Theory

[icycalm]

Try to figure out what's wrong with this article. Note that "everything" is not the correct answer (the correct answer is "almost everything", though you'll need to be a bit more specific than that).

http://gamedesignadvance.com/?p=1120

Please be respectful towards the author because he is not a bad guy. He is just deeply confused, much like everyone else.

[icycalm]

What I find funny is that his non-confrontational tone offends me. I mean the reason he expresses himself so timidly is to avoid offending people -- and yet this approach has the exact opposite effect on me. And lo and behold, one of the reasons he is so confused is because he lacks the courage to follow his instincts, wherever they may lead him.

It's a mess, really. There's nothing you can do for academics.

[Vert1]

PRODUCTISM - MEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA

This is by far the most widespread mode of examining games and is associated primarily with video games. In this view games are products that contain a variety of different kinds of media, such as sound effects, thematic graphics, and story sequences in text and cinematic form, with each element as valuable as every other, including the actual play of the game.

.....

The primary problem with critiquing games as media products is that it’s difficult to turn around and critique other games by the same standards. Because they must often give equal attention to the typically more glamorous elements of a game, it can be hard for practitioners of this method to appreciate a game where those elements aren’t present. For instance, it’s difficult to assess an abstract puzzle game like Tetris by the same standards you would use to examine a game with 30 minute cut-scenes like Metal Gear Solid 4.

What ends up happening is that you have one set of standards by which you judge media extravaganzas, and another which you apply to more abstract and/or traditional games. Inevitably, coherency suffers.

The problem here is that this way of judging games is flawed. People play Tetris for the game's mechanics, not the graphics or music. It would be very amusing to hear somebody say that Tetris's graphics somehow affect their liking of the game.

I feel like he should have just said "high production values" instead of 30 minute cutscenes. Sounds like he is asking how to compare a tv episode to Tetris. As if Tetris is somehow inadequate because it lacks bullshit.

How do you compare the media extravangaz to Tetris? The answer lies in what we care about in Tetris. Tetris does not require any "charm". The problem is that most people seem to view a game's "charm" (or flash) as something that makes up for a poorly made game. In fact some even speculate that we remember certain games simply because of the music (i.e. NiGHTS, Chrono Trigger, etc).

[ganheddo]

FORMALISM - ABSTRACT ELEGANCE

He mentioned himself that a strength of videogames is their capability of handling intricate rule systems. They free their players from the burden of upholding the rules and hide their implementation behind an interface. Therefore the "elegance" (or efficiency) of using as few rules as possible (to achieve a vast possibility space) isn't a decisive factor anymore.

In videogames it's more about how these rules are accessed and how their impact is displayed. Even with interfaces, intuitivity might not be universally preferable, as the main challenge of a game can lie in its complicated operation (e.g. Power Shovel ni Norou!!).




PLAYISM – EXPLORATORY FREEDOM

Every time we play a videogame for the first time, we explore its rules within the freedom it grants us, and even if we might say that there's no explicitly stated goal in a sandbox like Sim City (which is debatable, as only a blind could miss the population counter), our goal then is just to find something interesting to do. That's why the best way to review sandboxes, is to explain the best games that can be found and played within them. If something worthwile is nowhere to be seen, we've mistaken a sandbox with quicksand, that just sucks away our precious time.

The issue that a videogame may itself contain a variety of different games, is nothing really exceptional. Nearly every videogame nowadays throws a couple different "modes", or at least a variety of objectives, at us. We may play shmups for survival or score, compete against other opponents or a timer (time trials) in racers, etc. Even different option settings may have such a great impact, that changes may lead to entirely different games.

The most economic and sensible way to review then, is to always try and play a game according to its designers intent (default settings or mode e.g. "VS" in fighters) and if this intention isn't obvious, to concentrate on the best game we encountered through "exploratory freedom".




