't see the medium being able to overcome its intrinsic qualities to be this Great Epiphany of Humanity. The movies or books that do this well do it because as readers/viewers we are able to completely lose ourselves into the medium and empathize with the situation. If they do it poorly, we laugh at them (every Friday 13th sequel: "What should we do tonight? I know: let's go out to the woods where all our friends got killed!") because the stories and characters are so false we cannot lose ourselves.
Games are not a passive medium; they constantly require our participation, therefore we maintain a self-awareness that always means it's a game.
"Serious subject matter" does not always equate Great Story. I can point to a gajillion fanfictions that have tried to elevate themselves to greatness just by adding rape, murder, sex, etc. You know, all those "mature" things. A Great Story is in the telling, not the subject. Putting cleavage on a 12 year old does not make her Angelina Jolie, you know. Setting out to create "greatness" usually means failure.
It's not that I don't think games can tell interesting or compelling stories; I just don't see the medium being able to overcome its intrinsic qualities to be this Great Epiphany of Humanity. The movies or books that do this well do it because as readers/viewers we are able to completely lose ourselves into the medium and empathize with the situation. If they do it poorly, we laugh at them (every Friday 13th sequel: "What should we do tonight? I know: let's go out to the woods where all our friends got killed!") because the stories and characters are so false we cannot lose ourselves.
Games are not a passive medium; they constantly require our participation, therefore we maintain a self-awareness that always means it's a game.
"Serious subject matter" does not always equate Great Story. I can point to a gajillion fanfictions that have tried to elevate themselves to greatness just by adding rape, murder, sex, etc. You know, all those "mature" things. A Great Story is in the telling, not the subject. Putting cleavage on a 12 year old does not make her Angelina Jolie, you know. Setting out to create "greatness" usually means failure.
*I am using the word pornographic as it relates to obscenity or lewdness.
I'm reminded of Khell_sennet's FPS concept that took place (in part) in a school and ended with the player character's suicide. One of the replies mentioned that many people playing the game would simply see the player character killing a bunch of people. It made me think of an interview with Sharon Stone where the subject of the upskirt shot during the interrogation scene in Basic Instinct. It turns out that when they filmed that scene she was not even aware of the camera placement allowing people to see up her skirt and only found out later this pissed her off and she wanted the shot removed; at which point one of the directors says something to the effect of "That is what this movie is about." at which point she relented and got behind the scene 100%. It also made me think of the violence of the Normandy landing in Saving Private Ryan, where men are turned into soup even before they could get onto the beach by German guns, and men who do make it onto the beach are ripped in half by machine guns and call for their mothers as they lay dying with their intestines spilling out onto the beach. The two things these movies have in common is that what they depict rises above the level of pornography.
It's entirely possible for someone to watch Saving Private Ryan and come away with "OMFG awesome his guts were everywhere!" or "ZoMG she wasn't wearing any panties!" in the case of Basic Instinct; but in the end that doesn't matter because neither was using violence or sex for the sake of violence or sex. Games in general have come to the point where they introduce violence and sex into their products for the sake of those things thus making them pornographic because there is no real meaning to them. It's the difference between your boyfriend or girlfriend walking around naked while trying to find clothes and them doing so while giving you "the look." To argue that awareness of a game being a game belittles such things is to say the same about every other medium where "hard" questions are asked. In the end we are aware of what those things are as we experience them their passiveness is irrelevant.
Of course this is not to say that there shouldn't be games that have over the top violence and sex occasionally because there is a need for such things in this world. However we won't really have mature games until we can connect violence and sex to things greater than just the mechanical acts themselves. Much in the same way that a human child ceases to speak with the words of a child as they become adults games, and those involved in them will have to learn to speak with the words of an adult if you are going to get games that take the current concept of maturity in games and turn it on it's head.
When a game like Khell's or Mass Effect with it's barely thirty seconds of obscured nudity can be made without WWIII starting, we will have succeeded. In order to do that we have to be able to make games that don't skirt issues like love and sex. We have to be willing to show (and view) the muck and so forth that makes up the human experience. That is the "hard" question it's not about creating a new game mechanic, it's about speaking with the voice of an adult about violence as it happens in real life, sex as it happens between people, it's about multifaceted experiences. The first step of course is to just go for it, just like every other medium has had to do.
