Class Days

As a matter of course, don't expect many posts from me early to mid-week.  I have classes those days, and am either focusing on readings, writing papers, or performing research.

Until Thursday...

Spirituality and Games

This is a repost and revision, based on a discussion I had with a fellow classmate.  It seemed relevant, and rather than it getting lost within my Gamasutra space, I decided to port it over here.  As I'm delving deeper into game studies, I also figured that I'd do a bit of leg work and revise it over with some links to some game scholars as well.

Because this goes beyond the normal video game realm, particularly into the realm of television/video, I'll be citing relevant points through analysis of additional media beyond video games. This is due to a lack of availability of content - I'm a console developer, primarily, and there is a notable dearth of religious console titles which makes completely analysis of a specific section of media, in this case, video games, difficult at best. I'm also going to be focusing on Christian-faith based games. This isn't due to laziness, rather, the problems that are illustrated in religious-based games aren't unique to any one faith and that Christian-based games are far easier for me to come by over Islamist, Hindu, etc. based game. 

I'm afraid much of this is anecdotal, as I have not worked for an explicitly religious game company of any faith. I'm a Unitarian Universalist, so, I like to consider myself a student of many religions.  That said, much of my experience with faith comes from playing games with family members that are exceedingly religious.  In none of the games I've ever played was faith or spirituality explicitly thematic or a driving force within the game world itself.  It is exceedingly simple to see why explicitly spiritual games are not more numerous within the broader game market:

1. Spirituality is hard to define.
2. Spiritual is often conflated with religious, and religious games are painfully didactic.
3. Gameplay is more engaging when it is emergent; because of the focus on message, strategies are limited to fall within the confines of the specific spiritual goal

Spirituality has many definitions, and much like religious faith, is often a personal definition which is hard to qualify.  Wikipedia summarizes "Spirituality" thusly:

 

"...a process of personal transformation, either in accordance with traditional religious ideals, or, increasingly, oriented on subjective experience and psychological growth independently of any specific religious context. In a more general sense, it may refer to almost any kind of meaningful activity or blissful experience."

• "Spirituality." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 9 February, 2015. Web. 9 February, 2015.

What is interesting about this definition is how Wikipedia goes on to define meaningful.  Wikipedia takes meaningful to be within the context of the philosophical debate about the meaning of life, by using this definition:

"The meaning of life is a philosophical and spiritual question concerning the significance of life or existence in general. It can also be expressed in different forms, such as "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", and "What is the purpose of existence?" or even "Does life exist at all?" It has been the subject of much philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation throughout history. There have been a large number of proposed answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds." 

• "Meaning of Life." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 7 February, 2015. Web. 9 February, 2015.

This goes beyond the definition used by academics like Jane McGonigal when they describe meaningful.  In game studies, meaningful is placed within the context of games and the role of games in effecting change, education, or desired emotional context.  Meaning, in the context of games, is that the gameplay or interactivity has an explicit intent to inspire a specific line of thinking or evoke a specific emotional aesthetic from the player.  So a game that is focused on spirituality has the specific intent (or meaning) to evoke a religious or pseudo-religious experience from the player.

The problem there is easy to identify: what one person may find meaningful within the context of their religious tradition may not evoke a meaningful response to those that are not of that tradition. Creating a game in which one travels to Judea and listens to the Sermon on the Mount may be a meaningful event to those in the Christian traditions, but to a Hindu or Ba'hai, it may mean nothing. That isn't to say that it isn't possible to create games that target specific meanings, and these meanings can be explicitly spiritual, but then we run into the muddy definition of what it means to be spiritual.

