My main disagreements with Jesse Schell’s lecture:

1. Right now external rewards are an ‘ooh shiny’ within culture.  We have struck some gold with the vein of behavioral psychology, and now everyone is rushing in believe there is gold enough for eternity in there somewhere.  The mind is being cracked open like some blue ocean market.  If there’s anything we know about these things it’s that they saturate.  With each further achievement system that latches on to our daily lives, the rewards become less and less novel.  After enough of them, the benefits will settle down into the background noise of our daily motivations.  Like any drug, the brain develops a tolerance.  Assuming his dystopian vision comes to pass, those reward system will be background noise – expected within any new system or promotion, but not a bullet point feature.  When opening up a new airline company, saying that you have offer frequent flier miles isn’t going to turn any heads.  We’ve dealt with reward structures that have turned background before, and like other drugs, there will need to be an escalation to get any attention.
2. The escalation won’t be more of the same.  Eventually while spelunking in the brain, something new will come along – another ‘ooh shiny’ that will no doubt be the topic of some future ominous keynote.  If anything, external reward schemes aren’t the future, they’re the emerging present.  If we put all our best minds on sapping this gold vein for all its worth, no one will ever find that minerals like uranium might have their value.
3. Many good game designers ARE working on the problem right now and to say that they aren’t present in the field is a bit insulting.  What’s important is that we push the discourse in the direction that benefits both games AND society as a whole.  We as game designers have the power to prevent this rat-and-pellet scenario by pushing the persuasive envelope in the right direction.  There will be no shortage of marketers cum game designers willing to tweak the spreadsheet pivot a bit more.
4. Reward structures are only ONE of the many neural motivators for gaming, and while the most basic and exploitable with our current understanding, they do not represent the true power of games.  If anything we’ve learned from the last decade or two of ludology it’s that games and learning are inexplicably linked – creating reward mechanisms that are devoid of learning and the introduction of new elements seems backwards.  In the old ‘depth and breadth’ game design metric, achievement systems for brushing your teeth have neither – the entire ruleset is one item long and mastery is immediate.  Sure the ‘game’ is in taking advantage of the system as a whole, not just the teeth part, but without learning and mastery how soon will it get stale?  Most facebook games lose my interest after a short while for this reason – I feel I’ve learned everything there is to learn and the rest is just rote repetition.  We’ve fought to elevate this (to some notable successes) within the Free to play and MMO arenas.  Why does he think our future is to give up these efforts and succumb to age old formulas?

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Schell, but I can’t see this one as much more than fear mongering – stirring the pot.  Based on the amount of ‘check this out’ and ‘awesome video’ tweets and the general lack of criticism, I can’t say he’s succeeded.  In summing up, I think the trend is exactly as he put it – but this is a short term trend (really just the last two years) in a long term history of games.  Remember with Full Motion Video was the future of games?  Virtual Reality?  Hyperbole is dangerous, but the exercise of it for sake of argument is good in that it gets people thinking.  Just because the current trend is moving in this one direction does not invalidate all other work and studies that have come before regarding future predictions.

Source: Matter Feast

• 3 Source – Silicon, Germanium, Diamond, Supercarbons, Rare Crystals and Metals (1cm2)
• 2 Source – Carbon-based Life, Petrocarbons, Fossils, Ferrous Metals, Graphite, Coal, Soot (10cm2)
• 1 Source – Anything Else (100cm2)

Abilities

Differential 3

Synthesize

Consume

Kinesis

Sculpt

Source: Wu Wei

Abilities:

Shadowstep 5

Imbalance

Disrupt

Divide Heaven

Phantom Recourse

Empty Mind

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhpn5xkg_44g9fpxwsj

The game becomes more usable and coherent as you go along.

Normally it makes sense to introduce concepts to the player in a nice smooth logarithmic/sigmoid fashion to optimize learning.  A game begins as simple as it can and adds complexity after enough time to digest the previous mechanics has passed, limiting the amount of instantaneous new mechanics.  However, with Little King’s story, nearly every time a new feature was added (especially in the early stages of the game)… I felt like it was a convenience issue or it was long overdue.

Each time a feature was added it didn’t feel so much like a new thing to learn, but a shortcut to a boring or frustratingly impossible task previously.  It feels as if they started with the final game and removed interface and features until they arrived at the beginning.  Some may feel this is a sound design methodology, but I do not.  The beginning experience is the most cruicial to the game – it can be looked at as a subtractive version of the game’s concepts, but it should be just as compelling as later play.  On examining this I noticed even I noticed some conflicting viewpoints on this issue, even within myself.

