What is the
game? In my last note, I wrote
about how games are systems. A quick definition from the Wikipedia entry writes
that systems are a set of interacting or interdependent entities forming an
integrated whole. They have the following characteristics of:
- A structure, defined by parts and their
composition;
- Behavior,
which involves inputs, processing and outputs of material, energy or information;
- Interconnectivity:
the various parts of a system have functional as well as structural
relationships between each other.
- Functions or
groups of functions
Of course by
that definition, many things can be considered a system and this is interesting
because we are immersed in all kinds of such systems. Some are physical,
like the world we live in and some are abstract like our minds, our thought
processes and our social conformities; it’s an abstract layer that exists in
the background, subtly organizing us in ways we do not yet notice.
And here’s
where the question pops up; just what is the game? Are they the constructs that
we interact with in our computer and consoles? The flimsy pasteboards that we
pass around at poker matches? Or maybe the dynamism that exists in a real life
soccer match?
Let’s
explore that last question. Soccer has been around for thousands of years in
many forms and the subject to much iteration. The days of kicking rubber balls
through a ring on walls have been replaced with an open field full of lines and
sponsor banners along with rows of spectators, cameramen and bookies and it
makes you wonder again, just what or more exactly, where is the game?
Is the game
happening in the field, or is the game happening in the stands, between the
bookies, the cameramen and the spectators; and even the ones at home
watching? Are the players of the match
playing the game, or just part of the show for the spectators who are betting
on one side or the other, or are the spectators merely the malleable values
that make up the numbers in the competition between the TV networks.
Like or not,
tuning into that sports channel probably means you’ve just willingly
participated in some on-going meta-game between the TV networks.
This leads
us to the next question of just who is the Player? And this is probably the
most compelling question because it means we have to deconstruct everything
around us to find out the answer.
At the most
fundamental level, a game will always have a creator and a player. Someone
shapes the system; the rules and structure of the game, and someone who engages
with the system. Notice that there is no distinction between the creator and
the player. They can both be different individuals and they can both also be
one.
A child can
create the arbitrary rules of say, blinking at every red car that passes by and
then engaging herself within the rules of this game she has created. Of course,
the extended rulesets are not consciously thought out; each time she fulfills
the rule, she would then reward herself subconsciously with the stimulus of
having performed the task correctly.
“Someone”
however may not be the most precise use of terms. Sometimes we create the games
out of our own desire for a certain stimulus, and sometimes the games find us;
like the reality TV shows such as Candid Camera and MTV’s Boiling Point where
‘victims’ are randomly chosen. It is in the latter that has a closer structure
to that of a game; there are rules, definable challenge and best of all, a
reward for being able to maintain cool throughout the entire session of the
prank.
This brings
up a very strong philosophical question then of what we consider a Player. Is
the Player someone who consciously participates in a game, or is someone
considered a Player even by unconsciously participating in the game?
The answer
here may very well be the same.
Were we to
go with the former definition, then this would make us very much a Player by
association as we too have become aware and are conscious of the game. Our
roles may differ from the Player who is making active participation but we may
well have become a part of the system, like the NPCs in your everyday MMORPG.
Subscribing
to the latter definition on the other hand, would mean that we may or may not
very well already be Players of some game that we are not yet aware of. Hence,
like it or not, we are all Players in the game.
So what is
the game?
Maybe it is
in the way you improve on you typing. Maybe it is how many Gamasutra articles
you can write before it gets buried by someone else. Maybe it’s your boss
eyeing you and evaluating you, trying to figure if that look of concentration
is because of the work or the flash game he caught you playing yesterday.
Or maybe,
just maybe, that game is life itself. Maybe it’s bigger than life. Maybe
there’s a bigger system in place, and we’re just a cog in that system that’s
also just a part of another even bigger system.
There are
countless possibilities and then there are conclusions; temporal ones for the
now that we live in. There’s yet to be a concrete stand on what a game is, but
one thing’s for sure is that there is a system in place and we are all a part
of this system. There are rules and there are challenges and there are
arbitrary numbers that govern the way this system works that we have yet to
fully comprehend.
Perhaps the
answer lies in a different place. Perhaps it is here we must ask the last and
most important question: Why does this matter?
A social
revolution is going on right now and the traditionalists are bearing their weight
down on the social games like Farmville, citing how such games throw gamers
into a Skinnerian box and trap them there to milk them dry for whatever they’re
worth while the fundamentalists insist that Farmville can’t be considered a
game at all. Don’t take my word for it. Just read up on the responses to
Zynga’s Choice Award during the San Fran GDC and you’ll see a generational
crisis in need of reform.
Society is
changing at a pace faster than what some of us might consider comfortable. If
societal and technological equilibrium was a strand of rubber, the further you
stretched one end, the greater the force of the rebound when the other part is
let loose. Right now, we are that other
end, and we’ve already been let loose to catch up with the technology. The only
question that lingers on is how to make sure we don’t spring blindly and end up
hitting the metaphorical wall, one that would see us having to pick ourselves
up to start all over again.
If we look history
we can see it riddled with walls like these. The dotcom crash. The housing
bubble. To his credit, the housing bubble was probably the last thing in Philip
Gramm’s mind when he helped to enable the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Closer to home for those of us in video
gaming circles is probably the day Atari decided to fold, paving the way to a
brave new world of PC gaming and Japanese console surge. Had the American
consolers foreseen the trap of the video game boom in the 80’s, we might be
living in very different times so maybe this might not have been a bad thing
after all.
If we look
at our current situation, Zynga and the others may have done the unthinkable,
using questionable methods to get their results, and likely setting us up for
another wall, but their success and their presence may very well be what will
spur the rest of us to genuinely take this reform seriously.
It may be
what we need to jolt us out of our comfort and complacency, forcing us to
become aware and hence active participants in the restructuring of our society and
future. The problem is that the future is always shifting its goal post and at
the very best, we can only make calculated guesses to determine if we’re headed the
right way.
The solution
then, is to stop looking into crystal balls and instead start looking at mirrors.
The answer isn’t in the future; it’s what we can do with the present and how
much we can learn from the past. It’s time that we start taking apart our
conventions and reexamining them through the lenses of today’s technology to see
what holds or breaks down completely. Question and re-question everything that
we know and believe in because the rules of the system has evolved.
Games like
Farmville may or may not be a step in the right direction, but they are a step
forwards. The question that remains is whether we want to leave the future of
gaming in such hands while we continue to deny the reality of the change that
is slowly creeping up on us each day. Let’s face it, social media is here to
stay and likely to become an overreaching concept that will deeply integrate
with our lives and that of the coming generations.
Companies
like Zynga and others in the social field have taken the first steps into this new
world, but they aren’t the last ones to enter the arena. How it all plays out has
yet to be determined by the people who step in next. What’s left to do now is to
stare hard at the screen before us, and ask ourselves if we’re ready to join
the good fight and visualize these pseudo imaginary words as we contemplate our
decision:
Click start
to enter.
Perhaps, this
is the game.
|
I think that is the point, 'how is the present'? Social Network (like example). 'How can we harness this market?'Social Games.
That is the present to me, but, not everyone who has a social network is a player of social games. How much they can represent all of the people what have a social network?
So, that's today. And I don't like so much of social games, to me the better way to 'play' with people, still being the multiplayer games.