Extra Credits Addendum: Discussing the Role of the Player

[Extracredits]

Extra Credits Addendum: Discussing the Role of the Player

James Portnow from Extra Credits discusses the role of the player with the lead designer of Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

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[intheweeds]

I imagine the player like the reader and the video game like a 'Choose your own adventure' book. Sure, each reader gets a different plot experience each time depending on their choices, but there are a limited number of choices and it was the writer who laid out the map of possibilities.

A video game to me in the context of this discussion is similar to an extremely long and complicated 'Choose your own adventure'. There may be such a huge number of possible plots that no two people would ever have the same experience and it would still have been the writer who laid out the plot.

Of course, a developer would want a player to be so involved in their story, setting or characters that they begin imagining their own scenarios, but I don't believe that one can be considered an artist until they actually make the jump to expressing themselves creatively. In the context of being involved in a video game, the player is merely following guidelines set by the one who created the work. Should they go off and use those characters to write fan-fiction or make machinima for example, then i would consider them to be artists.

 

[GaltarDude1138]

Insightful. This discussion here is bonafide insightful. I don't know who may be the most right or who may be the most wrong, but when you break it down, so far in the history of games, games have always been entertainment products, designed to sell or appeal to a fanbase. True there are artsy games, but people who invested in the game need to make their money back, therefore the designers and such need to create something engaging and fun, since video games are, as one of those two words implies, GAMES. Some have their merits, but when you get right down to it, I bet every game developer tries to make their games FUN, if for no other reason than that they might be out of a job a week after release.

It'll be interesting to see what form video games take in the next decades, and what lessons the people who invest, make, and indeed play, decide to learn.

 

[Zhukov]

I'm with Mr Grip on this one.

When playing a game, even a non-linear game like Dwarf Fortress or Minecraft, I do not feel like I am telling a story. Rather, I am experiencing one. Some games allow me to have varying degrees of influence on the outcome of that story, and that's great, but it's far removed from the process of actually creating a story.

 

[BgRdMchne]

I think that it is also important to consider that creativity, artistry, and storytelling might not be just a qualitative question and more of a quantitative question in this case. Consider two different games: Portal 2 and Sid Meier's Pirates! for example.

Portal 2 severely restricts the players action and delivers really tight, exciting, gameplay action, while at the same time telling you a great story. The designers created the entire narrative, as you guys defined it, except for maybe some of the pacing and deaths. It's really hard to call the the gamer artistic (except in the way mathematical proofs are artistic and beautiful).

In Pirates!, the designers lay out the framework and a very loose story, leaving the player to create a story. In this case, the argument that the player is a storyteller is much stronger. He is a pirate or a merchant. Some of the backstory the player creates is the same type that watchers of film get, but from that point on the player continues the story. The player makes the decisions that shape the story.

It seems as the more choices, (and not just arbitrary ones like do I act like Hitler or Jesus to get the ending I want) the more the player acts as a storyteller.

For a more extreme example of my point, consider FFXIII against Minecraft.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Personally I think it's says alot that games like The Sims 3 and Oblivion last well after their intended use through player creativity.

I agree with @BgRdMchne in that it is dependant on the type of game. I can use The Sims 3 to create a story and world around my characters but in Mario Galaxy the story is pretty much laid out. However, they are both excellent games. There are only a ceratin types of games that encourage EP's 'role of the player'. Curiously these tend to be the most long lived ones which I think is what developers need to take away from this discussion.

 

[Kapol]

I'd just like to point something out. At one point, it's mentioned that 'nobody would make a game based on the real experience of farming' or something like that. There actually is a farming simulator called Farming Simulator 2011. Just wanted to point that out.

Have to say, as much as I like the Extra Punctuation guys, I think Thomas Grip is in the right on this one.

The term artist is essentially another word for 'creator'. When you make a piece of art, you are creating something for others to experience and (hopefully) enjoy, though in this era of 'modern-art', other reactions are also often sought by artists (anger, disgust, etc). Thus, the designers and writers of any given video game are artists in that they create virtual worlds full of colour and sounds within which the player is invited to explore.