Once a specific definition of spirituality is embraced, limitations are placed on the tone, content and meaning of the interactive experiences.  There have been widely released games that have taken a very specific spiritual context and applied it to the tone of the game. The most famous christian game of late that received both wide release, thanks to being carried by WalMart, and wide critical press would be Left Behind: Eternal Forces and its sequels. The game, as evidenced by the Metacritic score, was very poorly received by the gaming community. Going through the reviews, even the best reviews provided via Metacritic indicate that the gameplay experience was, over all, poor. The story didn't get much better reviews, but, given that the gaming press is largely secular, this isn't much of a surprise. Because the game itself is focused on recreating a world and universe centered around a specific, christian, interpretation of the "End of Days", the game - at its core - must hold onto this premise and its meaning in its narrative. This adherence to a very specific Christian interpretation takes precedence over the development of core gameplay mechanics, resulting in a didactic game unless you accept the specific meaning of spirituality advanced by the developers. 

 

But even with a specific meaning applied to the mechanics, narrative and tone of the game, where spirituality is defined clearly within a specific context, the audience for these games don't necessarily care that the game is fun as long as the spirituality-based message is prominent. Games developed with this mindsent eschew emergent gameplay at its core and instead reply upon more traditional and far more limited progression-based gameplay. (see Jesper Juul's Half-Real p.73-91).  If the player does not perform the correct events in the correct series, their progression through the game is stopped. The adherence of the communication of the message takes priority over everything, including the use of emergent gameplay to occasionally surprise the player, and as long as the game clearly communicates this message, then the developers consider the game a success. This is clearly surveying the reviews of Left Behind: Eternal Forces as a game.  

The second is the IP holders. Like the audiences, they see the game as a marketing tool not just for their IP, but also for their message. So, again, if the message is at the forefront, clearly presented, and continues to be inline with the ultimate spiritual goal, then the IP holders don't care if the gameplay is good. The meaning and message is key, everything else is secondary.

So, how can we get by this and how can developers bring together these seemingly exclusive worlds together in such a way that these games appeal to both gamers and the faithful?

Allegory could work, but this tends to be perceived as diluting the message. Allegory is open to interpretation, which goes against a specific spiritual meaning.  Even if there is by in by like minded people, an allegory could be misinterpreted or missed entirely. The Left Behind series is a pretty good description of that; while it is couched in Bible, that is firmly couched in the prophecies as literally interpreted in the Book of Revelations (itself a work that is littered with allegory). 

Improving the gameplay would, of course, provide these spiritual games with a wider audience.  As we've seen, that is a fine line to tread. Gameplay is iterated upon to create a fun experience with the goal of creating emergent events that occasionally surprise the player and allow them to find new ways to interact within the game rules to achieve their goals. That means, in story-based games, that both gameplay and narrative are molded together into a single entity. This is no different than translating books into movies. Some aspects of books are invariably cut to create a much more compelling, both visual and pacing-wise, product. Using religious text or meanings as a narrative source, however, limits this flexibility. Altering the narrative potentially alters the message and this would be unacceptable. Gameplay, as a result, can only be modified so much as long as strict and explicit interpretations is followed. The results, as we can see via the Left Behind: Eternal Forces, show out that an adherence to inflexible narrative content hinders gameplay mechanic growth.   Once you understand the context of the meaning, then you know exactly what to do to succeed and eliminate the need or even desire to embrace emergence in play.  

Studying spirituality in games is a difficult subject to tackle.  Because game studies is so young, little has been done in precedent, which is a good thing.  The study is novel.  Game studies is also pretty fuzzy around the edges, as there are many different things to study when it comes to games, meaning it could be possible to study the spirituality in games.  The problem boils down to how you define spirituality and meaning, because depending on the religious tradition or belief system of the researcher and the users, these terms become very fuzzy and difficult to pin down.  This makes finding examples in game spaces more difficult and requiring more interpretation and critical analysis like one would find in the Humanities and its study of literature and film.   One could walk down into the sociological aspects of faith and spirituality in MMORPGs, but, again, the broad definitions of spirituality and meaning would make finding specific instances difficult unless one spent a great deal of time nailing down more cogent and accepted definitions.

Meaning and Mechanics

So, I got into an interesting discussion on Facebook about whether game mechanics have meaning based their socio-cultural background .  The idea being is that, without meaning, the mechanics are just that, but that the meaning is inherently skewed by the culture in which it was conceived.  I think there is a certain flaw in the discussion, and rather than posting a huge wall of text for which Facebook is manifestly poor at dealing with, I'll get into it here.

