Unfun art and unfun games

Dudleysmith hit an incredibly important nail on the head in another thread:

dudleysmith wrote:

How about this: the game starts with a familiar FPS view, you have a pistol, and there's a stereotypically ethnic terrorist looking baddie. You shoot him, but then the game shifts to a paramedic game as you try to dig the bullet out of the guy and save his life. You can add an economic simulator where you play the guy's wife trying to make ends meet for their kids, a minigame where he has to try and walk again. Of course, the trouble with a game like that is that the second it's not fun, everyone would stop playing it.

Why will enough people watch, say, 28 Grams to make it a feasible proposition, while it's pretty much impossible to imagine anyone playing the game Dudley outlines above, or a 28 Grams game? What's the payoff to unfun art, and is that kind of payoff just out of the question for games?

My personal answer is that as we currently imagine games and their gameply, it's out of the question, but I think our ideas of what "gameplay" means are changing very, very quickly, and in directions that are hard to see. One major hurdle is one I see as a basic psychological fact about "unfun art"--it forces you to identify with the victim. It's really hard to imagine a game that does that, because of course games as we know them are about being in control of the interaction.

The only possible solution I can see to this is to change the nature of the gameplay radically, so that instead of playing a main character you play a very minor character, or even a bunch of different minor characters, who are all trying to get by in a world that's inherently interesting and in which an inherently interesting, if tragic, story is unfolding. Your job is to try to make things better, even though in the end you can't really set things completely right.

You can kind of see this sort of idea in games like Bioshock and even Assassin's Creed, but those games are still too traditional in their gameplay to make the future really visible.

I suppose that it might have something to do with empathy. Funny Games was brought up in the other thread, and I think it's a great example of a fantastic movie that is excruciating to watch, but still incredibly powerful because of the sense of empathy you have for the main characters. I've yet to see a game that came near to creating the sense of empathy that I felt for the characters in any Haneke film. I'd say I've yet to feel empathy for an in game character that approaches the amount I've felt for just about any character in a film, TV show, or book.

I think that's the biggest hurdle. It doesn't matter what role you play in the narrative, you will continue to feel nothing until there's a sense of empathy for the characters in the game world. There's a lot of obstacles to overcome in achieving that, many that are contradictory to how games function.

I was thinking about this the other day. I've been playing a lot of Everyday Shooter, which is very artsy from a games standpoint, but still retains enough typical game elements to make me again question the potential for games as art without a redefinition of what "art" is. This quote is in the notes of ES:

In the Spring of 2005 I started work on what I called "the new game". It was supposed to provide maximum replayablility and gameplay depth through ingenious game design innovations, but instead it was a complicated mess of rules and controls that were neither fun nor understandable. Somehow I lost myself in a ridiculous concoction of self-indulgent, games-are-art-theory-innovation wankery. Truth is, the only things that mattered were the games that inspired me to make games in the first place.

Thus began my journey back to the roots of my gaming youth: the top-down-shoot-em-up. From the classic shooters of yore to today's modern interpretations, I studied the works until I realized that even the simplest of things can be the most beautiful of things. Armed with this little piece of knowledge, I finally understood how to make the game I truly wanted to make.

Full disclosure: My wife has a BFA from Mass Art, so most of what I'm about to say is informed by her.

I've never fully understood the need to call games "Art" with a capital A. Is it some kind of bid for legitimacy? Are people ashamed of playing games, so they have to make them highbrow by throwing around the A word?

Why does everything that involves a creative element have to be "Art?"

I realize there are some people who call themselves artists who have contributed to the degradation of the term, but to borrow a line from The Incredibles; If everything is art, then nothing is.

I'm not saying art has to be paintings on a wall. But there's something very specific that goes into the creation of art. My understanding from talking to my wife is that it has to mean something to the creator beyond "this is pretty." This is why those pre-framed pictures you can buy at Sears are not art, they're decoration. (By the way, if you ever want to really piss off an artist, tell him his work is decorative.)

I don't know much about art. The Missus tried to teach me, but my brain is too geared for the technical to understand her. I know enough to know the rules are ephemeral, and that there certainly might be a game somewhere that qualifies as Art with a capital A, but I don't think it's as widespread as all that. A game can be moving, affecting, really cool, or just plain outstanding without being Art.

Yellow5 wrote:

I've yet to see a game that came near to creating the sense of empathy that I felt for the characters in any Haneke film. I'd say I've yet to feel empathy for an in game character that approaches the amount I've felt for just about any character in a film, TV show, or book.

I think your basic point is exactly right, but I have to say I disagree about not feeling empathy in games. That's why I think Passage is so interesting--I feel real empathy for the (nearly non-existent) main character and his/her (even less existent) spouse. But YMMV, obviously. I don't think there can be much doubt, though, that the amount of empathy games are able to evoke is increasing.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I've never fully understood the need to call games "Art" with a capital A. Is it some kind of bid for legitimacy? Are people ashamed of playing games, so they have to make them highbrow by throwing around the A word?