I'm reminded of Khell_sennet's FPS concept that took place (in part) in a school and ended with the player character's suicide. One of the replies mentioned that many people playing the game would simply see the player character killing a bunch of people. It made me think of an interview with Sharon Stone where the subject of the upskirt shot during the interrogation scene in Basic Instinct. It turns out that when they filmed that scene she was not even aware of the camera placement allowing people to see up her skirt and only found out later this pissed her off and she wanted the shot removed; at which point one of the directors says something to the effect of "That is what this movie is about." at which point she relented and got behind the scene 100%. It also made me think of the violence of the Normandy landing in Saving Private Ryan, where men are turned into soup even before they could get onto the beach by German guns, and men who do make it onto the beach are ripped in half by machine guns and call for their mothers as they lay dying with their intestines spilling out onto the beach. The two things these movies have in common is that what they depict rises above the level of pornography.
It's entirely possible for someone to watch Saving Private Ryan and come away with "OMFG awesome his guts were everywhere!" or "ZoMG she wasn't wearing any panties!" in the case of Basic Instinct; but in the end that doesn't matter because neither was using violence or sex for the sake of violence or sex. Games in general have come to the point where they introduce violence and sex into their products for the sake of those things thus making them pornographic because there is no real meaning to them. It's the difference between your boyfriend or girlfriend walking around naked while trying to find clothes and them doing so while giving you "the look." To argue that awareness of a game being a game belittles such things is to say the same about every other medium where "hard" questions are asked. In the end we are aware of what those things are as we experience them their passiveness is irrelevant.
Of course this is not to say that there shouldn't be games that have over the top violence and sex occasionally because there is a need for such things in this world. However we won't really have mature games until we can connect violence and sex to things greater than just the mechanical acts themselves. Much in the same way that a human child ceases to speak with the words of a child as they become adults games, and those involved in them will have to learn to speak with the words of an adult if you are going to get games that take the current concept of maturity in games and turn it on it's head.
When a game like Khell's or Mass Effect with it's barely thirty seconds of obscured nudity can be made without WWIII starting, we will have succeeded. In order to do that we have to be able to make games that don't skirt issues like love and sex. We have to be willing to show (and view) the muck and so forth that makes up the human experience. That is the "hard" question it's not about creating a new game mechanic, it's about speaking with the voice of an adult about violence as it happens in real life, sex as it happens between people, it's about multifaceted experiences. The first step of course is to just go for it, just like every other medium has had to do.
Being able to play a rabid sociopath has nothing to do with why Deus Ex is "serious," though!LisaB1138 said:
Deus Ex is "serious" because it's nuanced. It shows you the ugly side of each character and each choice. Dues Ex is "serious" because the good-guy terrorists are still willing to take (and kill) hostages, because Helios' trans-human shared-consciousness utopia seems creepy and alien even as you're trying to build it, and because it occasionally gives you the chance to see the faceless minions you're shooting as just regular people with their own little personalities and lives.
-- Alex
I can't think of a single time in my conscious life that I've interacted with a medium without the full awareness that I was having a framed, mediated experience at the time.LisaB1138 said:
That awareness is the essence of both fiction and play, innit?
-- Alex
"To argue that awareness of a game being a game belittles such things is to say the same about every other medium where "hard" questions are asked. In the end we are aware of what those things are as we experience them their passiveness is irrelevant."
"I can't think of a single time in my conscious life that I've interacted with a medium without the full awareness that I was having a framed, mediated experience at the time.
That awareness is the essence of both fiction and play, innit?"
It's the difference of being on a ride and driving a car. You may wind up at the same destination with both situations, but the experiences are very different. If you're driving the car you must retain conscious control because you know you are affecting the ride.
And other mediums also belittle "hard" questions. I would never argue they didn't. But the interactive nature of gaming allows questions to be answered out of curiosity, yes? What happens if I kill So-n-So? What if I take this now, sleep with her, don't meet that guy on the corner like he said? You play with an awareness of affecting the outcome, and that is very different than being "taken for a ride." Since it's a game, you make choices out of curiosity to see what will happen or what you'll get, and you do it with the safety net of the "reload save" button. Since you cannot cancel that awareness, it affects what you do.
