Videogames are rather interesting when a talk about their meaning occurs. Around all the debating about what they are, and what aren’t, is a fairly obvious reality. Videogames are fairly simple. I don’t mean that they do not have complexity, I mean that they are simple in the sense of how they’re designed and how they’re perceived. The reason why is because the layer upon which we debate about them is largely their face value, the things we see and hear, not what those things we see and hear actually mean. In the same manner that modern literature is discussed, what we attempt to talk about when being affected by literature is not the structure of the words or how they’re presented on the page, but the wider context of those structures. Videogames however, and the debates occurring around them, are largely still on this layer. In the same manner that a stock can be described as simply moving up or down, and affecting a wide swath of people, what is often missed is the layers upon layers of complexity that shift that stock.
When we read a book, what we often try to understand is the characters, or their meaning or reasoning, we try to understand their logic. In a sense, we are suspending ourselves and our own logic in favor of putting ourselves in their position. This is also the the argument of what ludonarrative dissonance attempts to address. That we can never truly put ourselves in the position of the character because the character is fundamentally at odds with their own interactions. Problematically however, this argues that videogames have a fundamentally literature-based structure, and that they do not exist independently and outside of the practices that influence movies and literature. It forces videogames to take on a structure that they are ill-suited to address. Simply put, videogames cannot influence us based around a literature-focused idea of how they should be created.
Videogames are systems, and as a result of them being systems, they are far more attuned to what we would describe as work. If you’ve ever heard the term grind before, this term both describes systems in relation to work and to videogames. They both describe work-like actions occurring within two realms, one is work which pays a wage, the other is work which pays for a certain enjoyment or experience. In systems however, what we are working towards is a certain satisfaction and acknowledgement of our skills, and why those skills are important to both our everyday life, our own sense of self-worth, and our growth as beings in a modern society. The impetus for speed-runs is the same as the impetus for doing a good job, to show that our practice has merit and can not only be compared against others, but can both be documented and receive real recompense with others in our communities.
A Brief Discussion On Our Language For Videogames
When I say systems, and when I say that systems are layered, I also mean to problematize the classification of videogames as we describe them. What we are doing at the moment also currently attempts to simplify the complicated layers upon which videogames are built, because it simplifies how we are able to discuss them as what they fundamentally are or aren’t, and how we categorize them. When discussing movies, we frequently find comparisons of sci-fi films or action-adventure movies, and the same is true with literature in such realms as fantasy. However, we don’t describe videogames in such a broad manner, we describe them by their rules, by their fundamental makeup. As an example, the reason we are mired in so many clones of World of Warcraft, aside from its monetary success, is because the semiotic discussion is too narrow. Calling a videogame on the internet an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) presupposes a lot of things about what the game fundamentally is. It calls attention to the game’s rules, not to the game’s overarching system. Most MMORPGs could be more simply classified as fantasy-adventure games, and also be considerably more understood by a wider audience, as this sort of semiotic relationship exists commonly amongst many other forms of entertainment. Calling it an MMORPG often presupposes that the game should be like, or should challenge, the game that currently controls that market, which is World of Warcraft, just as jRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game) presupposes games that are like or challenging the Final Fantasy series.
An action or adventure or fantasy game is far more broad in its language and attempts to break out of what a videogame should either fundamentally be or be like. This not only makes the game easier to pitch for designers, it also frees up their ability to explore what fits into a broader category and creates closer ties with videogames that may not necessarily be considered in that manner. As an example, Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls is still called a wRPG (Western Role-Playing Game), and problematically so, as it was developed in Japan, but due to the powerful associations of the dichotomy between Western and Japanese videogames (a problem in itself, as it assumes videogames come from one of two places, the west or Japan), Japanese videogames are often misunderstood by Western audiences, just as Western videogames are misunderstood by Japanese audiences. Problematically, that semiotic dichotomy also excludes and marginalizes populations elsewhere, particularly Korea and China, not to mention all the other territories from which many videogames come. Similarly, because videogames are discussed by their rules and not by the larger systems that govern them, videogames are simplified and discussed as though they must fit into categories that have razor-thin specificity, and are often discussed in how they are emulating a ruleset that unfairly judges the game’s system in comparison to the perceived manner in which the player expects that system to function. Critics frequently compare videogames to one another on a base level, and the result is typically unnecessary criticism of how the game is not like the another videogame. In some cases such criticism can be valuable if the system itself is failing to accurately ascribe its interactions, but often it is simply a complaint and reductionist thinking about how a videogame with a certain set of rules should function. I myself am still guilty of such simplification, likely in part due to reading such criticism and accepting it, in part, as how criticism should occur when attempting to understand and explore videogames.