I was specifically not including games in my use of "art" this time around.

But what's more important is that for the kind of discussion I'd like to have, we don't have to worry about what "art" is at all (for me, "art" is anything we call "art"--we usually [but by no means always] call things art if they seem to us to be beautiful for the sake of being beautiful--of course we have to agree about what beauty is if we want to nail that down, and "beauty" is perhaps even harder to define than "art").

By using the word in the top post, I just meant to refer to the range of practices most people agree to call "art."

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
I've never fully understood the need to call games "Art" with a capital A. Is it some kind of bid for legitimacy? Are people ashamed of playing games, so they have to make them highbrow by throwing around the A word?

We could spend 100+ pages trying to lock down and define "Art" and in the end get nowhere fast.

People call anything they have had a stake in creating art because to them that is what has taken a good amount of their passion and energy to create.

"Anything created by these 2 hands has to be art because I did it." I do not think it is the side of the consumer who labels it art to make themselves feel better.

Some games I could see labeled as art, others not so much.
Portal - Some could label as such
Army of 2 - Doubtful.

If games are not fun then what is the point?

I work all day already. I can't imagine spending my limited free time doing something I don't enjoy.

If you can make a game fun, regardless of the subject matter, then I'll play it.

"Fun" is a loose term here though. Is it interesting? Is it compelling? Is it intriguing? I'm willing to find my "fun" in many different forms.

Most of my complaints about today's market is that games seem more interested in grind, slog, or outright punishing the player then having fun.

I guess that's why I'm so blown away by Portal. I get a sense of "wouldn't it be cool if the player could...." rather than many games that seem to approach it as "We should make the player do...."

I think the core argument -- which other people have touched on, but which TinPeregrinus is pondering -- has everything to do with emotion and attachment, or empathy.

To look at something like 28 Grams (which, I must confess, is sitting in my "to-watch" DVD pile), or Babel (same director, similar themes, something I have seen) as having something which video games lack is the same as saying cave paintings lack the same photorealism that megapixel cameras do.

It's two media attempting to accomplish different goals through different means.

It think it's perfectly reasonable to call certain video games Art, and others not, depending on your criteria for that capital-A Art definition for video games -- and it certainly doesn't strike me as unreasonable to think that the criteria for Video Game Art is different from, say, the criteria for Cinematic Art.

Again, two different media, blah blah blah.

What the argument seems to be, then, is what kind of experience can video games provide which gives the consumer -- the player -- a similar sort of experience that one of Inarritu's films have given the viewer (to keep harping on that one director). If an achievement of that experience (or a simulacrum thereof) is included in our definition of Video Game Art, I'd like someone to point me in the direction of that game, since I've yet to play it.

But a game which makes me question my actions in the context of the world in which I'm playing (see, say, Babel as an expression of this theme), I'd point to BioShock as one. It genuinely creeped me out to be beating on Splicers with a monkey wrench, even though it was "them or me." And then, each Little Sister choice only reinforced that notion -- I may choose to be the savior of the Little Sisters, but I'm still a homicidal maniac when it comes to Splicers. Does that make them any more or less redeemable than the Little Sisters? Sigh, shrug, reservation, right?

But all of the above about BioShock, I think, speaks to how the game was able to instill a sense of emotional attachment between me and the characters and the world. That, really, is the key -- and it's the key to overcoming that Uncanny Valley.

Similarly, playing GTA IV, I find myself less inclined to random property destruction and vehicular and small-arms mayhem because of my emotional investment in Niko's story. If I feel like blowing sh*t up, I'm more inclined to go into Multiplayer Party Mode, and cause some mindless destruction, than I am in the main game storyline mode. Does that make sense?

Anyone who brings up the whole "Roger Ebert doesn't think videogames are ART!" thing loses 1 life.

Botswana wrote:

If games are not fun then what is the point?

I work all day already. I can't imagine spending my limited free time doing something I don't enjoy.

If you can make a game fun, regardless of the subject matter, then I'll play it.

"Fun" is a loose term here though. Is it interesting? Is it compelling? Is it intriguing? I'm willing to find my "fun" in many different forms.

I think this is the point... movies and books and games don't HAVE to necessarily be FUN. They DO have to be engaging. I personally got quite a zen experience about forklifting crates in SHENMUE, but YMMV. What's fun and compelling to one person isn't necessarily fun and compelling to someone else... with digital distribution methods the way they are, I'd like to think that the economy would be there for smaller companies to release niche titles to a smaller crowd. Maybe that's not the case, but it'd be interesting to see.

Just to add to the discussion, but here's N'Gai Croal's recent blog post about MSG4 (I'm sure it was linked to elsewhere, I just haven't been following the forum discussion on the game) which seems to be hitting on many of the themes we've touched in this thread.

