Bam! Pow! Zap! Other sounds of beeping and blooping digital destruction!
From Spacewar! all the way back in 1962 up to the present day, an overwhelming number of videogames are devoted to (or heavily feature) violent combat of some kind.
It's something for which modern social critics and game designers often feel a kind of shame.
“Surely, this is what's holding us back from true respectability as a grown-up medium,” we whisper in the shadowed booths of hookah lounges and bratwurst bars*, "This must be what makes us not quite as good as movies. Why are we so devoted to violence?”
*Or wherever we hipsters nest these days.
It’s easy to write this off with a simple "because teenage boys are the primary demographic, and teenage boys are awful."
However, I think there’s a little bit more going on under the hood here.
A quick aside: What do we mean when we say “game”?
For our purposes, I'm going to be looking at a simple arcade-esque definition of game: a challenge that the player overcomes by taking rule-allowed actions. I am well aware that there are a bajillion games out there that don't actually have win conditions or rules or players.* That's a topic for another time. As far as this ramble is concerned, we are looking at the old-fashioned "A thing that I can win by mastering the rules" definition.
*The US self-employment tax system, for example.
Okay, back to the inflammatory ramble at hand: Videogames are so often about violence for bigger reasons than just pandering to bored young men who want to smash things because we ran out of mammoths.
The mechanical elegance of videogame violence
Put simply:
Combat is the most elegantly gamify-able action. (Exploration is a close second. And, of course, there's sports, but sports are already pre-gamified abstractions.) If you want something for players to win, combat is more or less unparalelled.
As a gameplay verb, combat offers an immediately understandable motivation, a clear binary completion state, equally clear incremental progress towards that state, and a relatively plausible level of verisimilitude.
OK, perhaps that wasn’t that simple. Let’s take a closer look:
An immediately understandable motivation
“Don’t get killed“ is, perhaps, the most easily understandable motivation in the universe. You don’t need to explain it. You just show the wolves coming, and our ancient caveman brains immediately go “Climb tree! Find sharp rock! Where rocket launcher?”
A clear binary victory state
Something is either dead or not dead. It can’t get more dead than dead. Not dead is still alive.
Almost nothing else in our lives exists with this level of clarity.
Equally clear incremental progress
A wolf that has an arrow in its leg is closer to being dead than a wolf that has no arrows and it. A wolf that has three arrows in it is even closer to being dead. The progress is clear.
A relatively plausible level of verisimilitude
We could also call this one “a high tolerance for reduction."
Almost more than any other activity, combat can be reduced to a minimal set of rules – “gamified” – and remain recognizably combat. Tapping a button to throw a pixelated rock at a pixelated wolf is still an immediate, clear, visceral real life scenario: throwing rocks at wolves to not get eaten.
Why can’t we change violence to something else?
Good question! Let’s pause for a moment and try to think of anything else that can come close to checking all of these boxes this well.
An immediately understandable motivation
A clear binary completion state
Equally clear incremental progress
A high tolerance for reduction
…
Here’s what I’ve got:
1. Traversing a dangerous or challenging environment.
2. "Getting jiggy with it"? There is no 2.
This is probably why exploration comes as a close second to combat in a huge number of games (or is often paired with it). Either you have arrived at your destination or not. Being physically closer to your destination obviously means that you are nearer to arriving at it.
You fool! What about other primal needs?
It's interesting to note that even other primal, real life survival needs do not abstract as elegantly as combat and exploration. Sure, the desire to eat food can be abstracted into a hunger-o-meter, but does a man who has eaten 3 apples feel clearly further from death than a man who has eaten 1 apple in the way that a wolf that has been beaten in the head with a rock 3 times is closer to death than a wolf that has only been beaten once?
As weird as it is to say, IMMINENT PHYSICAL THREAT is always going to process faster than DESIRE. Immediate threat is going to process immediately. There is no desire that the human brain is going to process a faster than THERE IS A WOLF CHASING YOU.
You fool! What about literally everything else?
Now, plenty of games try to gamify other things, and many of them are quite successful.
However... not all things survive mechanical abstraction.
Gasp! What themes don’t survive abstraction into rules?
