Game in Mind

When Have You Created a Game Character of a Different Race?

Over the past week or so, it seems like the issue of race in gaming has been picking up steam.  I've come across two great posts on the subject, one from Paul Tassi and a sardonic take over at the Play Like a Girl blog.

More pertinently, an illuminating study from the USC Annenberg School of Communication revealed that minorities--and particularly Latinos--are woefully underrepresented among protagonists and other characters in leading video games.

Certainly, we could have assumed as much.  We see black characters and Latinos in games from time to time, but they're usually stuck in homogeneous circumstances (often relegated to "ghettoized" supporting characters, "street" roles, sports figures, or the equivalent of cinematic "extras").

Paul Tassi's aforementioned post has to do with specific charges of racism, but he brings up an interesting exception to the concept of games that relegate specific races to the lead roles: RPGs and other customizable games like Mass Effect, which allow the player to create a player of whatever race (and sometimes whatever type of species) he/she desires.

Upon reading this, I thought back immediately to African American, Asian, and Latino-looking characters that I had created in games like Mass Effect, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and various MMORPGs.  We often hear about gender-switching in online environments (whether you're talking about online games or common chat rooms), but not so much about race-switching.

Granted, you generally don't become a member of that race in the game because, although we like to think that our created game characters are liberated from preconceptions, they lack the cultural referents that truly makes for what we consider to be, for example, a complex African American human being who originates from the impoverished South... or an Ivy League-educated Latino, perhaps.  True, individuals are individuals... but there are cultural experiences that are shared across social strata and races in the real world, and these are simply not present in the imagined spaces of games.  For instance, a black character created in Saints Row 2 will have much the same narrative and imagined cultural experiences as a white British character.  (Of course, given the sheer amount of lampooning and stereotyping present in the Saints Row games, that may not be the best example.)

That said, I also remembered that while I never consciously wanted to stereotype a particular character based on race, I do think my characters of different races were created that way, not simply because I felt like experimenting with random facial settings, but because I wanted to truly imbue that character with a unique identity that was either unexpected or significant inside the game itself.  For example, when I created an evil, old black female necromancer in Oblivion, it wasn't that I had a cultural stereotype in my head of what an older black woman would be like inside a fantasy world, but rather because in my own imagined version of the game world, it was plausible that a series of circumstances could lead to her being a different color, being feminine, being evil... all for different reasons.  With regard to race, my character wasn't what we consider "black" so much as she was "one particular black person in my Oblivion world," in which there were just as many noble or morally ambiguous black characters or Asian-style characters.  In other words, that access to different races and the ability to roleplay as them was a way of letting myself get even more lost in the game world... and by extension, I was able to identify more and more with that skin color, whether the character was good or bad.

Tassi himself provides the example of creating a "black lesbian" in Mass Effect.  Certainly, his character wasn't meant to be representative of real-life black lesbians, and the all the cultural implications that come with that identification or label (and this very well may be problematic for some cultural critics).  Rather, the character was most likely a black lesbian by Mass Effect's open and pliable definition.

So I open this up to my readers to share their own experiences with similar character creation systems: 

When have you created a game character of a different race in a single-player or online multiplayer game?  If you have, did you choose the race randomly or did you have a specific reason?  Did your choice end up affecting the way you role-played that character?

For the Love of God, No More "Morality Moments" in Video Games!

(Image courtesy Kotaku.com)

Today, Brian Crecente relayed news from Comic Con 09 that Army of Two: The 40th Day, a sequel to the decidedly underwhelming 2008 title, will feature comic book-style "morality moments" in the game that lets players (even in co-op) determine their good or bad behaviors.

As if this is anything new.

The only thing that separates this game's take on a game mechanic that Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic made so unfortunately popular from its many, many forebears is that the implications of these actions, no matter how seemingly insignificant, are played out in comic book form for the player right after the decision is made.  The example provided in the EA promotional video:  The protagonists get to choose whether to return ammunition to a stockade under orders from a security guard or ignore the guard and be on their merry way.  Gameplay in video shows the results of the latter choice; Nitwit B accidentally kills the security guard while making off with the guns.  Stylized flashes of the "moral implications" (and I use that term loosely) of this action ensue... namely, glimpses into the security guard's wallet revealing that--gasp!--he has a family.

Let's get the obvious problem out of the way:  There is no way that, based on the choices provided, the player would have any knowledge that one of the protagonists would necessarily act so stupidly (there is a fine line between unpredictability and randomness; this verges on the latter).  In this sense, the game cheats the player of his/her efficacy.  Also, given that the protagonists still have the rest of the game to get through, I'm betting that these morality moments have little bearing on, you know, the actual game.

Of course, there's a larger problem here:  These "morality moments" are emblematic of a terrible game design trend gone awry.  40th Day presents the "dichotomous moral choice" mechanic at its most arbitrary and meaningless, no matter how stylized.  Morality has become fleeting and unpredictable entertainment, and in this case that means it is not really "morality" at all.

Real-world ethical codes form the core of the human condition.  If you are invoking moral decisions in your game, you should probably give them some heft and texture.  Perhaps such willy-nilly decision-making seemed novel when KOTOR 1 was released, but now it has become gimmicky and burdensome.  Infamous is perhaps the latest successful adopter of this tired trend; the game is lucky to be able to lean on some truly solid game mechanics and level design.  I can't say the same for Fable II, a game so vastly unoriginal and transparent in its design that I felt compelled to stop playing about four hours in for fear that my blandly evil character would become even more irrelevant to the odd pastiche of dog-beating, marriage, fetch quests, and farts.

I won't go into the many, many problems with providing such stark, binary moral choices that inevitably add up to either "you're such a nice person" or "you're an evil twat!"  Countless bloggers and critics have covered this at length.

