Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fun is Fine - Toward a Philosophy of Game Design

Posted by michael on from the less-thinking-more-blowing-stuff-up dept.

David Kennerly writes "The Entertainment versus Art debate flares perennially. These participants may be having fun, but the dichotomy is uniquely inappropriate to games. By the end of this article, we may disentangle the faulty dichotomy. After reconsidering what we think we know about a game, fun, and art we may come to discover that Nomura and Costikyan are correct: 'If you were to write a Seven Lively Arts for the 21st century, the form you'd have to mention first is clearly games.' --Greg Costikyan"

5 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. please stop, think of the children! by sweeney37 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "It is unproductive to think of games as âinteractive movies,â(TM) although many people tend to think of games in those terms. Let's be clear: games and films are different media. The techniques, processes, and skills involved in the creation of each are unique and not interchangeable. The metrics by which each is judged are also different, meaning that many of the properties that make for a good film would lead to a lousy game, and vice versa."

    How true this is, let's see a list:

    Popular/Good Games - Awful Movies
    • Super Mario Bros.
    • Street Fighter
    • Wing Commander
    • Tomb Rader
    • Mortal Kombat


    Good/Popular Movies - Awful Games
    • Enter the Matrix
    • ET
    • Many (but not all) Star Wars games
    • Many (but not all) Star Trek games
    • The Die Hard Series


    And yet, these trends will probably never stop. We keep hearing rumblings about a Duke Nukem Movie, a Doom movie, and we're already getting another Tomb Raider flick. But as long as people keep buying these games, and going to see the movies we'll keep being exposed to this dreck.

    Why can't we see more games like GTA that skirt the fine line between movie and game?

    Mike
    1. Re:please stop, think of the children! by danila · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It is strange that nobody mentioned Star Wars. I think it is a brilliant example of movies - games synergy and provides at least one recipe for success. Make a large, rich and consistant universe. Explore many different aspects of it using various mediums. Make an effort, because you should not diminish the value of the brand.

      Now that we see these important characteristic of the most successful movies-games symbiosis, we can explore other examples and their strengths and shortcomings. The best examples would be LOTR, HP and the Matrix. In all these cases we have some pretty decent products, which IMHO can be explained by this richness of the universes and correctly using different approaches to exploring them. We have some serious problems as well, which (again, IMHO) are because no attention was paid to the long-term value of the brand and games were rushed in to cash on the recent success of the movies.

      So to sum it up. How to make a good game based on the movies (can work vice versa and also with other mediums):

      1. Have a rich universe
      2. Care about the long-term value of the brand
      3. Realise that different mediums should explore the universe in different ways
      4. Make an effort
      --
      Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
  2. FIRST POST! by Snowspinner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find, as a graduate English student, that I can't really think of any generation or era where the intellectual art has really lasted well. The popular stuff tends to be what survives, largely because it was actually designed for people to enjoy, rather than praise.

    If, in 100 years, we look back at any games as great works of art (And we may not - games are so dependent on the technology they run on that they may fail one of the basic tests of art, which is survivability), I do not think it will be deep and contemplative games. I think it will be things like SimCity, Zelda, and other games that were designed, first and foremost, for their players.

    --
    Philip Sandifer's academic website
    1. Re:FIRST POST! by Jagasian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Someone actually mathematically proved that all Tetris games eventually end. That is, no matter how well you play, you can't play forever.

  3. Games aren't fine art? You don't know fine art. by jjlilj · · Score: 4, Interesting
    If you think games are not fine art, what do you think fine art is?

    Fine art is not only the ceiling of the sistine chapel, but also the gazillion portraits painted of the virgin and child, still life and scenic meadows. Fine art is not only Beethoven's ninth and Miles Davis' solos but also the minor works of Saliari and the Spice Girls. Fine art contains Gone with the Wind, Schlindler's List, and Freddy Got Fingered. Fine art is Shakespeare, Vonnegut, and silly romance novels. The creative use of media on a professional level to entertain is fine art.

    Fine art CAN have a philosophical point, be deep, meaningful, emotionally wrought, thematically interesting and all that, but it can be and often is quite shallow and trite. Every see Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup can? Ever listen to modern pop music? Have you been to a movie lately? Have you ever tried to delve into the meaning of Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral?

    Sure the history of painting and sculpture contains masterpieces, same with music, architecture, literature, movies, and even TV. I'll tell you this for nothing, the history of video games is going to contain masterpieces as well, and because the medium is interactive and popular, it has the potential to produce more of them in the future than the other media combined.