So it's not whether games can ask "hard questions" it's whether there's value above entertainment in doing so. I would argue that the value to the *game* is limited. "Hard questions" aren't going to make a game "better" by themselves. But the point of all "hard questions" is to get people talking, right? I mean, no one reads "To Kill a Mockingbird" in a vacuum. You always want to talk about it or share it with someone. So if asking "hard" questions gets people discussing the issues, why not?
"I can't think of a single time in my conscious life that I've interacted with a medium without the full awareness that I was having a framed, mediated experience at the time.
That awareness is the essence of both fiction and play, innit?"
It's the difference of being on a ride and driving a car. You may wind up at the same destination with both situations, but the experiences are very different. If you're driving the car you must retain conscious control because you know you are affecting the ride.
And other mediums also belittle "hard" questions. I would never argue they didn't. But the interactive nature of gaming allows questions to be answered out of curiosity, yes? What happens if I kill So-n-So? What if I take this now, sleep with her, don't meet that guy on the corner like he said? You play with an awareness of affecting the outcome, and that is very different than being "taken for a ride." Since it's a game, you make choices out of curiosity to see what will happen or what you'll get, and you do it with the safety net of the "reload save" button. Since you cannot cancel that awareness, it affects what you do.
So it's not whether games can ask "hard questions" it's whether there's value above entertainment in doing so. I would argue that the value to the *game* is limited. "Hard questions" aren't going to make a game "better" by themselves. But the point of all "hard questions" is to get people talking, right? I mean, no one reads "To Kill a Mockingbird" in a vacuum. You always want to talk about it or share it with someone. So if asking "hard" questions gets people discussing the issues, why not?
Lisa,
I'll turn it around by changing the name of "driving." Instead of "driving," let's call it... authorship. That's what it is: interactive media transform the audience into (limited) co-authors. Not only can you experience the game author's work, but you can engage it in a pretty direct dialogue of ideas.
The save-and-reload cycle can be a useful part of that experience. Events that you "take back" still contribute meaningfully to the narrative even though they're not part of the the story's "true" fictional reality. Movies do the same thing at times, too. Check out the coat scene in the original Cape Fear. Or the entirety of Rashomon and Run, Lola, Run, for that matter. Video games just make it the standard paradigm.
-- Alex
I'll turn it around by changing the name of "driving." Instead of "driving," let's call it... authorship. That's what it is: interactive media transform the audience into (limited) co-authors. Not only can you experience the game author's work, but you can engage it in a pretty direct dialogue of ideas.
The save-and-reload cycle can be a useful part of that experience. Events that you "take back" still contribute meaningfully to the narrative even though they're not part of the the story's "true" fictional reality. Movies do the same thing at times, too. Check out the coat scene in the original Cape Fear. Or the entirety of Rashomon and Run, Lola, Run, for that matter. Video games just make it the standard paradigm.
-- Alex
No, you don't engage in a direct dialog, because no game can ever be as comprehensive as reality. I know we think computers are brilliant and all, but they still do not come close to the quickness or complexity of the human brain. So the dialog is alway pre-scripted. You are only given certain options for response because there's no way all options can be programmed for the computer to respond to, and there can only be certain options for the computer's response. So again, you are trying to "figure out" the game. What does it want? What will it respond to? It's like trying to figure out what combination of words will give you the search results you want in Google because computers are nothing but cold equations that only understand what they're told to understand and only in the way they're told to understand it. Case in point: put "金城　武" into Bablefish and translate from Japanese to English and you'll get "kangai military affairs." Put the same combination into Google and you'll get "Takeshi Kaneshiro" which is actually correct. No one's told Bablefish to translate kanji as names. A computer is only as comprehensive as it's told to be.
I realize that's a rather limited example, but due to the scripted nature that games must take, I can't see any real dialog regarding "hard questions." You'll only get the answers that have been programmed into the game. You are still only talking to a computer that can only do what it's been told to do. It's just as "one-sided" as a movie or novel, there's just this illusion of interactivity because every once and a while you are presented with some dilemma--chosen by programmers--and possible responses, again, chosen by programmers. If you feel somehow "in control" or autonomous regarding your actions, then kudos to the designers. They've clearly done their jobs well.
Again, the game cannot do more raise questions, but in the end it's the questions that are interesting. Playing a game that asks the questions, though, is no different than seeing a movie or reading a novel on the same subject. You are still left with someone else's ideas about the subject, just explored in a different way.