Rather, I'd like to suggest how designers can avoid this trend in the future.  It may seem at the onset that morality in a game has to come down to a.) I, the author, prescribe the morality via a linear narrative, or b.) the player makes a series of explicit choices, each one adding to the scope and complexity of the design.  I don't think this is the case, but let's take a step back.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with having a set narrative that tackles morality in a linear or prescriptive manner as long as morality is treated with some degree of complexity and maturity.  For example, Mafia is a game that did this particularly well.  The player didn't get to make many decisions that affected the game's narrative, but each section of the narrative felt very well layered because appropriate time and respect were paid to the most significant decisions.  The protagonist wasn't portrayed as a bad person who occasionally did good things or vice-versa, but rather as a normal, pliant human being who engages in introspection after morally questionable or even reprehensible acts.  Mafia did not treat the player as an ADD-riddled child, but rather as a patient and mature participant in an exceptionally well crafted tale.

However, if you as a designer feel absolutely compelled to go down the interactive and dynamic morality path, there is no reason why choices have to come down to black and white.  "Wait," you say, "The more choices I offer, the more tangled and potentially expensive the game becomes to develop."  After all, simple binary choices are not very hard to account for, and 40th Day is most likely an exemplar of design laziness, whereby moral decisions only go so far as prepackaged cinemas rather than continuously dynamic gameplay.  Even worse, that's coming from a big-budget game release.  What hope is there for less expensive projects?

The problem with this line of thinking is that it assumes that choice must be entirely momentary, and everything else that is affecting thereafter must come entirely from the designer's end.  Decision A leads to programmed result A; decision B leads to programmed result B.

One system that I think happens to capture decision-making in video games rather aptly is the "faction points" system from games like GTA2 and Bully:  Certain decisions result, not necessarily in linear or prepackaged narrative content, but in points being deducted or added to the way certain "factions" perceive you as the character.  This, in turn, leads to the player approaching the rest of the game differently based on his/her decisions.  Certainly, it has some bearing on the narrative (or the player's experience thereof), but most of the variables are handled on the player's end.  Decisions A, B, and C may lead to player approach D or player experience E over the course of the game.

To my knowledge, this system has not been applied specifically to "moral" actions.  When points are aligned with quantified morality, they usually fall under the good and evil binary.  Bioware games and GTA4 have put similar systems in place for character trust (e.g., "Roman trust +5"), but these aren't necessarily linked to what one would consider moral actions.  Perhaps Mass Effect has come closest to a hybrid of the two, but the end result is usually closing off some dialog trees or opening others; the experience of the core gameplay itself does not change.

We can apply a "faction points" morality system to a game like 40th Day, even in a way that isn't transparent to the player.  For instance, what if certain moral actions led to different available gameplay mechanics with your A.I.-controlled partner based on the way he is inexplicitly perceiving them?  Or perhaps a propensity to dispose of enemies in as quick and humanely a way possible (rather than say, a brutal scattering of gunshots all over their body) is picked up on by enemies, who take advantage of what they determine to be a moral "weakness" by becoming more and more wreckless, and by allies, who may offer a different set of weapons (ones with scopes or non-lethal knockout gas).  Morality in the real world often comes down to the way conduct is viewed and continuously reshaped by the world around us.  There is no reason this shouldn't be the case in a video game.

At the same time, designers should not shy away from highlighting the way morality shapes our experiencing of the self through pride and shame.  Questionable moral decisions (in terms of the faction point system, choices that lead to a leveling off of points among the factions or respondents) may, for example, lead to darker or washed-out (but not distracting) color tints used in the game's environments thereafter, subtly implying that the character is entering a confused or nebulous mindset.   Distinct decisions may lead to an HUD loadout, point of view, or color palette that suggests an affinity with one morality "faction" or another.  An eagerness for seemingly amoral violence may lead to increased quantities of blood and simulated adrenaline rushes, even if said violence leads to supposedly "righteous" moral outcomes.

This is all hypothetical; I don't expect EA to employ anything like the above-described system for its cartoonish Army of Two franchise.  Given this system, however, it is certainly possible to account for a range of moral actions in a game rather than a series of momentum-jarring, one-off choices. 

If these decisions happen to lead to a particular narrative turning point, and that can be accounted for in the design, all the more power to the developer.  But narrative is only part of the game (albeit a crucial one); morality should account, not only for the way the player plays through a storyline, but the way that storyline is continously experienced and reflected upon.  A player should be able to own his/her actions, not view them occasionally as simple causes and effects.

[Update 7/28:  Even worse, it seems that EA will be using these arbitrary morality moments to extrapolate meaningless data.  It's all in the spirit of fun, of course, but one has to wonder why EA is putting such a fine point on rubbing real concepts of "morality" into the dirt.]

Speaking of Choice in Games...

Rich Wilson has put up a terrific blog post over at his site regarding the design of choice--specifically, the resulting feedback and reflections thereupon--into video games.  Please take the time to visit his site and read it; it's quite detailed and well researched.

Here is my humble response:

I'm not a designer myself, but as a student of games and gaming, I wonder how much import we should place on the mechanics of a clear "reflection" (that is, making it all too clear what the feedback is and why it took place) rather than surprising the player with particularly high quality or strong feedback. You say that if the reflection is not made clear enough, the player might as well be playing a prescribed series of events, but since everything in the design is inevitably scripted (unless you're handing over to the player an unusually large lexicon of imagery or tools to use ala LittleBigPlanet or Scribblenauts), I'm not sure that this would necessarily devalue the experience.

I'm thinking, for example, of Maniac Mansion. The game had several endings and routes based on initial character selection and your responses to certain puzzles. What made the experience refreshing was not necessarily the clear 1:1 correlation of action to response but that a certain action COULD even result in a specific response, some significant enough to conclude the game in a pleasurable (albeit abrupt) manner.

As you note, GTA makes such connections all too apparent and they have little bearing on the gameplay and narrative. Oblivion provides an immense amount of choice but not much in the way of distinct feedback for those choices.

Maniac Mansion, on the other hand, was a very simple game that was filled to the brim with feedback both clear cut (stereotypical adventure game puzzles) and completely unanticipated. I think finding the right balance of meeting expectations and surpassing those expectations is what goes the furthest towards creating a strong sense of player efficacy without the player getting lost in "what if's" (so many variables that my particular playthrough doesn't matter) or "what now's" (so many options that I feel overburdened before I even start getting to the meat of the game).

Any reactions to this discussion?

The Anti-open World: A Different Kind of Fun

(Image courtesy Gamespot.com)

Are we--the nebulous community of game designers, game scholars, and students--too obsessed with choice?