THE ENGINEERING BIAS

It may, at some point, turn out that the things we like about our games are in fact fundamental and long-lasting. It’s far more likely though that they’re simply a reflection of our present values; values that will change with time.

A good example of this is pixel art.

This sounds like a justification, in case the reviewer is seduced by shiny graphics. Who cannot see the merit of pixel art shouldn't review videogames.




MECHANISM - MECHANICS ARE THE MEANING &
PRODUCTISM - MEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA

A videogame is both mechanics and aesthetics, and should be reviewed by observing how both are used in conjunction.

In this view [productism] games are products that contain a variety of different kinds of media, such as sound effects, thematic graphics, and story sequences in text and cinematic form, with each element as valuable as every other, including the actual play of the game.

The rules governing the "play of the game" are of greatest importance. The only thing relevant about the "other kinds of media" (and what decides if they're superfluous) is how they influence a player's perception of the mechanics, i.e. how these "other media" add to the game's atmosphere. So I guess I agree with Humble:

“a game needs nothing else apart from its rules to succeed as a work of art”, according to Humble. In this respect ‘Mechanism’ holds that other elements of a game, not directly affecting the play, are at best ancillary and at worst superfluous

[ganheddo]

What I find funny is that his non-confrontational tone offends me.

Yes, well I didn't feel offended, but he really could've tried to be a bit more dismissive. He seems to be satisfied with asking "Where is games criticism right now?" instead of "Where should games criticism be?".

The hope is that by pointing out some of the lenses through which we examine games we can get a better sense of the still developing critical community. Once we have a sense of where we stand in relation to each other, then it will be easier to refine our approaches and disagree more constructively, which in the end is the real job of critics!

If he really wants to "disagree constructively" regarding videogame criticism, why doesn't he disagree at all? Instead of raising his voice in the article, he just incidentally mentions in the quotes that he's a "Formalist" and sees "serious conceptual problems in Productism and Mechanism". Maybe he'll write a follow-up article "Four Critical Modes on Games: why I like one more than the others".

[Recap]

The problem here is that this way of judging games is flawed. People play Tetris for the game's mechanics, not the graphics or music. It would be very amusing to hear somebody say that Tetris's graphics somehow affect their liking of the game.

Hi. Tetris graphics (and sound) somehow affect my liking of the game.

[icycalm]

He must have missed this thread:

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?t=2617

Vert1 needs to pay more attention.

[Vert1]

That thread is locked, so let me know if you want to continue this line of discussion in another thread.

I knew when I posted that that there would be someone out there who would try to make me look foolish over that sentence. I do think graphics matter. I'd like to ask Recap to what extent does Tetris's graphics affect his game experience? I am only amused by the talk of Tetris's graphics because of how unimportant they are to me. I don't think I've read anything about "Tetris's graphics haven't aged well". Tetris graphics aren't something I really appreciate despite my thinking that the game is represented perfectly by them.

[icycalm]

you probably know that you deleted 2 of my posts in that thread

Did I? I delete so many posts these days that I tend to instantly forget about them the moment I delete them. Which is a good thing too, especially for my blood pressure.

That thread is locked, so let me know if you want to continue this line of discussion in another thread.

Discuss what? Whether a game's graphics "somehow affect one's liking of a game"? There's nothing to discuss here. If you think there is, here's a site where I believe they would love to have that discussion with you:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/

I'd like to ask Recap to what extent does Tetris's graphics affect his game experience?

Yes, this is the gist of it. Nothing is entirely unimportant, but some things are more important than others. If you use language with more care you avoid misunderstandings, and also avoid toying with my patience.

[losganados]

Hello, this is my first post and I would like to say that I enjoy this site and that I appreciate the hard work that you have put into it.

As for what is wrong with the article, I think the problem is that he asks "Where is video game criticism?" and then summarizes four different modes of "criticism". The question he should be asking is "What is video game criticism?", since none of those methods are proper forms of criticism. Those modes are more like beliefs (-isms) of what video games should be or what they are about.

