What do you get when you put the creators behind flOw, Everyday Shooter, and various Scandanavian reality games in the same room with no strict discussion format? What happens when, equipped with their own individual topics of interest, they bounce ideas and theories off each other?
As I found out this morning, you get some pretty goddamned interesting discussion.
At "Scattershots of Play: the Potential of Indie Games," Pekko Koskinen, Jon Mak, and Kellee Santiago came together to -- as the title suggests -- share a few random, scattershot, but incredibly interesting thoughts on game design with not only the GDC attendees, but one another.
What's the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic game rewards? What's input-output theory? Can games play users, rather than the other way around?
Hit the jump to get the gist of the whole thing.
Kellee Santiago (flOw), Jon Mak (Everyday Shooter), and Pekko Koskinen each presented one Powerpoint presentation on a subject of personal interest to them. After each designer's slideshow was finished, the other two personalities chimed in with their thoughts and opinions on the subject. The whole thing felt pretty freeform and nonlinear, which led to some pretty interesting crossover discussion and individual rambling.
Santiago started off the whole event by presenting her problems with the lack of intrinsic rewards in gaming. Rather than enjoying the game for just being fun on its own, we now seem to measure the quality and price of a game by sheer length. Anyone who has ever been irritated by the innumerable complaints levelled toward Portal or Katamari Damacy that "they aren't long enough" can understand the gist of Santiago's argument: if we like a game so much that we replay it over and over, then why even bother complaining about its short initial length?
To demonstrate her point, Santiago drew a comparison between Katamari Damacy and God of War II. Most all gamers would agree that both are quality titles, yet Katamari only costs $20 where God of War II costs $50. Why? God of War II has a longer singleplayer mode, and is therefore assumed to be of higher value by both reviewers and gamers. Santiago argues that there's something inherently wrong with failing to recognize the value of intrinsic game rewards -- in other words, something which is fun to play by its very nature like flOw or Geometry Wars or Katamari -- versus extrinsic rewards like the completion of a long singleplayer campaign, or achivements, or unlockables or what-have-you.
Jon Mak chimed in at this point, stating that memorability and thought-provocation should be just as important a means of defining value as replayability. He only played Gamma Bros for about twenty minutes, he said, but the memory of playing and the personal satisfaction he got from it (intrinsic reward) far outweighed the enjoyment he got from beating Metal Gear Solid and receiving the game-breaking infinite ammo bandana (extrinsic reward).
Mak's comment seguewayed into his own presentation concerning what he refers to as "input-output theory." According to Mak, the "graphics versus gameplay" argument is an irrelevant one -- graphics are gameplay, and vice versa. The visual or aural output of an action amplifies the enjoyment of an input. By way of example, consider Guitar Hero: the actual input mechanic of hitting a button when the game tells you to just plain "sucks," in Mak's words. It's boring, and simplistic. Yet, jazz up the input with a specific and enjoyable output -- hit the button at the right time, and you get to play rock music -- and the whole experience becomes infinitely more enjoyable.
To further demonstrate this idea, he showed us a very early build of Everyday Shooter, boiled down to its most basic graphical components. Watching a little blue block flying around shooting red blocks was kind of boring to watch, and even more boring to input; regardless of how fun the actual control input was, there was no pleasurable output (or, to tie in with Santiago's idea, no immediate intrinsic reward). Once he jazzed the game up with music and interesting graphics however, the output made the input much more enjoyable. "Gameplay isn't just about rules," he said. "It's about feedback." Every action should be fun in its own way, and every input should have a pleasurable output.
This moved nicely into Pekko Koskinen's talk, which (considering he hasn't been personally responsible for a popular indie videogame of his own) was a much more cerebral, hypothetical one. Koskinen says that while all other art forms are defined by their medium (film has to be a series of moving images or else it isn't film, music has to be an arrangement of notes and beats), games aren't restricted to such rules.
A game can include only text or only audio and still be a game; games are merely systems which we internalize and play through. Koskinen cited the fact that once you become familiar enough with the rules of chess, you don't even need a board and pieces to play it -- you can just play in your head. So, if games are systems, then Koskinen suggests the act of playing a videogame is nothing more than the constant attempt by the player to learn and adapt to the system of the game; this powerup does this, this strategy does that, etcetera. We internalize the game mechanics, and they reside in us as we play.
If this is true (and this is where things get weirder, but more interesting), then aren't games just systems of human behavior? If we internalize a game's rules to the point where we understand them on our own, then hasn't the game personally altered our behavior? If that's the case, Koskinen says that game design is actually the art of creating fictional behavior in a player. The designer tells him what the rules of the world are, and the player alters his behavior to obey those rules.
Koskinen then went even further and posited that, if games are systems of human behavior, then game designers should be able to design a player by sufficiently immersing him in the rules of that world and forcing him to play by them. I'll admit, it sounded more than a little creepy and fascist to hear a Finnish-accented game designer state that "ve can make ze player into ze product" as if this were a pleasurable, everyday thing, but he makes good points. Designers should be able to create fictional lenses through which players can reinterpret the world; on a larger scale, game designers are actually designing life, with the mechanics as a metaphor for living. Santiago agreed that the best games engage in a constant "conversation" with their players, as the rules of the world evolve and change and the player behavior adapts along with them. Mak nicely summarized the concept by stating that often times, "the game is playing you."
