[luvcraft]

Although I love this whole discussion and it's all about things I've been trying for years to figure out, I don't have much to contribute at this point.

I would like to point out, regarding the "wish fulfillment" thing, that the ending of SotC is not entirely "good"; you do save Mono, but at the cost of your own life (more or less), and the interactive elements at the end are specifically designed to make you feel like there's nothing you can do to change your fate.

[Talbain]

Games are potentially the most powerful form of communication we have. Think about it. They can be art, they can be movies, they can be music, they can be books. Yet at the same time, they are none of these, and they lack what makes each of these unique. The biggest problem that I can see with the industry today is that there is a cycle, as you mentioned; but the cycle itself is not a particular problem. Despite the fact that there are problems in all forms within the cycle, the cycle is also something that sustains each into their respective role.

Were the gang bangers not around, the cops would be out of work, were the mayor not around, the cops would be out of work, yet the gangs would run wild. The cycle, while not perfect, actually helps things to work, in a twisted sort of way. Thus, I believe the most accessible way to approach this problem is to look at it as though it were a bad cycle; the cycle for publishing a book, or producing a movie, or getting onto a CD label, all are inherently poorly conceived. Yet all of them have managed to create what one might call "high art," despite your disdain for the word.

Because this cycle is here, what it means is that the cycle needs to be worked on, it needs to have the twisted efficiency of the others to create similar products of value. I think this is where the real problem comes in with games; when you are looking at something that takes so many people to bring to fruition, what is lost along the way is the individual. The experience from the game is ultimately something that is not taken away and stored by all who experience it. This is the problem I see with the industry today, and the best way to solve it, I believe, is to simply bring it back. Games started out this way much more than they are now. The idea of Tetris, for example, is simple, yet almost everyone remembers more than just the game. Why? Because it imposed almost no limits on what you experienced. The experience was your own, every time you played the game, and the experience was never the same. It's similar to going back through a good book. You don't read the book the same way you did the last time you read it, you come out with something different.

Now, I'm not trying to say what we're looking for is Tetris, but the simplicity of design and adaptability of experience is something that games in today's genre sorely lack. Almost all games are now played with set paths, with defined or roughly defined purpose and places. Yet for a story to be engrossing, to have a sense of immediacy, and to really immerse you, the story must seem relevant. Tetris lacks this altogether. There's nothing immersive about the experience at all, you're basically playing Jenga with a random number generator. So, the experience of immersion is what a game needs, alongside the feeling that the experience is unique to you (i.e., it affects your immediate reality). This can be done with current technology, yet the industry still lacks a creator with enough personal vision (and in the end, such games are about a creator's vision) to do so.

I do not believe that is the fault of the structure of the industry that such games have not revealed themselves, rather, if anyone I would blame the consumer, for continuing to buy games that are below a level anyone would call sophisticated. You have to remember, even writers, artists, and movie directors have to feed their industry; and only if consumers are ready to drink fine wine and eat fine meats will they do so, instead of enjoying fried pig slop.
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[Toups]

Hear that Cycle, it's all your fault.
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[lolipalooza]

[Koji]

Well guys, I've been following this thread to the best of my ability, and I can say that many of you are offering 'solutions' or views on matters that are way too constricted to very few aspects of videogames, i.e., you're not looking at the big picture. Thinking about it a bit, while reading the last few posts, has made me realize exactly what's keeping this industry from flourishing, and it has little to do with artistic integrity or complexity of the narrative or whatever (for now at least.)

Other big media, such as films, novels or music, offer a very low (for our society) entry barrier. You'd either need to know how to operate a CD player, or how to read, or how to use a TV, which are all common and non-specific tasks/abilities, except for the case of the CD player, but that one is already well inserted into our global culture. So, the interface, the means by which we enjoy the medium itself, is a step that's easily overcome, so all we have left is the content itself. For gaming, the entry barrier is enormous for someone not familiar with technology: you need specialized equipment (a videogames console) or a computer (which in itself is a very complex machine to operate for the huge majority of the populace.) Now, if operating a games controller or a keyboard and a mouse wasn't complex enough, the user needs to understand the interface of the game itself which (even worse!) is different for each of them.

Now if this is not the biggest deterrent for anyone to even give a whole medium a shot, I don't know what is. Movies et al. need not worry about interface, because they're passive media in which the spectator or reader needs to do nothing but to pay attention, so all that's left is the accesibility of the content itself, but the breadth is so large that it's evidently not a problem. Games started with an elite audience, the few people that had access to computers, and moved to the mainstream thanks to arcades, but still, these were places that only the young would frequent. They evolved following this trend of elitism: the people that grew with the medium continued to be the core audience for the industry, so the interface began to slowly but surely get more complex and inaccessible. At first all you needed to do was know how to turn a crank for Pong, but then came the stick, and buttons, and more buttons, and the cross-shaped control pad, and more buttons, and shoulder buttons, and analog sticks, and... You all know how it goes; we are familiar with these complex interfaces that have grown more abstract over time because we grew with them, but people who didn't will decidedly find them to be alien and not intuitive in the slightest. We are 'in the know' of a strict series of rules, abstractions and terminology that have evolved for us but not people outside.

I'm pretty certain that Nintendo realized that this is what has happened, and designed the Wii remote accordingly. I mentioned the TV as a simple interface for movies, and well, mimicking the TV remote is an attempt to reduce the entry barrier for people that are not familiar with game controllers, but most likely already operate TVs (which you'll need for using the Wii anyway.) Under this light it's clear that Nintendo's move was a smart one.

