It was with great excitement I followed the dialogue between two of my favourite bloggers, Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer and Iroquois Pliskin of Versus CluClu Land, about the interesting gameplay and design of »Braid«. A game made out by some to almost revolutionize the way we think about and play videogames. I was therefore a bit surprised to find both Abbott and Pliskin so sceptical and to some degree disappointed with their experiences, and above all I was astound to find which aspects of the game they found to be problematic.
Pliskin finished off his side of the dialogue with a summed up conclusion of the gaming experience, he reflected upon the difficulty to execute and solve some of the game’s tasks as well as a general review of the game’s complex gameplay. In my opinion two completely worthy targets of critique. The problem with Pliskin’s reasoning here is therefore not what he regards the problems of »Braid« to be, but rather why he regards them as problems: “Braid just lacks any immediate sense of fun.” Michael Abbott then followed Pliskin’s conclusion on a similar note, discussing how the complexity of »Braid«’s gameplay really works against the possibility of quality games reaching a more widespread audience.
“It’s a shame to me that a game with Braid’s narrative, artistic, and aesthetic aspirations is inaccessible to so many people hungry for exactly those things. I have an agenda here, and I make no effort to conceal it. I want my friends – the painters, poets, musicians, and philosophers I work with every day – to experience for themselves what video games can do and say and mean. I believe they will meet us halfway if we offer them a reasonable hill to climb and a meaningful experience for their efforts. I wanted Braid to be that game, and I’m disappointed and a little sad that it wasn’t.”
The notion that a game’s level of difficulty stands in direct relation to the experience of the game is obvious. The inference that a game’s level of “fun” would stand in relation to the quality of the game, or that the exclusion of a non-initiated audience would oppose a spread of quality games, is however two ominous assessments. Let me try to elucidate why.
The process of gaming is primarily regarded as a leisure activity, an experience of interactive entertainment exercised for pure escapistic purposes. In this aspect the notion of “fun” or a high level of “entertainment” is vital for the experience; it is also this aspect that is predominantly invoked by many videogame companies. The industry often build on this concept, presenting games through a form of purpose based gameplay (a shooter to thrill you, a platform game to entertain you, a horror game to scare you etc.), and thereby promoting the idea that a game that doesn’t succeed a its purpose is in fact a bad game – ex. a horror game that doesn’t scare you is in some way not a horror game and therefore a failure. Though it is understandable why the industry does this it is not understandable why we let ourselves be limited by this while playing. The idea that for example »Braid« is less of an achievement because of its complexity and/or because it doesn’t entertain the player, or doesn’t induce the notion of “fun”, I believe is one of the reasons why videogames often follow an established – and let’s face it – monotonous formula. I myself have found many of my favorite games rather dull to get through and still I regard them as creations of brilliance and highly value the experience they provided even though it didn’t “entertain” me.
Okay, so let’s retrace one step, to the fact why the gaming industry would want to market games by promoting a purpose or maybe a function of a videogame. The whole idea of this is of course to make a game easier to sell by creating a categorized market. The reason why a categorized market benefits sales however is simply because it makes games a lot more accessible. Michael Abbott argues that games like »Braid« need to be more accessible to be able to attract a larger academic audience. It’s therefore obvious that »Braid« is a game that moves outside the established commercial norm of categorization. It’s a technical and visual achievement rather than a product adapted to be as accessible as possible. You might argue that »Braid’s« complex gameplay has little to do with its low level of profitability but the complexity of the game is exactly what makes it inaccessible. It demands previous knowledge of the structures of videogames as it sets out to develop those very structures.
One of the games most prominent values is that it tries to play with our understanding of how gameplay is generally constructed and thereby assume us to know what’s normally expected of the form. I therefore find it alarming to read Abbott stipulate how »Braid« due to its innovative construction would be perfect for the academic community but at the same time is too inaccessible because of the very same construction. I highly doubt that his friends in theatre, philosophy or art would criticize Bertolt Brecht, Ludwig Wittgenstein or Tristan Tzara (no comparison to »Braid« intended beyond the fact that they all developed the work of others to create new aspects in their respective field) to be too inaccessible. In fact I know they wouldn’t because the value in all those works lies within the very same aspect that makes them inaccessible in the first place.