The role of the player, therefore, is fundamentally different. Even with the most non-linear, sandbox games, the player is never creating anything. They are simply experiencing the world within the confines that the developers have allowed. In a fantasy RPG, you may be able to turn your character into a stealthy ranger, a powerful mage, or a heroic warrior, but you're not creating anything new when you're doing so. You're simply experiencing and exploring the different possibilities that the developers have created and offered to you. Barring games that explicitly allow for player made content (Little BigPlanet and the like), the only things the player can play with are the things the developer has already created and included in the game.

Now, in more non-linear games, the absence of a cohesive character narrative can lead players to create their own imaginary backstories for the characters they've customised. That doesn't make them artists. As Mr Grip says in his blog, many people create imaginary backstories for secondary characters in films and books. That doesn't make book-readers and film-viewers artists. Creating an imaginary backstory for your character is not art as long as it simply remains in your head, just like hearing a great piece of music but not writing it down or playing it doesn't make you a musician. Being an artist is taking those moments of creativity and inspiration, and setting them down in a medium for others to observe and react to.

Tolkien would not have been an artist if he had simply kept his Middle-Earth mythos in his imagination. Same for George RR Martin with A Song Of Ice And Fire. Jimmy Page wouldn't have been an artist if Stairway To Heaven had only lived in his mind, and never progressed to his guitar. Being an artist is developing the skill of taking the abstract and immaterial ideas that form in your imagination, and making them material. Playing around with the various toys a developer has included in their virtual world is simply not the same process. Everything within any virtual world is only there because the developers intentionally put it there. Therefore, you the player are not discovering anything abstract or unknown, you're simply finding stuff the developer hid from you. Playing a videogame is no more artistic than playing a game of hide-and-seek.

That's not to say we shouldn't challenge the player role, or look at it in new ways. But trying to claim it as an artistic position is simply misguided, I believe. All art needs an audience in order to give it context. Videogames are no different in this regard.

Why is it that one needs to actually make their art visible to others to be considered an artist? You see, I disagree with you on that point. Every person who plays through any video game is bringing their experience to life. Most of the time, that experience is only experienced by them or a small group of people who may be watching, but that person is going through a unique experience and crafting the game world in their own mind whenever they play through a game. I think that's why people enjoy watching the 'Let's Play' type of videos. They allow people to view a person experiencing and building their own artistic experience with a game. That's also why the best are those that have some narration, as then you can get an idea of what the person playing it is experiencing.

While it's true that a person would make their work seen by others to be known as an artist, does that really make them less of an artist if they don't share it? Are they somehow less creative because they don't share their creativity with others? I'm sure there are plenty of creative stories that are not formed because the one who creates the doesn't have the knowledge or ability to craft it right.

I can understand both sides of the argument, but I do think that everyone is an artist in their own way. In the end, we create the world as we experience it, and while this might be the same for the outer world, each person can experience the same virtual world is radically different ways. It isn't about creating their own character's stories as much as creating their own story with the game based off the experiences and moments they have with it. That's my opinion at least.

 

[cynicalsaint1]

I'm going to have to mainly agree with James here.

The way the player experiences a videogame is fundamentally different from how one experiences a book or a movie. Whether or not you want to go as far as putting the player at the same level as the developers, I suppose thats a judgement call - but its undeniable that a player is fundamentally different than a 'watcher' or a 'reader' and should be treated as such.

Videogames are engaging in ways that no other media can be.
If you forget that - you're losing sight of what videogames can really become, given the chance.

 

[The Random One]

Oh God, James, I'm so sorry for you. Grip clobbered you in that one.

The argument that if you were to hook them up to a machine reading brainwaves a game player's experience would be more similar to a book writer's than a book reader's is, I'm sorry, completely idiotic without proof. All you're saying is, 'I believe this to be the case, and I believe that this is the case so clearly that science would prove it if it tried.' It's the exact same thing than if Ebert was saying 'I'm sure that if you hook the brains of people playing video games to a machine reading brainwaves it would not trigger the ART response that all other mediums would.' It tomorrow a study came out proving that what you said was right you'd still be in the wrong because it'd still be baseless speculation.

