Author: Ben de Jesus
Date: 6-3-05
Class: SymbSys205
Topic: Commentary Week 10
In our final seminar for SymbSys 205, we discussed the role of simulation as a game. Towards the end of the discussion, we particularly close on what distinguished a simulation from a game, in the case of the teaching games from the Serious Games Summit conference. Though we did not reach a concise consensus, I feel that it was vocalized that a simulation becomes a game when there are elements of play involved. While a simulation can imitate any real-life situation, it would seem that games are more of a building block or an attempt to imitate one facet of a greater life concept. For example, no one would say the board game Life is a simulation of life itself, but many of the make-believe aspects (finding a career, starting a family, paying bills) shadow real-life skills or events that act as landmarks in our own lives. I found it intriguing also that games today can be purely statistic and number based, without any “emotional appeals to fantasy or metaphor” (Squire pg. 3) in the case of the presidential election game. While its interface contains cute graphics and a wide array of buttons, at its core, the game is a system of numbers controlled by the user and a random number generator in the program. It would then seem to me that this internal structure is intrinsic to many single-player games: a math-based system disguised to fit the creator’s scheme or thematic genre. For example, I feel that solitaire, specifically the peg-based cross-shaped game where the object is to clear the board by hopping over neighboring pegs, this game of solitaire is interesting and appealing thanks to the graph-like orientation of the board and the mathematic structure to the rules. Each turn is a recursive iteration over the simple rule of hopping over pegs, and the loop breaks once no legal moves are left or the game is won. Thus, the game of solitaire becomes more of a test to see how well a person can simulate a rather simple computer program. Does this then constitute solitaire as a game rather than a simulation? I believe so, also now because humans have a wonderful ability to err, thereby integrating a source of randomness and complexity that no correctly programmed solution to solitaire would have. Therefore, the ability to make mistakes and the element of play are key essentials in distinguishing games from simulations.
To this list I will add a third facet that I find particularly interesting about games, which is the ability to cheat or hack the game. It seems awkward to say someone is cheating in a simulation, unless it refers to manipulation of some output data, in which case there is no real utility or validity to the simulation. In games however, cheating can be viewed under many scopes: it teaches players about morality, but also requires users to have a deep understanding of how the rules to a game are set-up and implemented. I’m thinking in particular most any video game that has a cheat programmed into the game: if the object of playing a video game (along with any internal sub-goals of the game) is to win and , through understanding the rules and programming of the game, a user finds a more efficient way of winning, then the player has found a cheat. It then becomes a question of what constitutes a cheat or hack: an undisclosed facet that is not meant for garden-variety game play, or any helpful advantage that places a particular player over his human or computer opponents? Regardless of the answer, I believe cheating in games ought to be studied more extensively to reveal more about human rule-understanding, morality, and any other knowledge on how games run that research may reveal.
In conclusion, games and simulations share many of the same structural components pertaining to rules and imitation of life concepts, yet differ in particular aspects such as cheating, entertaining play, and human-made errors. From the discussion, I found the most intriguing part to be what distinguished men and women in their ideas of fantasy in game: men found it more appealing that a player have fantastic abilities in an ordinary world (games or simulations involving super heroes comes to mind, like Superman), whereas women found it more interesting to have ordinary abilities in a fantasy world (games like Super Mario Brothers, where moving and jumping are the main abilities in a fantastic world, would be favored by women). In fact, it may be this simple preference to ordinary abilities that makes Super Mario Brothers so appealing to both sexes. Furthermore games like the Sims have a heavy female following and the game has become the highest grossing video game of all time. If video and non-video game creators are looking for the magic bullet to make their product more appealing, they could learn a great deal from this study. Making the user feel more attached to the player/role they control in a game is key in immersing the user in the state of optimal experience Squire calls “flow”. A simple interface that attaches and incorporates (rather than alienates) the user into the game is far more appealing than playing in someone else’s shoes. Games like Tetris take this idea a step further by removing any third-person controllable party, forming a direct link between the player and the objective. This concept of perspective (1st-person, 3rd-person) is intrinsic to games as well as simulation in forming the narrative storyline of what is going on.
This final section is a journal entry I had written a few months ago concerning video games. Most of the ideas here are incomplete, but do offer some direction for further discussion of video games as tools for simulation and other interesting aspects of games:
Journal Entry Concerning Video Games
Diversity in video gaming
Video games as a test of intelligence and ability to comprehend rules
How video games are/have become a form of entertainment… does this demean its value? As the movie industry could be said to “demean” the value of more cultured forms of entertainment, such as the opera, or drama? This is not to say that all of today’s entertainment is per say “trash”; there are many excellent actors and actresses, still intriguing plots and directorial conceptions… I digress. Video games have become mainstream entertainment, and this author feels it’s a good thing. We’ve seen this as evidence in observation of the evolution of video games and video gaming culture. For example, video games have a reputation for being “nerdy”: the dorks playing online video games, the nerds at the local video game parlor, or even your little brother with his Sega Genesis. Yet, parents often relied on “traditional” board games to help make learning about the world a fun, family activity. Some of my fondest childhood memories include Hi-Ho Cheerios (when I was younger) and Monopoly (when I was older) with my family. Tradition board games teach us a lot about real world ideas ranging from Math and English, to social constructs like understanding rules, strategizing, even friendliness, or how to take turns. Board games definitely play a role in molding/affecting the way children people view the world.
But now, video games… the brain-rotting, dorky, hour-depleting virtual worlds of fun. Why aren’t more people a fan of video games? I realize that new technology is never readily viewed as “God’s gift to humanity”, and I’m not even asking that, but I feel these stigmas are preventing the vast majority of people from reaching some important ideas. For example, I’m playing a game of Tekken Tag Tournament right now. I’ve muted the television (which is unfortunate on one hand that soundtracks of older video games lacked a lot of the depth [which is both understandable and being rectified])… I digress yet again. The television is muted, and I’m playing some really awesome music. And as I’m doing so, I’m beginning to notice the benefits of playing video games, the subtle points, hints, and messages (all video game terminology) that game creators may or may not have intended to instill in this game: characters that come from different countries and master different techniques evoke ideas of diversity and uniqueness. People have the “choice” to select characters that the user feels he/she best understands, or has the ability to win the game. For example, if I feel that it takes one big hit to win the game, I’ll choose a character that does just that. Is it speed that wins the game? Because if I can’t get that one big punch, then I won’t be able to win, so I’ll choose the fastest player, the player who can attack through blocks or one that can dodge better.
So , as I ponder all this, I realize how video games are an underappreciated tool to help humans understand intelligence, our ability to weigh our comprehension of rules to a game.
“But wait! I’m just not good at video games, but I’m not dumb!!!”
I’m beginning to think otherwise. Look at this: video games are difficult (the new ones) to test your understanding of the rules...
[EDIT: incomplete thoughts that do not pertain to video games. At this point, I must add that it seems I was in a state of “flow” when I was appreciating the subtleties of video games while playing one]
Intelligence tester. Practice helps, to the extent that you are continually exposing your memory to the rules, over and over. So let’s take two Tekken players, who have had equally sufficient amount of time dedicated to the same game (let’s make it a year, intermittently played throughout). When the two play, one consistently wins… So what is it in this “test”, what variables and distinctions between these two real people are there?
Let’s also look more closely at the cultural evolution as introduced by video games. Desensitizing violence, childish, dorky… video games are both skewing and shadowing real world perception in my book. At one time, kids played Pong on their Ataris. Now sensors can let a full grown adult dodge and shoot virtual bullets.