Choice is rightfully a very powerful word that signifies real-world freedom and opportunity, connoting political and moral efficacy.  Logically, when it comes to games, we often try to invoke the word "choice" as a signifier of that which is open and immersive about gameplay and its loose emulation of what we consider to be willful actions in our lives.  More often than not, choice affords the status of active agent, not object; player rather than passive witness.

Yet recent conversations I've read and in which I have participated regarding game design seem to point towards the extremes of how choice can liberate the once-traditional and stolid aspects of gameplay.  I've used the word choice rather affirmatively on this blog when talking about successful open world and "sandbox" designs.

In our quest to be post-postmodern, highly intellectual artists and philosophers, perhaps we too easily lose track of how deceptively simple (if not devilishly elusive) fun can be, and that fun--while not always the primary goal of a game designer--is more often than not the primary goal of the medium's consumers.  Yet we also dismiss that which is simple and blatantly straightforward, as if a lack of subtext is the Achilles heel that will lead to the downfall of the industry and its pundits if indulged in too frequently.  For example, Clint Hocking, about whom I've recently written, refers to consumer-minded design as a seemingly lesser "straightforward entertainment" in an interview conducted by Michael Abbott.

Given this trend among game critics/designers, I wonder if the straightforward brand of fun associated with a lack of choice and "openness" is becoming solely the province of the "casual," whereas a "full-fledged" or "hardcore" title is one that stacks choice, no matter how seemingly superfluous, on top of tried and true designs.

If so, doesn't this sort of dichotomy-based thought reflect the consumer-minded nature of mainstream game design more so than one that decries simplicity?  After all, "choice" is a highly marketable term.  If there is a fighting game offered at a full-retail price, it must include the requisite choice of moves, deep roster, and expansive range of gameplay modes.  If the game is a brawler or shooter, there has to be branching paths or at least the illusion of freedom and scope.  Even the Burnout series, which for years entertained gamers with systems of linear progression, has "evolved" into the open world of Paradise City.

Games that lack choice or openness are subjected to strict labels of "casual" (e.g., Geometry Wars, Wii Sports, many portable games) or "indie."  To the common consumer, these games appear to be good for quick bites, brief experiences or didactic messages (e.g., The Path), but not for the long haul.

Critically speaking, the danger of falling into this mindset of strict labels based on choice is that we seem to think that thoughtful games with serious messages must either be highly innovative or extremely succinct in their delivery.  Admittedly, fiscal constraints often dictate the length and/or scope of a project, but this isn't always the case and we should keep as much in mind. 

Straightforward + fun can be worth thinking critically about; a game does not have to be a small and linear indie project, "serious game," "interactive artwork," or sprawling epic filled with dynamic and meaningful choices in order to be worthy of discussion.

My prime example (and the impetus for this post) is Paradigm's Stuntman: Ignition.  I recently picked up this game for the Xbox 360 for the bargain price of $7.00 new.  No doubt the game's price reflects its lack of popularity rather than its above-average review scores.  It's easy to see why the game didn't quite catch on:  It offers almost nothing in the way of options or choices and barely innovates the franchise over its last-generation predecessor. 

For those who are unfamiliar with the title, Stuntman: Ignition involves what is quite literally "trial and error" gameplay:  You ride a car down a very small, strict path inside a movie set and perform individual tricks whenever visually prompted, and you do this until you've pretty much gotten the routine perfect.  The nature of the game is not subtle mastery but rather a linear progression of restarting tracks over and over again until you "nail" enough stunts to unlock the next track or film.  The track, stunts, and vehicle are predetermined; "choice" in Stuntmant: Ignition comes down to figuring out the most likely button presses that will result in keeping one's score multiplier alive (and this, too, is largely predetermined).

Is it a bad game, however?  On the contrary; I find it to be quite a bit of fun and I would not mind one bit if more games were made in this fashion.  On the level of pure enjoyment, I appreciate the sheer transparency of the game:  It does not try to hide its linearity or trial-and-error gameplay; rather, it celebrates its lack of choice by surrounding the player with constant spectacle and intricately crafted stunts.  The whole thing is shallow, but not "casual," and unashamedly so.  It is a title that rewards patience and grit, not intelligence or careful choice, and rewards them with wondrously fleeting eye candy.

Most importantly, however, it's an amazingly simple and straightforward title, but not a stupid one.  In no way does the game underestimate its audience or insult it.  Paradigm could have easily tried to dupe the player into thinking this was something other than a linear progression of stunts; lesser games have attempted to mask such linear gameplay by cramming banal, action movie-like plots and mission hubs into the gameplay.  Stuntman: Ignition makes fun of this concept by constantly pointing to its cinematic roots and reminding the player that he/she is not the hero of some complex tale, nor the actor pulling the strings of a deep character, but rather just the actor's faceless double.

And therein lies the genius of the Stuntman: Ignition, and why it is just as important a subject for critical attention as any brief indie title or paragon of gameplay choice:  The game isn't just a spectacle; it is a full-blown commentary on spectacle.  Every linear track in the game is a satirical take on the kind of hollow illusions that pass for entertainment in cinema and other forms of pop culture.  The game's narrator describes the laughable and unfortunately plausible film scenario that surrounds each series of stunts, and the player is given nothing to do but reflect on the sheer ordinariness and workmanlike repetition that goes into making each detailed facade.  It is a game that pulls off the impressive feat of simultaneously wowing and disenchanting the player.

In other words, by employing tired conventions and extremely linear gameplay, Stuntman: Ignition becomes everything it shouldn't be: a genuinely fun and intelligent "hardcore" game.  That the game didn't catch on with audiences is an unfortunate consequence of said intelligence:  Quite sadly, it's hard to market a linear and repetitive satire as being "fun" and imaginative, even if it is.

Nonetheless, the game's popular reception should serve as a warning to critics and thoughtful designers:  In trying to break away from the status quo of popular opinion, we cannot rely so heavily on it to define the territories in which we tread, even if we are attempting to subvert it or push its boundaries.  What seems generic, linear, and lacking of choice can actually be stirring and important.  Stuntman: Ignition is a key example of a game that, oddly enough, places itself outside the box by placing its gameplay squarely inside.

