Thinking of Games as Art
Narratives in books, films, and other non-interactive media are like the interesting degenerative cases of math functions. The fictional world is a function. The author's job is to choose a unique set of inputs to that function that will lead to interesting output. The tangent of 0 is 0. Boring. The tangent of pi/2 is infinity. Interesting.
Shakespeare ensures that Romeo happens to meet Juliet without knowing who she, which adds tension to the story. Shakespeare ensures that Juliet does not know that Romeo is only faking his death, which ensures the depressing climax. Had Shakespeare chosen a different set of circumstances, say, that Juliet receives the message and lives happily with Romeo, then the story would have been consistent with the fictional world, but it would also have been very boring.
When it comes to video games, the author is no longer free to choose the inputs -- the gamer is given this power. Suddenly, the author can no longer simply focus on the interesting "degenerative" cases of the function, because there is no guarantee that the user will cooperate.
However, this is not to say that non-interactive narrative and interactive narratives are distinctly different. For example, the non-interactive film "Sliding Doors" explores different inputs into a fictional world by showing what happens when the Gwenyth Paltrow catches a train and an alternate reality when she misses the train. At the same time, games are capable of acting like non-interactive narratives. For example, think of any adventure game where an incorrect input leads to instant death. The gamer is basically sheephearded into making the "correct" set of inputs. The gamer is then forced into exploring the non-interactive "degenerative" case.
Although games can force the gamer to particular interesting cases this seems like a waste of the unique qualities of games. It seems that games should be most powerful when they allow the gamer to explore the functional nature of the in-game world, rather than forcing the gamer to find the particular, interesting set of inputs. Put more simply, games excel at describing systems, while non-interactive arts excel at describing interesting instances of the system.
If a game describes a system, the way that we communicate with the gamer is different from non-interactive communication. For example, take the story of Oedipus. In the non-interactive version, Oedipus is prophesized to kill his father and his mother. Because of the prophecy, he is banished, unaware of the identity of his birthparents. When he later unknowingly meets his father, he kills him and unknowingly marries his mother. The story tells of the cruelty of fate and hinges upon one decision: The decision to banish Oedipus. But what if, in the interactive version, the player chooses NOT to banish Oedipus. What then? Do they live happily and boringly ever after? The problem here is that a single instance of the system tells the message, but the system itself does not convey the message. The entire fictional world, the entire system must be shifted towards the goal of describing the cruelty of fate. How about if the not banished Oedipus is washed overboard in a boating accident, the parents believe he is dead, but he is rescued by a fisherman who raises him as his own son? Thinking he is a fisherman's son, he later unknowingly meets his real father, the king, and kills him the unknowingly marries his mother. Here the entire system has been shifted to portray the message. Indeed, in this case, shifting the entire system to describe the cruelty of fate is arguably more effective than the single non-interactive instance of the story. The system version essentially says, "No matter what you do, fate will consipre to be cruel." Of course, the system version lacks the irony of the non-interactive version, so it is arguable as to which is more powerful. They are simply different.
When it comes to communicating ideas and messages, games can be just as effective as non-interactive media. Game designers just need to realize that they are communicating using an entire system, rather than communicating through a single instance of that system.
Shakespeare ensures that Romeo happens to meet Juliet without knowing who she, which adds tension to the story. Shakespeare ensures that Juliet does not know that Romeo is only faking his death, which ensures the depressing climax. Had Shakespeare chosen a different set of circumstances, say, that Juliet receives the message and lives happily with Romeo, then the story would have been consistent with the fictional world, but it would also have been very boring.
When it comes to video games, the author is no longer free to choose the inputs -- the gamer is given this power. Suddenly, the author can no longer simply focus on the interesting "degenerative" cases of the function, because there is no guarantee that the user will cooperate.
However, this is not to say that non-interactive narrative and interactive narratives are distinctly different. For example, the non-interactive film "Sliding Doors" explores different inputs into a fictional world by showing what happens when the Gwenyth Paltrow catches a train and an alternate reality when she misses the train. At the same time, games are capable of acting like non-interactive narratives. For example, think of any adventure game where an incorrect input leads to instant death. The gamer is basically sheephearded into making the "correct" set of inputs. The gamer is then forced into exploring the non-interactive "degenerative" case.
Although games can force the gamer to particular interesting cases this seems like a waste of the unique qualities of games. It seems that games should be most powerful when they allow the gamer to explore the functional nature of the in-game world, rather than forcing the gamer to find the particular, interesting set of inputs. Put more simply, games excel at describing systems, while non-interactive arts excel at describing interesting instances of the system.
If a game describes a system, the way that we communicate with the gamer is different from non-interactive communication. For example, take the story of Oedipus. In the non-interactive version, Oedipus is prophesized to kill his father and his mother. Because of the prophecy, he is banished, unaware of the identity of his birthparents. When he later unknowingly meets his father, he kills him and unknowingly marries his mother. The story tells of the cruelty of fate and hinges upon one decision: The decision to banish Oedipus. But what if, in the interactive version, the player chooses NOT to banish Oedipus. What then? Do they live happily and boringly ever after? The problem here is that a single instance of the system tells the message, but the system itself does not convey the message. The entire fictional world, the entire system must be shifted towards the goal of describing the cruelty of fate. How about if the not banished Oedipus is washed overboard in a boating accident, the parents believe he is dead, but he is rescued by a fisherman who raises him as his own son? Thinking he is a fisherman's son, he later unknowingly meets his real father, the king, and kills him the unknowingly marries his mother. Here the entire system has been shifted to portray the message. Indeed, in this case, shifting the entire system to describe the cruelty of fate is arguably more effective than the single non-interactive instance of the story. The system version essentially says, "No matter what you do, fate will consipre to be cruel." Of course, the system version lacks the irony of the non-interactive version, so it is arguable as to which is more powerful. They are simply different.
When it comes to communicating ideas and messages, games can be just as effective as non-interactive media. Game designers just need to realize that they are communicating using an entire system, rather than communicating through a single instance of that system.
