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Here is another pearl for you to laugh on: I think programmers and game designers are not the best persons to explain what game is. They just make it happen...

Hey, no one here wants to strip genres from their classic features, so relax. I'm not your enemy.

Yeah, modern art, who gets it? What about those kids playing with computers? How crazy is that? We all know REAL games are cardboard games, right?

Love is just the last refuge of the primitive.

Miguel,

You are being very philosophical too, can't you see? Your position is also a philosophy.

I knew I would eventually get this kind of reaction, but I believe I'm not just being nitpick. Sometimes we need to rethink the "obvious". I think that games should remain magical. Games are very simple and yet very complex. We need to discuss them so they can evolve.

My point was not simply in favor of lingering in a virtual world. It is about recognizing all the possibilities for gaming. The opposition between action and contemplation is just one aspect. See this game, for example: Wait. Lindsay Grace makes extraordinary games, in my opinion. What is boring to you may be fun to me. What is fun to you may be boring to me.

Weston, I have just a few more comments to make:

“The voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles”

This seems like a very good definition. I've thought about games this way for a long time. But I have some problems understanding what exactly is “voluntary” and “unnecessary”. However, the main problem is the idea that games are basically about overcoming obstacles. That's because I think that you can see any action as the “overcoming” of an “obstacle”. You can even think of love in such terms. But in the same way it doesn't seem appropriate to talk like that about such activity, I don't see the reason why I should think of games this way.

“To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs (prelusory goal), using only means permitted by rules (lusory means), where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means (constitutive rules), and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity (lusory attitude).”

Again, when I read this, I think about a scientist describing what “love” is by describing what happens when a person is in love. It is so poor it could only be the product of a disenchanted society. Also, by this description, flirting must be considered the most popular game ever.

gaming's future is bright and promising

I'm not so optimist...

Hi Fitz,

Thank you for your answer. I only recently started to actually buy games, and when I do I wait for the discount too. Before, all I played was free games and sometimes pirated games, like most Brazilians do.

I've recently played Max Payne 1 and 2. I think 10-15 hours is not short, it is the absolutely right length for this kind of narrative (emphasis on that aspect). Max Payne was created to feel like a graphic novel, and I think the length is consistent with this proposal. The point is: It doesn't mean that I was completely tired of Max Payne by finishing the first game. When I finished, I immediately wanted to play the sequel. But we have to understand that a game is not short if the length is consistent with the proposal and justifies the cost of production. Making a game is very hard and expensive. You can't expect to get quality game time for so little price, unless every game maker was like Radiant. He crafts games, but most game designers are just creating products. It's not their fault, they are taught to do so. So you can't expect something else unless you want to start a revolution. The fact that some games can provide hundreds of hours of entertainment doesn't justify that you demand that from every other game, you see? It is a very unfair demand, because every game is different, and the length is usually related to the specific proposal of the game. Some players think like angry consumers that just want to maximize their satisfaction no matter what, and that reduces games to some kind of drug. This is bad for creativity and for the evolution of games.

I believe in appreciating a game regardless of its length (providing the length is consistent with the narrative). Price is not the subject here, but I also follow the lines of the scratchware manifesto. Death to the game industry and the commodification of gaming! Long live to gaming as a free human activity! The question about length is a question of culture industry. It restricts the art of making games because of market pressure. That's why I criticize the idea that games serve get a certain effect: be it relaxation or whatever. I don't think you are alone in this, I hear that all the time: "Games only exist to help us relax and escape from the problems and frustrations of life. They are a result of our need to take a break from reality, and they are made to fulfill that need". NOT AT ALL! You can choose to see games like that, but games can communicate with the full spectrum of human emotions. Just listen to yourself, talking about games like someone talks about alcohol. We only use games to fulfill that specific need because we created a society that makes us feel empty. Even the less frustrated of all persons still needs to play games.

In the end, I feel that my complaint is one of a minority wanting to be recognized as a valuable gamer too.