It would be a shame if similar gems go unnoticed by the critical community only because they celebrate spectacle and simplicity over freedom and choice.  It's the kind of game usually reserved for passing the time between epics or beating the player over the head with a message.  But it's also something else entirely: unpretentious, humble, and deceptively smart fun.

Busting the Rubik's Cube

I would like to preface what is most likely the one-millionth video game blog post regarding Ben Abraham's "permadeath" play-through of Far Cry 2 with this sentiment:  Ben is an undeniably talented writer and thinker, I admire the spirit and audacity of his gameplay experiment, and I hope he is learning something about gaming and/or himself in the process.

To be honest, this post isn't so much about Ben's permadeath experiment as it is Clint Hocking's response to it.  For those who don't know, Hocking is the thoughtful Creative Director for Far Cry 2, and a significant talent behind other successful projects at Ubisoft Montreal.  While it is heartening to see a designer take notice of, and react quite pleasantly to, a particular gamer's take on his/her game, I find Hocking's reaction somewhat problematic.  In his blog post about Ben's experiment, Hocking notes that the choice undertaken by Ben is not so much about creating a narrative significance that allows him to bond with the game's world and its characters as it is an innovative deconstruction of the game's mechanics in order to generate a new kind of fun:

The reason I think people are paying attention is because Ben is playing with the game. He is manipulating the game itself. He is playing with the magic circle. He is looking at all sides of it like a Rubik's Cube and even taking the cube apart in order to see how it is built and what are its underlying immutable rules. It is here that people start to pay attention. It is here that Ben is being moved by his experience. It is here that others, too, care about what happens... not to Frank, but to Ben, and to the game itself. They care about what can happen to Frank. The are invested in the expressive possibility space enabled by the game. They care about the real immutable limits of the question and about the limits arbitrarily imposed by the save game system, and by Ben's willful rejigging of the magic circle to exclude it. They care, now, about the Ben/Frank/Far Cry 2 system which is something real. They don't care about whether Frank Bilder's lives or dies... because that is an illusion and they know it.

Effectively, by attempting to experience the meaning that arises from adding irreversibility to Far Cry 2 and taking away one of the things he was allowed to play with, Ben is playing with the game more, not less. It is not the combination of Far Cry 2 + authored narrative irreversibility that is making the permadeath experiment meaningful to Ben and to others, it is the the fact that he is able to manipulte [sic] the game to create this experiment that is bringing meaning.

Despite Hocking's seeming humility about the way his game has been designed (discussing the "arbitrary" limits of the save system, which is hardly particular to his game or its genre), the conclusion that upstart Ben is teaching the designer a thing or two conveniently masks the subtle suggestion that Far Cry 2 was in a unique position to enable this experiment.

It wasn't.  Far Cry 2 was well received by critics for the most part, but it was also rightfully criticized for being an empty and often tedious exercise in extending "sandbox"-style gameplay far beyond its natural limits.  Not a single thing about the game was unique aside from its vacuous and rather non-interactive setting, not even the buddy system or its open-world style gameplay (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did it earlier and arguably much better), and I have to wonder if the way Hocking waxes poetic about Ben's choices is more a reflection of pride in his baby than of serious critical thought.

The permadeath experiment could have been applied to many, many other games in a similar fashion... but this particular application generated Hocking's wistful analysis, so we seem to be stuck with a very awkward example. 

Rather, let's forget that we're talking about the problematic Far Cry 2 for a moment and simply take Hocking's argument at its face value.

Hocking says that Ben successfully deconstructs core mechanisms of the game's progression, moving beyond the authorial intent and into a sort of player-based storytelling.  I have to wonder, however:  If the core mechanics thereby become so extremely superfluous and disposable, how can you even call this Far Cry 2 anymore?

Hocking invokes the image of the Rubik's Cube being taken apart "to see how it is built."  The problem with this metaphor is that if you take apart the Rubik's Cube, it isn't a Rubik's Cube anymore.  Not unless you put it back together in the same way.  The Rubik's Cube has rules, as Hocking notes, but the function of these rules is not to generate various Rubik's Cube spinoffs for those industrious enough to reconfigure its pieces, but rather to act as a set of constraints for what can only be considered Rubik's Cube play.  Otherwise, you have a broken Rubik's Cube, something completely other than the overarching Rubik's Cube concept, no matter how fun its pieces are to play with.

Here's another example:  Let's say I decide to "play with" Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.  Spurred on by the authorially embedded message of subjective time and viewpoint, I start ripping out pages and repasting them in a different order.  Faulker still wrote the words on the pages, but in playing with the very constraints that guide my experience of them--the intended order of pages and chapters--I have created an entirely new novel.  It's quite possible that my reconfigured book is enjoyable to read, but can it be considered an experience made possible by, and existing within the canon of, The Sound and the Fury?  No.  Does that make it an inferior read?  Probably, but there is no guarantee that it will be inferior to me, the reader.  On the other hand, does it add significance to the original concept of the Sound and the Fury?  Well, that's the question at hand.

Wait, you say.  That's a book, constrained by narrative-produced meaning by design (and even that is arguable; try reading Theresa Cha's Dictee).  Games are an entirely different beast, no?

Not in every way, no.  At least not games with compelling narratives.  You can't simply eschew the constraints of play and hope that a player has the time and ingenuity to author a (possibly more frustrating) new version.  When you write a story or design a game, you are compelled to write your audience into existence by the very nature of your craft.

I'm sorry, but in this sense Ben was not written into existence by the text or paratext of the game he chose to play.  At least not if we're all talking about a game called Far Cry 2.  Instead, even the save game mechanism is an inextricable constraint by which you are allowing your reader to experience the story.  If you value the story you have crafted for a particular audience (in this case, a mainstream audience of mature gamers), you will ensure that those mechanics are indispensable in service to the experience, and that a deconstruction thereof, no matter how creative, will simply be a rupturing of the events on display.

