Mastery and Dominion

A game's environment and characters can create a place for us to go, but only its rules can allow us to live there.

There's a bit of background on this post. Chronologically, I wrote this, Chris Lepine responded with this and then talked more about it here. I meant to put this post together a while ago, but hey, at least I didn't abandon it completely. Summary is Chris calls out the potential hazard of gaming serving just as a way to relieve stress and be distracted from the day-to-day. He contends gaming should satisfy by its own merits. I actually wholeheartedly agree, but realize that some of my phrasing may have confused things.

I spoke of "mastery," but perhaps that is a misleading phrase. By this, I really mean the player's relationship to the rules that govern any given game. It's understanding a set of rules, observing or creating goals and then utilizing knowledge of the rules to achieve them. Perhaps "fluency" is a better term.

Mastery is really just internalizing those rules to the point where the player can express agency within them. Initially one begins unfamiliar and awkward, but with persistence they will be able to improve and execute on their own desires. That act of improvement is satisfying, and more importantly, relatively unique in media. One can't really "improve" in viewing films or reading novels, or at least not in a way as immediately or to such great effect as games.

A comparable pleasure might be learning to play a musical instrument. For most, they won't be professional musicians, but the mere act of improving within a certain framework of rules is satisfying. When you start out awkwardly plucking a single cord, finally being able to play even something as simple as "Louie, Louie" is immensely satisfying. Making goals and working toward achieving this is simply enjoyable for many people, and this is part of what makes games interesting.

This differs from the experience Chris talked about with Jorge and Scott, which I'll call "domination" for the sake of clarity. Domination is framed in the context of winning, either at the expense of another player or the game itself. One player succeeds because another fails to. This experience can be satisfying as well, but I would say it's not the same as the above. If one improves at playing the guitar or painting or speaking a foreign language, it's not like someone else's talents in the same must then decrease. Mastery simply means getting better, not necessarily at the expense of someone else.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this mindset, but I agree with Chris that too much emphasis on it will, at the very least, occlude the most satisfying pleasures of playing games. Mastery and domination can be aligned, of course. In those Starcraft 2 multiplayer matches I've been spending too much time with lately, the only goal is to defeat someone else and I must improve to do that.

A good deal of discussion from Chris, Scott and Jorge focuses on the satisfaction and joy that comes from the transportive power of games, to create a fictional place and make you feel like you're in it. I too agree, but I'd also contend that mastery of that place's laws is just a different (and possibly more enjoyable) way of being in that world. When I was playing Mirror's Edge, the world didn't consist of alabaster rooftops and towering buildings. The world was two vents close enough to jump between. It was a canvas cover taut enough to absorb the impact of a fall. The world felt real and I felt the most in it when I could express my intent. I felt transported when I could slide under a girder, mantle up a wall and leap with spinning 180 degrees to grab onto a crane. That's the world of Mirror's Edge becoming real.

Rules make a place real and when we can express ourselves using them, that's when we've really been transported. At least, that's the way I've felt most satisfied gaming. I sure do hope this is clear. I realize there's a lot of handwaving and vagueness here. But hopefully not so much that it's nebulous and unclear.

Additionally, I've made a pretty significant decision that I'll be posting about here in a few days. I'm a little nervous but tremendously excited. I won't tease further, just expect something soon. Apologies for being coy ... somewhat, anyway.

Mad Skills

Many claim the appeal of games is their ability to provide escape, their ability to transport the player to unusual places where the rules of normal life don't apply. This could be a fantasy world where magic holds aloft spire-cities, or merely the ability to steal a car and not go to prison for it. While I don't think this is false, it also leaves out a very important (I would say more important) reason why games are appealing. The rules of mundane life may disappear in games, but they are replaced by other rules. Mastering these mechanics provides great satisfaction and explains why games are often described as "relaxing" despite them often being quite taxing and stressful.

Jamie Madigan on his excellent Psychology of Games blog wrote about this last week in the context of "recovery experiences." Basically, our mental processes need time to recover, e.g. having a weekend off after a week of work, and return to full function. Three mechanisms achieve this: psychological detachment (not thinking about work), relaxation activities (low-stress enjoyable activities) and mastery experiences (getting better at something). Games are interesting because they can potentially provide any and all of these experiences. The escapist functions cover the first two, but it's the third that's especially interesting.

Consuming other media rarely provides any kind of mastery experience. Maybe there's some feeling of improvement in parsing Shakespeare or a David Lynch film, but even that is a stretch and certainly not the norm. Games are often stressful. Being in the midst of a neck-and-neck Starcraft II match isn't relaxing at all. Nor is Mario bounding from tiny ledge to an even tinier ledge, suspended above a starry void. I imagine the mastery experience in games is similar to learning to play a musical instrument. It requires effort and focus. For a while, you have little to show for it. But it's satisfying because you know you are improving.