[Worm]

losganados has the right of it. The author seems to use "critical standards" to mean "things that people talk about when they talk about games" instead of "criteria for establishing a hierarchy."

This is how his "four approaches" look when we go ahead and distill criteria out of them anyway:

1. FORMALISM - ABSTRACT ELEGANCE
The best games are the ones that provide the most complexity ("lots of interesting choices") with the smallest rulesets.

2. PRODUCTISM - MEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA
The best games are the ones that have the highest production values and provide the most "cinematic" experiences.

3. MECHANISM - MECHANICS ARE THE MEANING
The best games are the ones with the best messages as conveyed implicitly through mechanics.

4. PLAYISM – EXPLORATORY FREEDOM
The best games are the ones that offer the player the most freedom to explore and make their own goals.

Problems are now apparent:

1) What about complexity without elegance? It has been shown several times on this site that some players enjoy learning large sets of rules. And, how is "lots of interesting choices" different from 4)? Just the addition of an explicit goal?

2) This is akin to playing games "for the atmosphere;" I suppose it is a way that people try to review games these days. Good luck getting any of them to admit it, though.

3) This is practically a non sequitur. Sure, some people like to talk about what the mechanics of a game "mean." But who talks about those messages as a way of ranking games?

4) Players can make their own goals in any game. Also, see 1). Besides, does anyone actually say that this is what makes some games better than others?

So, 1) and 2) are clumsy but passable stabs at "mechanical comparisons" vs. "aesthetic comparisons," respectively, and 3) and 4) are basically his imagined opponents and shouldn't be in the article.

[icycalm]

I am lolling my ass off at the last post. Very good!

I'll say some stuff myself later.

[Bradford]

1. FORMALISM - ABSTRACT ELEGANCE
The best games are the ones that provide the most complexity ("lots of interesting choices") with the smallest rulesets.
. . .
1) What about complexity without elegance? It has been shown several times on this site that some players enjoy learning large sets of rules. And, how is "lots of interesting choices" different from 4)? Just the addition of an explicit goal?

I just want to address this one because I think it has a lot of intuitive appeal - the idea that the game is 'more efficient' so it must be better. However, I think it should be rejected for relying upon the false premise that the words 'elegance' or 'efficiency,' when referring to the ruleset of a video game, have any meaning when criticizing the final product that is played (obviously, those words may have significance to the people who have to actually do the work of writing the code and the people who pay them by the hour).

Specifically, and in addition to what Worm pointed out:

Consider two videogames, identical in every way, including the size of the possibility space, except for the following:

Game A has 1,000,000 rules.
Game B has 1,000,001 rules.

The only conclusion possible is that the ratio of rules to possibility space does not alone change how good a game is. Is Game A more 'efficient'? More 'elegant'? Who cares? The games are identical in every way that is meaningful to the player.

And that leads to another issue; I think the original author is only referring to certain types of rules, which are very difficult to distinguish from the other millions of rules. He's referring to only the rules in the instruction manual, so to speak; the basic ones you need to know to play proficiently (e.g., what all the buttons on the controller do), not just to play at all (for which you need to know none).

I'm going to leave this alone here, because there's a lot of trouble down this road with issues that I don't think I can express clearly without writing thousands more words, starting with a lengthy 'definitions' section. I can't escape the conclusion, however, that the mere fact that Game A has a higher rule quantity:possibility space ratio than Game B, when in all other respects the two games play the same, is completely irrelevant to criticism of the final product as a game (as opposed to, say, economic analysis).

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/basic_instincts/

[Arthur'sDog]

Not to add useless discourse, but I think this is your best article in a while. You may need opponents for motivation, but since this this piece is motivated by a discussion of constructive passion rather than scorn, it added a lightness to your "pen" without abandoning consistent principles.

Great stuff.

[bunuelo]

For instance, it’s difficult to assess an abstract puzzle game like Tetris by the same standards you would use to examine a game with 30 minute cut-scenes like Metal Gear Solid 4.

By this argument, it would be difficult to assess an abstract puzzle game like Tetris by the same standards you would use to examine a game with 30 minute cut-scenes like Tetris With Thirty-Minute Cutscenes Inserted.

[icycalm]

Not to add useless discourse, but I think this is your best article in a while. You may need opponents for motivation, but since this this piece is motivated by a discussion of constructive passion rather than scorn, it added a lightness to your "pen" without abandoning consistent principles.

"Constructive passion", lol. You are a girl, aren't you? What about "DESTRUCTIVE passion" -- ever heard of that? All the little gays love "constructive", "positive", "warm and fuzzy" concepts. And all concepts eventually get two versions: the "constructive" criticism, for example, and the "DESTRUCTIVE" criticism. Etc. etc. AS IF THERE WAS ANY DIFFERENCE!

Meh, fucking retards. "Constructive passion", lol. This article is "motivated" by "constructive passion" instead of by "scorn". -- IT'S MOTIVATED BY THE SUBJECT MATTER YOU FUCKIN' IMBECILE -- IF THE SUBJECT MATTER IS ONE THAT WARRANTS SCORN THEN THERE WILL BE FUCKING SCORN IN IT -- IF IT'S NOT THEN THERE WON'T BE. ANALYSIS IS NOT LIKE COOKING: "OH, LET'S ADD A TOUCH OF SCORN, AND A FEW GRAINS OF PASSION, AND TWO SPOONFULS OF CRITICISM, STIR AND SERVE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE."

And there WOULD have been a lot more scorn if I had actually commented on Pratt's article in detail -- the reason that I didn't was because nothing would be gained by it. In the case of the hobags, on the other hand, there WAS something to be gained by it, and so I did it.

Meh, whatever. I am really only writing these articles for myself. I would be a fool to expect anyone else to understand anything from them.

At any rate, here is a clarification:

There was one point which I would like to clarify though: In my course your 'Arcade Culture' essay was not presented in a New Games Journalism context. My reference to NGJ in the syllabus was only concerning Tim Rogers, and in the end became a side note.

My purpose in pairing Arcade Culture with Life: Non-Warp was because I wanted to two perspectives on the idea of 'mastery'. This is a subject that I think gets too little attention in discussing video games.

[icycalm]

I'd like to apologize for my outburst, for whatever that's worth. It can just be quite frustrating to do all this work and not see any decent results. I mean I do see SOME results from time to time, but people are still debating about gameplay, or 1CCing or whatever, and these are issues I cleared up years ago, and they are some of the easiest ones to grasp. Now we are moving into issues which, to be understood, require knowledge of psychology, or quantum mechanics or whatever, and to have people come in and comment on childish shit like THE FUCKING SCORN, well, it's enough to drive someone mad. I feel like screaming "WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THAT YOU FUCKING MORONS! TRY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE AND FORGET ABOUT THE STYLE!"

Etc. etc.

But no one really cares about the substance. And I guess that makes sense: if you can't grasp the substance, all you're left with is the style. How much scorn is there? How many three-syllable words? How many subtle transitions? Rhyming sentences? Enough? Then it's a "good" article. It's like people are looking for poetry for christsake.

And the higher insights I give to people, the less feedback I get. The hobag article contained an insight that not even Baudrillard had managed to discover, and yet out of the 3,000+ people who have so far read it not ONE of them commented on it. It's as if it's not even there for them, even though I am pointing at it with these damn gigantic arrows. It's just invisible for them.

And to get back to the point of the present article, I bet not a single person understands what it's really saying. And that's just the beginning.

Oh well. I guess it's pathetic of me to whine like this, but I am trying to apologize after all, and apologies are supposed to be pathetic.

[dA]

This is what I got out of it:

It is only the man who writes absolutely for the sake of the subject that writes anything worth writing.

From here.