The definition of  "game" I tend to go with is the one advanced by Jesper Juul.  He states that a game as has the following six characteristics:

1. Rules: Games are rule-based.
2. Variable, quantifiable outcome: Games have variable, quantifiable outcomes.
3. Value assigned to possible outcomes: That the different potential outcomes of the game are assigned different values, some being positive, some being negative.
4. Player effort: That the player invests effort in order to influence the outcome. (I.e. games are challenging.)
5. Player attached to outcome: That the players are attached to the outcomes of the game in the sense that a player will be the winner and "happy" if a positive outcome happens, and loser and "unhappy" if a negative outcome happens.
6. Negotiable consequences: The same game [set of rules] can be played with or without real-life consequences.

Jesper Juul: "The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness". In Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference Proceedings, edited by Marinka Copier and Joost Raessens, 30-45. Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2003.

With that definition in mind, I'm looking specifically at point 1, the rules of play.  These are often referred to as the game mechanics.  The mechanics are often placed into a context as designated by the designer to help achieve a specific tone that the game pursues to achieve a specific emotional aesthetic.  Looking at Call of Duty, or other games in their style, the mechanics revolve around the linear progression of the first person avatar through intense gun play and warfare. The mechanics are developed to achieve the sort of high-stakes, rapid interaction required to play the game, but the mechanics alone don't actually point at a deeper meaning.  They are modern and deep in the sense of play but do not point to a higher meaning, as french philosopher Jean Baudrillard observed: “...the secret of true modernity lies in artifice, the only natural spectacles that impress are those which simultaneously betray the most striking depth and the absolute simulation of this depth” (Jean Baudrillard, America, 139); (emphasis in the original).  The artifice of Call of Duty is to make the player feel as though they are in a massive battle. It is all clever trickery.  The mechanics of the weapons are deep and unique, combining bullet spray, recoil, reload times and damage values based on cover and hit location of the target, and the simulation feels real and feels fun, but the core mechanics aren't that deep and are merely shifting between set values and capabilities.    

On the other hand, there are games where the mechanics mean something.  In this, they are artifact - something deliberately created as a result of preparatory or investigative procedures.  The developers have set out to link the interaction of play with a definite theme, and have placed a specific limit on their creation to achieve that goal.  This is the ultimate difference between artifice and artifact, intentionality in creation that merges the mechanics with the narrative elements of the game.  In the creation of gameplay artifact, the developer is doing more than simply doing what is fun, but discovering methods to give actual meaning and not simulated depth to play.  In an interview with "Ubiquity", Dr. Mihai Nadin states "The computer executes tedious routine assignments and supports the generation of alternatives, but the creative genius, the aesthetic choice, remains with the human being" (http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=1046683).  This intentionality allows game designers to take mechanics beyond setting the tone of play.  A recent example of this sort of intentionality of infusing mechanics with meaning would be Thomas Was Alone (http://www.mikebithellgames.com/thomaswasalone/).  In it, you play as a variety of polygons with different movement capabilities. Each polygon character has unique capabilities and their interaction with the game world illustrates specific behaviors and personality types as they interact with each other.  As a result, a very intentional design decision was made to tie the mechanics to a specific meaning.

The meaning of these mechanics is certainly rooted within the context of the games socio-cultural context.  But, that is with a caveat - mechanics don't always have meaning.  Mechanics can exist simply to impart a specific tone to the larger aesthetic experience of the game.  The number of games that provide meaning through mechanics is small but growing, particularly as games become more diverse and ubiquitous across the planet.  These meanings will be fundamental, but properly implemented, will provide a powerful emotional connection and aesthetic that pushes games out of artiface and into artifact.

Thoughts on "Hatred"

With finals complete and a bit of downtime before the spring semester, I thought I'd weigh in on the recent controversy surrounding the game "Hatred" and Steam.