On one side, the beginning should be representative of the gameplay, pure and enjoyable in its own right.  This is especially true of casual games and seems to come from the casual game part of my brain.  The idea is that there is no immediate ‘end’ which you are going to, you are enjoying the gameplay as it is and as it progresses.  To me, this is the very zen-like concept that attracts me to more mechanics-based and casual games to begin with.

On the flip side, if you’ve designed a game that has a degree of complexity to it, you can’t give it all up at once.  So, like any good school – you introduce a problem, then a skill, and then test for application (designers take note: it’s more effective to introduce the problem before the skill than the other way around).  This method leads to a very ‘tutorialish’ beginning, especially if condensed together (skill-skill-skill-game vs skill-game-game-skill-game-game).

Neither side is wrong, but there’s definitely some nuances in the approach that make it worth exploring further.  As much as I do truly enjoy Little King’s Story, I did feel like I was playing through about 5 hours of a mediocre / frustrating / aimless game to get to a more polished, enjoyable game later – and I didn’t even know that was going to pan out that way through the first 5 hours (not quite like begrudgingly sitting through tutorials).

Regardless of the design method with respect to the beginning (additive or subtractive), one should never skip polishing the beginning and examining it from a ‘what if this were all it was’ viewpoint.

The biggest difficulty I tend to find in discussions on this subject is that people aren’t always aware of what it is they are asking nor do they come to the discussion table with a shared set of definitions.  I am going to attempt to clean up this mess a bit with some simple logical statements and metrics, peppered with just a bit of subjective thought process.  So first off:

What is Art?

Perhaps the biggest culprit is a unclear definition of Art.  If only this were a problem limited to those discussing it as it applies to video games.  The true definition of art has been argued for quite some time (see also Aesthetics).  I’m going to try to pluck off the relevant issues.

Art can mean a reference to a field of study, a technique related to creative skill as relates to aesthetics, a product or work of art, or more colloquially ‘fine art’.  We’re going to need to pick or build a definition.  How about the first line in the Wikipedia entry – it’s gotta be the most relevant, right?

“Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions“.

Yup, games definitely do this!  We’re done!  The answer is yes!   Not so fast.

There is much debate about this subject so it can’t possibly be that simple… Let’s try another definition.  How about Britannica Online’s defintion:

“the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.” [my italics]

Well that one seems to fit with games pretty easily.  I don’t seem to be getting very far with this, so I’m going to work on my own definition.   I’ll use existing things that we readily call art as a way of removing away that which it is NOT, leaving that which it is.  Likewise, if the definition excludes things we conventionally call art, then the definition itself will be invalidated.

Is art a physical object?  No, or else music or performance would not be art.  Is it creative skill or technique?  No.  It cannot be simply a technique.  If you go a gallery to appreciate art, this definition works (appreciating the technique), but if you then buy the art, you are not buying the technique.  So clearly it is neither the sum of its materials nor the sum of its techniques – it is neither simply artwork or artistry.  What ties the two together but is wholly neither?  Well a concept does.  Concepts can be equated to thoughts and words.  Are words alone art?  Just a series of words strung together?  No, we do not call this art.  However, words written down or spoken can be poetry, which is definitely art.  So what is the difference between the intrinsic set of concepts floating along and that which we call art?

Well, both written and spoken word have the potential to communicate the concept from one individual to another.  So if I walk up to you and say something, is this art?  The problem here is that the communication is direct.  What if I yell the same words to a crowd, indirectly?  Now this is could be either performance art or the actions of a crazy person (or both).  We are now very close to the great writer Leo Tolstoy’s definition of art:

“a use of indirect means to communicate from one person to another”.

I like to call this ‘proxy communication’.  Or in diagrammatic form:

Artist -> Medium -> Audience

Does it really need an audience?  Must a work of art be shown to one other than the original artist?  If an artist paints a work and it is left in their attic, and their house is bulldozed, did the work of art exist?  This is doubly ponderous if the artist is also a mime. Well, here we can satisfy that formula to say that perhaps the artist was also the audience.  But is this cheating?   Well, consider a person talking to themselves (casually like assurances into the mirror, not schizophrenia).  That is direct communication from yourself to yourself.  However, if that same person wrote a diary, and perhaps drew a sketch in a diary to try to express their feelings (to be later read by themselves again long after they do not recall the original feeling), then that is indirect communication and as such we can call it art.