Some things end up breaking so badly when they are "gamified" that the end result can be... what I would call, ahem, morally suspect. Let’s take feelings for example.
One of the things that we immediately want to do when we balk at the level of violence in video games is go, “Why can’t games be about making friends or loving people?”
“Why can’t games be about making friends or loving people?”
Games can absolutely be about this. It's a lot trickier for GAME RULES to be about this.
You can win a fight.
How do you win making friends and loving people?
How do you win meaningful emotional attachment? Catharsis? Grief? Inner peace?
If emotional attachment & fulfillment could be reduced to a minimalist set of mechanistic actions – reliable input and predictable response – we would do a lot better at it.
Put simply, game systems (even gambling) must have a mechanistic view of the world. This does not mesh well with a world that is not actually mechanistic.
(I would argue that much of the dysfunction we experience along these lines actually comes from us expecting these things to work like a game. "I did the action! Why am I not receiving a predictable response?" Emotional mastery is not rules mastery, no matter how much we would like it to work that way.)
When we attempt to force non-mechanistic things into a mechanistic system, the end result inevitably turns out looking like video game combat with a different paint job. The consequence is an abstraction that becomes so far removed from reality did it actually begins to feel harmful.
Just painting the mechanics of conflict with a happier or hippier emotion does not make them no longer the mechanics of conflict.
Let’s give it a try!
How to make wrong bad fun that teaches us wrong bad things
How about, instead of hitting wolves with rocks, we make a happy game about human connection? Here's our goal:
I want this girl to love me.
...How well does it stack up against that checklist? (An immediately understandable motivation, a clear binary win state, equally clear incremental progress toward that state, and a high tolerance for reduction.)
Love: an immediately understandable motivation?
The drive to reproduce is pretty deeply ingrained in us, right alongside the desire to not get eaten by wolves. Plus, we yearn for social companionship and human touch. So, that's good, right? Everybody wants to be loved!
…But do we feel those things at a glance?
If you show players a screen with a little pixel caveman surrounded by slavering wolves, players immediately want to get that caveman out of that situation.* Give them a button to throw rocks, and they are going to be hammering that button and hurling digital rocks in half a second.
*Or lead their diabolical wolf squad to crimson victory, for the special players out there.
Now, show players a screen with a pixel man and a pixel woman.
What is the immediate drive? What am I supposed to do? Wait, which one am I? Is this a colony sim?
Players are getting confused! QUICK, GIVE HER BAZONGAS THE SIZE OF MASSACHUSETTS!
That should clear everything up, right? I mean, it's been working for the last 40 years.
Oh, we forgot the button! Here's a button to… Well heck, what would the button do?
...
It only gets weirder from here…
Love: a clear binary state?
Our premise gives us our new "win condition": the girl either loves me or doesn't love me.
How does this compare to dead/not dead?
Is love/not love a clear binary state? When you cross the threshold, is there no going back? Once you've crossed the threshold, is there no going further?
You can't get more dead, but you can get more in love.
Already, things are getting messy, but for the purpose of gameplay, we're going to have to force love/not love to be a clear binary state. It's a ruleset, after all. We need to have a win condition.
Love: equally clear incremental progress?
Hitting a wolf in the head with a rock until it's dead is such a backwards, primitive, counterproductive piece of gameplay. I mean, what kind of lesson is it teaching players?
Now, what do I repeatedly throw at this girl with to make her love me? Is it complements? Candy bars? Household chores? PUPPIES? It's gotta be puppies.
A bar of hitpoints slowly draining as I smack a wolf in the head with a rock is an abstraction, but a very clear abstraction of a very clear activity.
A bar of love points slowly filling as I repeatedly surprise my coworker with unsolicited juvenile canines is… well, okay, I mean, it's just a game, right?
Love: a relatively plausible level of verisimilitude?
Smacking a wolf with a rock to make it lose hitpoints until it hits zero and dies
VERSUS
Giving your coworker puppies to make her gain affection points until she hits 100 and falls in love with you
Or, in formula:
In order to [SURVIVE THIS ATTACK ON MY LIFE], I just need to [HIT] this [WOLF] with this [ROCK] until it [DIES].