Now, for those that don't know, the game appears to be the sort of game that Jack Thompson always warned us about - it is, in fact, a mass murder simulator. You can view the trailer below (NSFW...or anyone at anytime for that matter):

To put this into perspective, (if you didn't watch the trailer, I can't blame you) the game looks banal, the concept is insulting, and it looks like little more than a digital version of the sort of bilge water one finds in The Turner Diaries.

The developers have ostensibly said that this is a response to "politically correct" gaming, via its website:

"These days, when a lot of games are heading to be polite, colorful, politically correct and trying to be some kind of higher art, rather than just an entertainment , we wanted to create something against trends," offers the statement. "We say ‘yes, it is a game about killing people' and the only reason of the antagonist doing that sick stuff is his deep-rooted hatred."

So, it is deliberately trying to be artifice and blatantly commercial. That's fine. There are tons of games out there that do just that, and that is part of the problem. In order to leave some sort of lasting statement in any sort of endeavor, you need to say something relevant that goes beyond "we're just making entertainment."

Think of Michael Bay films.

I know, easy target, but bear with me.

Michael Bay films are just entertainment. They are vapid and loud, filled with sound and fury and signifying nothing. Even though Transformers 4 set records for global ticket sales, it will never find its way into the consideration of great entertainment, even among movies, because none of his films have anything to say save, maybe, The Island, but that was merely cribbed from far more nuanced sources like Brave New World.

Looking at the AFI Top 100, there are movies on the list that - in their time - were considered fluff pieces like Casablanca, and Star Wars. Some were made specifically as epic films, like Lawrence of Arabia, and others to explore far more lofty goals like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Doctor Strangelove. These movies tried to say something or they utilized the craft in exceptionally compelling ways that defies time or they moved the art of move making forward and set new standards.

So what is Hatred trying to say? They are hardly being iconoclastic with their choice to embrace senseless violence.

The problem is that they are reacting to something that, ultimately, they don't appear to really understand. There are plenty of games out there that are pure entertainment that don't say anything at all. There has also been an explosion of games as art because the overall culture has become more accepting of the medium as a mode of expression beyond entertainment. Movies went through similar growth over the past century, and there is plenty of room in the market for both art films and pure entertainment films.

It can be debated that all games are art (I would debate that games like Deer Hunter are not, while games like Super Mario Bros. is art because it advanced the medium forward and established certain bars for interactivity and design instruction) but there are certainly games that push the boundaries of the game aesthetic by creating unique dynamics.

What is the aesthetic that the developers of Hatred are trying to create in the player?

Keep in mind that developers formulate mechanics which the players experience by creating interesting dynamics. It is the emotional response to these dynamics that creates the desired aesthetic. So, they dynamic is the mass murder of innocent people. What sort of emotional response are the developers trying to create? The protagonist is a faceless cutout that is, as described by the trailer, only filled with hatred of his fellow man. Truly a one-dimensional character with a singular motivation.

If you're going to take the time to give the game context, at least try to do it well. And, in this regard, the context is missing.

Hatred looks like a terrible game, and not just because of its chosen path, but because the developers are wasting a chance to make a relevant statement but they lack the nuance to do so. Developing a critique of political correctness, or media responses to such shootings, or even said something about mental illness, takes nuance which, in judging by their trailer, the developers lack.

The game is explicitly vapid entertainment, and in a time when games are trying to grow beyond that niche, it is not a step forward but another voice hidden in the marketing blitz of millions of similar titles.

Like a Phoenix

So, much has changed since I have last posted.

Well, actually, not much has changed.  Still in the Masters Program at UTD.  I am nearly complete with my second semester.  The current fall semester is wrapping up this week, and thus far, I feel pretty comfortable with two of my three classes.

Game Design
Unfortunately, this felt like a gimme.  After a decade or so in professional development, the requirements of the class were fun.  I had the chance to work with some great people on board games, playing competitive games (Games Workshop continues to deliver when it comes to obtuse rules), and building levels and modules for ARMA 2.  I'm working with another student to build a co-operative ARMA 2 multiplayer level.  Its nearly done.