Allow me to clarify:  Again, I have no problem with what Ben is doing; I don't find his new experiences with the game inferior or artificial.  Nor do I have a problem with Hocking finding value in it.  And in no way am I positing that a good interactive story must feature "constrained" gameplay--that is, gameplay that does not actively reflect player choice.  The Elder Scrolls titles, a favorite example of mine here on the blog, are proof of that.

But to claim that by deconstructing the game, Ben is playing with it more is ludicrous, to say the least.  It requires a complete redefinition of what you mean by "the game."

There is something almost self-effacing about making such a comment as a game designer.  Sure, you want your player to be able to actively experiment with the product and feel rewarded for coming up with a seemingly individualized (or "co-authored") experience.  But even the authorially unintended experiment--for example, a player-designed level in LittleBigPlanet--must be in service to the feeling, the aesthetic, and even the storytelling that you chose to convey from the onset.  It may sound cold-hearted, but otherwise, you're not taking your role as the author seriously.  Even something as seemingly "arbitrary" as the saved-game system has to be a fundamental and calculated constraint, like the very edges of a baking sheet on which you allow the player to bake amorphous Play-Doh.

Now, I understand that Hocking DOES take his role as author seriously.  His body of work evidences as much.  But I can't help but read a little bit of self-loathing into his lionizing of Ben's achievements.  In the grand scheme of things, what Ben is doing with Far Cry 2 is small beans compared to what Hocking needs to learn from his mistakes in order to make a better, more polished, and yes, more constrained Far Cry 3.

Let's go back to the beginning of Hocking's argument:

Last month, Manveer and I got into a debate about how to design more meanginful and emotionally engaging games. On one branch of that discussion, Manveer had suggested designing a game to make certain decisions irreversible. I was opposing that approach on the grounds that it was relying on what I feel are narrative tools (in particular irreversibility and inevitability).

I was suggesting that - while we could of course make games more emotionally engaging using narrative tools, I feel we ought to be pursuing (possibly exclusively but at least primarily) the application of ludic tools to this same end.

You see, by creating a false dichotomy, Hocking has already undone himself.  He is talking about "narrative tools" and "ludic tools" as if they aren't two highly interdependent factors.  Ludic freedom can lead to innovative storytelling, yes, but a certain container for storytelling is often what creates the impetus for that freedom.

Thus, Hocking is arguing two different sides of the same coin.  Manveer's point is well taken:  Irreversibility can lead to dramatic impact and additional enjoyment of a story.  That does not automatically divorce it from, or make it inferior to, the idea of creating enough gameplay freedom that such irreversibility is a seemingly non-predicted outcome, or a single choice in a range of choices.

But the key word here is "range."  If one goes outside the range, then as magical as the choice may seem, it is largely irrelevant to the experiences of the imagined audience who willingly and wittingly relies upon the range for its craftsmanship.

[Update: Erik Hanson, who was nice enough to link to this post on the VGHVI website, astutely points out my use of the Paradox of Theseus' Ship, even though I didn't point it out by name.  That is because, oddly enough, I didn't even think of it!  However, the core question here is not whether Ben's playthrough alters the material and/or goal--the very substance--of the game, but whether the game's mechanics and story are given enough import that any deviation therefrom would provide "added value."  In terms of the referenced myth, this would be like asking if the replaced timber of the ship necessarily adds value to the initial design.  My argument is that, if the initial design is solid enough, it would not, as it is the initial design and its constraints that most often shape one's experiences of what they consider to be "the ship," or in this case, the game.]

All About Sandbox (Once Again)

Trent Polack has done a magnificent job relaying a roundtable discussion about open-world gameplay over at his blog, Polycat.  Consider it required reading.

The roundtable allowed me to ruminate yet again about the nature of choice in modern gaming, and the following is a re-print of my (way too long) comments:

Some very interesting points raised, but I will address the question posed at the end: Do players expect a certain amount of rigidity to anchor their sandbox exploration and experiences? I recently wrote about a similar kind of rigidity in comparing LittleBigPlanet to the forthcoming Scribblenauts and employed Turkle's co-opting of the term "bricolage" to indicate a "learning-by-doing" approach to gameplay choice. A good bricolage style of design--and correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to be what you're aiming towards by suggesting a "true sandbox"--does not mean that the programmer must not allow for any linearity or guiding of the player, but rather that the programmer must *hide* the interface in such a way that it becomes as unobtrusive as possible in allowing the player the maximum amount of choice and free-thinking.

To this end, I'll say a few things about the Elder Scrolls games, referring in part to the roundtable quotes above. To address your question, I would say that, while not nearly as popular, the Elder Scrolls style of design far predates Grand Theft Auto, even its earliest "top-down" entries. In many ways, the Elder Scrolls titles have had the chance to set the mold. Thus, while Grand Theft Auto may be the most *visible* example of the modern sandbox title, it seems that, from time to time, GTA and other games (e.g., Fable 2, Two Worlds) build towards an asymptote that quietly approaches an Elder Scrolls title but never gets there. Why? Because, as you and others mention above, the developer no doubt becomes worried about a detachment from the *main storyline.*

And truthfully, that is a compromise with which Bethesda has had to struggle themselves. Neither Morrowind nor Oblivion offered particularly compelling main quests, although Fallout 3 suggests great progress towards the ultimate goal of how we project our own, real lives: a grand story with other, smaller grand stories accompanying it. It is such a magnificently fine balance, an extremely thin tightrope, that it seems only a select handful of titles have managed to deliver. Heck, depending on whom you ask, Fallout 3 may be the only one.

That said, it also becomes a question of development economy. If you only have the resources to program for, say, 30 or so hours of highly individualized gameplay (which is plenty), you're most likely going to set some barriers to the play and pour resources into, say, a main plotline that allows for the most bang for the buck. Bethesda has the benefit nowadays of large resources AND a strong portfolio of experience on which to build, so they can take three or so years to craft hundreds of hours of gameplay. Rockstar, by comparison, is extremely well funded but seems to rely on a model that actually *provided* them with their initial success. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? And if sales of GTA4 are any indication, that is a correctly marketable approach.

That doesn't mean that GTA's style is the *incorrect* or *inferior* one for aspiring open world game developers to follow. If millions take pleasure in GTA games, who are we to argue with that level of enjoyment?