After one audience question (Santiago is looking forward to cheaper digital distribution changing our value perception of "short" indie games), the discussion came to a close. Pretty heady stuff, yeah?
Great way to start off some GDC coverage.
Man that sounds like an amzing panel to sit in on. I totally agree with Koskinen about games creating a system of human behavoir. You have to define your thoughts by a game, its one of the reasons a life long gamer falls more easily into the rules of a new game where as a new gamer takes more time. The system of behavior has already been there for the life long guy but its just defining itself for the new gamer.
Wow. What a wonderful presentation. I hope some of these concepts can be carried past indie developers and begin to influence the big dogs as well.
Now, hey, the value gap in Katamari and GoW2 is based on a fuckload more than "playable length". No, there's also the amount of hype, the public perception, the depth of gameplay - Katamari is, after all, a concept game more than anything. It's unfair to us as buyers to say that based on some unfounded bias.
I hate acheivement whoring as much as anything, but that's just where gaming has moved, guys. You want it back? Make better fucking games.
^ Not to say anything about these folks at the conference. Their games are fine.
@prince of canned peaches
the value gap should only be determined by player experience. If you really enjoy a game over numerous playthroughs then hype/public perception will all come later and depth is decided through the experience.
Awesome work, Rev. I've never even considered how basic the GH mechanic is, but it makes perfect sense now. Good job.
@Manasteel88
Exactly my point, homeslice.
This is the greatest discussion EVAR.
Rev at the best game event ever! YES!
If you cover the BioShock/Ken Levine keynote my heart may explode.
Good points.
So..God of War should be cheaper..
Great write-up, Rev, as usual. These guys are waaaaayyyy smarter than me, and I’m glad that there are people like them who are focusing their talents toward video games. I really enjoyed Koskinen’s point about “game systems”; he’s absolutely right, when you think about it, and that could open up a whole world of possibilities for future games. Imagine playing a video game, but in your mind...
Love the indie scene. Keep these stories coming!
Great coverage, as usual rev. I like the all the points made but I want to address the length issue. For a poor college gamer such as myself, length is a very critical factor when making a purchasing decision. I don't like to pay $60 for a 5 hour experience when I could pay the same price for a 10 hour experience plus multiplayer. It sucks, but length has a lot to do with what I consider bang for my buck.
Nice. I love Gamma Bros and MGS as well. I'd love to stay and chat but Prison Break's season finale is about to come on.
Sounds like a presentation I would have loved to be present at. XD It's always fun to hear what forward-thinking game designers have to say. Great write-up.
These types of conversations are great, in that they can give designers, and anyone else interested, new ways of looking at the same thing by bouncing ideas and projects off of each other.
However, I do think it is important to remain reflexive. Games are not objectively "internalized systems" or "external systems", they are simply what they are. There is no correct academic theory that will lead to where or what games actually are.
What matters is that these pursuits lead to innovation in concrete terms. It is easy to get lost in intellectual exercise when you think there is an objective truth or endpoint "out there" to find. Academia often suffers from this at the expense of actually implementing any ideas in a concrete way.
I hope we see some examples of these interesting ideas. Exciting stuff! Great write up.
Indy games are a good thing.
extremely interesting - thanks for sharing.
really interesting opinions about the meaning of games.
Ultimately the purpose of gaming is the fun, but its nice to ponder on means to achieve it.
Whoa, Koskinen's ideas are so trippy. Awesome coverage Rev.
Great, great read. This article was chalked full of interesting tidbits. I hope the rest of GDC can bring up stuff half as interesting as this.
That discussion panel was an indie game in itself. Very cool stuff though. I especially loved what santiago had to say because some of my most memorable gaming experiences were merely 3-4 hours in length. I mean fuck, how long did it used to take to beat any sonic genesis game? Exactly. Why cant we just enjoy the game for the content quality? Granted games like god of war, or half life 2, with lenthy gameplay, are amazing. I believe that counting a games short length as a downside, or reason for a lesser rating/score, is fucking irrelevant to any arguement. Now go buy Audiosurf. Support your developers.
Fascinating interview. I would have loved to hear the whole thing.
Interesting...
"If we internalize a game's rules to the point where we understand them on our own, then hasn't the game personally altered our behavior? If that's the case, Koskinen says that game design is actually the art of creating fictional behavior in a player."
Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Something similar to compare this to for a more visual example, is the recent South Park episode where terrorists attack peoples' imaginations. And in the end one of the kids gives his millionth intelligent speech to his dumbass parents, where he says that when you have many people believing in something, it therefore becomes real in many ways. In that sense, I think that the combination of creating fictional stories and creating fictional behavior, is what makes gaming a far more powerful art medium than movies or novels.