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Willing Suspension of Freedom and Disbelief

Gamasutra has an opinion piece up on suspension of disbelief in video games up. With this article, I feel the author is trying to express something he’s frustrated with in games, but doesn’t know how to express it because I’m not sure he’s fully thought it through. He’s talking about player limitations, but can’t figure out where being limited is okay, and where it isn’t. While he reaches the correct conclusion (”Games shouldn’t imply choices that players cannot actually make”), I feel he’s struggling to figure out why in one case the limitation is warranted, but not in another. In a way, he’s trying to find a way to talk about what a player’s willing suspension of freedom, not his willing suspension of disbelief. That said, even I find that sometimes it’s easy to confuse where a game creator has violated suspension of freedom, and where he has violated suspension of disbelief and thus created a violation of suspension of freedom, since the two can be tied very closely tied together. So what’s the difference, why is it important, and where do they combine?

Suspension of disbelief is “the willingness of a person to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible.” (Wikipedia). With suspension of disbelief we are specifically looking at aesthetics of a game: plasma ray guns, space ships, magic, monsters, etc. Suspension of disbelief violations occur when a narrative or a game’s aesthetic qualities are not internally consistent (deus ex machina stuff will frequently violate suspension of disbelief).

Suspension of freedom is the willingness of a person to accept limitation in an interactive application. In games, this is mechanical: inability to walk in various areas, jump, break things, swim, place pieces anywhere, etc. Suspension of freedom violation occur when a player believes a mechanic should be possible, but isn’t. In addition, a worse violation is when a mechanic is offered, then suddenly taken away.

The two combine when a game’s aesthetics make you believe a certain mechanic should be available, but isn’t. The example given in the article about Silent Hill 3 is pretty good. Because the game presents itself as “realistic,” and has a graphical quality that reinforces that, the designer has violated suspension of disbelief, which in turn violates your suspension of freedom. You believe that you should be able to break boxes (because of the realistic quality of the graphics and other elements of the game), but you can’t, which is a suspension of freedom violation.

Interestingly, this can also be genre based, and game literacy based. A lot of genres didn’t have, or still don’t have, breakable objects, and we just accept that in that genre. In addition, people who are fairly game literate may look at boxes and realize its code for a wall (which can bite them in the ass if it’s not) and not feel any suspension of disbelief or freedom.

Games don’t have to be realistic, just consistent. Just realize that if your aesthetics are realistic, players will be less willing to suspend freedoms that they would have in real life.

By: Jeff | 08/07/08 | Agency Theory - Games / Design | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0]

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Matthew Weise

Comment by Matthew Weise | 08/26/08 at 11:52 am

I think the should’s and should not’s of freedom suspension get especially muddy when you bring in genre and literacy considerations. You could criticize all SHMUP’s because “I should be able to turn my space ship around” but in general we don’t because the genre conventions are so clear and solidified at this point.

That said, I think you can still criticize SHMUP’s for exploiting their established conventions in frustrating ways. For example, in Ikaruga I don’t mind the fact that my spaceship cannot turn around because I’m almost always moving forwards. In Gradius V, though, there are long sequences where the camera moves counter to your shooting direction for no other reason than to make the game harder. I found this somewhat ridiculous, since it seemed stupid that the pilot wouldn’t simply turn around when there was an army behind him and no one in front.

This is also, incidentally, why System Shock 2 drove me crazy, coming from having played System Shock 1. I’ve never liked the RPG convention of not even being able to equip a weapon outside my character class, and System Shock 2 seemed silly to me when I was trapped in a dead end with a cyborg closing in only to be told I couldn’t even pick up that alien crystal thingy to defend myself simply because I didn’t have an adequate exotic weapon rating. However, I may have felt differently had I not played System Shock 1, which spoiled me by having no such restrictions.

The “realism” argument, I think, has little to do with freedom suspension. Maybe on a very broad level, but even the Silent Hill 3 argument seems based less on realism and more on literacy of existing game conventions. I don’t think it’s the realism at all that suggests that boxes should be broken, but the notion in the collective gamer unconscious that all boxes are breakable. If “realism” was the issue, the player should feel dissonance at virtually every restriction SH3 has, including not being able to use your crowbar to rip holes in drywall, not being able to open windows, not being able to set wooden things on fire, not being able to change cloths and put on make up, not being able to use the toilet, not being able to dance, not being able to jump–in short, not being able to do the infinite things one would be able to do in reality. Of all these things, the one thing this writer complains about is something that’s already an existing game convention? That suggests our concept of “realism” has become subconsciously conflated with our concept of “default” videogame conventions.

Willing Suspension of Freedom and Disbelief

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