Game Lab
This was an interesting experience.  The class dealt with building the vertical slice of a game.  If you would like to check out our work, you can view the link here.  Part of me felt like I was on the wrong team from the standpoint of scope and features - our game was pretty straight forward and the team worked incredibly well together.  It reminded me of the days of "Aeon Flux" at Terminal Reality.  I don't know the specifics of the other team, but comparing the quality and experience of the two teams seems night and day.  Our team worked together and how carefully we scoped and planned the project, our work went incredibly smoothly and, when playing the other teams game, wondering if I couldn't have helped them a bit more.

Aesthetics
This was an interesting class.  It is a required class, and I'll be the first to admit that my knowledge of aesthetic analysis was fairly limited to architecture.  In many ways, I felt as much out of my depth as I felt in the previous core class.

That said, I enjoyed the class.  I felt like I learned a snippet of a lot of cool information and had the chance to experience a lot of little different things.  I had the chance to interact with a brilliant instructor who possesses a singular wit.

As we get closer to the Winter holidays, my school work is tapering off with finals this week but will pick back up in January.  I will endeavor to spend more time posting, my next semester will be more heavily engaged when it comes to writing.

Cheers!

Assassins Creed and Female Protagonists

I was perusing the recent E3 shenanigans when I found an article about Ubisoft and admitting that there was plans to create a female avatar in the latest Assassins Creed but it was ultimately cut.  The arguments why they character was cut is limited to soundbites, but ultimately comes down to scheduling.  The arguments and outrage against the choice seems to be disproportionate with the decision, as the general outrage via articles and their subsequent comments indicate.

From personal experience, on its face, it sounds easy to create female avatars.  This is a very high-level and naive view of the amount of time, effort, and energy it takes to create a player avatar.  There is a lot of work, start to finish, that goes into creating a player character.

So, lets start from a very high level here. Ubi is speaking from experience. The PSP Assassins Creed IV title featured a unique female protagonist.  They have made more than one Assassins Creed title, so they understand the time and effort it takes to not just make a good looking protagonist, but a digital star. Ignoring the marketing aspects here, it takes months of concept art development and approval.  This is followed by many more months of high-res and low-res model development, refinement, and approval based on unique costumes and various assets associated with the avatar.  Then we're talking animations.  Not only does it require capturing motion-actors, but also creating a visually pleasing and exciting fighting style that at least matches the existing combat players expect.  Most of all, the style needs to be visually unique to justify the investment and potential of the character.  It takes a year, at least and as a very conservative estimate, of constant development to create a compelling and unique character.

Further, had they simply changed the gender of the character without the accompanying style and characterization misses the point.  It would've been a hack. A cheap and easy hack, sure, and would have worked only superficially but would have left the audience with a big shrug.  Why take the time to build a unique character and simply reuse the entire animation suite for a completely different character?

The other problem is the wealth of content already available to the studio based on the rest of the franchise.  There are a lot of animations already available and, depending on the character, would apply more smoothly for a male as compared to a female character in a very general sense.
Finally:  we need more strong female protagonists in games.  I am entirely for it.  That means female protagonists that get the same time, effort and energy as their male counterparts.  And that means they looked at the production triangle and determined that the time and money were not moving, which meant that they had to lower the quality to add another feature.  Given this is a flagship series for Ubi, producing a low quality character was unacceptable. Argue for more female protagonists, but understand that it is a feature like any other piece of content and one has to abide by the immutable production triangle.  If Ubi wants a female protagonist, they want her to be the protagonist as in previous titles, and want her to be unique.  A female assassin in AC should be unique.  

Anything less is a disservice.

Musical Analysis - "An End, Once and For All"

Constructed from synthesizers, piano, and sampled instruments, “An End, Once and For All” from the video game Mass Effect 3 by Clint Mansell and Sam Hulick can be viewed as an exploration of the aftershocks of the end of the world and its subsequent rebirth.  Used during the credits and postlude of the game, the simplicity of the piece belies its depth, providing an aural capstone to one of the most renowned space operas on the Xbox 360.  The theme of the trilogy centers around the power of relationships and their place in overcoming armageddon, with this piece specifically providing closure to the trilogy.  The structure belies a deeper meaning: it is the ending of one story and the beginning of the next.