On the other hand, as you note, the learning-by-doing style of gameplay does seem to be given short shrift.

So I suggest this: If you are a designer and are eager to provide your audience with the maximum amount of choice, simply because that seems to be the mode of today's popular titles, take a step back at the beginning and think hard about quality over quantity. First, is it really choice, or the *illusion* of choice that you want to provide? If the latter, what is this illusion in service to--mere plot device or unique game mechanic?

Second, how much does your desired style of play rely on the visibility of the plot? Do you believe a wealth of open-ended choice may indeed lead to a player possibly "ruining" his/her experiences with the title?

Third, and most importantly, for every choice you provide, make sure that it *counts,* if not to the plot of the game, at least momentarily to the player's conscience or humanity. The idea of choice in gameplay cannot be taken lightly; it cannot be a cry-wolf mechanism to every so often wake the player from a slumber of repetitive task management--otherwise, choice would have little meaning when all is said and done. Instead, ensure that each choice--whether it is a choice of which areas to explore first, the type of quest one wishes to pursue, or picking of path within a quest/mission--reflects the will of the player to *own* his/her decisions as he/she progresses through the title. Too often, we witness modern open-world games succumbing to the notion that choice is a meager binary that either lets a player consider his/her avatar as good or evil, or perhaps slightly alters the ending cinematic, but this is all highly predictable. Rather, choices should all lead to a sense of discovery about one's character or the interactions therewith.

In other words, choice should be resounding and human, not simply a gameplay feature to market on the back of the retail packaging. Let's hope the next generation of open-world games, even if they are GTA-style linearity masked in large maps, do not continue the trend of offering digital, interactive "Choose Your Own Adventure"-brand novels. I'd like to see Niko actively reflect on his choices throughout an adventure. I'd like to see Saints Row 2 reward its player in different ways depending on the type of minigames and diversions most often selected. I'd like to see a version of Infamous in which its world genuinely reflects a player's moral choices beyond simple dichotomies and the occasional NPC yelling, "Ooo, he's the famous hero!" And so on.

@ Miss Leigh Alexander

I'm not one to post this much about Twitter, but I just read the gifted Leigh Alexander's "tweet" regarding my Bogost post:

man, if you can provoke something like [link to my post] from just one semi-snarky tweet, i'm in BIG trouble :0

Based on this and some of the other reactions from yesterday, I feel I must ease the tension I created.  Call me overly cautious, but it's my fear that, being a relative newcomer to this particular community of gaming bloggers, any passing reputation I gain will be that of a malcontent, misfit, or troll.

If that is how the Bogost piece came off--as a potentially hyperbolic tirade--then I sincerely apologize to Dr. Bogost and all readers.  Sure, it was meant to be sarcastic and biting, but that was in service of a larger point.  On the other hand, if nothing else, I come from a long line of over-reactors (in my family, we call them the "New York kind of Jew"), full of spit and gumption and all those other funny words that seem to indicate that I have a short fuse for what I consider to be an injustice.

That said, I still feel that it is better to speak out than remain silent about something that offends you, even if the result can be considered overblown (and trust me, that was not the intention).  After all, I'd be something of a hypocrite if I didn't own up to the words I wrote and account for reader reactions.  I had no idea at the time of writing that I was piling onto a seemingly mooted Twitter discussion, the angst of which Ian had already allayed, but that says little for what I think is the most important point to take away from my post:

The game studies celebs have to be careful about what they say.  They can't help that they've gained something of a celebrity status; God knows, many of them probably never wanted it and still do not consider themselves as such.

Nonetheless, in a burgeoning critical field, the last thing you want to do is even inadvertently stratify its contributors into academic castes, whereby some contributors are beyond reproach and others seem to be "just those self-important and annoying bloggers."  It's not just counterproductive; it can be hurtful... and, lest we all become too big for our britches, it's always nice to give ourselves the reality check that we are all discussing games, after all.  That isn't meant to be a pejorative comment about gaming, by the way... but let's remember the inclusive spirit of the subject matter.

Five Reasons Why Sony Should NOT Try to Turn the PSP Go! into an iPhone Competitor

Recent news that Sony is streamlining the development process for digital distribution and pushing for lower downloadable game pricing can be taken as a net positive.  After all, any expansion of the relatively successful and attractive Playstation Store is a good sign, and I'm all for inviting more developers than those of UMD legacy titles and Playstation 3 PSN games into the fold.  A whole new pricing scale invites less expensive and more casual offerings along the lines of Echochrome.

On the other hand, something worries me about this.  As many an industry journalist have already noted, Sony is priming the PSP, and particularly the overpriced PSP Go!, to compete with the iPhone.  Personally, I'd rather see Sony concentrate on other issues.  I'm also not convinced that iPhone gaming, while wildly successful for Apple and its developers, is the best business model for Sony to emulate.

So here are my five reasons why Sony shouldn't continue down the path towards iPhone-dom:

1. Far too many iPhone games are shovelware.

So there's... Rolando 2... and that musical tap game... and Metal Gear Solid... and... Doom?  I kid, I kid!  Seriously, though, while there's no dearth of games available on the iPhone App Store, the sheer quantity does not indicate a whole lot in the way of quality.  If you don't believe me, check out the reviews and tell me which ones get picked as real winners that break away from the cell phone norm.  This isn't to dismiss iPhone gaming or people who love their iPhone games; Apple has done a terrific job allowing for easy development and distribution of independent portable titles that would have a hard time finding a significant audience otherwise.  There is also plenty of unique software out there on the App Store.

Nonetheless, very few of these games would cut it for the average buyer of a dedicated game system, who may be expecting more polish for his/her buck.  Rolando 2 may be fantastic for a platform with only a gyroscope, but put it side by side with the grandeur of a LocoRoco 2 and we'll see which one gamers download.  Sure, LocoRoco is more expensive, but even in the digital age there's truth to the addage that you get what you pay for. 

And for every Rolando 2 on the App Store, there are ten Mega Man 2 iPhone ports (read: quick and dirty cash-ins).  That may cut it for a smart phone that offers loads of useful applications in addition to games, but for a Sony game system?