The Law and Order of Subliminal Intent

How about intent?  Do we need to intend on making art to make art?  Do we need to know what it is we are communicating before we do it?  This is an issue of great debate in the past century or so (longer than that, but it’s been heating up), therefore let’s try to find an example that predates the debate.

Marbling (Japanese Suminagashi or Turkish Ebru for example) is considered to be an art form.  Here, clearly the desire to create a work of art represents intent, but the communicated message or the form is not fully under control of the artist.  In a way, it could be said the the medium is communicating back and forth with the artist during the process of creation – a dialogue instead of a transcription.  Modern art methods such as Generative Art wholly embrace this two-way dialogue.  Many are familiar with the works of Jackson Pollock who is quoted as saying:

“When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.”

Jackson Pollock - One: Number 31, 1950

Pollock abandoned titles for his pieces, referring to them by number instead.  He did so because he wanted the viewer to:

“…look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for.”

Then what about the purity of the message or concept?  Is art a failure if the concept is not communicated correctly?  Well clearly, taking Pollock’s work as an example, the message can be entirely hidden from view leaving the audience to interface with the work without much of the artist’s original work’s message – quite likely deriving a new different meaning for every viewer.

Interactive Media

Let us also look at other interactive art media:  take theatre or musical peformance for example.  There are many plays (most of the vaudeville style for example) which require some form of audience participation (by walking amongst the audience, or requesting BOOs and YAYs).  A musicians’ song is a basic medium, but when the audience is asked to sing along, the audience becomes like the artist and contributes to the medium.  In fact both the artist’s emotions and the tone of the piece can be altered based on the audience, resulting in a notably different work.  Improvisational theatre and music, like improv comedy or jazz, take this a step further – the genesis of the work is entirely situated in the environment, the mood of the artists and audience.  So it cannot be said that the audience only receives the medium.

Now diagram looks like this:

Artist <-> Medium <-> Audience

In face, this two-way dialog with the medium from either perspective can be called “engagement”, and it is a major component of video games.

I’m going to go a bit further and bring up a few more forms of modern art.  Interactive Art is one type of art that is highly interactive for the audience.  In fact, examples can be found like the mirrors of Daniel Rozin, that require an audience to function.  His go beyond this and place the audience member as the subject of the art.  This is not different from the process of playing many video games, wherein a proxy for the player (an avatar) is rendered into the game to serve as the subject.

One can go back to the early Dada movement (and also later Surrealism, Pop-art, and Conceptual Art) to see some of the crucial arguments for the audience as a participant.  Dadaism, according to many of its founders, was not art at all, it was anti-art.  It became a way of turning the tables on the audience, offending them into further thought.  In much of Dada,  it can be seen that far more communication and engagement with the medium can be seen on the audience side of the equation, typically in the form of angry art critics, confused patrons, and in some cases police intervention.  Some clear examples of this playful prodding can be seen in Duchamp‘s Fountain, Magritte‘s The Treachery of Images, and Warhol‘s Campbell’s Soup I.

René Magritte - The Treachery Of Images

There have been myriads of art movements and submovements since, and art has been transforming itself from a discipline to an dialogue.  Things we recognize as art now steal from nearly all other walks of life, and can take innumerable forms.  Some fields that are of especially high interest to the video game discussion are Information Art, Systems Art, and Internet Art (thanks Brenda Brathwaite for pointing me specifically to Systems Art).  Sociology has also been making leaps and bounds in the last few decades and has had some notable influence upon art.  Art is now more readily accepted as something that can be collaborative in nature and is no longer confined to the definition of a single producer (artist) and multiple consumers (audience).

By this mark, I feel it is not a leap at all to reduce my previous definition to simply this: “engagement with a communication medium”

Artist/Audience <-> Medium

To define art as any narrower a definition would exclude things that are already accepted as art by historians and much of society (though sometimes begrudgingly).  Much of the linguistics and neuroscience devotee in me feels that a definition of art without reference to Pattern or Metaphor is quite possibly incomplete, but perhaps those are implied in the engagement/observation.

Oh Ricky You’re So Fine Art

Well, games are clearly engagement with a communication medium, so why do people insist that they are not art?  Most likely because one of the common definitions of ‘art’ is actually meant to be interpreted as ‘fine art‘.  So what’s the difference?  Here’s where we start falling into ontological ooze.

Fine Art is a tag meant for art which is primarily created for concept or aesthetics, not utility.  However, this is a gray area.  Definitions of fine art routinely include conceptual art, which has a history as a vehicle for social change (and hence, conceptual utility).  They also routinely include interactive art and forms we’re already seen to be closely related to video games.  There’s also a lot of disagreement as to what classifies as fine art and this tends to be highly subjective.

So what isn’t Fine Art?  Well, other than things that intentionally shun the title (for example Lowbrow works), the ‘not-its’ tend to be labeled as a Craft, as Design, or as Commercial Art.  The term craft is applied to a wide range of artistic endeavors of varying utility and sometimes to a fine art form in the hands of an amateur or hobbyist.  Very often, to me the distinction between Craft and Art seems to lie with whether the medium and materials fit within the doctrine of western art history or not (though that never stopped Conceptual Art).  A range of conventional examples:

• Photography is labeled as a Fine Art, but not in the hands of an amateur (your flickr is not an accredited gallery)
• Fashion Design is labeled as Design, but Haute Couture is anything but utility (primarily aesthetics and concept)
• Architecture can be a Fine Art and/or Design, depending on who you are or who the client is

Often times people say that commercial art and design are driven by the client and by the money paid for the work.  Another argument is that design is art with a time or resource constraint.  These arguments don’t hold well, as Michelangelo resented the commission of the Sistine Chapel, believing it only to serve the Pope’s desire for extravagance.  It is perhaps the thing he is most well known for today, and yet it was money that drove its creation.  The Sistine Chapel was done with a deadline and specifications for a price.  It was not a gift to the world by a humble demigod seeking to further the humanities. And this example brings up yet another ontological quandry:

The Ensemble

What is ‘the work’ in this case?  Is it the fresco?  Dozens of different painters have done fresco work on this chapel.  Is it the paintings on the walls?  Is it the architecture itself?  Is it a collective single work or can it not even be referenced as one?   To steal from one of Ian Bogost‘s tweets: what is a fajita?  is it the meat?  the tortillas?  the combination?

Take a simple case: framed art.  Is the frame part of the artwork or is it auxiliary?  If they are the art together, and the framing is considered a craft and not a fine art, then can the ensemble ever be a fine art or a craft?  Textile art and wearable art are another example.  We may consider the garment design and tailoring fashion design, the act of dyeing it a craft and the final piece and its display case in a museum as fine art.  In the case of Rozin’s mirrors above we see that lighting of the environment in which the work sits is an integral part to the work (without it the tiles would not have the different values needed to create shape).  In most three-dimensional or textural work, lighting can change the aesthetic and even meaning of a work.  Going back to the Found Art movement and Duchamp’s Fountain, you have a urinal constructed not for the purpose of art at all and only its signing and recontexting to make it art.  So a collection of elements, not all which are themselves fine art is permissible in a work of fine art.

This is what I propose that games are as a medium.  They are a collection of things: arts, crafts, and design from a variety of individuals.  People today say the ‘Sistine Chapel’ as if it were a singular piece of work.  Perhaps they are referring to Michelangelo’s contribution, but even so it could not exist on its own without a ceiling to be painted upon.  Perhaps this can be said of game developments’ ‘superstars’.  Much like the many artists involved in the chapel, those involved in a game may feel like their field is the field to which people refer when praise is lavished about the work.  Writers probably feel like if/when their game is labeled as ‘fine art’ that it means the writing of course!  Designers may feel that they are the brain or heart of the game.  Artists may feel they contribute the primary aesthetics.  This is just vanity.  Now that user generated content and community driven games are common, the users are perhaps equally to credit for the success of a game.  The work must be looked on in its entirety – it would be meaningless to declare a game’s 3D art as fine art and the rest of it as a commercial work of design (though out of its context it is entirely possible to frame game art as visual art and display it there as fine art alone, as with most of the other components).

Culture Wars: The Game

In my opinion, the distinctions between craft, fine art, commercial, design, and others are based on cultural homophily primarly.   Fine art is that which is done in the societal context of other recognized fine artists.  Design is the term for those comfortable with the term design and excited about its implications.  Cultures determine their standards and their definitions.  This is not limited to subjectively treated fields such as art.  See how physicist Lee Smolin describes how we ratify scientific “facts” within the scientific community.  Newer generations decide the results of these quandaries as the older ones wane from power.

Gamers are no longer a subculture, the act of gaming is prevalent throughout greater culture.  The generation of gamers being the norm, not the exception is here already.  Therefore it is WE who can set these standards.  If we feel that games are fine art, then we shall declare it as so until the dissenting voices fall to time.

Who exactly are we waiting for to declare games are art, so suddenly we can breathe easily again?

Lastly, when I hear ‘are games art’ cries on the blogosphere… more than half of the time I feel it’s just a baiting tactic to get commenters riled up, and not after any genuine introspection on the matter.  It often feels like the statement that is being posted in today’s 15-minute news cycle is actually more like “are games art.. YET?” – like the stereotypical child in the backseat.

Well, we have a good way of dealing with issues of progress: Metrics.

Metrics

Instead of asking whether games are art now due to some new release that everyone has their pants wet about, we should be setting up a series of metrics that can help us determine whether we are making progress in this cultural push.  Many of these are just simple true/false questions (Are? Can? Is? Possible?):

• Are games capable of making social commentary?
• Can games be timeless media and experiences?
• Can games convey metaphor?
• Are games composed of patterns?
• Is it possible to create a game that is subject to unique subjective interpretation/experience?
• Can a game evoke an emotional response on par with (pick your pet fine art media)
• Is it possible to create a game that stirs intellectual discussion?
• Can games be self aware / meta?  (see: The Treachery of Images)
• Can games convey an experience beyond the ordinary?
• Can games be intensely life-like facsimiles? (Realism)
• Are games considered to be an artistic medium by their creators?
• Is it possible to create a game as a form of self expression?
• Is it possible to sustain a living wage due to the high appreciation of the medium?
• Is the act of working on them creative?  (hello EA lawsuit)

By examining the questions, we further the discourse.  The trick is to come up with questions that are ‘yes’ for fine art and ‘no’ for games.  In addition, more chartable metrics will provide the progress and guidance (qualitative data):

• What ratio of those polled believe that games as a medium are ‘art’? (in the conventional usage of the word)
• If not all games are believed to be art, what is the ratio of games that are considered so (via statistics/polling)?  compared to other media?
• What is the volume of standing work that desires the label fine art or is considered so
• What is the public visibility for appreciation of the medium when compared with others (museums, award shows, etc)
• How many game art exhibitions/museums/galleries are there?
• How many game PLAY exhibitions/museums/galleries are there?
• How much discussion and art criticism is leveled at games
• How do games affect (positively or negatively) society (as conceptual art oft endeavors)
• Who is asking the questions or feels that games should be called art?
• How many attendees at appreciation festivals (IGF vs Sundance)

The other thing we of course need is a lot of work from the development community and the media.  When examining movies, the field it seems that is most often compared to video games (this link I find somewhat dubious..), it is evident that a system of nomenclature exists to highlight art.  Very often the categories of Foreign Film and Independent are considered to be genres of above-average artistry.  An entire television channel (Sundance Channel) is devoted to these genres.  Thanks to digital distribution, games are starting to see a stronger Indie genre as well.  Within films, Action is often considered a genre of low artistry – the works may be more about making a bang and a buck than a statement – but the field of Film is not run over the coals as a ‘commercial endeavor not worthy of a fine art label’ due to this genre.  We will always have games that have no interest in the ‘fine’ label of art, but they are still art, and that can be said of all mediums (yes even painting – that verb is also used when you paint a house).

Conclusion

If this label is something we’re looking to achieve as an industry or as a cultural integration, then most importantly we need to raise the discourse and meld with those who hold the keys to the label: other artists, critics, professors.  Everyone who engages in this discourse can benefit from a constant study of Art History (I believe it should be a requirement for the whole industry but baby steps here), Aesthetics and Sociology (again likewise, especially transformative culture stuff like Clay Shirky).  I don’t say this to be elitist – I think this lingering question is a great excuse for action.  If these labels are a cultural artifact, then we need to integrate with the fine art culture and no better way than to become better appreciators and creators of art ourselves (extending our hands first – not being standoffish to the academic world).

Well that about does it for my rant.

May the art be with you!

Some examples:

• If you’re a music related site, service or software and you’re not able to read or scrobble to my last.fm, I shake my head
• In fact, I’m annoyed that my car stereo doesn’t somehow magically record what I play and that I can’t look back at my history to see what they just played on the car radio.
• Any social networking system that doesn’t try to connect / pull info from my gmail, myspace or facebook and requires me to re-enter information generally gets a pass from me.
• Working with files on a hard drive that are not in an SVN or CVS repository makes me feel vulnerable now that I use Wikis, Google Docs and SVN for everything:  What happens if I want to go back?  How do I share this with someone and see their changes?
• The fact that any software or service geared towards the creation of a document or data that still doesn’t have an “undo” feature or better version control irks me
• Streaming sources, or sequential documents (image galleries, etc) that do not allow random access feel like relics from the past
• Any online service (specifically social network, share-based or collaborative) that doesn’t feature a folksonomy, rating system, and/or a “others who liked this liked…” feels like a service that didn’t get the memo.

There are many more examples.

In short, know your user’s expectations before you write a feature list or a design doc.  This would seem obvious but it still seems to catch honest people off guard. As it applies to games: if your user expects a waypoint based auto-save and you make them start the whole level over again, they’re going to feel that their expectations were not met. So prior to making a design doc (or in your design doc), make sure to do some competitive research and work to extrapolate some likely expectations based on how you plan to position yourself in the marketplace.  It will save you a lot of costumer ‘grrs’.

As one who considers all three to be a passion I may be speaking from personal bias but I see this as a problem with a relatively easy solution.  To me, Business, Design and Programming are based on the same fundamental principle:

Define the goal clearly, research the available choices, then weigh the pros and cons of each choice to arrive at the optimal solution.

[This should seem familiar if you read my previous entry]

There is little benefit to shrouding a profession in mystery and much to be gained by integrating these goals into a single representation.  The commonly occuring pattern is the separation of these goals into components.  The other parts of the original goalset show up in each component typically as a ‘restriction’, but information is lost in this process.

Let’s take a simple example:

You and a friend are looking to go out for dinner and you want something relatively cheap and relatively good.  You deliberate for a bit and realize that you know a lot of quality places, and your friends knows a lot of cheap places – so you decide to specialize and divide the problem.  You try to find the best restaurant you can under 30$ a person, and your friend meanwhile tries to find the cheapest place with at least 4 stars on Zagat.  The chances that you will arrive at the same solution is slim to none (and reduces as the population of choices increases).

This is how game development often actually works.  The game needs to be relatively fun and impressive, while being relatively stable, maintainable and scalable, while also being done relatively quickly and cheaply.  The meetings are held, restrictions are put in place (typically time via milestones), and then each team optimizes for its pet criteria.  This can occasionally cause conflict  as all of these are mutually exclusive.

This type of problem is an optimization problem, and there are a few common patterns to solving it:

1. Positive Optimize - Pick the one that matters MOST, this reduces one of the variables (e.g. we have exactly 2 years worth of funding to release this – what can we make in 2 years?)
2. Negative Optimize - Pick the one that matters LEAST, this also reduces one of the variables (e.g. it doesn’t matter how stable it is – it’s just a prototype).  In patterns containing three goal variables, this I like to call the ‘Pick Two’ method, based on the saying: “Cheap, Good, Fast – pick two” or other patterns of “X,Y,Z – pick two”.
3. Simultaneous Optimize - this can be difficult to approach but is typically going to be the most accurate.  Programmers (especially AI programmers, Collective Intelligence programmers and Data Miners) will likely recognize this one.  The idea is to assign a fitness function and then try a number of different techniques to get the best possible result (all of which are generally little more than an advanced version of a random shot in the dark).  The ‘king’ of these techniques is more often than not a genetic algorithm.

When faced with a relatively small set of choices, I have a favorite way of tackling the full on simultaneous optimization:  Using a spreadsheet, the goal components of the fitness function become columns and the available choices become rows.  You rate each cell by how well that goal is satisfied by that choice (use the SAME SCALE for all cells, something like 0-5 or 0-10).  Then you apply a weight to each goal as to how important it is to the final fitness.  The sum of each cell in the row multiplied by its corresponding  weights per column is the choice’s final fitness.  It helps to throw in a couple dummy extreme choices to help you balance the goal weights to make sure your balancing is sane.

As soon as there are more variables or interactions between the choices, it becomes clear that you need something more like a genetic algorithm.  Luckily we all have something very much like that already – intuition.  I like to define intuition as “the sum of all knowledge and experience related to the subject”.  Humans are exceedingly good at making good guesses when presented with a problem that they have a wide knowledge and experience base to draw from.  However each large missing piece of knowledge or experience will heavily skew our guesses.

A few examples:

• a game designer wants to make a modification to a feature, thinking that it should be easy to change, sneaks it into the schedule – but it turns out to be very difficult
• a programmer finds after implementation that a design concept is not at all scalable, and codes up a tweak to make it scalable that defeats the original purpose of the feature.  Not wanting to have ‘lost’ the time on the gantt, the decision is made to keep the ‘fix’ in the final version.
• an executive looks at the gantt and examines where the product will be at for magical tradeshow X – a new trade show the company wants to do that’s 3 months before magical tradeshow Y for which there is a demo planned, and requests a demo version to send with the demo team to show X.  The team crunches and gets it done, but has to make enough hacks that the demo for tradeshow Y needs to have some features cut and is now behind on the entire schedule.

What am I arguing for?  Simply this:

Open and continual communication of goals so as to bring the choices people make closer to ‘optimal’ for the company/game as a whole.

and

An attempt by all to increase the cross-departmental intuition of everyone involved.

What I am arguing against is the ‘silo’ effect and hyper-compartmentalization of culture and experience that is common of large hierarchies and specialization of labor.

A few things that help towards this end:

• Agile Development or similar methods
• Prototyping
• Small Teams (preferrably multi-disciplinary)
• Task Forces
• A relatively flat heirarchy (which is related to the previous two)
• A shared company calendar or internal blog/rss
• A wiki with an interconnected glossary of terms
• More multi-disciplanary employees (designers who can code, business heads who know design, etc)
• Task transparency (via the workflow management systems)
• Decision transparency (hearing a detailed explanation of a decision works to teach others about that discipline)
• Financial transparency (many companies cannot do this, but for those who can, it often works well)

Choices are among the fundamental elements of game design, economics, behavioral psychology and computer science.  In all of those fields, the concept of choice is defined roughly the same way:  (from wikipedia) “Choice consists of the mental process of thinking involved with the process of judging the merits of multiple options and selecting one of them for action.”

Making a choice requires a mental formulation – the generation of some model for weighing the merits of each option.  Merits are directly connected to goals, and one can often discern one’s goals through their choices.  It is also said often in economics that “choice defines preference” but preference is a tricky thing to pin down.

What James appears to me to be discussing is the transparency of the game’s own reward model.  When players align some of their goals with the game’s mechanical goals (as is generally the case when you wish to win), their merit models begin to look more like the game’s.

At this point it can be said that their merit model is far more mechanical than personal.  However, this shift is highly personal in nature.  Players are driven by a varying amount of drive for success (the Achiever Bartle type).  Take three extreme examples on the same game:

1. Player A wishes to win the game with the utmost ‘completion’, and so goes out and purchases a hint book which makes fully transparent all of the mechanical merits of each choice.  The player then chooses each in accordance with the walkthrough and obtains the ultimate score or reward sought.
2. Player B wishes to maintain the mystery of the game and avoids spoilers or hints from any source, wishing the game experience to be as personally driven as possible
3. Player C has little to no interest in completing the game and instead explores the mechanical simulation but with different goals in mind than the main ‘success’ goal of the game – for example seeing how big of an explosion one can make, or how silly one can die with ragdolls, or if the game story breaks if you try to kill everyone.

As is obvious, choices with merits that apply to more than one possible goal are evaluated differently by different people.  My disagreement stems from the attempt to separate choices which are mechanical in nature to those which are personal in nature into two separate concepts.  I think this is highly dangerous as it generally assumes a singular goal system.  Where are goal systems most singular?  In traditional story-driven single player games.

Goals and Endings

Let’s take a game like Bioshock.  Instead of having a singular goal, there are multiple endings.  Each ending is now an available goal.  The problem with this is that while situations may change during the course of gameplay, long term goals and gameplay decisions of players rarely do.  This means that each player selects the ending goal that they wish to achieve early in play and now all choices become False Choices.

This is especially true of the hintbook-user who starts by reading up on all the possible branches and endings and makes their selection at the beginning (see also Mass Effect sex scene).  However even someone who is only cognizant of the fact that a game has multiple endings (read it on the back of the box – multiple endings is a feature list slick item), they will pre-construct likely ending goals in their mind, select one and then act accordingly.

This is the basis of role-playing.  If you decide you want to play an evil character with a soft spot for cuddly looking things, then you will make your choices accordingly and you hope that the ending or rewards that you get respect some element of this decision (for example at least that you decided to be evil).  The problem here is the ending – the concentration of goals on the game ending.  Pen and paper roleplay works because it is often open-ended (if you’re not playing strictly from an adventure with an unimaginative GM, you don’t know that the game will contain roughly 40 hours of play time before you start playing it).  The solutions here are to spread the goals out – achievements, chapter-based games, social systems, and economic systems.

The Myth of Purely Aesthetic Choices

So what about choices that aren’t attached to a goal mechanism?  It turns out a rare few of these are purely choices without goals.   Examples in the real world are common in non-essential purchases – what flavor of chips do you buy for yourself?  what color of a particular shirt do you choose when one is offered in multiple colors?  However they can quickly be turned into goal-based variations:  what flavor of chips do you buy when you’re having guests over (maximize for utilitarian benefit), what does this shirt say about me? (does it further the goal of presenting myself to others the way that I wish to?).

In online games, even aesthetic choices become intertwined with social or economic goals.  Let’s take a look at some examples:

• Choice of Color:  This can be an economic merit judgment (based on rarity), and a social persona merit judgment.  Example – a hardcore PvPer picking a pink colorset for its memorability and humor value.  If one is in a guild, color coordination may be desired, limiting choice.
• Choice of Name: Economic factors are huge here (is the name already taken? am I willing to live with Legolasx345 or do I want something truly unique?), as well as roleplay and persona considerations (one trying to play an elf might want an elf-like name).

The name selection example is perhaps the best.  Trademark and domain name selection for a company or product is based on a huge ‘problem’ equation of relative merits – Pronounce-ability, Length, International Meanings and Pronunciation, Logo/Glyph possibilities, Linguistic distance from similar trademarks, Search loading (what is currently found by that name through searches), Legal Availability (and cost to acquire), DNS Availability (and cost to acquire), Social network Availability, and Linguistic connection to the desired evoked emotions or symbols are just a few of the criteria.  This creates a giant ‘problem’ equation, where the stakeholders balance the merits of each to be able to mechanically rate the possibilities – if the company is hiring a marketing firm or is a min/maxer in the player terms.  A company who is like player B in the above example might just pick a name and hope for the best.

The Single Player Game

Ok, so digging further – let’s come up with the most pristinely pure-choice example we can come up with.  The choice of aesthetics or actions within a purely single-player game that has no predictable affect on the outcome.  I say purely single-player because these are a rarity today.  Any game that is connected with online achievements, gamer scores, or leaderboards is no longer ‘purely’ single player in that the motivations for winning change.  Increasingly with fraps, machinima, youtube, and other forms of shared media, even the most single player experience can become a social one, much like when a friend watches you while you play.

One obvious problem with these kinds of purely surface choices is that they are bad design!  Presenting choices that have no measurable effect can easily disenfranchise the player.

On the opposite side, easily transparent mechanical goals also removes much of the fun of choosing.  If every text option in a game like Fallout had next to it in parenthesis how many XP points you gain by selecting that option, much of the fun would be immediately drained from the game.

The Multi-player Game

When choices can be boiled down to merit equations based on a preset list of goals, they become less interesting.  However, one simple way to stop this is to obscure the mechanics by introducing an external (unpredictable) factor.  The classic examples of this are found in the birthing of games themselves:  Go, Chess, etc.  When one cannot easily predict what situation a choice will wind one up in, the choice becomes more difficult but also more meaningful.   Life is mostly comprised of these choices.

Traditional games don’t have the issue of transparent choice mechanics or purely aesthetic choices, nor do connected games – only single player ‘movie’ games do – a problem we have invented for ourselves as game designers.  Sometimes choice doesn’t matter in these games (when the game is purely linear and driven by twitch skill) – but this to me is a somewhat sad shallow concept of interactivity that doesn’t take full advantage of the medium.

Solutions

While I may disagree with the conclusion in Mr. Portnow’s piece – I agree with the prescription – we should be more cognizant of what we call choice in video games.  And since I never like to just rant without providing some solutions (ok that’s not entirely true… a good rant is fun, too), here are ways I think we can improve the ‘choicyness’ of the single player game experience:

• More achievements and mini-goals, especially ones off the beaten path
• Shareable media awareness (best examples of this are shareable replays in racing games or the snapshot camera in Little Big Planet)
• Episodic game play (smaller, sooner goals)
• Condition-driven systems (instead of using a hidden character ‘alignment’ number, test for conditions present in the world that could indicate alignment)
• Better, more unpredictable AI (the more human ones’ opponents are, the harder the equations are)
• Adapting mechanics (less of Oblivion’s level adaption with reduces impact, more things like enemies having an increased chance of resistance to the tactic/ability you use more often)
• Random scenario changes (this works best in repeatable content, but things like Left 4 Dead’s slight changes in the level layout keep it from being just an equation)
• External stimuli changes (massively single player games, rendering of ghost player data into the game, using external factors to drive economies)
• Generally be more graceful with player ‘mistakes’, build in teaching mechanism to choice systems, allowing a player to get better

And finally, some things we need to do less of:

• Stop thinking of choice being between GOOD and EVIL
• Early-branch trees (e.g. good/evil, character class choices in System Shock 2 – each problem has multiple solutions, but only one generally valid based on your class)
• Using optimal-path scoring (i.e. leaderboards with only total points, time to completion, etc), instead score sections, allow mistakes
• Not planning for the meta-game goals and looking only at our own mechanics