I have a list of about twelve LSN subjects in Word doc on my computer, not including various reviews. I figured I’d tackle the most basic one: WHAT IS A GAME?
A game is structured play. (That answer so does not justify the dramatic all caps.)
If a bunch of kids run around and whack at one another, they’re playing. If they create a set of rules –one person whacks at a time, everyone runs/hides from the whacker, if you’re whacked by the whacker then you become the whacker, no whack backs – then they’re playing a game of tag. This structure is usually called the rules, but it might just be a set of guidelines. This structure may be static or dynamic, it might be simple or complex, and it might have a win/loss condition. Win or loss conditions are popular, because they create a definitive ending, and because winning is a powerful motivation.
The human ability to create and communicating an abstract structure is beyond animal intelligence, but there’s definitely proto-gameplay in social animals. For instance, if you wrestle with your dog, they’ll occasionally mouth or snap at you. You can teach them to not do this. ‘Wrestle with me but no biting’ is a form of structured play, as is ‘I toss the ball, and you bring it back.’
Humans like to play and humans like to play games. Games are more important than we tend to give them credit for, but before we talk about that, we need to answer another question: WHAT IS PLAY?
According to Wikipedia, ‘Play is a rite and a quality of mind in engaging with one's worldview. Play refers to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities that are normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment.’ [1]
If you can parse that first sentence, you are one smart ninja.
I define play an engaging activity that doesn’t matter. Washing your sheets and making your bed matter, jumping on your bed does not. A sudden burp isn’t an engaging activity, burping the alphabet is. Play is innately frivolous, and more demanding than sitting on the couch and watching TV.
Play tends to be associated with children. In many animals, playful behavior happens mostly in childhood and then drops off sharply when it sexual maturity rolls around. Smarter animals tend to play more and play longer than dumber ones. This is because play is a useful learning tool.
A bunch of wolf pubs wrestle, and they learn in a safe environment things like physical coordination, fighting, using their strength, moving quickly, etc. They also start working out pack behavior. Play, like sex, is nature’s way of getting us to do useful activities under the guise of having fun.
Why are games so popular then? Because being a functional, adult human means operating within hundreds of abstract, arbitrary structures. Games teach us how to learn. How to adapt our mindset and behavior to an external rule set, and to internalize those structures and winning conditions.
Monopoly money has no intrinsic value, but neither does ‘real’ money. Value emerges because everyone agrees to operate as though it exists. There’s no reason for soccer/football players to not pick up the ball, and there’s no reason for game reviewers not to take gifts in exchange for good reviews, but these rules still exist, and those who break them aren’t playing fair.
These words that you’re reading, the syntax, associated sounds, semantics, and symbols, all utterly arbitrary, but I have to spend years studying and using the English language if I want to communicate.
A love of gameplay suggests a love of exploring and mastering abstract structures. It can also suggest a desire for simplicity. Games are easier than the real thing. It’s easier to win a game of Guitar Hero than it is to learn to play Stairway to Heaven. It’s easier to get to 450 in Tailoring in WoW than it is to learn how to sew a prom dress in the real world. There are brilliant chessmasters out there, but even a grand master is fighting a battle far more simplistic and easy than any real world general.
Games can be mastered. Real life, not so much.
Humans are messy, and the line between game and reality can get blurred. Professional poker and baseball players make their livelihood off games. A woman has sex with a man after he gives her enough gold in WoW for her to buy an epic, flying mount. A fourteen-year-old in Russia murders his seventeen-year-old Counter Strike rival.
I’d argue (and I might be pulling this from my backside) that like the value of money, and the idea that soccer players who pick up the ball are doing something wrong, frivolousness vs seriousness is a collective illusion. Having sex so someone will by you an epic, flying mount isn’t all that different from having sex with someone so they’ll buy you a new car. Murdering someone because they beat you at Counter-Strike, isn’t that different from murdering someone because they slept with your wife or got the promotion you didn’t.
I’m not about to break out the Nietzsche, but I’m reminded of a review that Yatzee did not long ago for the Sims 3. He complained that in the Sims, the player wasn’t the one in charge, the Sims were. You appeared to be in control – a god of sorts- but in reality, you catered to their every whim. I have to ask, how is that different from every other video game out there?
You’re mastering the system to win, but in order to do so, you become utterly subservient to the developer’s structure and desires. It doesn’t matter how good you are at hoop jumping, you’re still jumping through other people’s hoops. Your ‘winning’ is nothing but an electronic doggy-treat that you pay the developer to give you.
In that light, the massive popularity of games takes on disturbing connotations.
…
…
SHEEP! YOU’RE ALL SHEEP. THE LOT OF YOU!!
See also: Why animals love to play.
A game is structured play. (That answer so does not justify the dramatic all caps.)
If a bunch of kids run around and whack at one another, they’re playing. If they create a set of rules –one person whacks at a time, everyone runs/hides from the whacker, if you’re whacked by the whacker then you become the whacker, no whack backs – then they’re playing a game of tag. This structure is usually called the rules, but it might just be a set of guidelines. This structure may be static or dynamic, it might be simple or complex, and it might have a win/loss condition. Win or loss conditions are popular, because they create a definitive ending, and because winning is a powerful motivation.