The piece begins simply. Soft piano notes float out with Mansell and Hulick evoking the first movement of Haydn’s The Creation with an organized chaos of notes appearing out of the depths of silence.  The seemingly disjointed notes paint an image of the last flickers of light after judgement.  The timbre is soft and gentle, providing a feeling of understanding in the face of insurmountable loss.  This sense of foreboding and mourning is the most obvious and explicit meaning of the music, and it fits with the theme of the story and its place at the end of a narrative trilogy.  The notes we hear are the words following judgement day.  

The double meaning though, based on the origin of the music, is evident.  These notes are not simply the dying embers of one life, but the first sparks of creation of the next. To give truth and finality to the judgement, synthesizers emulating the violin section of an orchestra swell, joining and overtaking the piano momentarily.  The synthesizers provide an interesting structural change for the piece.  The timbre of the piano notes are gentle and the attack brief.  The synthesizers, by contrast, are a wail that does not end discretely, but shifts directly from note to note.  Each note is subsequently sustained until the next note is played with little fall off.  The synthesizers crescendo and then drop away entirely, leaving the piano behind to continue the work of creation, serving as the climax of judgement, providing an exclamation point on the end.  As the piece continues, the piano progressing past this false crescendo, we understand explicitly the intent of Mansell and Hulick.  The crescendo signifies the end of the original story and events we are leaving behind as we follow the piano forward.  

As the piece progresses and the piano notes appear less chaotic and take on a clearer form.  The notes split into two registers, one high the other low.  The high notes, a lone pair, ring out in time and establish an insistent rhythm.  The resulting structural split into the two distinct registers creates a distinct musical form upon which establish the absolute boundaries within which the chaotic notes move and shift.  The melody begins to take shape, using the simple rhythm to set the stage and to prepare the listener for the new story that has supplanted what was lost in Armageddon.

The lower register resumes its place as the basis of the piece, and the higher register creates the rising emotion.  The piano, its timbre soft, grows in hardness as synthesizers are reintroduced.  The synthesizers are pitched high, driving the piano down into the lower registers and simplifying its melody as the two together clear the aural palette.  

The piano, once light and soft is now dark and full of foreboding.  The piano is joined in the lower register by strings, providing depth and gravity to the piece.  The piano establishes the rhythm, but the soul and power of the piece is now the strings, hitting hard with a keen edge to their tone.  Brass and snare drums are introduced, joining the strings, taking the piece beyond the soulful and serious business of creation and delving deep into the foul specifics of civilization.  The strings pop up a register, no longer disappearing in the mix, but joining the drums and brass in one voice, sounding like an army marching to war.  The piano disappears entirely, letting the newcomers build upon the previously hinted insistence while the march provides greater structure and tonal depth.  Here, the piece is fully realized as all of the divergent instruments come together as one in crescendo, providing proof of the rebirth of man and his defiance in the face of armageddon. 

“An End, Once and For All” by Mass Effect 3 by Clint Mansell and Sam Hulick is an expression not just musical design being influenced by the game design, but tackles hopeful and optimistic themes that far exceed the scope of the game for which it was made.  On the surface, the structure and timbre of the various instruments allude to a piece created with a very specific and limited purpose.  By embracing classic influences such as Haydn and The Creation, with its seemingly chaotic instrumental interpretation of the creation, Mansell and Hulick have taken a proven template and used it in a way not familiar to the typical audience of this piece. Mansell and Hulick show that creation is more than something from nothing.  Rather, this piece is evidence of Mikhail Bakunin’s assertion that we should “…put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life. The urge to destroy is also a creative urge” in his essay “Reaction in Germany - A Fragment by a Frenchman”(Deutsche Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft und Kunst, October 1842).  

The Music: