Opinion: A new form of entertainment

[Quillstone]

I know that I'm new here and this is my first post and I have no right to so extensively display my opinion, but I?m going to throw some game titles at you before you can protest. Catch.
Call of Duty.
Journey.
The Last of Us.
Gone Home.
Resogun.
What do these have in common? I?ll tell you:
Very little.
Let?s say you?re picking up a game. You make your way through the shifting sands that obscure a tragically lost civilization, being guided by a mysterious figure in white robes, hoping to just make it to the top of that mountain.
You pick up something else, and now you?re racking up a kill count that would put Genghis Khan to shame, and you love it. You?re just a couple matches away from that next unlock, but if you change your killstreak, maybe you can get a high enough score after the double XP weekend starts to get it in one game.
And now you?re waiting with bated breath to see the fate of the Muad?Dib. You can practically feel the sun scorching your skin, and Gurney Halleck?s words make you love him like a brother. You?re walking with them on their journey, just one layer of material between your world and theirs.
Now, Solomon Northup is hanging from a tree, and you can feel yourself choking as he struggles to stay on his toes. And you?re running with him through the forest, you?re crying with him as he experiences the rare kindness of a sympathetic worker.
Suddenly, Adewale is freeing slaves from a ship, and your pulse is pounding. The ship is sinking, and all you can think is that not one more person can die today. When you and Adewale can?t save the remaining souls, you feel the same hatred towards the people who open-fired on the slave ship as you did towards Northup?s crazed master who just wouldn?t put down the whip.
Men with guns running through a warzone. The White House is down. You?re saving America with them, and when they succeed, you feel victorious, regardless of how involved you were.
We can't say that the first two are any different from each other than the last two. This is entertainment. It?s time to start drawing some new lines.
Video games are widely demonized in modern culture, even by the people who play them. The people who don?t play think gamers are lazy assholes, and the people who do feel the need to make excuses for why and how they play them. ?Oh, I game for the experience.? ?I game because it?s just so much fun.? I'm making generalizations here, but you get the point. And it?s true; people get addicted to video games in an unhealthy way all the time. World of Warcraft is one example of a true GAME. You play and you play, and there?s always more to win. More gold, more equipment, more time; the problem is, it impedes productivity. There are certainly games like that, and that?s fine. People need to blow off steam, yes. Is too much of this bad? Yes. But there is one huge mistake in the use of semantics here:
Not all games are games.
Now, about levels of productivity. If someone is divining some greater meaning from a form of entertainment, a credit that is given to the greatest books and movies, suddenly the consumption of the media becomes permissible. It?s the reason why books like Twilight and movies like? uh, Twilight? are shunned just as much as, or perhaps more than, Call of Duty: it?s dumb time-wasting for the sake of dumb time-wasting, which is great for short spurts of stress relief, but not conducive to great degrees of mental stimulation. But see, there is a difference here. Twilight is easily categorized as a book, since it?s a collection of words on a page. It may not be particularly well-written, but it serves the same general purpose as a great work like War and Peace, if not nearly as well. It?s harder to find the similarities between Call of Duty and a game like Gone Home. Are they both first-person? Yes, but they don?t serve even close to the same purpose. One is about compelling narrative, just like a book, and the other is about pulse-pounding score-stacking. So, this brings us to another necessary facet of the argument: The kind of control the player is given.
Gone Home?s first-person control serves the purpose of telling a story through your environment. There is no score that can be achieved, and there isn?t really a way to play the game well or poorly unless you count the ability to thoroughly search the house. Dear Esther takes ?game? interactivity to an even barer level, restricting the player?s control to walking around and triggering narrative bits depending on where you walk. So, perhaps we can say this: A game can be defined by the level of skill required to complete the experience. If a game can be finished without having any skill beyond simply paying attention, like the Stanley Parable, then it isn?t a game.
The trouble is, we?ve been conditioned to think that?s a criticism.
If you hop onto a site like Metacritic and scroll through the user reviews for Gone Home or Dear Esther, you?ll find a whole slew of negative reviews. The low scores are founded on the ?criticism? that the game isn?t a game at all. People are actually astonished that the developers of such experiences think that the lack of familiar gameplay tropes in their games is a selling point. As such, outrage has broken out across the internet in reaction to games that aren?t games. Those who rally in defense of the titles argue that they are games as their main counterpoint. Both parties are operating on a very strange, confusing assumption: that it?s impossible to create a new form of entertainment. Because if they aren?t games, and please humor me here, then what exactly are they? This question has increased in importance as games with an emphasis on narrative have become more popular, and we?re reaching a turning point. What is that point, exactly?
Let me show you.
Over the next few decades, games begin to develop into three distinct categories. The first are traditional, arcade-like experiences; in short, games that fit our usual definition of a game. Think Space Invaders. The second are narrative-driven experiences like Dear Esther. As the second category grows in prominence, people start to realize that they can?t really call them ?games? anymore, as you?re not playing towards a distinct, reward-driven goal; you?re walking forward to let a story unfold in a manner that?s simply more immersive than pressing the ?play? button on your T.V. Film crews start jumping on board as motion capture becomes better and high-end graphics rendering equipment gets cheaper, and suddenly, the second category of ?games? are starting to feel a hell of a lot more like interactive films where your choices impact the outcome. As the years go by and this new form of entertainment rockets to the top of the charts, someone has a rather ambitious idea: what if we could just give them a world in which these movie moments could occur ad-hoc, without pre-realized content? What if we could give gamers- no, journeymen- a way to occupy a completely different world, one without a goal, one where they don?t play; they live? It?s awfully similar to the more constraining experiences of the past, but it gives people an unfettered opportunity to do as they please to a greater degree than was allowed before. By now, the genre-label ?game? has long been disassociated from this form of entertainment.
So, let?s backtrack. If a fully immersive experience is no longer a game not because of the lack of constraint (if constraint dictates a game, then movies are games, too), but rather because of the lack of a discernible score-related goal, then how are the not-games of today games at all? And how is it a bad thing that they aren?t, especially if this leads to a whole new realm of entertainment possibilities that operate outside of any known genre?
A new genre, then, is called for. It?s time for a revolution in gaming, because right now, it?s hard to be experimental. Let?s liberate the little guy of the name ?game? so that one day, he can be the big guy.
I think it?s time to change the name of the game. What do you guys think?

tl;dr: Games like Dear Esther and Gone Home aren't games, and that's not a bad thing; we should let them become their own genre.

 

[TehCookie]

If visual novels are considered games, I don't see why Dear Esther and Gone Home wouldn't be games. They do need to make a new genre for them though.

It?s awfully similar to the more constraining experiences of the past, but it gives people an unfettered opportunity to do as they please to a greater degree than was allowed before.

I couldn't do as I pleased in Dear Esther. I was stuck on a one way trail that was as interactive as holding the play button down on a broken VCR. I couldn't even jump. You know how much better it would be if I could jump on rocks or up hills? A lot. Enough to make that dull game fun. I could have explored as I pleased. Besides jumping makes every game better. And perhaps running, that dude walked really slow.

Haven't played Gone Home but it looked like there was more freedom to it than that.

 

[Waffle_Man]

While I will say that having a more developed vocabulary to describe video games is a good thing, can you honestly say that your understanding of them would be improved simply by drawing artificial lines of...

Fuck it, some subjects have been covered much better than I ever could hope to, so here is the relevant errant signal episode.


<3

 

[JazzJack2]

But see, there is a difference here. Twilight is easily categorized as a book, since it?s a collection of words on a page. It may not be particularly well-written, but it serves the same general purpose as a great work like War and Peace, if not nearly as well.

It's harder to find the similarities between Call of Duty and a game like Gone Home.

I don't quite understand your argument here, in what way does Twilight serve the same general purpose as War and Peace? I mean they're both books primarily designed to be read but the same can be said of COD and Gone Home, that is to say they're both games designed to be played, but as you rightly pointed out when you actually break them down the similarity stops there. 'One is about compelling narrative, just like a book, and the other is about pulse-pounding score-stacking.'

However the same is true of War and Peace and Twilight, they are both written with the purpose of being read but the similarities stop there. Twilight's purpose is trashy pulp fiction for teenagers to read and was primarily written for money and primarily read for escapism and time killing, I don't think Tolstoy's purpose in writing was primarily money and I really don't think it is primarily read for escapism of time killing.

You seem to be overplaying the importance of the admittedly large variation games have in design and purpose, I really don't see any reason why games can't have such a large range particularly when other mediums have just as much range or perhaps even more (e.g compare a piece of Noise or Power Electronics to a K-pop song or compare a work of Abstract Expressionism to a work from the Dutch golden age.)

So, perhaps we can say this: A game can be defined by the level of skill required to complete the experience. If a game can be finished without having any skill beyond simply paying attention, like the Stanley Parable, then it isn?t a game.

I am sorry but that is a completely arbitrary distinction, I don't understand why people insist games require things like win-states or that they need to offer challenge to the player (and this is coming from someone who detests games like Dear Esther and Gone Home) all a game needs to be a game is (at least in my opinion) a form of interaction which gives arise to different experiences due to different player inputs.

Both parties are operating on a very strange, confusing assumption: that it?s impossible to create a new form of entertainment.

Err not really, as you said yourself the people who bomb metacritic scores with claims they aren't games are saying just that, they aren't games and are something else. I have heard plenty people saying VNs and games like Gone Home are a separate distinct entity and you're really not alone in thinking that.

As the second category grows in prominence, people start to realize that they can?t really call them ?games? anymore, as you?re not playing towards a distinct, reward-driven goal;

Games don't have to have a distinct goal or end.

As the years go by and this new form of entertainment rockets to the top of the charts, someone has a rather ambitious idea: what if we could just give them a world in which these movie moments could occur ad-hoc, without pre-realized content? What if we could give gamers- no, journeymen- a way to occupy a completely different world, one without a goal, one where they don?t play; they live?

That can hardly be called ambitious can it? that idea was practically realised in pen and paper form over four decades ago with old school pen and paper Rpgs, and video games that offer sandbox non linear worlds are already plentiful and numerous. It seems odd though that you think what your describing is the natural conclusion of games like Gone Home and Dear Esther, these games are largely linear and sideline player interaction where as games which are the polar opposite of these like Dorf Fort which entirely rely on emergent storytelling seem a lot closer to offering the unconstrained player interaction you describe.

 

[Quillstone]

snip

I don't quite understand your argument here, in what way does Twilight serve the same general purpose as War and Peace? I mean they're both books primarily designed to be read but the same can be said of COD and Gone Home, that is to say they're both games designed to be played, but as you rightly pointed out when you actually break them down the similarity stops there. 'One is about compelling narrative, just like a book, and the other is about pulse-pounding score-stacking.'

The one point where I disagree with you is that Gone Home is designed to be 'played', as I don't think it's played all that much more than a choose-your-own-adventure book. That's the difference; Twilight and War and Peace are designed to be read, digested, and thought about. One would play Gone Home multiple times for the same reason they would read a book: to experience the narrative. One would play COD over and over, though, to progress further, unlock more, and have more pulse-pounding, competitive fun. You do make an excellent point, though, and in more specific purpose, Twilight and War and Peace differ immensely; my point is that the difference between Gone Home and COD is far greater (not to discredit Tolstoy, as he's clearly a genius).

You seem to be overplaying the importance of the admittedly large variation games have in design and purpose, I really don't see any reason why games can't have such a large range particularly when other mediums have just as much range or perhaps even more (e.g compare a piece of Noise or Power Electronics to a K-pop song or compare a work of Abstract Expressionism to a work from the Dutch golden age.)

My main motive for wanting some games to transcend the title of 'game' is that games have too negative a connotation in modern society, and are too often thought of (mainly, of course, by non-gamers) as being experiences like Call of Duty. We're not going to be able to reverse the way people group Gone Home and Proteus, so we might as well take it one step further and let people recognize them as separate entities. Music, on the other hand, is a notoriously broad genre, and people don't really have any stereotypes associated with it (though I suppose some less-learned people make the argument that electronic music isn't music). Those stereotypes, though, are genre-based, not cast over the type of entertainment as a whole.

snip

I am sorry but that is a completely arbitrary distinction, I don't understand why people insist games require things like win-states or that they need to offer challenge to the player (and this is coming from someone who detests games like Dear Esther and Gone Home) all a game needs to be a game is (at least in my opinion) a form of interaction which gives arise to different experiences due to different player inputs.

See, that's where my main disagreement lies. We founded our definition of a game on competitive matches, whether ancient board games or Aztec ball-based sports. That competition can certainly extend to AI, or even the environment, but if you're not competing with something, I fail to see how that constitutes a game, traditional or not. It's something new, in my opinion.

snip

Err not really, as you said yourself the people who bomb metacritic scores with claims they aren't games are saying just that, they aren't games and are something else. I have heard plenty people saying VNs and games like Gone Home are a separate distinct entity and you're really not alone in thinking that.

Oh, trust me, I'm not claiming that I'm alone in thinking that they're a separate distinct entity. I'm sure I'm not alone in any of this thinking, which is why I posted it here. However, I think that people stop at saying it's not a game and don't really say what it is, and if we always leave it there, then those experiences will forever be in limbo.

snip

Games don't have to have a distinct goal or end.

Again, what I'm arguing against. Though yours is a perfectly valid definition, so I can't call you wrong.

snip

That can hardly be called ambitious can it? that idea was practically realised in pen and paper form over four decades ago with old school pen and paper Rpgs, and video games that offer sandbox non linear worlds are already plentiful and numerous. It seems odd though that you think what your describing is the natural conclusion of games like Gone Home and Dear Esther, these games are largely linear and sideline player interaction where as games which are the polar opposite of these like Dorf Fort which entirely rely on emergent storytelling seem a lot closer to offering the unconstrained player interaction you describe.

Sorry, I realize I didn't make the distinction clear, and you've gotten me here. You're right; those games are a completely different medium. However, they're not RPGs, and the non-linear worlds of today are not nearly at the place that I'm talking about here. I'm talking full player interaction and total freedom. Virtual reality. Innovative? Of course not. It's been thought of before many times. Ambitious? Yeah. It's hard to pull off, but again, you're right; the inspiration to make them will come from open-world titles, not the Dear Esthers of the world.

 

[Kid_Icarus55]

We don't need another category for Dear Esther and Gone Home, they are games. A game is a interactive system with distinct rules. It doesn't matter how much interactivity there is or if all the rules are visible or even known. That's all there is to it.

An ebook is a book without paper, a school textbook is a book without any narrative whatsoever, Twilight, Harry Potter, War and Peace, and Catcher in the Rye are all books, even thought they could not be more different from one another.

What we should do is bring a broader understanding of the term "game" to the masses, so that stuff like the reviews from misinformed Gone Home and Dear Esther buyers don't happen again.

 

[Quillstone]

That is a worthy alternative, but separating games from interactive experiences might be easier for people to accept.

 

[Kid_Icarus55]

But "Interactive Experience" is just as vage a term as "Game". And all videogames are by their very nature also interactive experiences.

 

[Tactical Pause]

I've heard this argument before, and my opinion on it remains the same. Placing an arbitrary divider between certain types of games would almost certainly not have a positive effect on anything, and could very possibly reduce variation and creativity in both 'types' (I put types in quotations, because I think it's silly to separate games into two black and white subsets). I just can't see the benefit of segregating interactive experiences, games, or what have you. What I can see is a slightly out-of-touch publisher saying to a developer, "Oh no, you can't put that in your game, that belongs in a [whatever moniker people attach the to other type]."

The solution I prefer to this non-problem is quite simple. Games are new, they are branching out into a ton of new and interesting directions, just let them do that. There's no point in drawing any kind of lines in the sand.

And for the record, I'm a huge proponent of more artistically inclined games, but that doesn't mean I feel the need to separate them from their more mindless counterparts. Citizen Kane is a 'film', and so is The Expendables. Neither one suffers for being in the same medium as the other. Certain games do not need a new label in order for the general public to accept them as art. Games will eventually become more and more culturally accepted as time goes on, and the medium provides more and more examples of undeniably artistic material.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

I see your intention: all games may be interactive experiences, but not all interactive experiences need be games, but even that is not accurate. In very few circumstances is greater division of a medium a road to expansion of creativity; more often the case is that categorization within the first heading leads to trending, predictable growth trends, and a stymied creativity between or outside of defined categories.

I don't want to relegate whatever we cordon off as "games" to remaining mere games forever by making some new category for them to pretend to. I'd rather things took their own course and everything grows together.

 

[Quillstone]

But "Interactive Experience" is just as vage a term as "Game". And all videogames are by their very nature also interactive experiences.

But all interactive experiences are not games, and although there's overlap, there's definitely an area here that needs to be addressed.

To the others: I don't think that the genre is big enough to house the broad range of experiences now being produced. Already, these barely-games are ostracized. Unless they do indeed become more accepted, there is always going to be an unofficial split. Calling them something else doesn't restrict them; it lets them grow in the direction they're already growing. And of course elements can cross the boundary. Publishers didn't complain when cutscenes were introduced that they belonged to film. When books were put into games, people didn't complain either. The first games, in fact, were text-based. But that doesn't mean that gamey games and not-so-gamey games blend enough for them to be a single genre, especially with what I see to be a coming divide. Then again, I could be completely wrong. Even so, I see this being a good discussion, so have at it, folks.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I think the whole "x is not a game" argument is stupid.

You have agency, you have choice, however minimal, it is a game.

It's just like how defining art is pointless, as there is no criteria by which you define what is and isn't art, meaning everything could be art.

In a more traditional sense, it's anything that expresses humanity, be it an ideal, an emotion etc, it is creativity itself.

And games are art, therefore, you can't define what is a game and what isn't.

So let's end this pointless argument and enjoy the medium.

 

[Tactical Pause]

But all interactive experiences are not games, and although there's overlap, there's definitely an area here that needs to be addressed.

To the others: I don't think that the genre is big enough to house the broad range of experiences now being produced. Already, these barely-games are ostracized. Unless they do indeed become more accepted, there is always going to be an unofficial split. Calling them something else doesn't restrict them; it lets them grow in the direction they're already growing. And of course elements can cross the boundary. Publishers didn't complain when cutscenes were introduced that they belonged to film. When books were put into games, people didn't complain either. The first games, in fact, were text-based. But that doesn't mean that gamey games and not-so-gamey games blend enough for them to be a single genre, especially with what I see to be a coming divide. Then again, I could be completely wrong. Even so, I see this being a good discussion, so have at it, folks.

But I don't think this "needs to be addressed" at all. It's not a real problem. Some people on the internet are bitter at what they envision as their favored medium abandoning its roots, and by extension, them; and some people are bitter that the more artistic games have an cultural stigma attached to them for being games. Both of these groups are small, and growing smaller every year. As games become more mainstream, while at the same time exploring new avenues of the medium, people will have to begin accepting the types of games that they now sneer at. Why? Because the industry is moving, and it will move without an angry minority's approval (note that this isn't aimed at anyone in this thread). We don't need to re-brand anything to continue the medium's growth into something incredibly diverse, unique, and beautiful.