theory – Page 2 – Pan Studio

Simple Games, Complex Personal Narratives.

Ben Barker

8th August 2011

When a simple rule or a single sentence is enough to explain a game, it can often lead to its dynamics being richer and more fluid. I played one recently where the sentence went like this:

A person hides and all other players seek, then when a seeker finds the hider he joins them in that space until everyone has found it and done the same. Its called sardines and I had never heard of it.

My experience of it was heightened by playing in an old wooden mansion on the French coast in the pitch black of midnight with a sound track of the sea drowning out the informative shuffles of numerous investigations. The idea of being the last seeker in that black house with its multi-roomed basement, sprawling balconies, and creaking staircase leading to a separate annex was simply not an option. In other words, something was at stake.

The games appeal comes in what you might call its personal story arc. Each seeker is in a wrestle between needing the safety of the group to ensure they aren’t left alone at the end (a genuine fear) and the personal victory of finding the target. Within this there is so much room for loyalty and betrayal, honesty and selfishness, all morally acceptable because the game doesn’t say you can’t. In a sense the rules of the game are far more complicated than that one sentence, they are the rules of human morality, reconfigured on the fly in a heightened state of tension.

One moment stood out for me and encapsulated the experience.

We had been seeking for 30 minutes with no success. Then as paths crossed around the house, word started to spread that one seeker hadn’t been seen recently. A friend has become an enemy.

People began to group at the bottom of the staircase to the annex, it’s pitch black, frustration is beginning to show. No one really wants to go back to the dark basement or the shadow splattered garage. Whilst strategy is discussed I subtly rummage in the space under stairs. It’s deep and I feel a hoover, then a rolled up carpet, behind that is a mop, then something bouncy and hairy, under that there’s a forehead, eyes. I trace back over the still head, the shape of a female face, the hair in a bun.

Everything’s changed, I’m one of them. I’m suddenly an enemy among friends, my hand on the key. I have a moment to decide before others think to check the dark triangle under the stairs. Do I want to bring the group of seekers with me, effectively ending the game, or do I want to misdirect, suggest searching elsewhere, say that I know where they’re hidden, then hang back and dive into this cavernous alcove and become part of the select few. I scan the grey silhouettes of the seekers around me. I’ve searched side by side with a couple of them since the beginning. People are starting to fidget, my mind whirrs, decision time:

‘Guys, I’ve got an idea where they are.’

Playmakers

Sam Hill

Playmakers is a film on immersive gaming – a collaborative project between Hide & Seek, NESTA and ThinkPublic.

It features a good range of speakers from the sector and contains some interesting insights. It also demonstrates (in a surprisingly frank way) the ad hoc and experimental nature of immersive game development, illustrating why it’s important to remember the KISS principle when orchestrating events that are designed to be engaging and fun.

Some of the other difficulties and objectives of experiential events are outlined – the need to avoid esoterism, the importance of having objectives and narrative seamlessly work together and the psychology of keeping players immersed. Interesting parallels are drawn throughout to other social activities that “share DNA” – protests, carnivals, parkour and theatre. Obviously, theatre is a biggy. Computer games are slightly conspicuous in their exclusion.

An interesting idea is presented near the beginning of the film [01:50] by Hide & Seek’s Alex Fleetwood. He appears to be describing the four quadrants of their interest. Here it is visualised:

It’s a really nice territory for enquiry. What’s more, Alex’s criteria reveal a robust set of parameters when extrapolated:

Immersive gaming incorporates a dedicated core of researchers and creative thinkers. The industry seems to be gaining plenty of momentum and makes an excellent case study for the development of a broader experience culture. A lot can be learned from a decade of keenly analysed experiential events and the potential within the sector remains huge and continuously changing.

The Conflicting Nature of Computer Games

Sam Hill

21st June 2011

It’s difficult to describe precisely how excited I am about the upcoming Bethesda game Skyrim, which is due to be released in November this year.