I realize that's a rather limited example, but due to the scripted nature that games must take, I can't see any real dialog regarding "hard questions." You'll only get the answers that have been programmed into the game. You are still only talking to a computer that can only do what it's been told to do. It's just as "one-sided" as a movie or novel, there's just this illusion of interactivity because every once and a while you are presented with some dilemma--chosen by programmers--and possible responses, again, chosen by programmers. If you feel somehow "in control" or autonomous regarding your actions, then kudos to the designers. They've clearly done their jobs well.
Again, the game cannot do more raise questions, but in the end it's the questions that are interesting. Playing a game that asks the questions, though, is no different than seeing a movie or reading a novel on the same subject. You are still left with someone else's ideas about the subject, just explored in a different way.
Sure. That's pretty much my thesis: a video game can explore the same issues as a film or novel, just in a slightly different structure, and interactivity and player involvement are not an impediment to that.LisaB1138 said:
Conventional video-game narrative does more to echo the players' reactions back at them and emphasizes the meta-story of what could have happened but "didn't" more so than most books and movies, but there's examples of that in both of the older media as well. They're just not the mainstream paradigm of film and novel storytelling.
-- Alex
you said 'hard'
...
but seriously,
i may have read it wrong, but unfortunately your right,
in order to be seen as an adult medium they need to 'earn' it first. they, as in the gaming producers, and developers, need to create a game that isn't a 'gta4.' perhaps a 'children of men.' type game.
i do think that games are becoming more of a 'emotionally/morally' driven mechanic like they used to.
...
but seriously,
i may have read it wrong, but unfortunately your right,
in order to be seen as an adult medium they need to 'earn' it first. they, as in the gaming producers, and developers, need to create a game that isn't a 'gta4.' perhaps a 'children of men.' type game.
i do think that games are becoming more of a 'emotionally/morally' driven mechanic like they used to.
Agreed. I confess I only play 3rd person action/adventure and horror. Like Yahtzee, the initials "RPG" don't connote great gaming experiences. LOL. I still wonder if discussing hard questions in a Game will wind up like this. Germans vs. Greeks>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5fGSBsfq8 -- Either way, it misses the point (but funny as hell.)Alex_P said:
But I admit I play games for fun. I only want diversion out of them, to play and be entertained (even if I'm peeing my pants in fear. LOL) I'm old, so my perception of games has also been shaped by my early experiences with books and the lack of TV. I cannot view games how you view games since they've been a part of your life since the beginning. As something that came into my house with children, they were immediately labeled "toy" albeit a toy I have fun with. So maybe I'm just biased toward the "effectiveness" other media because that's "what I grew up with."
H.G. Wells, a pacifist, loved wargames with toy soldiers -- moving them around with rulers, constructing elaborate paper fortifications, shooting things with tiny spring-loaded canons, the whole shebang.
In his gaming manual Little Wars, one argument he advances is that a scaled-down, cleaned-up war is fun rather than harrowing, but maintains enough of the character of the real thing to make the absurdity of the whole enterprise abundantly clear to its players.
I have no love for the Civ games, but they're a good illustration of this point. Civ is a war game. Civ would be hopeless boring without the battle stuff. Heck, it wouldn't have a point without the battle stuff. All that economic and social advancement is all about having the resources to beat the other guys into submission. It's no different from Master of Orion or Starcraft in this way. But one thing Civ does show you is the futility of nuclear war. Nuking your way to victory is a painful slog with unsatisfying results. You're much better off trying to build the magic space rocket or become king of the UN.
-- Alex
(ETA: I don't think this is really a big accomplishment, of course. Nor does it really meet my standards for "hard questions." I want to see play-narrative that actually addresses issues rather than just maybe allowing for the possibility of you noticing something tangential while you're playing the game. But I thought it would be fun to throw out there.)
In his gaming manual Little Wars, one argument he advances is that a scaled-down, cleaned-up war is fun rather than harrowing, but maintains enough of the character of the real thing to make the absurdity of the whole enterprise abundantly clear to its players.
I have no love for the Civ games, but they're a good illustration of this point. Civ is a war game. Civ would be hopeless boring without the battle stuff. Heck, it wouldn't have a point without the battle stuff. All that economic and social advancement is all about having the resources to beat the other guys into submission. It's no different from Master of Orion or Starcraft in this way. But one thing Civ does show you is the futility of nuclear war. Nuking your way to victory is a painful slog with unsatisfying results. You're much better off trying to build the magic space rocket or become king of the UN.
