For this last blog entry, I will keep things brief. Partially because I’ve made so many previous posts obnoxiously long and I’m due to do one on the short side, if for no other reason than to save on time. But also because I’m talking about a topic that is simultaneously potentially infinite in scope, and is wholly obscured by its uncertainty. This nebulous topic is discussing a kind of game that does not yet exist, and what it means towards the potential of video games.
When it comes to a lot of big, western video game studios, there is a tendency to play it safe and build games using preestablished formats that reuse the best narrative and mechanical elements of prior entries. That’s not to say that there isn’t any originality or improvement, but a lot of it is focused on either refining or restructuring the parts that haven’t worked well, improving visual fidelity or creating more compelling narratives. There isn’t much actual innovation, i.e. pushing wholly unique and creative ideas. This is why we have common complaints of things like the “Ubisoft Formula” where all Ubi games look, play and feel the same. Or of developers pushing out new FIFA, Madden and Call of Duty games year after year that people buy not because they bring anything new to the table, but because they deliver the same “safe” experience. This has led to a burgeoning indie market that is attracting and ever increasing audience because they are more likely to advance experimental ideas in their games and offer their players more unorthodox experience that big studios consider too risky to gamble on.
This is why I have a particular affection from games that come from eastern studios, that is to say, from Japan. While a lot of the bigger studios have fallen into the same pit trap of examining games only through the expected profitability that is plaguing western studios, there is still a particular quirkiness and off-the-wall thinking that still seeps through in their game design. Not all of it is good, mind you, there are plenty of mechanics or features that act to the detriment to the game or story beats that are so abstract you’re left scratching your head. But no matter how bad these are, they are rarely dull; even at their worst, they are experiences that are at least interesting in some way. Hell, even when they ARE dull, they are sometimes INTENTIONALLY dull to purposefully deliver a certain experience. I would know, I’ve finished all of Deadly Premonition, a game that at points seems deliberately plodding.
Take the car driving for example: no fast travel, cars that handle terribly, need to be filled up with gas and explode if they hit too many objects, forcing you to slowly run around trying to find another car. The game has a lot of other extraneous systems, such as being able to shave, or needing to change clothes every few days or you attract flies. None of these impact the gameplay in any way mind you. Yet as painful as this experience is (and yes it did make me regret playing the game at points), it somehow still adds to the surreal atmosphere of the game. I can easily see how people who only care about having a fun and enjoyable playtime might dismiss the game for being intentionally tedious, even I, a person who gets some value from such experience, found it unbearable at times. Yet there is some undeniable worth in such moments that break traditional game conventions.
This leads me to a quite zany Japanese video game producer, a one Yoko Taro. While he is not one of the most eminent names in gaming, he does still have a notable reputation, both for producing the critically acclaimed Nier Automata, and for holding interviews while wearing a giant moon-face mask.
What’s interesting about Yoko Taro is that he deliberately eschews certain inviolable principles of video game design. In particular, the Nier games (spoilers) require you to delete your save file to see the last ending, something which most gamers’ would consider our greatest nightmare. Yet Yoko Taro was crazy enough to do it. And it works. This is because he approaches game design through a slightly different lens, that I find quite fascinating.
During the Games Developers Conference(GDC) of 2014 Yoko Taro presented his views on creating games that he titled “Making Weird Games For Weird People.” During his presentation he presents a very simple diagram which separates things what games can do and things games can’t do. The latter could include broaching certain ethical or moral boundaries or being of such scope that it would require billions of dollars to achieve. He then points out that between the things games can do and things they can’t there actually exists a gray area of things that are technically achievable, but that do not conform to the accepted norms of game design.
Yoko Taro muses that perhaps Nier, in deleting save data, had entered into that gray area and had gone too far. He explains that in creating these norms that have become standard in most modern games, designers have erected an invisible wall which game designers are disincentivized from crossing. He then makes a very salient point: what prevents games that go outside these boundaries, that break all the rules from being worthwhile?
“Let’s say we were to design a game that can be completed in a mere 10 minutes and charge people full price for it? No one would approve of that, but what if they were the most beautiful 10 minutes you can experience here on Earth? Or, as another example, a game no one could clear? Can that not exist?”
Yoko taro
Doesn’t it make you think? Just what else is possible? For example what if you designed a game where you have to play it 10 or even 100 times to get the true ending? Or how about a game that can be only experienced at a certain time of day or under certain conditions? When you take a moment to consider these things, you get almost an infinite amount of possibilities.
And some of these ideas, that try and breach this invisible wall, have already been attempted! The Stanley Parable, which I brought up last week, has an ending where you have to keep pressing a button for 4 hours straight to see. An indie dev tried to make a game that is only playable once and if you die you can never play it again (regrettably it was cancelled). Another prominent Japanese producer, Hideo Kojima included a special ending to Metal Gear Solid V that can only be achieved if every single player were to disable their in-game nukes, thus achieving global nuclear disarmament in-game. Of course this has never (legitimately) come to pass, yet this failure in itself serves as an allegory for real world politics and the human condition. Isn’t that in itself valuable?
Some people might scoff at these ideas, say that they are too pretentious and that this kind of thinking it what’s ruining gaming. I disagree. There will always be games designed to entertain, to distract, to compete. Yet there is a vast unexplored potential in games to produce experiences unlike anything else. Call it art if you will, but I think it’s something a bit different. Art is meant to be examined and felt, but games are meant to be experienced. Creating an experience that cannot occur anywhere else, that is the hidden potential of games.
If I were to make my own game, I would definitely try to think along these lines; to create something no one’s ever done before and that would produce a response no one’s ever felt. And perhaps it would be a product that almost no one would like, that everyone would dismiss. But, if at least one person in the world would find some meaning in it, to extract something valuable for themselves, then I would say that the game is a success.