And in that point, if you argue that games are more engaging than books, I recommend you read better books. If I'm reading a book and it reads 'the dragon flew into the crevice', then I'm imagining the whole thing. I have to imagine the dragon, the crevice, the things that made the dragon do this, the background details that the book says exist in that area. If the dragon is near the Tower of Ultimate Wizardy I'm going to imagine that in the background. If the dragon is wounded I need to imagine that. And I need to imagine how a dragon flies, because there is no such thing in reality. Whereas if I'm playing a game, I'm alreadly seeing the crevice, the dragon, the ToUW in the background, the blood seeping from the dragon because it's at 45% health. Sure, I need to actually guide the dragon down into the crevice, but my focus is at dodging the obstacles in there; It's a clerical focus as opposed to a creative one.

The theory that you're just reading crappy books would probably explain why after the aforementioned video everyone in the comments was doing the closest thing you could do on the internet to holding you by the ears and shouting 'INTERTEXTUALITY, ************'. It's sad to see someone who strives to be an artist in one's field lacking such basic knowledge of such an important thing.

As for the Madden rules = paint, that's also a deceptive metaphor. Think of all the things one could do with paint. I could give it to a master painter and he would turn the paint into a masterpiece. I could give it to two master painters of different styles and they would turn the paint into two completely different masterpieces. Or I could give the paint to a six-year-old and he would turn it into a stick man and a smiling sun. Meanwhile, while the details of the Madden game narrative would differ depending on the game, it would always make sense, and it would always be a game of football. If I gave the controller to a pro gamer he would create a narrative about the Los Angeles Devastators crushing the opposition and scoring more points than have ever been scored in the history of the univerese, while if I gave the controller to a six-year-old it would create a narrative about the Los Angeles Devastators completely forgetting how to pass the ball and being clobbered in a shameful defeat; that is, two essentially idential narratives only from opposite points of view. Compare this to our theoretical paintings and you can see how much of the art lies in a bucket of paint compared to how much of the narrative lies in a game's code. If paint worked like games anyone picking it up would be able to do a masterpiece.

I can appreciate that your point is that games should strive to give more freedom to the player, be more Minecraft than, uh, Dragon's Lair. And while I agree with this sentiment, I believe that it's like saying that all books should have heavy subtext and be about the condition of humanity. Sure, books like that are great, but sometimes you just want to read some Agatha Christie, you know? I agree that the Half-Life/Modern Warfare school of games like movies only not quite is over represented these days, but to eschew it completely - or to denounce them as somehow being anathema to the very concept of games - is not the solution.

 

[SammiYin]

I personally don't feel games are any more unique in terms of story telling / participatory relationship than books or films, all three require the story teller and participant, and each would either not exist, or be meaningless without the other.
Also just because games let you physically explore the world [unless it's a JRPG Lulz satire] doesn't make it different to thinking about the bigger picture behind books or films, a perfect example of this would be the picture of Dorian Gray, we are given these large time gaps and little expansion on what happens in these times, so we are permitted to make them up by our own faculties. Does this make us an artist too? I personally think not, but I'm too sleepy to argue my point, maybe tomorrow. Anyways, what makes this different from say, Halo, where we can think more deeply into the backgrounds of the characters or setting that isn't developed on?

There's nothing in this regard more special about games than other mediums, well that's my view anyway.

 

[rsvp42]

I think that's why people enjoy watching the 'Let's Play' type of videos. They allow people to view a person experiencing and building their own artistic experience with a game. That's also why the best are those that have some narration, as then you can get an idea of what the person playing it is experiencing.

I don't think that quite qualifies as art, though. I was watching some videos this week of motorcyclists riding in traffic and giving tips. They were experiencing something unique within set parameters (roads, traffic, rules) but they weren't really creating anything. Playing through a game is similar. You experience the art within parameters set by the artists and designers, you don't create those parameters. Even the unique experiences in a game--the ones that differ from player to player--are a product of how the artists built the game.

A visitor to a unique building is not a co-architect, no matter how many nooks and crannies they try to explore. Future visitors are an essential consideration in the creative process, but they aren't participants in it.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I think my response to this is fairly simple.

I am writing a Mass Effect and Falliout 3 novelisation (actually I've finished ME1 and am working on ME2). I have read three other FO3 novelisations and two ME2 novelisations, and not one of them, including my own, tells the same story.

I guess you could argue that it only applies to Role Playing Games but I don't think that's true either. Even taking the most simply experience, say of Lara Croft fighting a boss, and ask a whole range of gamers how it happened.

If you read the Lara Croft comic book and asked a whole bunch of people how a fight happened, they would all basically tell it the same way, because the source is the same. 'Lara did this, then she did this, then the boss died, the end..' And no matter how many times they read the fight scene, or how many times you asked them to describe it, you'd always get the same sequence of events happening the same way.

Now ask someone to explain how they killed a boss in a Tomb Raider games. Some will describe a daring and terrifying drawn out firefight, with Lara hiding behind any cover she could find, bleeding and wounded and with no way to heal herself. Others will describe a boring long range pot-shot match where Lara covered herself in bandages whenever she got so much as a splinter. And the even better part is, if you asked the same gamer to play it twice and describe his experiences both times, you'd get an entirely different experience just from one person.

It kind of comes down to characterisation through the act of playing. Gamers went ballistic over the changes to Samus in Other M, and part of the argument was always 'just because she never had a voice didn't mean she wasn't characterised.' I think the Extra Credits guys even did a whole video on the things you know about Samus simply through gameplay. Well if everyone plays the game differently, everyone will have adifferent view of who and what Samus is, ie. They will have created their own character. Back to Lara Croft because I don't actually play Metroid.

I tend to play Tomb Raider very cautiously. I don't use healing items often and quite regularly find myself limping through really tough fights with nothing more than my pistols because I don't like wasting ammo either. My view of Lara is thus of a tough survivalist who understands that you save your insurance policies for when you need them. My Lara Croft is a very mobile fighter who trusts in speed and agility over a big gun and determination. She hoards everything, not just ancient relics. She plots her course through platforming sections before she begins, and dislikes when she is rushed into things.

Someone else playing Lara might have her as a reckless character who makes leaps of faith more often than plotting her course, who uses all her ammo for her biggest gun on a little bunny rabbit. Yahtzee made a point about how he views Lara as a remorseless career thief and apart from some dialogue during the cutscenes, or some backstory that gets revealed in the guidebooks etc there's nothing that says my interpretation of her as an altruist who doesn't like killing (a view I took from reading the comics) is any better or worse than his.

I guess to try and pull this back on point is to say that if you read a book, beyond speculating about a character's motivations if and only if they aren't spelled out, the character of a novel or film will always be exactly the same. It cannot be changed simply by force of will, once something has been set in stone about the character, it will always be that way. The Lone Wanderer, Samus, Lara, Shepard, any character you care to mention, their actions are informed by the way you play the game, and thus their personality is always partly under your control, because no one will ever play the game in the same way that you will. They won't, to compare to books again, read the same words as you do. They are creating through their actions.

 

[jjhoho]

sniiip

quoted for the highest level of truth, I believe what James is trying to say is that what one does during a game (in madden, say, doing something ridiculous like getting an amazing touchdown (I'm not very good at football)) is what makes it art, not the actions given to you by the developer. Sure you can murder a puppy or save an orphan girl in a pre-rendered cinematic, but that isn't the art that James was talking about, because that's all predetermined. what he was talking about was when you have a free range of choices to make, like who you shoot first during the action sequences of the game, how, and with what. Those are choices that the developer couldn't possibly guide you to make. I think we can draw from this that limiting a player's creative freedom also limits their fun (enemies who are invincible anything except my rocket launcher? Fuck off, maybe I want to run through the whole game using only my pistol. Who are you to say I can't?)

 

[rsvp42]

I am writing a Mass Effect and Falliout 3 novelisation (actually I've finished ME1 and am working on ME2). I have read three other FO3 novelisations and two ME2 novelisations, and not one of them, including my own, tells the same story.

Writing a novel is an act of artistry, but I wouldn't consider the experience that informs it art, per se. If you wrote a novel about a trip to India, it would be based on a unique experience, but going to India wasn't the art part. Writing the book is.

In the same way, playing a game isn't art. There may be creative elements to the experience, but you are not an artist when all you're doing is playing through a world and story that someone else created. Even when you create your own fun within the system, that's only scratching the surface of art. I should specify that while my definition of art is generous, it doesn't include actions like playing a game. A person reading a book does a lot of mental creation to build an internal image of the story's world, but they are not creating art as they do that. We can't let our definition of art get too broad, otherwise we end up lumping things like "author" and "reader" into the same category. Players are of course vital to any video game and I don't want to downplay their role in the experience, but to call them 'artists' in the same way that we call the devs and designers 'artists,' is an inexact way of expressing their importance.

 

[klasbo]

[...]
The role of the player, therefore, is fundamentally different. Even with the most non-linear, sandbox games, the player is never creating anything. They are simply experiencing the world within the confines that the developers have allowed. In a fantasy RPG, you may be able to turn your character into a stealthy ranger, a powerful mage, or a heroic warrior, but you're not creating anything new when you're doing so. You're simply experiencing and exploring the different possibilities that the developers have created and offered to you. Barring games that explicitly allow for player made content (Little BigPlanet and the like), the only things the player can play with are the things the developer has already created and included in the game.

I completely agree.
The game that the developer (artist) creates has certain constraints (or "rules") that the player has to stay within. The creative process the player can experience is inherently limited, and this is a good thing. Putting all (or even most) of the act of creation in the hands of the player severely limits the new kind of experience and/or narrative the designers can present.

Art is about presenting a message, often in the form of an unconventional perspective in a familiar context (a new "point of view" on the matter at hand). Good art communicates this message well, which is the familiar context. If the artist does not create any context or "framework" (aka constraints/rules), then the receiver/audience will be completely lost. Absurdist works play with this because they want the alienation effect, but most works don't.

My point is this: Making the player the artist will a) Alienate the player (no sense of direction) and b) prevent the possibility of the developer creating a new perspective (aka creating something new and compelling).

I don't think we can think any longer about presenting our narrative to an audience, but rather about exploring a narrative with a player. No matter how constricted, we are laying out a space of possibility rather than a conventional narrative, and no matter how linear we make our games there are details that the player must fill in.

I would love to go into chaotic systems and procedural thinking here, but the point is still the same: The developers create a game with constraints wherein the player can act. No matter what the player does they will always live within the world the developers have created. It may be an extremely complicated nest of branching storylines, but the storylines don't diverge to infinity. All choices you make will inevitably take you to an ending the developer has created. And the ending is generally the final punchline in the message the developer/artist wants to convey, and taking that away will not improve storytelling in games.

Oh God, James, I'm so sorry for you. Grip clobbered you in that one.

Oh, sour!

I can appreciate that your point is that games should strive to give more freedom to the player, be more Minecraft than, uh, Dragon's Lair. And while I agree with this sentiment, I believe that it's like saying that all books should have heavy subtext and be about the condition of humanity. Sure, books like that are great, but sometimes you just want to read some Agatha Christie, you know? I agree that the Half-Life/Modern Warfare school of games like movies only not quite is over represented these days, but to eschew it completely - or to denounce them as somehow being anathema to the very concept of games - is not the solution.

This. So much this. I have no idea who you are but I think I like you.

Personally, I'm more into advocating more multiplayer and cooperation in games, because I think this is one of the things (computer/video) games have a good grip on. I would really like to see Extra Credits tackle videogames as a form of instant and intercontinental sport. (Sport in the broad definition that would also include chess/bridge etc.)

 

[jjhoho]

sniiip

quoted for the highest level of truth, I believe what James is trying to say is that what one does during a game (in madden, say, doing something ridiculous like getting an amazing touchdown (I'm not very good at football)) is what makes it art, not the actions given to you by the developer. Sure you can murder a puppy or save an orphan girl in a pre-rendered cinematic, but that isn't the art that James was talking about, because that's all predetermined. what he was talking about was when you have a free range of choices to make, like who you shoot first during the action sequences of the game, how, and with what. Those are choices that the developer couldn't possibly guide you to make. I think we can draw from this that limiting a player's creative freedom also limits their fun (enemies who are invincible anything except my rocket launcher? Fuck off, maybe I want to run through the whole game using only my pistol. Who are you to say I can't?)

And if you read my whole post, that was almost exactly what I was saying

pfffft I read your whole post I just couldn't think of anything to say and didn't want to have my ass handed to me for a low-content post plus my mind is like so off right now, it doesn't even bear thinking about

 

[Rakor]

Well this topic brings out the wordy, insightful responses.

The player is an artist on a track. They have an experience plotted out and a road to follow, even a vehicle equipped to pop a wheelie occasionally. And yet the randomly generated clouds above him could look like a bunny and a dragon, without the intention of them being as such. A shortcut can be found by breaking a wall or two built weakly. And occasionally he pops a wheelie, riding backwards, on the back of a dragon he's supposed to be shooting at. He could just drive on the road, but that's not interesting enough.

A player throws at least a bit of the artistic mind, the literary mind at a situation even in mere interpretation. Simply how you interpret a scene relies on your own wit sometimes, regardless of whether you are filling in the blanks in your head. I agree that the gamer is not so much the primary "artist" of a game, but perhaps a highlighter, perhaps an editor. A good deal of the "art" a gamer can attempt to make are things the designers intended for them to do, so it becomes less the art of the player and more of just another experience the designer wrote for you. A skilled designer can do this alot I imagine. Its one thing to design a game so that the character takes certain paths, but something more when it is designed to craft a person's psyche as they play through.

Even in a less...story oriented segment, the player can craft strategies in situations that become their own take to a situation. But then, what if a sequence is made so that the player will develop certain strategies. Is the strategy something created from the player or another experience the designer crafted for you.

Long story short, I like the D&D player analogy. Yeah you didn't write the rules, you didn't write the setting, and you didn't write the setting (however many of which the DM may have), but you made a character. You made a person with a personality, wants and needs, strategies, backstories, and whatever else you may have put in. Much of it is within certain bounds, but it still becomes something that is yours as well.

On more set story levels, lets say...o...in a jrpg, you certainly are less of a creative entity. But it's still your choice which large eyed chick you want to keep in the party more. It's still your experience when the one annoying guy manages to be the last surviving member and crits the big boss just in time to win, thus making him awesome to you.

Somehow it's only videogames that I can write this much about spontaneously. =D

 

[rsvp42]

quoted for the highest level of truth, I believe what James is trying to say is that what one does during a game (in madden, say, doing something ridiculous like getting an amazing touchdown (I'm not very good at football)) is what makes it art, not the actions given to you by the developer. Sure you can murder a puppy or save an orphan girl in a pre-rendered cinematic, but that isn't the art that James was talking about, because that's all predetermined. what he was talking about was when you have a free range of choices to make, like who you shoot first during the action sequences of the game, how, and with what. Those are choices that the developer couldn't possibly guide you to make. I think we can draw from this that limiting a player's creative freedom also limits their fun (enemies who are invincible anything except my rocket launcher? Fuck off, maybe I want to run through the whole game using only my pistol. Who are you to say I can't?)

But animators created that touchdown move, surfacers created the field, programmers wrote the code that dynamically determines how the characters act in various situations. Artists create the guns, the effects, the UI, the entire world is a product of intentional design on the part of the developers. These elements are not paints that the player creates with, they are intentionally placed parts of the experience, tools given at carefully planned points to serve the story or gameplay. Things like map creators are a different story, but we're talking about just playing a game as it is given to us.