-- Alex
(ETA: I don't think this is really a big accomplishment, of course. Nor does it really meet my standards for "hard questions." I want to see play-narrative that actually addresses issues rather than just maybe allowing for the possibility of you noticing something tangential while you're playing the game. But I thought it would be fun to throw out there.)
I'd say that's because, on the whole, they're a calcified genre.LisaB1138 said:
There was an article about D&D a few weeks ago, talking about its influence. There big negative side to that is that D&D seems to attract more imitation than innovation. Its tropes reign tyrannously over the worlds of fantasy, CRPGs, and pen-and-paper gaming.
"RPG" in CRPGs has come to mean dialog boxes, inventory systems, and experience points, while other genres -- third-person action/adventure especially -- have stolen the "roleplaying" thing (story, character identification, in-game choices motivated by narrative rather than just mechanics) and made it their own. Heck, oftentimes they've done it better than CRPGs because they're not stuck trying to shoehorn every story into the same mold.
-- Alex
I'm sorry if I'm retreading ground already covered here as I haven't read all the way through yet. I just wanted to strike while the iron was hot when I saw a strong similarity in other game mediums.
My wife is a freelance illustrator and has done work on a lot of small press, independently owned tabletop RPGs. We meet up with most of the developers at conventions several times a year and talk about their products. What most of them are aiming to do is bring "hard" choices into games. They want to include actual mechanics and rules that promote a player for creating a persona with strong beliefs and then challenging them. Instead of getting the big XP reward for killing the dragon, you get the big XP reward for reinforcing your beliefs, or abandoning them under duress.
The best term I've heard for these hard choices is "bangs." You're walking down the street and BANG! your sister's lover is seen stealing gold from a church. It's not a simple kill the goblin encounter; there are tangled layers here. If you choose to act against him, your sister may never forgive you. If you help him, then the church is after you too. If you ignore the situation, every time you see them together you should wonder if she's really safe marrying a thief. You're challenged by a situation important to your own inner life. Dramatic action instead of action adventure. This kind of gaming requires a degree of immersion however, which is not what most video gamers are after.
(For more on related subjects and plenty of ranting on either side, check out The Forge: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/ most of these articles are about making a game yourself and understanding what you're putting into it when you write a rule.)
Edit: I finally read down to Alex_P's post where Vincent Baker (lumply) is mentioned. He is an excellent designer. Anyone who wants to play a game about hard choices should play Dogs In the Vineyard. http://www.lumpley.com/games/dogs.html
Burning Empires by Luke Crane is another excellent choice, though it requires a much bigger time commitment and has more detail in rules. http://www.burningempires.com/
My wife is a freelance illustrator and has done work on a lot of small press, independently owned tabletop RPGs. We meet up with most of the developers at conventions several times a year and talk about their products. What most of them are aiming to do is bring "hard" choices into games. They want to include actual mechanics and rules that promote a player for creating a persona with strong beliefs and then challenging them. Instead of getting the big XP reward for killing the dragon, you get the big XP reward for reinforcing your beliefs, or abandoning them under duress.
The best term I've heard for these hard choices is "bangs." You're walking down the street and BANG! your sister's lover is seen stealing gold from a church. It's not a simple kill the goblin encounter; there are tangled layers here. If you choose to act against him, your sister may never forgive you. If you help him, then the church is after you too. If you ignore the situation, every time you see them together you should wonder if she's really safe marrying a thief. You're challenged by a situation important to your own inner life. Dramatic action instead of action adventure. This kind of gaming requires a degree of immersion however, which is not what most video gamers are after.
(For more on related subjects and plenty of ranting on either side, check out The Forge: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/ most of these articles are about making a game yourself and understanding what you're putting into it when you write a rule.)
Edit: I finally read down to Alex_P's post where Vincent Baker (lumply) is mentioned. He is an excellent designer. Anyone who wants to play a game about hard choices should play Dogs In the Vineyard. http://www.lumpley.com/games/dogs.html
Burning Empires by Luke Crane is another excellent choice, though it requires a much bigger time commitment and has more detail in rules. http://www.burningempires.com/