On Systems
A system in a videogame might be understood as how we discuss a character in a story. The system has or creates certain interactions that we as players explore in many different ways, attempting to understand how our manipulations function in an environment unlike our own. Understandably, much like we want to understand a character’s logic, we want to understand a videogame’s logic. In the same manner, we are willing to accept a character’s actions in a story, despite being ridiculous to us, as acceptable, and much the same is true in videogames. We accept the videogame’s sometimes (or even oftentimes) ridiculous logic as acceptable, just as we accept a character’s ridiculous decisions, because we are ourselves attempting immersion for the sake of having an experience unlike our own. The difference however occurs in that a character in literature is inside a system which we have no direct or indirect control over, whereas in a videogame we complete the system. The system is nothing without us, but at the same time, a book without a reader is just a piece of paper with words on it. Similarly, without us, and the complex system that makes up our society, a piece of stock is also nothing more than a piece paper with words (and probably some numbers) on it.
Videogames are often complex, hierarchical systems, but these are often not what we are discussing when attempting to discuss videogames. Rather, we are often addressing the quality of a narrative, and a rather unfortunate predisposition for it, as systems are not narrative structures, but are rather built into them. In simpler terms, the player creates a narrative by interacting with the system, the system cannot impose a narrative onto the player without distracting from their interactions. Under such a description, this is what ludonarrative dissonance would address, though it simply goes one step too far in stating that videogames cannot have narrative due to a predisposition towards play. Essentially, though we do not build narrative structures around our lives and our work (we don’t narrate our own lives except in the past-tense), game designers are attempting to build narrative structures around them and those types of interactions. In a sense, this is what open-world (or typically, fantasy-adventure) games are attempting to address, but are typically failing at, largely because the world is too large to fill with meaningful interaction. On the whole, videogames fail at their narrative because they fail to address the player’s plight, and instead attempt to address the system’s plight (or, what the system wants the player to achieve). The systems are created trying to direct us towards its goal, rather than allowing the player to determine what the goal is.
The excitement generated around a system which creates the unknown explicably and inexplicably, is both exciting and fulfilling because it fulfills our curiosity and allows us to explore systems, not just the system within the game, but systems more broadly. Effectively, we enjoy or are frustrated, saddened, or even excited by how systems react to our tinkering. What’s more, the reason we continue to interact with such systems is because tinkering and manipulating systems is something we do in everyday life, but often feel powerless to experience or control on a wider level. The reason so many videogames are power fantasies (successful power fantasies at that) is because it makes us feel like we have control and meaningful interaction within which the system provides context. That context may be meaningful or meaningless to the individual, but just as a poorly or well-written piece of literature, it affects us, sometimes powerfully.
Similarly, one of the things that often frightens us is a lack of control in a system, or a feeling that our actions only matter on a small level. Systems that make us feel small can affect us powerfully as well, just as a system that makes us feel big and powerful. One of the reasons that Dark Souls is so affecting, despite being a power-fantasy, is that there are quite a few instances in which we feel small, or out of control, like the world is, quite literally, going on without us. This is part of the reason why online videogames like World of Warcraft are similarly so engrossing for many. They take the time to not just make us feel like a big part of the system, but similarly they make us keenly aware that in some sense, we are a cog in a greater machine, lurching forward. Similar systems such as these can also be found in many critically acclaimed game such as Shadow of the Colossus, or even action titles like Killer7 or God Hand. They are systems that are showing a dichotomy of control to the player. In many ways, this is also why earlier games such as Earthbound received a lot of attention. They were games which explored a larger world and a smaller part of the system which was changing it, yet these changes were also an impetus for the system to evolve. The games, much as the others, were attempting to explore growth using kinaesthetic cues, just as the other games.
Systems, or more specifically, systems in videogames, are often ascribed as being better or worse not just by their likenesses towards genres, but similarly how they reach towards certain cues, oftentimes their rulesets, and access the player’s perfunctory reactions. A videogame cannot very well be discussed in the same manner that one discusses literature or a movie, because a videogame has an interlocutor, someone who is both inbetween and outside of the system, whereas someone who listens to music or partakes in art appreciation will always be unable to truly create a commentary towards the system they are experiencing. Just as an artist paints on a canvas, a player creates interactions within the system of a videogame. Perhaps the easiest manner to describe this is to briefly reference the current fighting game community. When a commentator talks about how a player performs a combo or acts in a manner that is similar to another player, they are fundamentally discussing how the player is manipulating the system, and referencing action which is similar to but different from another player. The system is the same regardless of the player playing the game, but how a player plays the game is discussed in an entirely different manner based on the interactions they take within it. In a sense, the player is painting a canvas, and while most artists likely steal from other great artists, the same is true when players play and describe videogames. In a sense, players are themselves artistic when playing a videogame, because fundamentally they must also be creative when exploring a system with variables they cannot be sure of, just as when we work. The reason why the commentators comment on how a player plays like another player in the fighting game community is precisely because we notice these patterns, both when we work, and when we play.