But still, the next barrier to break is the game interface. ICO is a game I've not played, but I remember some comments from the author claiming that he wanted to make a game by cutting off everything that was not essential to the experience of the game. Though I doubt the game nails the needed intuitiveness to capture a new audience, I think that this is more or less the way to go: take the interface to the basics, reexamine it under the assumption that the player hasn't been playing games for ever, and propose a new interface that approaches intuitivity. This interface should be different depending on the target audience, just like the cultural codes used in movies are not the same across the whole spectrum: maybe we want to target very old people, so in this game there could be voice instructions on simple and broad gestures that you have to repeat with your Wii remote, for instance (not a very good idea.)

The point of this whole post is that the entry barrier is the essence of what's keeping the medium from blossoming as an universal medium for art and communication. If the audience continues to be us, because no one else will want to dedicate the amount of time needed to learn the codes, the games will continue to cater to us--or, well, the teenagers that read IGN, or don't and just buy games that look kool and awesome. The rest is a problem related to content, which is, for now, out of reach.

[Broco]

Koji, it's worth noting that games are only unpopular in comparison to movies and television. I remember reading somewhere that the videogame industry is larger by money, and possibly audience as well, than the entire written fiction industry. (I read this in the context of the author decrying how few people read instead of doing silly things like playing games.) I don't have numbers to back it up but it sounds plausible.

[Talbain]

Games are a bigger industry, but that's because it takes a lot more to develop a game than a movie, or a book, or a CD. The cost of entry into any of these is basically having a computer and some free time, these days. But a game requires much more than this to even be viable in such a wide market. Because of this, not only has the cost to developers increased, but the cost to the consumer has as well. Just my take on the so-called "size" of the games industry. In dollars and cents, maybe, but in terms of actual market penetration, games are still very elitist.

So Koji, perhaps what you're waiting for is something like this?

Interfaces have always been a problem for games, but I don't believe it's a fundamental problem; World of Warcraft is an excellent example of a game with an EXTREMELY complicated interface, and yet it retains a huge player base.
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[Koji]

I'm pretty certain that about an 80% of the people who play WoW are 20 years old or younger.

And that interface looks amazing, though the iPhone's is similar. Still, have you played around the Wii menus? I haven't, really, but the videos I've seen have me terribly excited. It's just as nice as that video you showed me. Of course, I have an interest in intuitive interfaces for more than just games, but the Wii already has the tools to make gaming something accessible, with the remote. Wii Sports is a first approach.

[lolipalooza]

Koji, I agree with you on what's necessary to popularize the medium, but that's beside the point. We are "searching" games which can earn respect as a valid form of expression, with great content and aesthetics, a valid form of "art".

Now, you can say that it's necessary to popularize videogames first in order to people recognize their artistic value later (like what happened with movies - they started as a documental method, turned into spectacle with Méliès and gained the streets as a low society entertainment, soon later becoming a language by the work of Griffith and Chaplin, among others), but even we, who play videogames for a long time, know that they are not in the same level of literature or cinema as form of narrative.

[Toups]

[Talbain]

You're correct, abstraction is an advantage, but just as a game such WoW does, most people will still need to have that initial, simple access. WoW starts out very simple, and defines more and more of what you can do as you go along. It may seem rudimentary to those who have already played games before, or even those who have used computers or played MMOs before; but the market is broader than that. You have to be able to introduce an interface that is so simple a child can start out using; however, you also have to make this abstract form malleable enough to do advanced abstractions, such as typing, organization, games, and so on. Wii's a step in the right direction, but you have to remember that most of the world has never actually seen a TV, much less a computer; thus, the entire concept is foreign to them, and trying to tell them that this button or that click does something, would typically be considered "complicated." As such, starting simplistically and moving into greater and greater abstraction would likely be a better way to approach not only computers, but games as well.
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[Lestrade]

[lolipalooza]

I remember that!
Also this one:

http://www.selectbutton.net/archive/topic/9453

[Perseus]

This is a pretty awesome thread.

I'm pretty firmly convinced that providing deeper and richer simulations is one way to create games that push the medium further than has been done before.

I'm thinking of games like Dwarf Fortress- I can't play it myself because the learning curve is insane for me, but after reading the various DF threads on different forums I have to conclude that the game is doing something very special indeed. It's a pity then, that most of us will never play it, or get very far in the game even if we try it. The barriers to entry are simply too high. What we need now is for some designer to come up with a way to make DF, or even games in the Rogue-like genre, less intimidating and more intuitive.

Once games are able to present that level of complexity to players in a manner that's not completely overwhelming, we'll start to see very interesting things indeed.

[Intentionally Wrong]

[lolipalooza]

Yeah, not a few sandbox games. It's still valid for the vast majority of them, though; any videogame that has an end, and more.

I believe the GTA games still have a lot of win/lose situations. "Yay I got the tank!", "Yay I got the helicopter!", "Wow, never seen so many cops hunting me!" To me it's like making the highest score in Tetris - but, as the game is much more open, the score can be actually a lot of things.

The likes of Sim City and Civilization seem to be in the same group. People generally think that it's better to have a larger, wealthier city/civilization than a smaller one. Now, The Sims is quite different. I don't see people urging to become rich, or buy a mansion. My opinion is that GTA is really about getting new stuff (weapons, vehicles) to play with, while The Sims is about playing with the characters using anything you can.