See, the problem with the initial statement, the one about the game, is that he's confusing a sad story with boring gameplay. A game can be very entertaining to play while containing subject matter which is quite dark. The Silent Hill series is a perfect example. Not a lot of happy fun stuff in there, but it's totally engrossing. It's scary and it's at times tiring because it's atmosphere can be so intense, but it's worth coming back to. Hell, even games with rather grim events can be truly fun to play. The God of War series is a blast, but it's not a happy story. Over-the-top crazy, but it's still about a guy who was tricked into killing his own family and is now being punished again and again by the gods, so he goes on a murderous hate-filled rampage.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

There have been a number of games that truly made me feel something. God of War is a perfect example. Each game in the series helped me to get out that pent-up aggression, and God of War 1 and Chains of Olympus both had a sequence that actually made me genuinely feel bad for Kratos.

Shadow of the Colossus bummed me the hell out near the end, when Aggro fell into the abyss. During the fourth Colossus, when I was hiding underground, Aggro was freaking out on the surface. He can't be hurt, and I knew that, but I still felt horrible leaving him up there. And the farther I got, the more depressed I felt as each Colossi fell, powerless to do anything but continue slaughtering my way through them.

Metal Gear Solid 2. Emma dies and Otacon breaks down in the hallway as the parrot mimics something Emma once said. My eyes were pretty watery.

Metal Gear Solid 3. You take down The Boss. You watch the typical cutscene where she gives her final speech before she dies. Except she doesn't die. She tells you to kill her. The camera goes wide and the scene stops, waiting for you to actually pull the trigger. It's the only action you can do. Again, watery eyes. I pushed every button on that controller before I dared letting my finger go near the fire button, desperate to find some way out. To this day, I still get sad when I watch the end of that game.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two. I was talking to my roommate about it, and we were talking about the part where Alyx gets attacked by the Hunter near the beginning. I told him about how I freaked out and started frantically pressing the fire button, hoping to somehow kill it before it could hurt her. I play PC games with headphones, so I wasn't aware of this, but he told me that he knew I was at that part because he heard me actually yelling, "Don't touch her!"

And, man, the end of the game? Epically sad.

SPOILERS NO MORE!

So, yes, David Jaffe, video games can make you cry. And yes, everyone else, they can still be incredibly entertaining experiences while they're doing it. Games can be art. Some of them already are.

Oddly enough, I sometimes think about licensed games I would like to make. I'm a big Scrubs fan, and I would love to see a game based on Scrubs. It would largely play like Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit. Whatever.) You take control of multiple characters through each "episode", affecting how the stories progress and all that good stuff. You would get to know your patients as J.D., Elliot and Dr. Cox as you try to diagnose them. Should they need surgery, you take the role of Turk and you perform the surgery much like in Trauma Center. If all was done correctly, suddenly this surgery would actually mean something. Mess up and this patient, who you've gotten to know, who you've cared for and come so close to, will die. An empty room where you can no longer go to talk about Snoop Dogg Resident's affair with the new intern or unwind after a long day with a poker game for pudding. Problem is, all this hinges on getting you to care for these characters. But if it effectively captured the feeling of the show, that wouldn't be a problem.

And of course, J.D.'s day dreams would be Wario Ware-style minigames.

Oh, one last thing. Does anyone else find it funny that N'gai is black? I mean, a black guy named "N Guy". I suppose I'm a horrible person.

MechaSlinky wrote:

Oh, one last thing. Does anyone else find it funny that N'gai is black? I mean, a black guy named "N Guy". I suppose I'm a horrible person.

OMG no! ahahahahaahahahaha

That's not horrible.. that's... deranged.. genius!

Homeworld. I felt it. Elation, horror, wonder, desperation, sadness. Others nobility. Others cowardice.
Homeworld is art as I understand it. I understand art, I think. At least music. Now I am depressed. You know what I wish I could do? Forget Homeworld. Press the delete key on the memories - and have my brother hand me the disc all over again...

ICO wasn't always fun. In fact, escorting Yorda around was often deliberately aggravating, to the point that I often despised her pathetic presence. The way the game plays on those feelings of resentment, etc. during the story's tragic, climactic moments is absolutely brilliant.

Thanks for all the great responses!

RSPaulette wrote:

To look at something like 28 Grams (which, I must confess, is sitting in my "to-watch" DVD pile), or Babel (same director, similar themes, something I have seen) as having something which video games lack is the same as saying cave paintings lack the same photorealism that megapixel cameras do.
It's two media attempting to accomplish different goals through different means.

After considering for a bit, I’ve decided I disagree with this characterization, though I understand why you make it. I think we can agree (or can we?) that artistic creation has as one of its most universally acknowledged goals getting its participants (creator(s) and audience) to think more deeply about what it means to be human. What I’m calling “unfun art” is, across a great many media, something that many different cultures have seen as an engaging and worthy way to do that. It’s not like “photorealism,” IMHO; it’s more like representation itself.