Yes, Eric. Sorry, I forgot to make that clear.

Weston, this might be due to my ignorance too, but I still believe that I understood the ludological position. I just don't agree with it.

You just used the "games are interactive" argument. This may look crazy to you, but no, I don't think games have any special relation with interactivity. It all depends on what you call "interactivity", really. Depending on it, interactivity may be just an illusion. The Stanley Parable is an example.

Now, is The Game a game? Well, I'm sure that if you look hard enough, you can see some interactivity in it, or you can say this is not a game. It doesn't matter. What matters is that saying that "interaction" is what sets games apart from other things is still drawing a line, and the argument remains. We only expect something like "interaction" from games (or anything else you can cast as the "specific nature" of them) because we are told to expect something like that. The relation is constructed by the use, it is not obvious by "looking at its nature", and it is not there on its own, for a simple reason: nothing is. You can't really look directly at the "nature" of anything, your vision is always mediated by the attributed meaning. Whatever you choose to see as the "nature" of something, it is still a choice. Nothing can really be understood "on it's own terms", except maybe analytic propositions. Comparison is inevitable because concepts are always made out of comparisons.

Take calvinball, for example. Is it a game?

Instead of allowing all games to be equally valuable, what ludologists do is try to convince everyone that a game is more valuable when it has more of whatever they say it's the "defining trait" of games, preferably in enough quantity to set them safely away from other media.

Let's take interactive fiction (IF), for example. It is a kind of game, and it is a form of literature. Back in the golden age of IF, many authors believed that IF would be the future of literature. No one would want to read non-interactive books ever again. Interactivity, in this case, is a method that serves the storytelling purpose. The act of playing an IF is the act of reading and telling a story at the same time, that means being an active part in the act of telling. What you play is the story, not something that also has a story. But the story is arranged in a way that you cannot find it without interacting with the author. Rules simply mediate the interaction between player and author. What gives the title to the work is not the rules of "interaction", but the story. Interactivity is needed to play IF because the story will not be told without it.

A specific game identity is defined by its specific interaction or its specific story, or both? How much can I change the interaction or the story before it becomes a different game? How "cool" must something be to be considered a game? Video-games are necessarily more interactive than game-books? Nothing prevents you from making a game-book with more complex interaction than Pac-Man. A game that you play by not giving any input can still have a quantifiable response to player input? A purely sandbox game, no goals and no challenge, is still a game? If you set the goal of reading a book to the end in a given number of hours, does it become a game?

This said, if you strip an adventure game from its puzzles and goals you are taking away all the risk and fun of it! You might as well read a comic book.

This is more or less what ludologists say: Games are X. If you take X from games, you better watch a movie. If you want to make games without X, you better make movies. Well, I like to play games that are more like interactive comic books. You don't have to strip the puzzles. Just make them optional. Does it hurt? Besides, you can have puzzles and goals in a book too. So...

Gaming is beating the game. The most successful games are difficult to beat and either require fast fingers and quick reflexes or a good dose of the gray stuff! The best ones combine all this elements.

Miguel, you are free to disagree. But let me ask you this: If I don't really want to be challenged, and I don't really care about feeling capable of beating my opposition, if I have no special need to win, no thrill for winning or loosing, and my state of mind when playing a game is very similar my state of mind when reading a book, am I still playing a game? Have a I ever enjoyed playing a game in my whole life? What am I doing all this time, then?

When colonizers taught my indigenous ancestors to play soccer, they liked it so much that they created a special event for all the people to play it. They only changed a few rules: the game goes on until both teams are tied. There is never a winner or a loser, everyone wins and commemorate together. They like it better that way. So, are they still playing a game?

As you can see, I think your concept of game is a little ethnocentric. Or maybe you can call me a non-gamer. Because what makes the games better for you is exactly what I don't like in them.

bicilotti,

One could say that your culture told you the story that games must be "challenging", and you took it for reality. One could say that this is because your culture wanted all games to be about the same story: a story of war, a story of conflict between opposing forces, a story about being stronger then the rest. A story that could inspire and lead your people to victory in other aspects of life. You know what I mean.

