Wot I Fink: Games shouldn't be called "Games"?
Entry posted by McJobless ·
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We're only three episodes in, but I'm sure everybody is already clambering over each other to slit my throat. Nonetheless, opinions must be shared. There's plenty on my mind, and I want to share it all. That said, looking over this argument, my brain is a little too scattered to note if I've forgotten anything, which I probably have. There will probably be a follow up article some other time.
I'm quite annoying by casual gamers . That is probably the biggest understatement ever heard by anyone. But, I don't think people quite understand why. A couple people would know of my usage of the words "Filthy Casuals". My anger towards casual gamers is probably a misappropriation of the term.
I don't want to speak about casual gamers or the main reasons why they infuriate me today. No sir (although, I'll link to casual gamers and money when I get a chance to talk about them in another Wot I Fink segment). Today, I want to talk about something which I feel we need to establish in the industry. Something which, unfortunately, won't happen, but nonetheless would improve the quality of the industry and the standards of all developers, publishers and players. It's something I've thought about for a long time, and it's something I will continue to push for so long as I'm a player (pun not intended) in this industry.
The very first video game was somewhere between the 1940's and the 1960's (I'm not here to dispute which. You can all argue that in the comments as far as I'm concerned). Right now, it's 2013. In the space of around 70 years, we as an industry have excelled in everything. Every single technology, every technique, every asset, and even every audience has changed. People will argue if it's for the better or not, and this is where my argument lies.
Every day, viewing the review scores for games, there's this kind of disgust I get, as I see games I like become rated lower to games which seem to be of much lesser value. Why did that one game get a 7 when a casual game got a 9? You see, the problem with the way the industry is organised is that developers like Popcap Games and Irrational Games are thrown together in the same pit. They are two separate types of entertainment, even though they are both technically classed as video games. It's a problem which I think (beyond individual user preference) is solved by my idea.
I've scoured dictionaries, and the definitions change from dictionary to dictionary, but the general gist of most is that a game is a form of amusement and distraction. You play games because you're bored and because you want something that will keep you distracted from the boredom momentarily. It doesn't matter the form, the media or the content. A game is just a way to keep you distracted.
When you play Bioshock or Grand Theft Auto or even Call of Duty, you're not playing a game anymore. A developer who makes a deep game with a storyline, breathtaking graphics, a sweeping soundscape and so much more complexities isn't thinking that they want to just distract a player for a brief time. Those games are experiences. A developer who creates an experience wants you to sit down and be a part of the world that they created, in whatever form it takes, and make the most of it.
Of course, the classification of all games into these two categories is difficult. The problem is when you come to games with multiplayer, and even games like Portal and Minecraft. Something to consider is that if I say the word "repetitive" to a group of 20 people and showed them some random games, there wouldn't be a single game which isn't labeled repetitive. The point is, any specific criteria we use to judge games into two different groups will be interpreted and used differently by individual people.
I think the best way that I could potentially classify games into the two categories is in the idea of complexity and control. Basically, an experience is shaped. It's controlled and finely crafted by the developer. It's made to hit us with emotional impact. It doesn't work if you play the same scene 4 times in a row, because each we go through the same experience, it loses the emotional impact it was supposed to land on use. This is why when I, for example, see the ending of Mass Effect for the 5th time, I don't feel the same amazing shock that I did the first time I finished the game. It certainly still makes me feel really good, but it's not the same feeling I had that first time I fought my way through that level, experiencing everything anew. And no, I'm not talking about player choice or random weapon placement or levels rearragning themselves. Those are techniques which either form of entertainment can use.
Meanwhile, a simple game is completely the opposite. We're given some rules, an arena and from there the game and the player do the work. If you play Call of Duty or even Peggle, you know what I'm talking about. In Call of Duty's multplayer mode, do you see planes crashing around you as the pre-scripted dialogue of a Russian soldier betraying his entire country plays, while you remain frozen watching the hands of your character play do some really cool animation? No, because you build your own experience in multiplayer. In Peggle, does the ball go the same way everytime you fire it? No, because Peggle is nothing more than a toolkit to keep you distracted from your boredom.
I'm sure a few of you noticed my interesting use of the word "experience" in that last paragraph. That's because multiplayer in Call of Duty, or in any MMO, or generally most multiplayer games built upon a single-player experience are not mere games. We just discussed control. I could go on about how these games still have some form of control to shape them into an experience, but you're probably getting bored yourselves. Instead, we need to talk about complexity.
If Mario was a brand new game today, I would call it a "Casual Filth". Yes, it has a story. Yes, the levels are carefully controlled to make sure the player gets the best experience out of the game. But can you figure out what it lacks? Depth. I'm not talking about meaning. The thing is, a game feels kind of...hollow. It's great as a distraction for a while, but eventually it's going to feel empty, and you're going to catch on that you're just wasting time. Unfortunately, that's the nature of experiences as well. However, do you know the difference in this scenario?
A good experience is designed so that you don't catch on that it's a game with fancy clothes until you complete the experience, and sometimes not even until you complete it a couple times over (in case they hide content from you on the first go). It's all about impact, usually being emotional, and making sure that the player is constantly mesmerised by what is going on in the world of their character. Meanwhile, in a game, there's nothing stopping you from catching on from the very get-go. A game doesn't try to hide it. It tries to embrace it. This is why, generally speaking, games have better gameplay, whereas experiences shine in the other categories. They don't need glamorous character back stories or beautiful locales to enthrall you. In face, most games don't need characters or locations at all.
By no means do experiences have lesser gameplay, but rather, it's not the focus of the experience. The experience is about showing you something more than you could ever experience in real life. It's about taking you to a place that you could never truly be a part of, and turning you into something or someone that you could never be, and showing you a possible example of what could happen if that world was real. A game, on the other hand, is about letting you take a break from your daily life, and just letting loose. Sometimes there's challenge, sometimes there's not. The important bit is that it distracts you.
Everything I've presented here shows that we, as an industry, were not prepared for what people strived to do with the technology. We've grown up past the phase of little pixel space ships destroying entire fleets of other pixel space ships with no greater incentive than because it's a "cool" waste of time. We've grown up, and now that the games are too, we need to finally properly rank them as they are; not as video games as a whole, but rather games made to distract, and games meant to give us an experience.
And that is Wot I Fink.
P.S.: I'm sure people will call me out on Mario being a classic because of the time era it was built in, and casual games and indie games and so on and so forth; the point of this article is that I'm judging all games, regardless of being published by a professional AAA publisher or not as equal, before being split into the categories I noted above and then being split into genres. We all know that as we go on, new technology will cause our old games to become outdated, and as such, games should be judged within their appropriate time context, but any clever readers will note that I didn't say Mario was a bad game for its time. I merely talked about if it was a game of this age.
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