On the other hand, there may well be media that are more naturally suited to “unfun art” than others are (like drama, which seems the most natural medium for tragedy). The thing that drama (and film) can do that’s interesting in this connection is that they can hold you captive for a space of time and force you to experience suffering. I think games can do that, but I think they have to do it another way, because putting down the controller is much, much easier than getting up and walking out of a movie. The first inkling I got of this capacity was in Bioshock, when the player’s choices are taken away, but I don’t think that method will work more than perhaps three times before it’s a cliché, and I don’t think it will work at all outside a narrow range of story—stories that are specifically about free will.

SommerMatt wrote:

I think this is the point... movies and books and games don't HAVE to necessarily be FUN. They DO have to be engaging. I personally got quite a zen experience about forklifting crates in SHENMUE, but YMMV. What's fun and compelling to one person isn't necessarily fun and compelling to someone else... with digital distribution methods the way they are, I'd like to think that the economy would be there for smaller companies to release niche titles to a smaller crowd.

Thinking about this one over the last day or so, I’m starting to think this is the key question. For me, it boils down to whether I’d play through a real tragedy, where there’s no chance to be a hero, and all your choices are bad. For me, the answer is yes.

That in turn leads to the question of what “fun” is, but I don’t think we even have to deal with that—I just used the word in order to have a quick way of talking about the kind of art that makes you sad instead of happy, but which you’re still really, really glad you experienced.

Botswana wrote:

If games are not fun then what is the point?

I work all day already. I can't imagine spending my limited free time doing something I don't enjoy.

If you can make a game fun, regardless of the subject matter, then I'll play it.

"Fun" is a loose term here though. Is it interesting? Is it compelling? Is it intriguing? I'm willing to find my "fun" in many different forms.

Most of my complaints about today's market is that games seem more interested in grind, slog, or outright punishing the player then having fun.

I guess that's why I'm so blown away by Portal. I get a sense of "wouldn't it be cool if the player could...." rather than many games that seem to approach it as "We should make the player do...."

Personally, I'm with you on this.

I don't like my games or my movies or any other media I consume to be painful. Life is too short to go around wearing an emotional hair-shirt, and there's plenty of unhappiness out there that comes to a person unbidden without having to seek it out.

This isn't to say I can't enjoy something dark. The Shawshank Redemption wasn't what Dear Old Dad would call a toe-tapper, but the payoff at the end was totally worth it. It was like Dante (the author, not the Devil May Cry character), after finishing his journey through Hell and Purgatory, finally coming to Paradise (though I'll admit that the Paradisio bored the crap out of me).

If the Shawshank Redemption had ended with the main character committing suicide, I wouldn't have liked the movie at all, though I'm sure a certain type of film critic would go bananas over it.

To each his own, I guess.

SommerMatt wrote:

I think this is the point... movies and books and games don't HAVE to necessarily be FUN. They DO have to be engaging.

Well, to quote Denzel Washington in Virtuosity, that depends upon your idea of fun, doesn't it? From a gameplay perspective, I'm not so sure that fun and engaging are so very far apart.

SommerMatt wrote:

I personally got quite a zen experience about forklifting crates in SHENMUE, but YMMV. What's fun and compelling to one person isn't necessarily fun and compelling to someone else...

This is precisely true. Sometimes menial tasks in games are fun and engaging. The important part there would seem to be the AND between those two words. If a game is fun, but not engaging, it has no staying power. If a game is engaging, but not fun, then nobody will play it.

Of course, as you note, these are value judgements unique to the player.

SommerMatt wrote:

with digital distribution methods the way they are, I'd like to think that the economy would be there for smaller companies to release niche titles to a smaller crowd. Maybe that's not the case, but it'd be interesting to see.

I think there's already a market for that. The intarweb is full of websites dedicated to collecting flash games, for example. The Act Casual section of this site makes a point of it. Most of these games are very low overhead, small number of developers, etc. Some are larger, but each game has an audience somewhere.

I'd like to see more of it, personally.

I'm certainly not afraid to throw around opinions about what is and isn't art, and I've got enough background in various fields that I feel I'm throwing them from fairly solid ground. I'm going to do my best not to get into that here, though.

I once sat in on a guest lecture concerning Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. The lecturer described the work as a "hard poem," but emphasized that such a characterization was based not on difficulty of long words, understanding the poem, scanning the poem, or explicating the poem. Instead, he insisted, Tintern Abbey was "hard" because it presented the reader with discomforting emotions and unappealing ethical imperatives.

When I think about the insistence on "fun" in games, I find myself struggling to apply that word to most things I passionately enjoy. I think this is especially because when I read about people who somehow are able to play deeply moving games while avoiding any attachment to the characters, I can't help feel that these are the same people who blew off literature, art, and music classes in junior high--those who somehow were able to build emotional barricades against The Giver or Where the Red Fern Grows. Wilson Rawls was certainly no Wordsworth, and I won't be rushing to make Red Fern part of the classical literary canon, but that doesn't mean it's some sort of literary equivalent to a Thomas Kinkade painting. [Oops, there I go. ]

Perhaps it's because so many students don't treat books as stories to get involved in, but as assignments. That is, there may simply be a difference of expectations. So, too, in video games. In games as in everything else (except, perhaps, the Wye Valley), you find what you're looking for.

wordsmythe wrote:

when I read about people who somehow are able to play deeply moving games while avoiding any attachment to the characters, I can't help feel that these are the same people who blew off literature, art, and music classes in junior high--those who somehow were able to build emotional barricades against The Giver or Where the Red Fern Grows.

As I said above, I've yet to feel emotionally moved in any strong way by a character in a game, but defy your characterization. When I was young, I read far more for leisure then school ever required. I have a degree in fine art. I played in a band, and wrote music. I'm also far more likely to cry during some absurd "romantic dramedy" then any person should be. If I didn't cry reading Where the Red Fern Grows, then I'm sure I came close. I'm ridiculously susceptible to melodrama.

I've just yet to experience a game that I would categorize as "deeply moving". The closest moments I could think of were a couple of the moments in Half-Life 2: Episode 2, but those still were not nearly as powerful as similar types of events playing out in other forms of media.

I don't know, do I have to rattle off my literary qualifications? While I currently enjoy mostly bad science fiction I am widely read and I didn't view most of the reading I did in junior high, high school, or college as assignments. I enjoyed reading most of what I was given. Sometimes the more esoteric the better, but rarely did a teacher have the notion of getting too far off the beaten educational path.

There is a difference between why I read a book and play a game though. Books are non-interactive stories and thus do not have to be "fun" but merely engaging. Not even entertaining. A movie, on the other hand, does have the qualification of being entertaining. A game has to be fun. A game, in particular, carries this weight because they are often the most expensive of my entertainment options and it is all too rarely I find a game that is both free and worthwhile to play that also has any kind of story element.

Games are not required to have a story, that component is optional though often welcome. The same could be said of books, but most books I've read sans story where technical manuals or textbooks. Even if a book is non-fiction it doesn't mean storytelling is unimportant.

Again, as stated above, I'm willing to define "fun" fairly loosely, but with a limited budget of time I'm not really interested in slogging through a game. I don't really care what the content is. A game does not have to stick to convention, it doesn't have to stick to traditional stories, it doesn't have to have Campbellian themes, but it does have to give me a reason to keep playing.

The insistence on fun is due mostly because of why I play games. If you want to make a game that isn't fun I think that's a bold direction, just don't complain when I don't buy it.

The other problem I have here is the idea of showing maybe a not so nice part of life. In my experience the only people who seem to "enjoy" such activities, usually through movies and literature, are those who have not had to experience it first-hand. I've experienced poverty, twice, I've lived in not so nice neighborhoods, and I worked in a jail. I have seen a side of humanity up close and personal that most people will never have to see. If you live in that world you don't necessarily want to continue to experience that unpleasantness. If you've managed to leave that world you don't necessarily want to be reminded of it. I sometimes wonder if there is some voyeuristic aspect or the need to assuage the guilt of living a nice safe life that many people do not have that drives the ideas of pushing uncomfortable themes as "entertainment".

I understand what you're saying, however I don't think it's just a matter of shifting perspective and expectation. I've played many story driven games, and while I enjoy the story, and it serves as a driving element in playing through the game, I still don't get that strong connection that I experience with other media. I think there are a couple key factors involved, one technological, and one structural.

The technological one is the uncanny valley, both in reference to people in games, and the worlds they inhabit. I've yet to play a game that didn't have hundreds of things that constantly break the illusion of any sort of reality, ranging from small animation problems to the presence of UI to the implausible physical nature of any video game world. Making a space interactive opens up a huge amount of implausibility that is not present in an animated film, so I'm not specifically talking about realism or fidelity. The constant low level reminders of the fakeness of the world seriously undermine the immersion, for me.

The structural one is that games are about play and mechanics, which always interrupt the actual story. I've yet to see a game where all the mechanics are story telling, although games like Mass Effect are getting there. The time I spend playing is time spent being removed from the story. It's like watching a kung fu movie (which I love, incidentally): you have a roughly 30:1 ratio of time spent fighting vs. time spent developing characters and plot. It's fun to watch, but not the stuff of great storytelling or deeply moving emotional experiences.

Yellow5 wrote:

games are about play and mechanics

I understand this perspective, but I don't share it. I understand, too, that developers tend to reinforce your perspective, both through intentional design and through sloppy mistakes or poor QA.

I tried to ninja edit my last post by adding this bit:

Honestly, I ran out of time when writing yesterday's post. The point I was planning on trying to make was that, while I at first blamed my fellow students for intentionally disregarding the power of the books we were reading, I eventually came to understand that they weren't really looking for the story, but rather to skim through an assignment as quickly and painlessly as possible. These weren't novels to them, but obstacles.

Game designers don't always make it easy to treat their games with any sort of literary respect. Then again, I tend to see meaning in just about everything, and, at the same time, I've spent plenty of time with Robert Frost's poems, which often seem deliberately designed so as to encourage incorrect understandings (e.g., the rest of Road Not Taken is about how it was impossible to know which road was less traveled by). Perhaps I've been trained not to give in to the artist's intended interpretation.

Do any of you have similar problems with taking sci-fi seriously when the science is sloppy or impossible? (I ask because that never really distracted me, either.)

I'm not asking for literary qualifications.

Edit: Honestly, I ran out of time when writing yesterday's post. The point I was planning on trying to make was that, while I at first blamed my fellow students for intentionally disregarding the power of the books we were reading, I eventually came to understand that they weren't really looking for the story, but rather to skim through an assignment as quickly and painlessly as possible. These weren't novels to them, but obstacles.[End edit]

wordsmythe wrote:

Perhaps it's because so many students don't treat books as stories to get involved in, but as assignments. That is, there may simply be a difference of expectations. So, too, in video games. In games as in everything else (except, perhaps, the Wye Valley), you find what you're looking for.

It's a question of expectations. If you or anyone else approaches a novel as an assignment instead of as a story, I believe this is crucial in determining the level of appreciation you have for that novel. (I almost let my expectations ruin One Hundred Years of Solitude for me, which would have been a real shame.) I think we all know and understand that. Similarly, if you approach a game as a challenge to be overcome, I'm confident that you'll find a very complicated puzzle or carnival game. Though the works in question might be more complex than statistics, it's still a confirmation bias.

I challenge those of you who have not felt connected to a game's story or characters to try and recalibrate your expectations for the medium (or at least for the specific title in question) before you start your next story-based game (not Boom Blox of Guitar Hero 4). Insist to yourself that there is a real difference between the two gaming subsets--a difference as wide as that between a novel and the slapped-on dross of a story problem in an arithmetic textbook. I think that you'll find that treating story-based games as interactive stories--leaving behind the "game" moniker and all the expectations of such--will be a very different experience.

wordsmythe wrote:

Perhaps it's because so many students don't treat books as stories to get involved in, but as assignments. That is, there may simply be a difference of expectations. So, too, in video games. In games as in everything else (except, perhaps, the Wye Valley), you find what you're looking for.

I think the main problem here, not to get off topic, is that the books they assign you in high school are not so much meant for high-schoolers.

Catcher in the Rye is a perfect example. This is a book that's supposed to be read by someone who's years seperated from Holden Caulfield. The audience is someone who's outgrown that point in his life. If you're actually his age, the book won't resonate. You'll just think he's a whiney punk who needs his butt kicked.

Of course, I'm years removed from him, and I still think he's just a whiney punk in need of getting his butt kicked. So maybe I'm not the best authority on this.

Further, anyone who inflicts anything by Edith Wharton on anyone should be flogged.

wordsmythe wrote:

I once sat in on a guest lecture concerning Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. The lecturer described the work as a "hard poem," but emphasized that such a characterization was based not on difficulty of long words, understanding the poem, scanning the poem, or explicating the poem. Instead, he insisted, Tintern Abbey was "hard" because it presented the reader with discomforting emotions and unappealing ethical imperatives.

When I think about the insistence on "fun" in games, I find myself struggling to apply that word to most things I passionately enjoy.

Games are a seperate entity, though. The very definition of the word includes the words fun and amusement. If the fun or amusement is removed, it ceases to be a game properly understood and becomes something else. What it becomes is determined by what it's trying to be. If it's a game like peggle that isn't fun or amusing, then it's just a bad game. If it's got a rich, detailed story that is interesting/moving/"hard" but isn't fun or amusing, then it's an interactive story. It will get lumped into the "video game" section simply because it shares formal similarities to an interactive story that is also fun and engaging.

There's nothing wrong with that, but let's not forget the basics.

wordsmythe wrote:

I think this is especially because when I read about people who somehow are able to play deeply moving games while avoiding any attachment to the characters, I can't help feel that these are the same people who blew off literature, art, and music classes in junior high--those who somehow were able to build emotional barricades against The Giver or Where the Red Fern Grows. Wilson Rawls was certainly no Wordsworth, and I won't be rushing to make Red Fern part of the classical literary canon, but that doesn't mean it's some sort of literary equivalent to a Thomas Kinkade painting. [Oops, there I go. ]

I'll admit that I cried at the end of Of Mice and Men. But I cannot bring myself to get that emotionally wrought over a video game. (Why is it, incidentally, that only things that make us cry are considered moving? I become stirred emotionally when I read certain parts the Lord of the Rings, but I'm not weeping. Cannot a story move someone to jubilation?) I read books for one reason and I play games for another reason. I watch movies for yet a third reason.

I do not wish to cry for whichever spiky haired kid with an "I'm not compensating for anything" sword is saving the world this time. I want the pseudo adrenaline rush I get from wading into battle. I want the satisfaction of a control scheme that enables me to do exactly what I intended to do.

I could go on, but Botswana already made this point and who wants to see the same thing twice by different people? I might as well go and make a third shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.

wordsmythe wrote:

I challenge those of you who have not felt connected to a game's story or characters to try and recalibrate your expectations for the medium (or at least for the specific title in question) before you start your next story-based game (not Boom Blox of Guitar Hero 4). Insist to yourself that there is a real difference between the two gaming subsets--a difference as wide as that between a novel and the slapped-on dross of a story problem in an arithmetic textbook. I think that you'll find that treating story-based games as interactive stories--leaving behind the "game" moniker and all the expectations of such--will be a very different experience.

Having said everything I've just said, I will admit that story is important to me. I can rattle off a long list of games that I've played just to find out what happened (Max Payne, Runaway, The Monkey Island series, etc), and if I know I'm not going to like the story of a game it will ruin the game for me (hence my PS3 thread regarding Assassin's creed, which I thank you for your time in answering my questions).

I already play story-centric games differently than I play non-story based games. I try to play in character as much as possible (eg: If I'm told to "hurry up" to get somewhere, but I'm not presented with any time limit on getting there, I'll still tend to hurry along because it's supposed to be urgent to the character), and if I get the impression from reviews that I won't like a character, I don't play the game at all.

But I refuse to emotionally invest myself in the characters in an interactive story or a game. It's simply not what I look for in that kind of entertainment, and it's not really something I want. I don't want to die when they die, why would I want to cry when they cry? It's simply not interesting to me.

I'd rather spend that emotional energy on my wife and daughter. They're more deserving of it than Solid Snake, or Link, or Cloud.

I probably should have qualified my statement better.

I won't go so far as to claim I have been unmoved by a game before, though I do fret that it seems to happen less often. Am I getting more emotionally {ableist slur} as I get older? That's a discussion for another day.

There is an expectation I have from most games going in. I think if you paint a story as a bleak and depressing picture I'm not going to be interested in it from the get go and even less so if I'm actually a character in the story. Not that I insist on happy endings but I do try to limit my intake of darker materials. See above statements about already dealing with the worst humanity has to offer. I don't want to "feed" that aspect of myself.

I have had games go in a direction I didn't expect. Much like movies or books, this can add to the experience or detract from it. I hate it when they paint a movie as a comedy when it's really more of a tragedy. If the movie is handled well, then I may still enjoy it, but going in with an expectation of one thing and getting another is actually a hurdle that the story then has to overcome.

Games can be even worse, because you have disparate gameplay elements as well. So in addition to having to tell a story I am also supposed to be actively involved. Thus, having a stealth element in Red Faction, a game without a strong story and only above average gameplay, was a major buzzkill. The stealth element in COD4 on the other hand was a balls tightening edge of my pants thrillfest. Not to mention COD4 didn't have the best of endings but I felt so involved that I wanted to stand up and cheer when I was done. Yet we rarely think about emotional experiences in our "popcorn" entertainment. Regardless, this is often where I feel more involved instead of the being beaten about the head with a message which is all the rage in contemporary entertainment.

wordsmythe wrote:

Do any of you have similar problems with taking sci-fi seriously when the science is sloppy or impossible? (I ask because that never really distracted me, either.)

I feel similarly about what people call bad acting. I know it's a major distraction to some people -- even a major focus of movie reviews. When I see a "bad actor," however, I simply assume that the character herself is less emotive than others.

wordsmythe wrote:

Perhaps it's because so many students don't treat books as stories to get involved in, but as assignments.

Not to get off topic too much, but I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that stories are often presented as assignments, and not as something to enjoy. This pretty much excludes anyone without a natural affinity for literature from enjoying what they read.

Yellow5 wrote:

The structural one is that games are about play and mechanics, which always interrupt the actual story. I've yet to see a game where all the mechanics are story telling, although games like Mass Effect are getting there.

Without true artificial intelligence, I'm not convinced that this is a synthesis we're ever likely to see. The most meaningful "stories" I've experienced in games are within those that are almost completely devoid of classical storytelling, leaving plenty of room for the imagination to fill in the blanks. There was a Dreamcast game called Armada, for example, that consisted almost entirely of escorting traders to safety, attacking specific targets, and just flying around shooting stuff. The game was unique in its refusal to provide you with any information other than "escort me to random point x" or "destroy random enemy y." While playing this and other such games, I find my mind independently filling in the blanks in the story -- often becoming whole campaigns filled with friendships and betrayals. Less epic, perhaps, than a Mass Effect-style story, but certainly more meaningful on a personal level.

Can I try to re-focus a bit?

Whether it's Where the Redfern Grows or Of Mice and Men or Ethan Frome or 28 Grams, do you see a difference between your interest in that sort of narrative art, the sort that makes you sad, and your interest in the sort of narrative art to be found in Planescape or Bioshock?

That is, do you think you'd be willing to play a game based on an unfun story? (Please bracket the question of how a developer could create that game.)

Would you be less willing to play such a game than you would be to watch such a movie or read such a book?

Now un-bracket the design question: do you have any thoughts on how such a game could be achieved?

TinPeregrinus wrote:

Can I try to re-focus a bit?

Whether it's Where the Redfern Grows or Of Mice and Men or Ethan Frome or 28 Grams, do you see a difference between your interest in that sort of narrative art, the sort that makes you sad, and your interest in the sort of narrative art to be found in Planescape or Bioshock?

That is, do you think you'd be willing to play a game based on an unfun story? (Please bracket the question of how a developer could create that game.)

Would you be less willing to play such a game than you would be to watch such a movie or read such a book?

Now un-bracket the design question: do you have any thoughts on how such a game could be achieved?

Ah, getting back on topic. Novel concept.

Quick answer: No. I do not play games with stories I consider "unfun." Occasionally I'll be interested in a game for its gameplay but catch a whiff from reviews that the story will be unappealing to me on one or more levels. At that point, I pass on the game.

I am about as likely to pass on a movie/book as I am on a game for story reasons. I can tolerate a movie, book, or game that has unfun elements provided the payoff is good (Shawshank Redemption, to return to my earlier example) but if there's no payoff or a bad payoff then I'll skip it without a second thought (Memento, which I haven't seen but my wife informs me it's one of the most depressingly awful movies she's ever sat through.)

The game could be achieved through many methods. For example, they could make the gameplay suck and call it an artistic choice

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

The game could be achieved through many methods. For example, they could make the gameplay suck and call it an artistic choice ;)

:lol:!

There's an interesting difference in medium that I think I pick up on in your post: it's worth it to sit through misery if you know you've got a redemptive ending coming in a film, but if you've got misery over a couple levels in a game, it's not worth it, even if you know the ending will be redemptive. Is this perhaps because of the different time-commitments involved? So Shawshank: the game probably wouldn't fly?

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I think the main problem here, not to get off topic, is that the books they assign you in high school are not so much meant for high-schoolers.

Catcher in the Rye is a perfect example. This is a book that's supposed to be read by someone who's years seperated from Holden Caulfield. The audience is someone who's outgrown that point in his life. If you're actually his age, the book won't resonate. You'll just think he's a whiney punk who needs his butt kicked.

Of course, I'm years removed from him, and I still think he's just a whiney punk in need of getting his butt kicked. So maybe I'm not the best authority on this.

I think you're 100% wrong on this... CATCHER is completely "relatable" to kids in high school... that is exactly the time when they feel they're the only "real" person among a universe of "phonies." Someone reading it at 15 might only see that aspect of the character, while a slightly older reader might appreciate that Salinger certainly isn't endorsing this world view or presenting Holden as a "hero." Keep in mind, though, that Salinger himself wasn't long out of his teens when he wrote the original story that inspired the novel (he was 22).

It's true that some people don't like the book and find it annoying. We call those people "women"

More seriously, though, your original point about "appropriate" reading materials IS valid. I struggle with it every day. The problem is really multi-layered-- on the one hand, you can't force anyone to "love" or "appreciate" literature, as no one is going to love or appreciate the same thing. Our job is to use literature to teach SKILLS-- the plot graph, figures of speech, tone, theme, POV, models for writing, etc. So yeah, reading IS an assignment. Do I hope the students enjoy the works? Sure. Does it matter at all if they DON'T? Not a bit. That said, I also realize that most people learn to "hate" reading because they're forced to read stuff like THE SCARLET LETTER in high school. Unfortunately, I can only use the works I'm given, and to get NEW books requires an act of god. On top of that, most of the "mucky-mucks" in the educational department are convinced students should ONLY be exposed to "classics," and aren't willing to look at more age-appropriate materials.

[/digression]

TinPeregrinus wrote:

That is, do you think you'd be willing to play a game based on an unfun story? ...

Would you be less willing to play such a game than you would be to watch such a movie or read such a book?

I think everyone knows where I sit on this. I played Super Columbine Massacre RPG, and it was perhaps the most emotionally and ethically challenging thing I've ever done. If I could go back and choose again, I'd still play it. I think I've had just about enough of that particular game for this decade, though. (Interestingly, the facts of the Columbine massacre almost serve as a mere introduction to the game, which may have been a design mistake.)

I think that most people are in this camp:

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

Games are a seperate entity, though. The very definition of the word includes the words fun and amusement. If the fun or amusement is removed, it ceases to be a game properly understood and becomes something else.

I think this is crucial. The term "game" has most people expecting light-hearted amusement. I don't know what it is about me, but I take different things seriously than most people. At the same time, I'm actually a pretty (severely) laid-back guy. I'm not sure I have a convincing argument for slacking off in law school while taking copious notes while at church or playing/explicating Dead Rising. I am eccentric.

TinPeregrinus wrote:

Now un-bracket the design question: do you have any thoughts on how such a game could be achieved?

I think it takes courage. It takes courage on the part of the developers to make an unfun "game," just as it takes courage for players to play such a game. I suppose you could substitute sadism and masochism, respectively, though.