MillsJROSS, I agree that every experience needs a minimum length to generate satisfaction. But can we measure the standard length for games? You can say that a book, a movie, a song or a meal is too short for it's price if, and only if, you understand how much effort it took to make it, or the price of production. Saying that people will not buy it for its length alone may be a good business argument, but it is not a valid criticism for a game. What is game criticism? Like movie, literature, music or culinary criticism, game criticism is not a consumer guide, so it is less about the price/worth of the product, and more about it's cultural relevance. If the game provides a full experience, but the length is shorter than what players expected "for it's price", it is possible that the problem is in the players expectation. Saying it's too short because you won't be satisfied as a consumer unless it lasts as much as other titles is not a valid criticism, it's just a reaffirmation of the idea that a game's value is attached to the amount of time it takes from you. It would be valid criticism if you also considered the reasons why players want it to be so, instead of just accepting that as a necessary fact, "like it or not". Knowing what consumers want and designing your product to fulfill their desires is a very good market strategy, but it not so important when what you are making is a work of art. So you have to decide what is more important to you.

If the content is wonderful and the price is fair (considering the cost of production and the demand value), and still you won't buy it because it's "to short for it's price", then you are taking the side of those who think video-games are time-wasting machines. In the same way, most people think that food only serves to fill theirs stomachs and satisfy psychological needs for "fulfillment", not really for it's nutritional rates. That's why they are getting sick, while indigenous people are healthy eating much less.

I agree that fillers are not always bad. But to satisfy the consumer needs is not always a good thing, because the consumer culture can be a problem itself. If I'm going to charge you the right price for something that it is really good for you, but it doesn't generate "dependency", because it is not some electronic drug created to make you play until you eyes fall out, then you, as a smart consumer, will not buy it, and soon it will cease to exist, and you will lost it forever. But if you were trained to be such a consumer since your childhood, you are really a victim, and you don't even know what you are losing. You are like those fat people in the Wall-E movie. They surely would never pay for a good salad when they can have another milkshake. So, it is really your decision.

Ghost,

System Shock is a great game. Tried to play System Shock 2 with a friend, but it is not the same thing.

Thank you guys. Let me highlight some thoughts so I can continue this conversation:

"The best FPS's contain characters that the player can relate and a set of dramatic trials that are written in order to create an illusion that not all you doing is shooting targets."

I have a very radical opinion about this. When two people are making sex, love is not just a "set of dramatic trials" that create an illusion that they are not just rubbing their erogenous parts to feel pleasure. You see, that's what I call reductionism. When you are playing a good FPS, you are absolutely not just shooting things. What defines the human actions, real or virtual, is the attributed meaning. And we can consider the reductionist description of things as just another meaning.

From my point of view, games are totally about storytelling. Rules are nothing but tricks that storytellers created to make their stories more appealing. The problem is: our culture is fascinated with rules, for very specific reasons. I know very well the arguments of Jesper Juul and other ludologists, and I have reasons to disagree, but it all goes back to worldviews.

"One thing indie adventures fail often, in my guilty opinion, is to deliver too much of a story and too less of gaming purpose."

Let me try to look at it from another angle: From some point of view, the problem is not too much story. If you believe interactivity evolved from the art of telling stories around the campfire, then you can consider that storytellers learnt how to get the listeners reaction and then adapt the story to make it more interesting. In short, you don't have a good story if you don't know how to tell it, because the story and the telling are inseparable. Another analogy with love is needed: If you think you love someone, but nothing happens between you two, then what's happening there is not love, it could become love, but it is something else yet.

One thing is that games, like stories, don't actually NEED anything per se. Adventures don't really need puzzles or goals. Maybe most players think they need those things, and if you think you need to please them, then you will need to include that. But the only thing games need is the freedom to be whatever they may be.