Specifically, I’m looking forward to fighting dragons. In my day-to-day life I’m unable to fight dragons, you see, so the prospect is quite exciting.

This is an important consideration when evaluating contemporary computer games. Their status, somewhere between the legacy of Pong (1972) and the potential to be Nozick’s theoretical Experience Machine implies a complex question:

How much experiential value do they really impart?

The case against computer games

Computer games are synthetic experiences. They are approximations of situations built from rendering software, conversation trees, scripts and flags. They are built by finitely sized teams of people. Ultimately, they are limited by the comprehension of the human mind – a condition from which reality does not suffer. They are as incomparable from that which they simulate as a train crash is from a mathematical collision model; as a fruit salad is from a fruit salad.
They are played through a bottleneck of sensation. We input though fingertips – or more recently through gesture. Feedback is received as light and sound. Occasionally primitive haptic feedback devices like “rumble-packs” are involved but generally most of the human range of sensation remains unstimulated.
Computer gaming is a time-consuming activity. Hours can disappear when playing. It is entirely foreseeable that whole childhoods, and adulthoods too, can be lost to a digital interface. This time could be spent doing many, many other things in ‘the real world’ – outdoor activities like running, building, swimming and climbing might be missed out on. The smell of grass, the feeling of the sun on skin, or breathlessness from activity cannot be emulated by a computer.
The long-term rewards of gaming are debatable (though not entirely deniable). Time spent gaming might otherwise be invested in developing skills and knowledge, or pursuing other hobbies, interests and activities. Missing out on these knowledge-experiences can have a cumulative effect in denying future opportunities to learn.
It’s possible for excessive gaming to be described as an addictive behaviour. This can impede social interaction from friends, family and other people, restricting socio-cultural development, and the enrichment this provides experientially.

The case for computer games

“Gaming” is a misleading term. Though most platforms will have puzzles, goals or skill-based challenges, things have changed a great deal since the arcade era of Tetris and Asteroids. It might be more accurate to state that products like L.A. Noire, for example, are simulators, interactive narratives or synthetic experiences. Here, the potential for what might be simulated is bounded only by the imagination of developers. This might sound contradictory to the first argument against games – but it’s not the case; merely the the other side of the coin. As stated before, we cannot actually go out and fight dragons on mountain tops, nor tackle crime in nineteen-forties’ America. But through synthetic experiences we may save the world countless times. We can explore space and solve mysteries and battled demons. We can be gangsters, tycoons and blue hedgehogs. Reality could not deliver these situations, but here we are having lived them -to a very limited extent, yes, but the difference between these simulacra and nothing is huge.
Skilled developers at companies such as Valve and Bethesda absolutely understand what is required to make exciting, fun and memorable titles. Games are consumed actively, not passively. Their immersive nature is virtually unparalleled amongst other creative mediums – being far more interactive than literature, more dynamic than film, more bespoke than most theatre. Though rarely considered a cultural medium, they are annihilating competing products in terms of both intensity and duration of experience. Imperfect though they are, games probably represent the absolute pinnacle of human-engineered experience.
Games are a pragmatic, utilitarian solution for the service and consumption of experience. They are easily replicable and relatively cheap to produce (compared to, say, holidays, leisure activities, or Hollywood blockbusters). Games can exist entirely digitally, so they are a very sustainable form of experience consumption. They also offer good value for money as a medium, with successful titles providing many more hours of immersive entertainment per pound than other forms of consumption.

Conclusion

It’s important to remember: the richest experiences possible are not necessarily man-made at all, and even when this is the case they may not be easily replicable or sustainable. These salient circumstances and events – valuable, definable moment in time – should not be undermined by the inferior, if ubiquitous industry of gaming.

However, games certainly have their place, and in moderation can augment an already experientially rich life with an immersive level of fantasy and escapism. It is also foreseeable that advances in technology, changes in culture and expansion of platforms will help reduce some of their current limitations.