Michael Abbott recently began the "Fun Factor Catalog," an effort (inspired by a comment I made, of all things, about Michael's love of baseball sims) to categorize what we enjoy about games. Currently there are 40 entries and of those, my rough categorization would mark 26 of them as mastery experiences. They use descriptors like "feeling clever," "preparation enabling success" and "challenge that tests skill and concentration."

When I think about most of the games I really enjoy, there are certainly some where I engaged with the story and characters (Planescape: Torment, Fallout, any adventure game, etc.). But the majority of my favourites would be games where I had the opportunity to master their systems, to improve skills. I think this also helps explain why so many games can have a terrible story and lackluster writing but still be a very satisfying experience. Obviously these aren't binary experiences either, a game could certain offer both. But only a small handful of studios possess the talent and focus to deliver quality on both those fronts.

So what's the purpose of this observation? We need better ways to talk about what makes games enjoyable. As I said almost exactly on year ago, "fun" is grossly insufficient. Michael's endeavour is laudable, but I'd love to see more of a taxonomy. We talk about characters and narrative a lot, but the skill component seems unfairly neglected in our conversations. Do you find mastery experiences in games satisfying? What kind of games do you find provide the most engagement when it comes to improving skills? I'm definitely curious how others approach this aspect of games specifically.

[Update: Chris Lepine wrote a great piece on his thoughts here.]

Say No to "Fun"

Seriously folks, we need to stop talking about "fun." Or at least talk about it less. I've made this comment in various locales, but I thought given the resurgence of the topic, it would be good to put my stake in the ground here.

I think we should stop saying games should be "fun" when we really mean games should be "engaging."

This is the example I usually come back to, but there are plenty of films that I wouldn't call "fun," but I still enjoyed watching them. Requiem For A Dream isn't a fun film. Not in any way. Certainly not like Drag Me to Hell is fun. But Requiem is still very much a rewarding experience, because it's engaging. Similarly, is listening to Tom Waits' The Black Rider really fun? That seems ... inaccurate. Now is Movits! and their mad Svenska jazz/hip-hop fun? Without a doubt.

The Path, at least to me, is an instance of a game that's engaging but not necessarily fun. It's dark, slowly paced and obtuse in a Lynch-esque way. But I certainly didn't feel my time playing it was wasted or feel I didn't get anything from the experience.

I've got lots of respect for Raph and his book, but wow, I wish he wouldn't have said "fun." Because the satisfaction that he describes arising from discovering, internalizing and utilizing systems is equally valid if we label it as "engaging."

Fun has a lot of contextual baggage. As game designers, we can converse about "fun" and have a relatively decent chance of people understanding we mean Koster's fun, not ice cream, cake and clowns fun (okay, maybe clowns aren't fun for anyone). But many players, and nearly everyone that's not a core gamer, does not think of Koster's definition when they hear "fun." Their perception is largely that fun is a quality of shallow amusements, of toys. And while that's fine, Candyland isn't going to show up in the MoMA any time soon.

Speaking in terms of engagement is going to make conversing with two groups of people easier. One is the existing gamers that Anthony Birch addressed in his rant. While I'm sure some of these people are genuinely believe it's an anathema for games to be anything but shallow, escapist stab-fests, I don't think all of them do. I imagine when some of those people say, "games have to be fun" they really mean "games have to be engaging."

But more importantly, speaking from "engagement" will make the conversation with potential players who aren't core gamers easier. It's great that Nintendo has brought more folks into the fold via the DS and Wii. But to be honest, many of their core games are not exactly rich in emotional depth. Wii Sports Resort and Mario Kart don't exactly speak to the human condition. I don't think the Wii Horse Bag is going to change that.

Again, Nintendo's games are absolutely fine. They do not have an obligation to make more emotionally deep games. But for non-core gamers, their only experience with games is as "fun" things. Being able to say those are one kind of thing and here's another kind that are similarly interesting but won't make you smile like Frisbee Dog will be increasing important.

This subject was broached in a local design group I'm part of and one of the folks there works in more of the serious/health games space. He related that he frequently speaks with non-gamers (e.g. academia, non-profits, health companies, etc.) and he's had vastly more success when he comes at the conversation from "engagement" instead of "fun," even though he means Koster's fun when he says "engaging." It nothing more than a verbal texture swap, but without all the context baggage many have about what "fun" is, he's able to have a far more productive and useful conversation. I don't think his experience is unique.

Believe me, most games will still be fun (like mini-golf and milkshakes fun). But it's going to make the discussion about how to make and why one should play more emotive games vastly easier if we can sidestep the "what kind of fun" quagmire completely.

Ultimately, this isn't about us. We're already on board. We get what we mean when we say "fun." Speaking from "engaging" is about helping other potential advocates (or at least audiences) understand why we see so much potential in what we do. And at the end of the day, that's what really matters.