This quote seems to sum up most of your articles, especially the ones posted in the last few weeks. Schopenhauer was talking about money, which influence Alex analysed in The Videogame News Racket. But there's more than that: New Game Journalists write because they want to get rid of their bad conscience and women will never really care about video games in the first place. At least, not now games are mainstream, and passion is buried in mud.

"The medium is the message", something that is more worthwhile used by Icy than the three courses I've had on this subject this year on my university. Gaming journalism has nothing to do with games any more and by analysing its inner workings (fuelled by how the medium works) we can finally begin to talk about the subject itself.

A lot of what Alex has been talking about I've seen with my own eyes when working for gaming sites and magazines. I was and still am part of the process, even when writing for excellent sites like Bashers.nl with some journalists that feel instinctively what Icy is talking about. But they are still banging their heads against the side of the fly-bottle.

This article, just like Beyond the Video Game News Racket are solutions. How people can turn in genuine critics. Not by crawling in the mud that is thrown in by all the leeches, but by playing games and listening to your own instinct. That's what I'm doing now, rediscovering gaming, until I can talk about them again sometime. If ever.

[chb]

What I found especially interesting about the article was this part at the end:

-How would Street Fighter II become better?

More characters! More stages! More moves! Bigger and more fluidly animated sprites! Faster and with more elaborate and brutal effects! With more and better music!

-How would Dune II become better?

More units! More structures! Larger map size! More and more unpredictable, more intelligent adversaries! Better graphics! Better music! Better sound effects!

-How would Wolfenstein 3D become better?

More varied locations and scenarios! (Shooting Nazis inside a castle for hours on end eventually becomes boring.) More sprawling, realistic environments! More dynamic situations! More enemies and more friends -- human ones if possible! And of course always better graphics, better music and better sound effects!

-How would Space Invaders become better?

Bigger and more detailed enemies! More detailed and colorful graphics! And can we make the spaceship, you know, move around the screen, and travel to different planets and space environments? And can those different locations each present us with its own set of enemies and obstacles, as well as its own particular music and atmosphere?

-How would Grand Theft Auto III become better?

More and larger areas! More and more varied missions! Greater variety of moves, weapons and vehicles! More elaborate plot development and as many alternative paths through it as possible!

Et cetera, et cetera.

Now what do all these desirable features, these improvements demanded by the children, the most passionate, experienced and dedicated gamers, have in common? Therein lies Mr. Pratt's answer, and with this answer the instinctive criteria which were formerly subconscious become conscious. It is only at that point that superior criticism can begin.

What all these things that icycalm mentioned have in common is that they make the game more immersive, that they make it easier for the player to forget the real world (and wanting to forget the real world for a while is why we play games in the first place). Thus, it follows that the games that are more immersive are also the superior ones because they are better at doing what games are supposed to do: providing an escape from reality.

That's what I got out of the article. I hope I'm not entirely wrong.

[Naoshige]

First of all, sorry to burst in, for I am kind of new here. I have lurked for quite some time now and read all of Icy's frontpage essays (expect me to try applying a few of those insights from here on) though, so I'll try participating:


@chb

If you just talk about games in general (not about video games), this has to be wrong in several kinds of ways. Remember that most of the activities and competitions what we call reality are games in themselves, that even life itself is a game? I don't think one can call it escapism whenever someone stops playing one game in order to start playing another one!

Immersion is a word you usually use when talking about fictional worlds that aim to replace the 'real world' in the mind of the person being immersed. I don't think Tetris was there to immerse you into some kind of alternative reality, although you surely could forget about your physical environment or even your physical body while playing it. Videogames have to be engaging, but not necessarily immersing.

