Tastes in interactivity
Most people today do play video games of some sort. However despite this increasing ubiquity, I still know many people that do not play games because they find none of them interesting. This lead me to think, taking a wider view on video games as something like interactive art, is there something for everyone? (This post assumes that interactivity is what makes computer games different, that it’s the defining feature.) I wonder if some people don’t want interactivity over, say, a traditional story? In the past, I considered more interactivity to just be better but in writing this post I’m not so sure this is the case. I suspect this is analogous to books versus movies. Movies and books each tell stories in different ways and the long history of their coexistence is evidence of this difference. In other words, movies as a newer technology seem on the naive surface to be better than a book, but they are simply different and can each do what the other can’t. I don’t think it’s a stretch to claim interactive art is also like this, different. However, if one accepts these ideas, then a difference between the three mediums does spring to mind, there is a movie or book (or audio book) for everyone. I’ve never met someone who doesn’t like any movies of any kind or doesn’t like any books. I do know many people who dislike every piece of interactive art. I believe that interactive art isn’t serving the breadth of experiences that it can. The medium is relatively young, and a great deal is unexplored. There is always a chance that I am wrong and some people absolutely do not want to interact with things in their leisure time. For the moment, I think pushing the breadth of what interactive art is doing is a worthwhile pursuit.
To try and work through the gaps in video games anecdotally, I’ll discuss someone I know, let’s call them Joe, who doesn’t play games. I’ll go through what Joe does and doesn’t enjoy. Abstract puzzles, board games and cards are out, there isn’t much of a draw for Joe other than the social aspect of board games. Games with spatial challenges mixed with quick reflexes such as shooting, platforming or “sandbox” games are out. Statistics based games such as management or RPGs don’t hold Joe’s attention either. To Joe, almost every game is a confusing cacophony of mazes and reflex requirements, or the game is just slow and boring. Joe does like stories and creating art, and while games have elements of these, something is missing. Animal Crossing is a particularly interesting case for Joe because on the surface it looks like a good fit. The problem is, Joe has played it and intensely dislikes it. To Joe, Animal Crossing feels hollow, pointless, and tedious. The characters and their interactions are weak: they feel random and meaningless. The game is full of busy work that Joe wants to escape from doing in real life. So, to focus more on experiences with stories, what about interactive fiction and visual novels? I’m not actually sure why Joe doesn’t play these, and perhaps they are in the right direction. Joe has not yet tried these games but says they’d rather just read a book. Humans are often poor at anticipating how they will feel in a hypothetical like this. Perhaps Joe would love this type of game?
To me, Joe’s tastes represent a huge gap in current video games. One that I hope is addressed soon, and when it does I’m sure it will be because of an indie developer. (If you know of something that fills this gap, I’d love to hear about it!) The gap as I see it is around the lack of deep interconnection between characters. Games either play out a linear script for characters, or play snippets of canned dialogue based on a transparently simple system. My understanding is that these systems currently do not go much below selection of a character’s speech or behaviour based on a handful of statistics like “rating of liking the player” or “character happiness rating” that are adjusted based on the player giving an item, how often you speak with them, or by performing a task for them. My theory is that fleshing out these systems would help to create a video game that Joe enjoys.