It's not that hard to think of a good story, but that's not enough to make it remarkable. I think that adventures need better storytelling skills, with tricks that work in favor of the story, not against it. If the story and the telling are inseparable, then when the excess dialog is boring, the story is boring. I hope that makes sense.

"What's your academic background, Janos?"

I studied philosophy from 2002 to 2008, graduated (bachelor degree) and specialized in evolutionary epistemology. By that time, I've read a lot of philosophy of language and, of course, Wittgenstein. Later I studied theology and sociology (master degree).

In the full paper, I discuss a comment Jull made about that passage that bicilotti quoted from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Jull says: "It is of course a common assumption, following Ludwig Wittgenstein, that games cannot be defined." It is easy to see the problem here. Wittgenstein was responding to the accusation that his work does not explains what language is because it doesn't point to what is common in all activities that we call "language". He then starts to talk about the concept of "game", and later the concept of "number", to show that those terms, just like "language", do not necessarily applies to a closed set of activities with common features, and he explains why is that. It is a concept with an open frontier, but it is not indefinable.

Jull comment is wrong (in this case), and he hasn't really given a good answer to the problem that Wittgenstein raised about the concept of game, which involves the problem of language. Wittgenstein is saying that "familiarity" is not a necessary feature of concepts, so you can have concepts with no familiarity between its members, because when you draw a line, you are just drawing a line. The concept does not draws a line for you, we draw a line to use the concept, but we can draw the line higher or lower, depends on the use of the concept. That's what ludologists are doing, they are drawing a line for the concept of game, but it is not because they understand games better than anyone else. It's because they can't stand a world where games are not such special things as they want them to be. And my argument is that this is mostly because they think that if they just let games and storytelling merge, then this can be the first step to let the game industry be merged with the movie industry, and that would be horrible for business.

In 2007 there was a topic in this forum titled "What is a game?". I recently wrote an academic paper on the subject, and I think my point can add to the discussion, so I'm summarizing it below, in the form of a forum topic. Consider this a "game theory" topic.

The Danish researcher Jesper Juul (2003) listed seven different definitions for the term "game", citing from Huizinga (1949) to Salen and Zimmerman (2004). His own definition is: "A game is a formal system of rules with variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable".

Professor Jan Simons (2007) stated that theorists like Juul, Aarseth, Eskelinen and Frasca separate the concept of game from the concept of narrative, as if they belong to totally different categories. Thus they created a division in the game studies between "ludologists" and "narratologists". For ludologists, games are not about storytelling, they have to be understood "in their own terms". The controversy over the status of games as art falls precisely in this context.

Ralph Koster (2013) agrees with the ludological position, stating that games have to be fun, and fun is defined as "the act of mastering a problem mentally". Fun is different from delight. "Games are not stories. Games are not about beauty or delight. Games are not about jockeying for social status. They are, in their own right, something incredibly valuable". See the image below:



My point is that the conflict between "ludologists" and "narratologists" is not purely theoretical. The major reason why ludologists choose to follow such definition of game is that they wanted the game industry to be fully independent from other entertainment industries, like the movie industry. Arguments on both sides demonstrate that, and the image above makes it clearer too. That's why the Independent Games Festival, which has almost only ludologists as judges, doesn't have a "best story" category. That may also explain why games focused on narrative, like adventure games, are somehow considered "minor" games.

The sociological question of the emergent game industry fighting for market territory against the established movie industry may explain the real issue behind the discussion. Understanding it may may help the game culture to find it's balance again. There is no reason to exclude or despise gamers and game designers that see games as an interactive way to tell a story. The ludological definition become too restrict when you look at some experimental, artistic, conceptual or "story-driven" games that do not deserve to be called "non-games" or "quasi-games" just because they cannot be defined as "games" in ludological terms. The very idea of using "game designer" instead of "game maker" comes from this sociological background.

