[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] What is a game?(again)was:[Excellentcommentary on Vanguard's diplomacy system]

[Raph Koster]

Sean Howard wrote:
>
> "Raph Koster" <raph at areae.net> wrote:
> > MMOs are not games. They are spaces into which games are put, just
> > as playgrounds are spaces into which games are put.
>
> That's like saying computer games aren't games because you can IM
> people in the background, or Joust isn't a game because you can
> choose to play it against the design, or Tetris isn't a game because
> you have to pause the gameboy when the pizza comes.

No, it's not. For one thing, you are mushing quite a lot of vastly
different things together there.

Joust is a software program which is designed solely as a game. Games
are models; there may be preferred ways to poke and prod at the model
(ways with "rewards" -- heh) but it still remains a model.

Tetris is similar. The fact that a user's attention can come and go does
not change the nature of the object.

The Gameboy, however is a platform, not a game. The PC is a platform,
not a game. It happens to be hosting a game, which is why you can use it
for other stuff as well. (Technically, it's hosting an OS, which is
hosting a game.) And again, whether the IM is on that PC or a second PC
is irrelevant; it does not change the nature of the game, nor of the PC.

Similarly, a virtual world is a platform, not a game. This is clearly
evident when you see virtual worlds with no games in them, virtual
worlds embodying multiple games, virtual worlds with e-commerce, virtual
worlds for education, and so on. The game bit is entirely optional.

> No games exist in a vacuum. Multiplayer games merely include within
> their boundaries these additional possibilities, to be controlled for
> and designed towards.

I didn't say anything about a vacuum. The multiplayer game may choose to
use (or not) the additional capabilities of the platform. For example,
most MMOs do not actually use the "space" that is simulated by virtual
worlds platforms. Where you stand usually makes zero difference to the
combat game.

I think it's a mistake to regard the platform as the game, and I also
think it's a mistake to regard any game as being monolithic. Games are
made out of smaller games, and MMO-based games show this in spades.

> Yes, they are harder to design just by the chaotic nature of social
> interaction between thousands of very different people forced to live
> in the same house where people stop being polite, and start being
> real, yada yada yada. But I absolutely oppose the notion that MMOs
> are not games by nature or that they deserve any special attention
> or praise that something like Tic Tac Toe does not.

Rewrite that sentence to "the notion that MMO-embedded RPGs are not
games" and I'm on board.

> There's a tendency to make games into something more special than they
> really are. Heck, I used to be that way, because I so desperately
> wanted the things I was interested in to be special - to be better
> than the things other people were interested in. But games really
> aren't that special at the top level. We've got rules for designing
> particular genres of games, but no steadfast rules for games as a
> whole that will always be true in every situation.

I think you have not been paying attention to the last few years of game
studies and game design theory. :) There's now quite a lot of this
stuff, and it has been proving to work across the board for all sorts of
games.

> > Even in the combat MMO, you don't have an ongoing game of combat.
> > You have brief games of combat interrupted by other activities
> > (such as travel, restocking, healing, etc).
>
> You could say that about any RPG, multiplayer or not. That's not a
> proper division for "game". Otherwise, we'd have to say that each
> level in Star Fox is a different game, and the tank levels versus
> the fighter levels are fundamentally different games. We can assume
> most complex games are made up of interconnected sessions. Point
> out that a tooth is not a nail does not change the nature of the
> beast.

Tank levels versus fighter levels ARE different games -- each of which
feeds back into an overarching other game. Hence the term "minigame"
that has gained currency as compound games have become more common.
Games nest.

In MMOs (and other games, for that matter), there are often different
games that do NOT feed back into the overarching game. These are
parallel games played in the same space.

It's more time than I have right now to dig into this, but game grammars
(mine, McLennan's, Bura's), the work of Salen & Zimmerman, Bogost's
"Unit Operation," -- all worth looking into on this topic.