Minmaxing Life

As a board game devotee, I accomplish a yearly pilgrimage to the Internationale Spieltage SPIEL which most people simply call “Essen” from the name of the German city where it takes place. As the world’s biggest “paper” game convention, it is to board games what E3 was to video games. But, unlike E3, I always enjoy myself at Essen. No booth babes but thousands of gamers and families playing everywhere - even on the floor when there are no tables left. Helpful demonstrators, accessible game designers and a game fever the video gaming industry seems to have lost.

Essen has a homely feel, it’s a friendly place for the geeks as well as the casual, family gamers and not everything is trying to look cool and shiny. Of course, the fact that so many boutique publishers sell their wares at Essen contributes to this indy, amateur feeling. Because the cost of making a small run of a boardgame is so low (compared to the cost of making a video game), many passionate gamers take the jump and self-fund their creations. They know it’s likely they’ll never recoup their investment but they do it anyway. Out of passion, out of love. And it generates a vitality and a diversity I can only hope the video gaming world will match one day. I mean, just this year, I brought back over 40 games including one about gypsies fighting for the best camping spot and one about taking part in a stag rut on a Scottish island, competing for food and females…

I can’t tell you if the games are good yet, but I’m already left wondering: when will we see that kind of diversity in computer gaming?

Catching up on my feeds this sunday morning, I found a discussion about something Jonathan Blow (of Braid fame) - said a couple of weeks ago. The original interview was by itself well worth a read but he really grabed my attention when he asserted that the core mechanic constituting the experience of most current MMO’s is “unethical”. A strong word that was sure to bring the ire of many fans but also this insightful discussion on Terra Nova. It’s fun noting that Randy Farmer (of Habitat) was almost saying the same thing back in 2000!

I’m late to the discussion and there’s so much to say about the subject that it would hardly fit in a blog post. Still, a couple of remarks off the top of my head:

- On Richard Bartle’s comment that teaching through virtual worlds or games would make them antinomic with art.
As always with discussions about what is or isn’t art, everything hinges on what your definition of art is. In my view, games have to fight for their inclusion in the art category precisely because they are pushing the boundaries of the generally accepted definition. Games, unlike the classical arts, have a functional core. Players do things in games. Because doing is learning, players can learn in games if the mechanics are carefully designed.

- On progamer’s comment that game designers “…don’t have an ethical duty to anyone.”
My previous remark should at least partly explain why game designers do have a responsibility to think about the social effects of their designs. Because gaming’s interactive, a player can change the state of a game but a game can also change the state of a player! Which is why game designers should definitely be thinking about the social impact of their games and why society at large should take a much closer look at what’s happening within them.

Coming back to the main debate, if we define the current virtual world grind as an extremely powerful, non skill based reinforcement schedule in a social network, one has to wonder what its effect on society will be if/when it engages large parts of our planet’s population. To put it more simply, what happens to society if/when massive amount of people spend most of their lifetime, learning or doing nothing useful?

Although I’m not yet ready to go as far as calling the grind unethical, I am concerned that - on the grand scale of things - there might be a serious problem looming…

Dans l’industrie du Jeu Vidéo, je suis habituellement considéré comme un ayatollah du Libre. Ce n’est pas souvent que je me retrouve à tenir une ligne modérée sur le sujet. C’est pourtant ce qui m’est arrivé aujourd’hui en compagnie de Xavier Antoviaque de Ryzom.org, Etienne Amato doctorant en science de l’information et membre de l’OMNSH et David Lapetina joueur d’échec et animateur d’Onirik. Nous étions les invités de Luc Fievet pour son émission Symbiose sur Radio Libertaire.

Le point fort qui me restera de l’échange - que nous avons poursuivi par la suite dans un bistrot - c’est la nécessité de redéfinir la frontière légale entre espace publique et espace privé à l’aune de ce qu’il se passe dans les espaces virtuels du net.
Un débat qui ne fait que commencer…

 

 Symbiose sur le jeu: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Some Japanese like dogs…

…and some don’t.

Just from looking around, it is fairly clear that Japan has a thriving gaming culture.

I am not just talking about local specialties like Shogi or Pachinko but of a broader understanding and acceptance of gaming as a normal part of life. It is ingrained deeper than anywhere else I’ve been. Mario and other gaming icons are all over the place and it’s nothing special to see TV ads for the latest Final Fantasy in the subway. Everywhere, people are playing on DS or mobiles. I would even argue that cosplay isn’t too far from LARPing as a form of gaming.

But to me, the most striking example of this culture is illustrated at arcades.

Do you even have any arcades in your country? There are very few left in France and those that remain offer nothing but a tiny selection of popular games. Contrast that with Japan: arcades are multi-storey buildings, easily found and they stock not only the latest and greatest from Namco, Sega and such, but also entire sections dedicated to the best of old school gaming. Racks and racks of Street Fighter 2, Bomberman , R-type, etc, etc… And people will play these old games just like they play the fancy card battle games or the latest Initial D Arcade Stage 4.

It may seem to be an insignificant detail but it really isn’t. It shows that - unlike most of their western counterparts - Japanese gamers understand that the fundamental aspect of video games resides not in their production values – it’s not about graphics - but in their gameplay. Some of these oldies happen to have unparalleled gameplay and the locals recognize that. So much so that they are willing to pay to keep playing them when they could just as easily use MAME.

Another fascinating difference about Japanese arcades is how diverse the clientèle can be. It’s not at all surprising to see a couple in their forty playing right next to a trendy twenty-something straight out of Shibuya. It seems that in Japan, game arcades - and games in general - are not the exclusive domain of nerdy hardcore gamers: they are for just about everyone.