The Pathology of Game Design

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What does it mean, though? It means emotional consequences: remorse, shame, pride, relief, affection. Making the player feel the effect of his decisions. If the actual videogame takes place in the space between the mind and the machine, then it follows that the player should bear at least half the responsibility. The trick is to quit quantifying everything. Instead of experience points and power-ups, allow the player the freedom and nuance to develop and perfect his own skills and methods. (The Wii should help here.) Instead of offering trinkets and material rewards, offer the insight needed to further empower the player in his decision-making. Instead of compelling the player to act, persuade him. Instead of showing the player cutscenes, telling him how he is supposed to feel, give him difficult choices with emotional ramifications, and let him find his own meaning.

Do away with binary logic; nothing ever is or isn't—is good or evil, is right or wrong. It's all relative, and there's always a trade-off. Nobility demands sacrifice, sometimes (paradoxically) of one's own principles. Outside of death, no failure is absolute. Human experience is not absolute and is not quantifiable, which is why behaviorism just doesn't cut it in understanding life.

So how might a game designer accomplish any of this? Use your imagination; it will come to you. Dilemmas, conflicting goals, and substantial consequence—not least of which the player's own sense of responsibility. Do you follow orders, or listen to the guy next to you, who has shown himself helpful, warm, and trustworthy? If you don't go with him, what will happen to him? To you? What will happen to you if you're left alone? What will happen if you ignore your orders? What will happen if you go through with them alone? What will happen if you let him go? What will happen if you don't? Whose judgment do you trust? What's the worst case scenario? What if it plays out—what then?

Aren't we already kind of doing this? What about free-form or sandbox games, like Grand Theft Auto or Oblivion, that let the player find his own path and read in his own meaning? Answer: freedom of action is not the same as liberty of choice. The player feels powerful, in that little stands in his way, yet is not particularly empowered, in that he faces no dilemmas, has no meaningful decisions to make. The world he is acting upon is lifeless, inconsequential. On the one hand it exists only as a backdrop for the player to misbehave; on the other, the player is inconsequential within it as his actions have no lasting effect.

But How Does It Taste?

This all sounds artsy, wishy-washy, too serious, or simply not fun. Don't most people just want to play games to shoot stuff? Would anyone aside from elite hipsters actually want to play a game like this, where the player carries so much of a burden? Well, yeah, if it's done well. You might as well ask why Catch-22 is published in paperback, when people only read paperbacks when they're bored and trying to fill a few empty moments, or why they keep putting out Rashomon on the newest consumer formats when the whole point of those formats is to look and sound amazing on your new AV setup.

People play videogames to feel empowered: to feel free to make their own decisions, and for those decisions to actually matter. If the player feels he matters, then even if he makes a tremendous blunder, that's more than cathartic. It's momentous; it's poignant; it's fulfilling.

Maturity is maturity. Not everyone appreciates it; not everyone has to. There will always be garbage, and there will always be people who drive it and thrive on it—which is fine. Again, nothing wrong with mindless fun, in moderation. A Big Mac will always be cheaper, more convenient, easier to enjoy than a solid, well-cooked meal, and sometimes that's just what the situation calls for. The point is that a mature life contains all of this. There are decisions to be made, options to be weighed, each with its unique pros and cons; its own consequences, however small. As for life, so goes for art. A mature medium contains the whole spectrum of decision—as does a mature work in that medium.

With maturity comes respect. Accountability. Prestige. If we want the political opportunists off the industry's back, we'd better have something to show them. If gamers want people to stop treating them like children for their hobby, they'd better be able to show why it's not so childish. (Blood and swearing will not help the point.) Until the industry has something to show for itself, it will remain a target. And rightfully so.

Provided by Next Generation—Interactive Entertainment Today