My reasoning here may seem narrow-minded, or maybe even elitist, but I strongly feel we need to recognize the meaning of »Braid«. Not as visually pleasing platform adventure but rather as an attempt to explore the boundaries of a gameplay paradigm. We have to a allow for games to be complex, boring and inaccessible in order to move the expression of videogames forward, in order to fully explore the possibilities of the media. Otherwise we will end up desperately looking for our »Citizen Kane« and foolishly missing out on our »Meshes of the Afternoon« .
5 comments
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September 1, 2008 at 8:07 am
Sergey
To like me this post…
September 2, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Denis
I believe one of the hurdles in this argument becomes one based around why videogames are so inherently different than other media.
For the first, they typically take much longer to complete. This is a concept that lends itself to a shorter game, one that I could complete in ten or less hours. Braid, Lost Winds, et cetera follow this model. It is something I would expect of fringe gaming.
For the second, interactivity. Anything that engages us and invites us to interact with it is something that should hold our attention. This ties again into the first. If the required time is relatively short, I would not necessarily mind it at all. However, I would certainly balk at a game that requires 70+ hours to completion and asked the same of myself. Very few people want to be ‘bored’ for that long.
September 2, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Tobias
Thank you Denis for your comment, I will give you my views on what you describe.
Firstly I wouldn’t say videogames take up any more time than at least a few other media forms (especially if we concentrate on narrative media forms). A book may take far more than 50 hours to read. A tv-series can stretch on for everything from twelve hours to several hundred. etc.
Even though these forms, including video games, demand much time they still withhold our attention by portioning the experience in reasonable doses. I definitely agree that a videogame should be able to hold our attention, but where I believe you’re going wrong is in the assumption that fun is a necessity. I’m currently reading The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin, it’s demanding and boring as well, plus it takes loads of hours to get through, however I highly value the experience and feel that it is one of the best literary works I’ve ever read. A feeling very much alike that of playing, for example, Beneath A Steel Sky or StarTropics (even though StarTropics is a bit of fun as well).
September 5, 2008 at 11:44 am
Michael Abbott
I’m intrigued by the ongoing discussion here and elsewhere about “fun” in video games, and I think it’s a positive sign that so many of us, including designers, are talking about it.
I agree with the general notion that games need not be fun in the customary sense of the word (thrills, excitement, laughs, etc.). A game like “The Graveyard” isn’t fun using any of these definitions, but it’s still a compelling experience worth having…which is another, separate definition of fun to me. I would describe any game that engages me on some level and holds my interest as fun to me. Maybe my use of the word is too broad, but when I thoroughly enjoy the experience of something, I call that experience fun.
So perhaps it’s really just an issue of semantics. I don’t like Braid as much as some people, but it has nothing to do with whether or not the game is fun or not in the traditional sense. I had trouble with Braid because the puzzles were too difficult for me, and after multiple attempts to solve them, I ultimately found the experience frustrating and, yes, not fun.
The Graveyard, which is a significantly more somber game than Braid (and more poetic, in my view) engaged me in ways I think Braid wants to do, but without erecting barriers I couldn’t overcome. I realize Braid’s puzzles are the very heart of the experience for many players (and for Blow, I think), and I respect that. It simply wasn’t the game for me, despite my best efforts to embrace it.
September 10, 2008 at 4:21 am
Iroquois Pliskin
Hi,
I very much liked your post, and I think you did a very fine job of articulating your argument.
As for the issue of “fun,” I think I might be with Michael here that in some ways it comes down to semantics. I said the game “lacks any immediate sense of fun” and I would emphasize “immediate.” I think Braid is really rewarding– the puzzles are wonderfully constructed and continually surprising– and the narrative elements are really interesting, but it’s not fun “Mario 64” fun. I don’t think this is a deficiency of the game, really, since it doesn’t set out for the kind of immediate pleasures of movement that you see in many games. I don’t think this is blameworthy.
I think many games can achieve complex artistic expression without sacrificing this sort of immediate fun, and I think you’re right that we shouldn’t demand this of all games. I’ve always enjoyed challenging, even offputting, works of art in other media (big ups to the The Arcades Project, BTW, even though it’s an unholy mess). If anything I would like games to become more experimental and risk alienating the player in order to work towards creating new types of experiences.