VERSUS
In order to [FIND ROMANCE], I just need to [GIFT] this [GIRL] with this [ASSORTMENT OF CONSUMER GOODS] until she [LOVES ME].
Which one of these feels like a more true to life scenario?
...Which one of these teaches a lesson we want people to believe?
Obviously, one of these features violence, and therefore, as game designers, we feel a kind of shame about it, while the other one encourages human connection, and so –
Hold on, that annoying restraining order guy is hammering on my door again.
So... Do video games have to be about violence?
Good question, Mr. Strawman! The answer is: Obviously not. There are plenty of highly engaging (and highly profitable) games that offer other experiences: building, farming, dating, power washing dirty environments back into pristine condition, etc.
(Although, I have real misgivings about that last one, but that'll have to wait for a future blog post.)
All I'm trying to state here is that violent conflict is a staple of video games for a reason beyond just an audience obsession: combat is simply the most elegantly abstractable verb.
Other things can come close, but usually not without significant sacrifice. As designers, we need to be certain that whatever we are reducing to mechanics does not end up lost, twisted, or inverted in that reduction.
Some things just don't come out the other end of abstraction remotely resembling life. Some things come out so profoundly warped that they actually teach us bad lessons.
I'm okay with learning that it's acceptable to reach for a rock when wolves are coming to eat me.
I have qualms about some of the other things that we can accidentally teach ourselves.
So, next time we're designing something, let's ask ourselves:
Is the motivation instantly clear?
Is the victory condition an unquestionable binary state?
Is the progress that I make towards it equally clear?
Most importantly, does it all survive reduction into rules without losing what it is?
If one or more of these things is going to get bent, which one should it be?
Do I want to tell people that this is something they can "win"?
Can we just be hippies?
Or, we could sidestep the entire issue by creating games that do not follow these rules, games that you play with rather than play to overcome, creative toys and tools rather than reductive challenges with oversimplified win states.
Or maybe I should just go play improv theater like a good little hippie and let the kids blast aliens. After all, clear progress toward clear goals is why a large number of layers turned to games in the first place. The world certainly doesn't operate according to rules. (Not ones designed for us, anyways.)
In conclusion, a reductive catechesis
Question: How many rocks does it take to kill a wolf?
Answer: Several, depending on where you're hitting it. Maybe just one, if you're using one of those crazy slings.
Question: So there is some number of rocks that will kill a wolf?
Answer: Yeah, buddy. There's a number of rocks that will kill pretty much anything.
Question: And once it's dead, it's not getting back up again?
Answer: It can't get deader than dead.
Question: How many apples do I have to eat in order to be full?
Answer: Several?
Question: But there is some number of apples that I eat in order to achieve fullness?
Answer: Yeah, sure, absolutely.
Question: Once I achieve fullness, I cannot get more full, right?
Answer: I mean… You can always fit in one more bite of apple, right?
Question: Once I achieve fullness, I have entered the state of fullness, and I will never be hungry again, correct?
Answer: …What kind of apples are you eating?
Question: How many awkward complements does it take to make my coworker love me?
Answer: Oh, buddy...
Question: What if I get her candy bars from the vending machine? She said she was hungry last week. It shows that I listen!
Answer: Buddy –
Question: HOW MANY HOURS OF LISTENING TO I HAVE TO DO BEFORE SHE LOVES ME?
Answer: She has a boyfriend.
Question: How many candy bars will it take for her to break up with her boyfriend?
Answer: SHE HAS A BOYFRIEND.
Question: But there is some number of candy bars that will change that, right?
Answer: She is literally dating Henry Cavill.
Question: How many candy bars will make her forget who Henry Cavill is?
Answer: THERE IS NO NUMBER OF CANDY BARS –
Question: WHAT IF THEY'RE HEATH BARS?
My wife is dead. She can’t get more dead.
My wife is dead. Now she can never be alive.
My wife is not dead. That means that she is alive.
My wife is not dead, but wolves are gnawing on her legs. She is clearly closer to being dead than when she had legs.
My wife loves me. She can’t love me more?
My wife loves me. Now she can never not love me.
My wife does not love me. That means that she does not love me.
My wife does not love me, but I gave her roses. She is clearly closer to loving me than she was before.
Comments