Some may even consider the ludological definition as reductionist. The concept of game is reduced to the mechanics that allow the game experience. In the AGS community, it seems most people agree that creating a good game involves creating a good story. But game designers all around the world are learning to think like ludogists, because ludology books are now considered the most advanced and influential game theory available. The consequence? What do you think?

HUIZINGA, Johan. Homo ludens. Taylor & Francis, 1949.

JUUL, Jesper. The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness. In Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference Proceedings. Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2003, p. 30-45.

KOSTER, Raph. Theory of fun for game design. O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2013.

SALEN, Katie; ZIMMERMAN, Eric. Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. MIT press, 2004.

SIMONS, Jan. Narrative, Games, and Theory. Game Studies, Volume 7, issue 1, 2007.

Hey Grim, nice to see you here. I played Dungeons of Dredmor for so long I could see colored numbers coming out of things, like damage markers. My "mental world" was dominated by it, all I could think of was about corridors and rooms and items. I was making songs about it in my mind. It became a metaphor for my own life. I lost my job because I forgot what day was it and just kept playing. That's one of the reasons my wife left me, so my case is very serious. My opinion is surely affected by my experience. I dream a lot, so dreaming about games, movies, books and songs is very common for me. I recently played Max Payne 1 and 2, and my dreams are now a little bit more noir than usual. I think that somewhere along the way our technological culture lost track of reality. Everything is just a dream inside a dream inside a dream... Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Ghost, thanks for your answer. When I thought about the "short" option in games, what I had in mind is not something very different from the "easy" option. It's not applicable for any kind of game, and it is not about shorten the story. When a game mixes action (or puzzle solving, or any other element) with story, the player who just wants the action (or the puzzle solving, and so on) can often skip the narrative. But when you don't want to shoot or solve things, or at least not so many things, you rarely have the option to skip that parts. The idea is to allow a more fluid narrative for those that are not in the mood to kill a thousand ninjas/zombies/aliens/thugs/etc. or solving a series of logical problems before getting to a boss or to the next plot node, and not to butcher the story. Sure, I love to play puzzle games, break codes and discover secret passages, but sometimes I would prefer to see a cinematic of how the protagonist found the antagonist, and go on from there. This is not the same as skipping to the ending. It is skipping to the next important part. Unless the game doesn't really have any. I'm surely NOT saying that I dislike playing and I'm happy when it's over, not at all. That sounds like a compulsion. Maybe some games can create this felling sometimes, but that's not what I meant. I meant that only when I finish the game I feel free to think more critically about it, and that's what I like the most.

For example, I would love to play a modified version of Left 4 Dead where you have less zombies to kill, and slower zombies too, or more options to pass through without a massacre, because I really like the dialogues between the characters and the apocalyptic scenarios. I liked the idea of having to fill the car gas tank in Left 4 Dead 2, but hated the idea of having to collect so many gasoline gallons, over and over again, and having to kill hundreds of zombies every time. When I saw the trailers for those games, I thought they were more about narrative, because of the cinematographic language being used. Them I saw it was like an arcade shooting gallery. Nothing against that, but I think that since the game has so many different modes, it wouldn't be so hard to make one more mode that fits this description. But maybe never occurred to them that someone would like to play this way... So the short version would not be such a burden to the game designer. In fact, I think most games are firstly designed this way, and then inflated by "level" designers. So I don't see why including such option would harm the game or the players. The long version could still be the standard, with nice special achievements for those who like it. Isn't that how it works?

Gribbler, I play short games because I feel very rewarded by playing them. Long games sometimes are like long-term relationships, they ask for compromise, and sometimes I really can't give it to them. No problem with long games, though. A game could be infinite, if it has a good story. Just divide it in episodes, like a series. Thinking about the problem of selling short games, I came up with this idea of the short version. It was the best I could think to satisfy both kind of players. You don't need to choose if the game will be long or short, you can make it both ways. That, considering that the game is not purely story-driven. The parts to skip are those that challenge the skills of the player, not the ones that tell the story.

Trillian? Hehe, just kidding, but it looks familiar.