2.  Trying to create another App Store is counterproductive in other ways.

Similarly, from a development perspective, a certain set of expectations go along with releasing a product on the Playstation Network.  Relentless Software's Andrew Eades sums it up best:

...the iPhone is everyone's favourite gadget right now - it's amazing and has a huge catalogue of apps and a lot of those apps are games. I'm sure someone at Sony is watching how it's working out as well. One of the disadvantages of the App Store is that the catalogue is so big and it's quite confusing and you may build the best ever app for five quid but there'll be a dozen similar, maybe not as good apps, but they'll be free or selling at a lesser price point and it's very hard to differentiate your product. Over at the PlayStation Store we can be prominent on that much more easily than we could ever be in an iTunes Store.

If Sony turns the Playstation Store into another App Store, they may just ruin the reputation and good will they've developed among their current cadre of loyal studios.

3.  It's the wrong market for a pre-existing, four year-old brand.

The PSP's primary competitor is the Nintendo DS, which outsells it regularly by a 2:1 or 3:1 margin.  Lifetime sales of the hardware reflect this as well, and while the IPhone and IPod Touch are supposedly catching up to the PSP in overall sales, they compete in entirely different markets (smart phones and mp3 players, respectively).

Take notes from the market leader:  You don't see Nintendo looking to compete with Apple.  Sure, they've released the DSi Store, but that's more of a product gateway to the superior Wii Store than anything else.  Nintendo does games and it does them well.  The DS is an uncomplicated product and is marketed as such.  Sony, on the other hand, is already looking to create a whole new side of the Playstation Store that promotes productivity applications and other non-gaming tools.

If Sony tries to craft the PSP brand into the ultimate all-in-one platform, a game system that aspires to play in the same leagues as more complicated smart phones and mp3 players, it may run the risk of marginalizing its history of relative success (50 million units sold is nothing to scoff at!) as a game platform in the process.

4.  The Mylo was a dud.

By all accounts, the PSP Go! is looking to resemble the ill-fated Sony Mylo Personal Communicator, which I'm sure Sony fancied as a viable competitor to the iPhones of the world when it was first unveiled.  Sales of that product alone indicate why going down the same route twice (three times if you count the Mylo COM-2) is a big mistake.

5.  It wouldn't go anywhere towards solving the real issues.

Despite the aforementioned solid lifetime sales of the PSP, Sony has had some real problems with its portable sytem recently... problems that have nothing to do with a lack of casual downloadable games or utility applications like Talkman.

For one, the PSP Go! is simply too expensive.  If the PSP is hitting the sweet spot at $169.99 (although there are signs of its success fading outside of Monster Hunter-crazed Japan), there is no excuse why a mechanically less complex version of the same machine should retail for almost $100 more.  Even worse, that puts it almost $100 above the DSi--the PSP's real competition.  Some retailers have already indicated that the excessive price may wound interest in the PSP Go!

Again, Sony would be wise to take a page from Nintendo's playbook:  A price of at most $189.99 or $199.99 would have made a lot more sense than $250--the price of a Wii or Xbox 360 Arcade with add-ons.

And while 2009 is already a better year for the PSP than the black hole of high-profile releases that was 2008, Sony could still afford to better pace their release schedule and pluck some heavy hitters away from Nintendo.  The remainder of this year will see Gran Turismo PSP, Dissidia Final Fantasy, Soul Calibur Broken Destiny (a port of Soul Calibur 4), a portable version of LittleBigPlanet, an Assassin's Creed remake, and not much else.  By comparison, the PS3 has Uncharted 2, Ratchet and Clank Future 2, Fat Princess, and loads of high-profile multi-platform releases such as Modern Warfare 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

What's worse, the above PSP titles combined may not sell as many units as the DS's Dragon Quest IX has moved in its first two days... in Japan.  And unlike Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest has appeal outside of Asia.  Now THAT'S a heavy hitter!

Finally, Sony still does a poor job marketing its best titles.  There are many reasons to be excited about the aforementioned PSP releases, but I'd be surprised to see many advertisements for PSP releases on the air this Holiday aside from the odd Chinatown Wars ad (presumably an inexpensive borrowing of the DS ad courtesy Rockstar, not Sony).

On the other hand, you can rest assured that Sony will market the hell out of the PSP Go! itself.  This is a rather counter-intuitive way to run your business when you're #2 on the market.  Quality gaming should always lead a mention of quality hardware, not vice-versa.  You have to have the games in place that will lead to new customers exploring the hardware and the infrastructure; otherwise, all that costly R&D funding is for naught.

Bedtime for Bogost

(Image courtesy Georgia Tech University)

It's been up less than a day but already I've removed someone from the blog-roll out of sheer anger.

I wanted to ask the very intelligent Ian Bogost a question about Will Wright's recent video interview posted on the Chronicle of Higher Education.  The most direct mechanism by which I know how to do this quickly and efficiently--albeit with forced brevity--is Twitter.  I'm not extremely fond of Twitter, as it is undeniably a platform for self-promotion first and foremost (hence the preponderance of celebrity navel gazing), but to that extent, it seems to serve its purpose:  It lets people with a marketable message (even if that message is about oneself) communicate that message to others and allows others to respond or submit inquiries.  It lacks the utility or seeming intimacy of, say, Facebook, but it wasn't designed as a virtual Rolodex so much as an abbreviated blog.  It's very good for people who want to get the word out (even about one's vacillating mood) with maximum speed.

Unfortunately, before I got around to asking my question, I found this pearl on Bogost's Twitter page:

Is there anything more interesting than all those "New blog post" tweets? Look at me, look at me, look at me!

Bogost is an undeniable philosophical talent; he is one of the true forces of intellectual might backing game studies today.  But rarely does one see someone so smart write something so very, very stupid.  Without sifting through the list, I can only imagine that many of Bogost's followers (I count myself among his former followers) are students, educators, and game bloggers who announce new web posts in such a manner.  Bogost himself announces blog posts for Bogost.com on Twitter; he simply doesn't put the three words "New blog post" in front of them.  Apparently, excising those three commonsensical words is the hallmark of integrity.

And this from a man who only recently wrote in defense of the idea of Googling oneself.  "Look at me!"

