I've complained about Game Informer before. As "the world's #1 video game magazine" it leaves a lot to be desired. Mostly I think it's just catering to its audience though, so frequently I just give it a pass.
Over the weekend, I read the latest issue of Game Informer and the following letter caught my eye:
I'm writing about your interview with David Cage in issue 198. He stated that video games are unable to generate an emotional experience like those present in movies, and I have to disagree. I feel that video games can offer even more of an experience than movies because of the opportunity to fill the shoes of the lead character.
The letter goes on, but that's the important part. Now, I don't agree with David Cage, but I don't agree with the writer of this letter either. I hear the "fill the shoes" / "you are the main character" argument concerning games and emotion a lot, and before I give my opinion on the subject, I want to ask these questions:
- When was the last time you actually felt like you were the main character in a game, or, that the main character was you? And…
- Can you name a time where you had a heightened emotional experience as a result of that feeling that could not have been achieved in any other medium?
I'd like to hear responses on this before I give my own.
1 – You don’t actually have to feel like the main character for the “in the shoes of” effect to work. You simply need to understand the main character’s perspective. If I play a game set in the South before the civil war where the main character is an escaped slave, will I actually feel like a slave? Probably not – but I will have a deeper understanding of what it might have been like, a more powerful understanding than if I watched a movie about it.
2. Not feelings exclusive to the medium, but I’ve certainly been more frightened by some survival horror games than horror movies. A couple Bioware games have made me feel guilt when I treat party members badly (guilt is unique to games).
I’m bothered both my Cage’s assumption that games should be like movies, and the GI’s letter saying that games are already like movies. Games are not movies, and that’s good, because they provide different experiences. We can empathise with our game characters in similar ways, but while we say “I’m fighting dragons” to refer to our character, we don’t say the same to refer to the protagonist of a movie, because that’s not us. That does not mean that we *are* our character either, particularly if we compare it with table-top RPGs or LARPing. The player character is like a puppet, that is us-but-not-us. Is closer to playing with dolls or action figures than to actual role-playing. (MMORPGs are probably a slight exception)
The heightened emotional experiences that one can get of playing a videogame are different from other media, and at times difficult to compare. No other medium can make me to vocalize my frustration as videogames, for example.
So my responses are: 1-I don’t feel like I’m the main character of the game, even if that’s how I refer to the characters and 2-Randomly difficult challenges in games can make me angry like no other medium can (e.g. Trauma Center).
@Borut: So my question for your response to #1 is: Are you sure games are any better at achieving this than other mediums? Could you make a game that captures the hardships of being a slave or an escaped slave be any better than Roots? Part of being an slave was unfair punishment, something we avoid in games completely. Even if we didn’t, could you get past the the unfair punishment as part of the plot, and not as part of the game?
@Clara: I’m just as bothered by Cage’s assumption, but I’m just as bothered by the assumption that games emotional impact comes from it’s ability to put you “in the shoes” of the main character, and to assume so is to actually miss the point. Of course, I’ll get into this in a full post at some point I think.
[...] Jan.26, 2010, under Agency Theory, Experimental Games, Games / Design I got a few responses from my previous post, and now I want to share my feelings on the [...]
It’s the *unfair* part that’s key – games punish the player all the time. I mean, we try to avoid it because it’s not very friendly to new players, but death & retrying is pretty common – if the “punishment” is seen by the player as being valuably tied to the world, the mechanics & the story, it’s an important part of the experience, and when they don’t see it that way, people see it as a negative part of the experience.
It’s often “unfair” when it’s not tied to the plot. For example, the way some action games take away your earned abilities at the end – feels cheap because the game is just attempting to ratchet up the difficulty. If that loss was actually tied into the character and storytelling, it’s less problematic to players, I’d argue.
Games may or may not be better at achieving that level of characterization/storytelling – but the fact that you have to perform (even in rote fashion) the actions that cause these events to occur allows for more reflection on the part of the player (which is also why you when a game fails on this front, it’s often complained about loudly in the reviews).