I agree with Andail and dactylopus. I had a very silly idea: Games should have a length option. That's because people like me, and I hope I'm not alone in this, really don't have much time to play games, and would enjoy a shorter version of most games. Because to me the real fun begins after I finished the game, not while playing.

So far is Primordia.

WOW!

As Vito Gesualdi said in a 2013 Destructoid article titled "In defense of shorter games”, the common statement that a game would be better “if it wasn't so short” is rarely a valid criticism. This is especially true for games that are focused in telling a story. If the story is complete, it makes no sense saying it is too short. The Lord of the Rings book, for example, has 480 pages. If you take 2 minutes to read each page, you can read it in 16 hours. Is it too short for an epic story? Well, most people think it's not short enough. They say Spritz is genial because it makes you read faster. But when they release play a full, beautiful game that takes 5 hours to complete, everyone will say it's too short for the average price of a commercial game. Why?

I've played free indie games with 5 minutes length that were worth more in game experience than 100 hours of mindless repetition in blockbuster games. Why do we care so much about spending more time in games, and less time reading? To Gesualdi, the problem is this stupid idea that games should occupy a large amount of your time in order to be worth the price. The implicit idea is that games are the kind of entertainment that serves to keep you occupied for a long time, instead of giving you something to think about for a long time, like a book, a movie or even a TV series. Games are pleasant time-wasters created to fill your time with mindless activities, keeping you from thinking about reality. That's why you need fast-action gameplay and realistic graphics. Is that it?

People pay $50 for a full season box set of a TV series with 20 episodes of about 30 minutes each. That's 10 hours of entertainment, and they never complain that it is “too short”. Besides, games are much more expensive to make than TV series. What makes them expensive is not the duration of the game, but mostly the graphics. And yet you will see reviewers saying that a game it's too short for its price. That simply makes no sense.

Because of such idea, game designers now have to inject pseudo-content in their games to make them commercially acceptable. What “pseudo-content” means? It's content that doesn't add to the game experience, it just adds to the game length. Game designers learnt how to employ Pavlovian conditioning methods to keep the players repeating routines that would be otherwise considered boring and pointless. It's about building long corridors connecting the rooms, where the real content is, so you don't get there too soon, and then filling these corridors with lots of random variations of things that barely relate to the game plot.

Most so-called “full-length” games are not really large, they are inflated with pseudo-content, and you know it. But still we keep telling ourselves that “this game is great, but it's too short”. Let's think about it: there is no such thing as “too short”. Games are either complete or incomplete; they can never be too short. If the purpose of a game is to provide a game experience, and not to keep you occupied so you forget how miserable your life is, than you can't be serious about it being “to short for its price”, unless you are really talking about a drug. You should even pay more for a game that cut's the crap, delivers just what you paid for, and lets you free to do more interesting things than killing a thousand enemies, solving annoying puzzles or collecting a thousand things, even if that means having some time to discuss the topics raised in the game with your friends. You don't have to stay hooked in fantasy worlds all the time, you know? That's not even healthy.

The game industry will not die if you choose to have a life. If you think games are only worth when they make you stay long hours looking fixedly to a screen, not caring about anything but what is happening there, then let me tell you something: Games are great additions to life, but not very good substitutes. Games shouldn't be treated as a drug to keep you away from the burden of being alive. Real life still has more important experiences, and it's not so expensive. You should try it more often.

The point is very simple: Quantity is not quality, so length should not be so important when judging a game. If we keep saying that games like Portal are “too short”, we will keep receiving games full of pseudo-content, and we will be wasting time that could be better used, with better games for example. State-of-the-art graphics are very expensive. If you want to spend less money in games, just ask for simpler graphics. But if you prefer to use your graphics card instead of your imagination, then pay for the quality, not for the quantity.

Well, looks like its signed by Sauer, the guy from Outcast?

Wait, Mandle, please tell me about your vegetarian mother!

Also, can we include the full range from automatons to biological droids in this conversation?

Exactly.