If the quality of a game just depended on how immersing it is, why then are people even playing videogames? Aren't real life games like family, career, dating, etc already as immersive as it can get?? Actually I am so immersed in my real life that I can't remember how my 'physical body' outside of it even looked like!! But I still continue to play video games like G-Darius and KikiKaiKai with their extremely limited immersion capabilities! I guess it all comes down to passion, another magical word from these essays. It is a simple truth that many people are more passionate about playing video games (or challenging themselves with other niche obsessions) than about the real-life games that are available to them. This seems to tie in somewhere with that Baudrillard essay about Disneyland being the most serious place in the United States. As soon as virtuality was discovered, the real world became infested with it. Dating and parties and everything else we falsely deem serious have already become games, while video games were dead serious right from the beginning (SpaceWAR!!) and grow even more serious, to the point even at which we already have to start censoring and banning them!

So back to topic I don't know whether people play video games because they can feel passionate about them more easily than they can about 'real life games' (the stuff you do at your office or with family or friends), but I sure get some vibes that passion is an element of central importance in discerning the better ones from the worse.

I think one of Icycalm's points in writing this essay was that he wanted to take another stab at the scientific game studies that his friend kind of represents. Scientifically analyzing a game will always be inferior to reviewing it with the burning passion of a dedicated player. Because for science to dissect something, it has to kill it first (don't know which essay this was from, I guess it was Baudrillard again). Passion, on the other hand, can 'study' a video game by using 'instincts' (another central word used in the essay) so it can see the very insides of it without having to dissect it, meaning the subject can still be alive and breathing while being reviewed!

So when reading some NGJ reviews Icy often gets the feel that the author writes about an already dead game, one that he has 'beaten' (on whichever difficulty setting using however many credits). I can somewhat share this experience from what NGJ reviews I've read so far. These authors often try to give the game a place in video game history, saying silly things like "easily one of the best fighting games of 2008". That might be okay for most or all JRPGs, which almost noone plays for a 'second time', but if the same approach is applied to skill-based games, it totally murders that game! People are still playing it and probably will be for several years onwards, in a way the game will even continue to evolve as players discover new ways of playing (e.g. in fighting games: finding glitches, creating tiers)!

-

Edit: I removed my attempt at the whole 'aesthetics vs mechanics' issue, it was too confusing, even for myself! But am I right that passion again is the key to solving that problem?

-

What do you guys think would children answer if you asked them how to make Final Fantasy better?

-

Last but not least, please excuse my weird use of the English language.

[losganados]

What all these things that icycalm mentioned have in common is that they make the game more immersive, that they make it easier for the player to forget the real world (and wanting to forget the real world for a while is why we play games in the first place). Thus, it follows that the games that are more immersive are also the superior ones because they are better at doing what games are supposed to do: providing an escape from reality.

That's what I got out of the article. I hope I'm not entirely wrong.

I think icycalm was explaining that children demand complexity (because a more complex game is a better game).

[Bradford]

I agree with losganados, that Icy's point was that the 'childish,' or 'instinctive' reaction is to want more complexity, and more depth. Ideally, you would like for a game to be such that, the more you play it, the better you get at it, forever, with no ceiling. The ultimate reward for playing a game more than everyone else should be being better at it than everyone else (individual variations in natural aptitude or talent aside).

chb, you might want to consider what it is you even mean when you use terms like "immersive" or "escape from reality," as I think they are leading you off track. Likewise, I think that all of this:

(and wanting to forget the real world for a while is why we play games in the first place). Thus, it follows that the games that are more immersive are also the superior ones because they are better at doing what games are supposed to do: providing an escape from reality.

is false.

[chb]

Okay, I think I get it now. What still confuses me a little is that icycalm also mentioned better music, better graphics etc. - things that have nothing to do with complexity or depth and then asked "what do all of these things have in common?". So, the question I have is: "What is the common point between mechanics and presentation?"

[Bradford]

What do you guys think would children answer if you asked them how to make Final Fantasy better?

They would say that they would like to take their end-game characters whom they have put through dozens of hours of grinding and stat-maxing, and use them to fight against other players.

Thus we have MMORPGs, especially those with substantial PvP portions.

So what would children answer if you asked them how to make World of Warcraft better?