Normally I tolerate the erudition and smugness with which Bogost trumpets his own thoughts because he has something to say, and despite the highfalutin manner in which he says it, it's obvious that he's a top-notch thinker.  And let's face it:  Game studies doesn't have many academic stars.  If there's going to be someone out there drawing people to the "cause," Bogost might as well be it. 

But I think we may want to take the idea of a game studies "celebrity" less seriously.  I met the man once in person (at last year's Meaningful Play conference); he had just finished giving a keynote speech that he seemed to think went rather poorly (it wasn't exactly as coherent as it was interesting), and I asked follow-up questions.  I and another attendee were quickly given the brush-off as he gave a blithely succinct response and darted for the elevators. 

Now, I'm not saying he didn't have a very good reason for darting for those elevators, or even for not wanting to speak to two students of his theories.  I'm sure he is deluged with questions after every speech.  I find the fault in this event, not with Bogost, but rather with myself:  I excused Bogost's brush-off as the act of someone "famous," and the norm for the manner in which one who has achieved success dismisses a plebe.

The problem is, success is relative.  Academically and professionally, Bogost is a resounding success; he has achieved the kind of disciplinary ubiquity for which I can only pray using my far inferior intellect (and I will readily admit that I am not as smart a human being, much less smarter than your average blogger).

This says little, however, about how Bogost may be a success as a human being, or even as a champion for the progress of our hybrid, splintered discipline if he continues to speak out in such a manner.  The last thing game studies--literally, a discipline devoted to all the informality and unapologetic lack of pretension that goes along with video games--needs is self-imposed tiers. 

I may not have the credibility of an Ian Bogost or a famous game designer (hell, this blog has been up less than a month!), but does that mean I have nothing to add to the conversation?  Perhaps Bogost has forgotten how difficult it is just to get oneself in a position where others actually consider them a bonafied interlocutor.  When I'm not busy leading my own life, working, or engaging in my own research, I have to work like hell to promote this blog in any way I can just to get it off the ground.

And if that means announcing posts on Twitter, what is it to someone like Bogost?  No need for the snark and dismissal.  I may be asking for people to "look at me" but it's not out of arrogance.  My self deprecating tone employed here at the blog should be enough proof of that.  I simply have to do what I must to validate myself as a worthy entrant into a dialogue that Bogost practically runs.  Sure, he's in that position due to his own hard work and inestimable number of hours in front of philosophy books and a word processor; he has earned his place atop the ant hill.  Just try not to step on all of us down here.

Someone on Twitter (speak of the devil!) alerted me to the fact that Bogost was suffering the sweltering Georgia heat without a working air conditioner when he wrote the above.  I suppose that's a valid excuse for a lapse in judgment.  Who knows how many bridges I've burned when I've felt offended by so much hot air...?

I Ain't Afraid of No Journalistic Integrity!

(Image courtesy G4TV.com)

G4TV's Feed blog has drawn attention to a new FTC report on "truth in advertising" (as if there was ever such a thing); in particular, the report's unwritten distinction between game bloggers and journalists:

Example 7: A college student who has earned a reputation as a video game expert maintains a personal weblog or “blog” where he posts entries about his gaming experiences. Readers of his blog frequently seek his opinions about video game hardware and software. As it has done in the past, the manufacturer of a newly released video game system sends the student a free copy of the system and asks him to write about it on his blog. He tests the new gaming system and writes a favorable review. The readers of his blog are unlikely to expect that he has received the video game system free of charge in exchange for his review of the product, and given the value of the video game system, this fact would likely materially affect the credibility they attach to his endorsement. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge.

Unwritten here is the assumption that there's a difference between a blogger and a "real" journalist. Everyone who works in the press gets a certain amount of free stuff from people who are interested in hawking their products--most things you see reviewed have been sent, for free, from manufacturers. But a game company sending a blogger a free console for review is small time compared to some of the perks "real" journalists receive. For example, film reviewers are routinely flown to exotic destinations for screenings, but you don't see that mentioned in reviews of the films. And don't get me started on travel writers and car journalists--those guys get the most killer trips ever. Should they all have to disclose their swag?

It's an interesting rhetorical "catch" by post writer Stephen Johnson.  While I agree with the defensive spirit of what he writes and he makes several good points, I'm going to speak for myself here and briefly assert two things:

1. I'm not a journalist.  A journalist makes it their primary endeavor to inform; I make mine to converse.  If a good journalist takes their job seriously, they won't let free swag derail their larger mission to provide the public with straightforward information and opinions, disclosure or no disclosure.  For me, that's just not an option.

I don't have any delusions of grandeur as to the nature of this blog.  If by some bizarre turn of fate it ever becomes outrageously popular, as serendipitous and remarkably undeserved as that would be, it wouldn't alter the underlying mission of the blog: to serve as one more node in a greater and expanding dialogue about video games.  Much less a node that would be absolutely pointless if it were not repeatedly placed in conversation with others like it.  Not "beneath the integrity of it" or "less essential to the conversation," but like it.  One could not necessarily say the same for, say, the writings of the Associated Press.  I don't hold myself to any codes or standards, and that makes it infinitely easier and more joyous an experience to converse with the other minds out there.

2. I have little reason to write positively about free things because they are free.  As crazy as it sounds, I don't even want swag.  First of all, all I need is more gaming "stuff" to cramp the cabinet in my small apartment and for my fiance to complain about.  Second, if I'm trying to field a conversation about the common game playing and game purchasing experience, the last thing I need is a free delivery service.  It doesn't mean the games aren't still worth talking about even if they're free (magazine reviews are proof of that), but a crucial part of the game ownership experience gets lost in translation (and that is perhaps one of my biggest problems with the famed web comic Penny Arcade).

Third, and most importantly, while I don't hold myself to any rigid journalistic standards, I DO feel that it is essential to blogging that one convey the truth.  There's no point in holding a conversation if everyone is flubbing their perspective.  Even if I were discussing free "review" copies of a game, I'd feel compelled to disclose it, simply because that's in my nature.  This blog is a reflection of myself, and though I'm not a journalist, I'd like to think it reflects some small bit of personal integrity.