Culture Clash Aug09

(August 2009)

The More Things Change
Everything's evolving, eventually
By Matthew Sakey

A guest writer on my other gaming website inspired me when he wrote this tract for us, his amusing tale of woe and realization that all things must change, and little has changed more than the games we play. The games we enjoyed ten years ago would be ridiculed now, and the games of today will likely be ridiculed in 2019. It's not just easification or the rise of the casual market, games themselves are changing, organically, as developers continuously evolve, experiment, and optimize the - if you'll forgive the snobby ivory-towerism - ludic experience.

Permadeath, for example, was once a given; now it's an emotioneering tool worthy of study and observation, and a nostalgic-if-infuriating nod to the past with games like Mega Man 9 - a title that reminds us how far we've come in game design theory even as it thrills us with its sweet evocation of simpler, more joyous times. And the formalization of game mechanics into actual grammar for design is fueling this evolution of gameplay. One of the great obstacles in game development - effective communication between right-brained designers and left-brained coders - has been tackled in a way that everyone should understand (and really needs to be expanded into a book - hint, hint) and be able to use.

What it boils down to is that now, after thirty years, game design has evolved to the point where the "ludic experience" is finely manipulable, allowing developers to craft fun at a very granular level. It also allows for games that possess genuine emotional impact. Once writing game storylines becomes the prestige position that it should be, we're in for some real doozies of thought provocation in games. All in all, the tools (conceptual tools, not, like, Havok) which have been improving for years, have reached a tipping point - a milestone, if you will - beyond which lies an even more exciting vista of possibility for games themselves. Of course, this doesn't mean that the tools aren't going to evolve still further, and it certainly, certainly doesn't mean that access to these tools will automatically assure that all games are perfect. In fact, here at the outset, it can sometimes lead to disaster.

Case in point: Far Cry 2 is a crime against gaming, an opinion that I've made no secret of. The game is unfit to clean S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s litterbox, unworthy of the atoms and subatomic particles doomed to comprise its hideousness, an abomination in the eyes of God and man alike. It is a terrible, terrible game. Future generations will study it from behind shatterproof glass, as an example of how never to make a game.

And yet at the same time, Far Cry 2 was aiming for a next-gen ludic experience. Its creators include Clint Hocking and Patrick Redding; I've been in awe of those guys for some time, they're both genius visionaries of development. It's obvious what they were trying to achieve; their efforts mirror a recent remark by Cliff Bleszinski - that the future of shooters is RPGs, something with which I concur completely. Cliff's seemingly incongruous statement is more a rumination on the subtleties of game design evolution than it is a statement about genre. Far Cry 2 was trying to be that, and I do respect it for trying, just as I admire the amount of skill and dedication that its creators put into it. Unfortunately the result was… well, I digress.

We're in a transitional period right now, in which design parameters are flexible and gamers will still find happiness in older styles. That will change, however; gamers will start to expect more. Sticking with the shooters-as-rpgs idea, titles like Painkiller and Prey - straight-up shooters, basically - may have no place in the future of shooter design, at least until someone comes along in ten years and makes a throwback, a la Mega Man 9. This creates an interesting conundrum for some franchises. Consider Half Life. The franchise is a platform shooter, and it would be… odd if Half Life 3 contained more RPG elements. Yet it might not be well-received if it stays true to its roots; it might suffer accusations of being out of touch with "modern" shooter sensibilities. Gamers expect something very specific from the franchise, but gamers are also evolving their play expectations. I'm honestly not certain which solution would be best in the case of that game. Of course, being Valve, they'll execute it perfectly so there's little cause for alarm.

Game designs, and the flexibility of developers to create compelling ludic experiences, are to some extent limited by technology. The trick for developers is to maximize the experience of the game while understanding that they will always be trammeled by the capabilities of the technology for which they're developing. This doesn't mean that games from ancient times couldn't be compelling or emotionally rich ludic experiences - Starflight, Ultima IV, Phantasy Star and hordes of others certainly managed - it just means that it's a consideration. It's a consideration today as well, and a potential failure point for quality game design. Today, technology is so advanced that it's possible for developers to lose sight of the ludic experience altogether: Assassin's Creed is a beautiful, technologically marvelous title, but in some bizarre oversight, they actually neglected to put a game in the game.

I feel bad for taking Ubisoft to task as much as I have today, so I'll keep my thoughts on Prince of Persia to myself. I admire that company immensely. And I think Ubi and its creative teams are trying - hard - to take game design to the next level, to pick up the bone, as it were. Ubi Montreal is one of the most concentrated talent pools in the universe, and we'll see miracles from them. Sometimes you have to make false starts before you get it right.

As much as I'm nostalgic for the games of yore, I'm equally excited about the future. I've changed, growing up with games, and my expectations have changed as well. The same is true for all gamers. What's lovely about what we do is that the games have changed as well, evolving - not always in the direction we want them to, sure, but evolving nonetheless. That means that games are still alive, still in the process of becoming, which makes this a very exciting time.