On Play
Though I’ve used the term play frequently throughout this discussion, it is a problematic term when attempting to discuss videogames, seeing as how videogames are both like work and like play. Videogames are eternally conflicted between a certain amount of seriousness and certain amount of provocative play, because they are like both. Play is a term which often follows a terminology of not being serious, and yet most communities take the “play” that occurs in videogames with a seriousness quite unlike those of kids playing a game of tag. The result is an often misunderstood discussion about what videogames are, and the terminology of play often comes up as one a detraction, rather than a compliment to how it evokes within us something which rarely occurs in our day-to-day lives. A videogame is perhaps better termed as an exploration in interaction, rather than play, but play has become a sort of shorthand. Though we take the bits of play offered in a videogame with a jovial satisfaction, we sometimes disparage the value of a videogame’s work-like elements, which are often independently fulfilling in their own right.
In some ways, these grinds in videogames help us appreciate the work we do and emulate something both desirable and undesirable, a sense of satisfaction occurring from the meaning we assign to hard work, but also how tiring such work often is. At excess, the work becomes boring and unfulfilling, but a certain amount of work also feels rewarding, particularly if the work is never so easy as to be trivial. Part of the reason we still accept the bits of narrative in videogames, is because they are often created as a sort of reward, a way to tell you that you’re doing well as you progress through a videogame. Oftentimes the reward is coupled with a new area to explore or an automatic movement into a new scene, though the problem with this is often the lack of connection the reward has with the interactions taken. An excellent example of where a reward is fulfilling is easily recognizable in Chrono Trigger, where taking actions in a certain time of the game affects the world in other parts of the game, fitting in not just with the overarching narrative presented, but presenting tangible changes that the player’s actions take. Yet another reason why we enjoy interacting with systems in both broad and smaller contexts, and in videogames in particular, is because we want to see the tangible changes our actions create, which are often obscured in reality.
Play then is not a wrong terminology in videogames, it’s simply incorrect as semiotically representative of our actions in videogames. Rather, play is a part of videogames, much as play is part of our lives, yet work is perhaps more indicative of what most videogames are about, and how an exploration of work leads to both fulfillment and a certain amount of playfulness in the work we do. The work is also a result of a videogame being contained within a system, and systems are apt to both do and process work-like activities, but are not so apt at understanding or explaining (much less creating) the enjoyment a child gets from running around a tree chasing a puppy. This is not to say that videogames cannot create such moments, but they are typically brief, rather than the more extensive example of the innocence associated with childhood joy. Videogames then, are effectively more mature systems, systems that can react to a created world in the same manner that a stock complicates ours. Videogames allow for individuals to enter an environment affecting and removed, yet keenly connected to the exigencies of everyday experience as a natural result of our familiarity, not just with play, but with systems and work as well. Play is a sort of barrier in terminology, one designers must one day attempt to escape from, as to a certain degree, it limits the kinds of experiences a videogame can potentially present.
Short and Sweet
These are rather short arguments on some of my experiences and problems with the current understanding of videogames, and though there are many others, including a considerably lengthier discussion of all of the arguments presented about, they are intended to start a discussion, rather than be the final word on them. Perhaps there is better terminology or an easier way to understand these concepts, but thus far I see videogames as a sort of flawed creation because of how stringently designers attempt to explore them, and how often notions of fun and play get in the way of creating a more moving experience. Problematically, this isn’t the only hurdle, as understanding videogames as systems, rather than narratives, is still widely misunderstood and misrepresented, because although systems build complexities through rules and interactions, there is still a great deal of imposition brought by the designer rather than the player, which restricts exploration in favor of forcing the player along pathways (a practice occurring in the past due to restrictions of space, now occurring mostly due to continuing tradition). Part of this is the massive expansion of longer games, where interactions matter less, part of this is the discussion of videogames as being worth a certain amount of expense, which is due in part to constant criticism via press, and part of it is a problem of semiotics and how videogames are currently being explored by designers as sets of rules rather than complex systems with the player in the middle of them. Perhaps an excellent example of a videogame that attempts to explore its system in a novel way is Tokyo Jungle, a game about survival in a post-apocalyptic future, where animals are all that still survive. I’d encourage everyone to give it a shot to examine how a system can create both an effective narrative, and how a videogame can be deeply engrossing using systems, rather than attempting to force a narrative to blanket or hide the system.
If anyone would like a chance to propose their own arguments, I encourage both critique, rebuttal, and independent arguments. Please email me, stephen at ettugamer.com if you are interested in such a proposition, and we can discuss posting it on the site. Thanks for reading!