The human ability to create and communicating an abstract structure is beyond animal intelligence, but there’s definitely proto-gameplay in social animals. For instance, if you wrestle with your dog, they’ll occasionally mouth or snap at you. You can teach them to not do this. ‘Wrestle with me but no biting’ is a form of structured play, as is ‘I toss the ball, and you bring it back.’
Humans like to play and humans like to play games. Games are more important than we tend to give them credit for, but before we talk about that, we need to answer another question: WHAT IS PLAY?
According to Wikipedia, ‘Play is a rite and a quality of mind in engaging with one's worldview. Play refers to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities that are normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment.’ [1]
If you can parse that first sentence, you are one smart ninja.
I define play an engaging activity that doesn’t matter. Washing your sheets and making your bed matter, jumping on your bed does not. A sudden burp isn’t an engaging activity, burping the alphabet is. Play is innately frivolous, and more demanding than sitting on the couch and watching TV.
Play tends to be associated with children. In many animals, playful behavior happens mostly in childhood and then drops off sharply when it sexual maturity rolls around. Smarter animals tend to play more and play longer than dumber ones. This is because play is a useful learning tool.
A bunch of wolf pubs wrestle, and they learn in a safe environment things like physical coordination, fighting, using their strength, moving quickly, etc. They also start working out pack behavior. Play, like sex, is nature’s way of getting us to do useful activities under the guise of having fun.
Why are games so popular then? Because being a functional, adult human means operating within hundreds of abstract, arbitrary structures. Games teach us how to learn. How to adapt our mindset and behavior to an external rule set, and to internalize those structures and winning conditions.
Monopoly money has no intrinsic value, but neither does ‘real’ money. Value emerges because everyone agrees to operate as though it exists. There’s no reason for soccer/football players to not pick up the ball, and there’s no reason for game reviewers not to take gifts in exchange for good reviews, but these rules still exist, and those who break them aren’t playing fair.
These words that you’re reading, the syntax, associated sounds, semantics, and symbols, all utterly arbitrary, but I have to spend years studying and using the English language if I want to communicate.
A love of gameplay suggests a love of exploring and mastering abstract structures. It can also suggest a desire for simplicity. Games are easier than the real thing. It’s easier to win a game of Guitar Hero than it is to learn to play Stairway to Heaven. It’s easier to get to 450 in Tailoring in WoW than it is to learn how to sew a prom dress in the real world. There are brilliant chessmasters out there, but even a grand master is fighting a battle far more simplistic and easy than any real world general.
Games can be mastered. Real life, not so much.
Humans are messy, and the line between game and reality can get blurred. Professional poker and baseball players make their livelihood off games. A woman has sex with a man after he gives her enough gold in WoW for her to buy an epic, flying mount. A fourteen-year-old in Russia murders his seventeen-year-old Counter Strike rival.
I’d argue (and I might be pulling this from my backside) that like the value of money, and the idea that soccer players who pick up the ball are doing something wrong, frivolousness vs seriousness is a collective illusion. Having sex so someone will by you an epic, flying mount isn’t all that different from having sex with someone so they’ll buy you a new car. Murdering someone because they beat you at Counter-Strike, isn’t that different from murdering someone because they slept with your wife or got the promotion you didn’t.
I’m not about to break out the Nietzsche, but I’m reminded of a review that Yatzee did not long ago for the Sims 3. He complained that in the Sims, the player wasn’t the one in charge, the Sims were. You appeared to be in control – a god of sorts- but in reality, you catered to their every whim. I have to ask, how is that different from every other video game out there?
You’re mastering the system to win, but in order to do so, you become utterly subservient to the developer’s structure and desires. It doesn’t matter how good you are at hoop jumping, you’re still jumping through other people’s hoops. Your ‘winning’ is nothing but an electronic doggy-treat that you pay the developer to give you.
In that light, the massive popularity of games takes on disturbing connotations.
…
…
SHEEP! YOU’RE ALL SHEEP. THE LOT OF YOU!!
See also: Why animals love to play.
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Baaaaahhhhh? To me what is serious and what isn't serious all depends upon what society says is and isn't. When it comes to jumping through hoops you are totally right though, literally in the case of some platformers. What makes a game good is when there are many different ways of jumping through hoops or different hoops to jump through.
So you say that getting stuff in games, achieving something, is easier than in real life. How is it easier?
For one, and this might not be what you were thinking, it is almost invariably a matter of dedication. If you have dedication, you can achieve something in a game - not always true in real life. In real life, we tell each-other dedication is all it takes, and give each other little sayings and bits of wisdom and such to help people out, to make it seem simpler while not really helping, in some cases. However, our tendency to seek "method" sometimes leads to nice things, like science, or methods that are understandable and work to achieve a desired goal.
I would posit that desperate action is the same for whatever reason it is done. I disagree that the cause of that desperate action is equal, even apart from a "moral" perspective.
if all games are eating up our precious time and making us jump through hoops, then it's important to examine exactly what purpose they have in demanding such things of us as players. well-planned design is about making a game that approaches the player as a teacher; even if that teacher happens to be a sadistic beard-flipping kung-fu master, there's an underlying purpose and an ultimate goal of making you able to do awesome things. the joy is in overcoming adversity using skills you have learned.
bad design, on the other hand, leans more towards treating the player as an enemy. bad games have no problem using whatever obstacles can be knocked over or tossed into the player's path; nothing is too "cheap" from the perspective of dragging out the pursuit, especially when it's to meet whatever time/money metric is estimated to get high metacritic scores.