Now here’s a funny thing: this article has absolutely nothing to do with what I’d originally planned. But this is a situation where the story changes in telling, rather than an editor telling you to change the story. In a nutshell, this month’s Culture Clash column for the International Game Developers Association was meant to talk about the portrayal of sexual violence in literary media, using the two movies I mention below as a basis.
But the piece just wasn’t working. I have strong opinions on the subject but despite knowing a great many words, my strong opinions weren’t coming out the way I wanted them to. So I took a walk, and as so often happens, a completely different concept with the same building blocks popped into my head. That’s what you see here. I hope it’s more than just another article about the debate over “fun,” or at least another way of framing it, but I leave that to your judgment. Enjoy!
Something I’ll Never Do Again
By Matthew Sakey
Originally published by the International Game Developers Association
By sheer accident I recently saw two movies I had no plans to ever see again: Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. I first saw them in film school, in 1994 or ’95, and once was enough for both. They’re examples of truly masterful cinema, but they’re also two of the most disturbing movies I’ve seen, haunting me ever since.
Then there I was a while ago, idly clicking through cable channels late at night, and lo! Repulsion. I did my natural instinctive shiver and prepared to move on, but the Dumbass Lobe in my brain – the same part that once convinced the rest of my brain to watch The Human Centipede; the same part that convinced the rest of my brain to jump off a parking deck to impress a girl – convinced me not to change the channel.
Repulsion is the story of a young woman who is going mad, and it is profoundly upsetting. Right after it ended, in a sort of double feature from hell, what should come on but The Virgin Spring, the movie that inspired Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left.
After it was all over and I’d uncoiled myself from the cringing, wide-eyed fetal horror-ball into which I’d reflexively constricted, I was able to reaffirm that they’re impeccable examples of filmmaking, despite being so distressing that watching them isn’t at all enjoyable. But it had been worthwhile, not just the first time 17 years ago but the second as well. I had eaten the cinematic equivalent of my vegetables and was healthier for it; unhappy during the experience but aware of the value in what I was doing, even to the point of gleaning more value with still-unenjoyed seconds. That’s quite different from not enjoying a movie and not wanting to see it again because it’s bad.
Games have much less leeway in this area. I mean come on, that pitch? A game so disturbing it’ll stay with players for years after they finish, that they’ll not really enjoy playing in any traditional sense, and that most will elect never to play again.
It does happen, though – with commercial games, not just weird Belgian indies. Just last month I observed that Max Payne 3’s unbelievably bleak experience is a sign of evolution in what developers feel they can try thematically. In the end I think Max Payne 3 was a great game, but play it again? I doubt it.
We can’t ignore nuances. If you held up a copy of Dragon’s Dogma and a copy of Max Payne 3 and asked me if I enjoyed either one, or expected to play either again, the answer would be “no” across the board. I’d even concede that I didn’t have fun playing either of those games.
This calls into question the argument that games must be “fun.” I think it’s an incredibly short-sighted, unnecessarily restrictive, and inherently invalid view, for two reasons:
- No game is all fun. Loading screens aren’t fun. Keymapping isn’t fun. The fourth time you face the same boss usually isn’t fun. Repeated failure isn’t fun. Thus while games should strive to include bursts of “fun” around experiential scaffolding, the implication that games be fun and nothing else is over-general.
- One person’s fun is another’s misery, and trying to whack every fun mole leads to insipid, homogenized products satisfying only to Bobby Kotick.
I don’t want to get into a semantic debate, because intelligent people understand “fun” has different meanings. I didn’t have fun playing Max Payne 3 because it made me sad; it was emotionally arduous. Max Payne 3 is Repulsion or The Virgin Spring – not fun at all, but worth it even so.
I didn’t have fun playing Dragon’s Dogma because I felt nothing while playing. Nothing deep or shallow; neither moment to moment satisfaction or any sense that there was more impact to be found. Dragon’s Dogma is The Watch or Supercapitalist – neither fun nor possessed of any quality sufficient to offset the absence of fun.
Whenever I talk to aspiring designers, one of the first things I tell them is to be careful about rigidity. Worry less about “fun” and more about creating games that consistently engage the player, whatever emotion that engagement may manifest. Remember that you’re building a game and not a movie, but don’t over-limit your perception of what a game can or should be. And if you’re gonna make a game that’s not fun, make a game that’s not fun in the right way.
4A Games’ Metro 2033 is based on a novel, and if you’ve actually read Dmitry Glukhovksy’s book, you know that it’s mostly internal self-reflection and philosophical debate. I wouldn’t call it slow, exactly, but it’s talky and measured, with little action and a very specific, complex message.
With that in mind, 4A Games went out and made Metro 2033: not perfect, but a fine game. Its real triumph was how it balances itself, offering just the type of engagement we expect in a video game while remaining faithful to the novel’s structure, plot, and message. Much of Metro 2033 isn’t fun – some design decisions hinder it, but mostly it’s not a “fun” game because it’s not a “fun” environment; it’s nihilistic and desperate and goes out of its way to emphasize that not only do you have no chance against the antagonist, maybe you shouldn’t have a chance against them. You finish Metro 2033 and you’re not likely to rush back. If you’re me, it even took several tries to really get into the game, because at first you (ahem) weren’t having enough fun. Let that go, however, and you’ll see a really innovative game that can teach us a lot about how to convert messages across media and remind us that fun is only one small ingredient.
Done right, Repulsion or The Virgin Spring could be compelling video games. Done right, those are games I’d buy and play and probably never want to play again, and never regret any instant of the experience – after I released my body from the cowering rictus of dread into which I’d ratcheted it.
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This content appears under the author’s copyright at the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).Views expressed herein are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the IGDA or its members.
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rictus, not even spell check likes it, well played sir.
I have many examples of games that I’m happy to promote but unsure if I could face another spin in them. Planescape: Torment is one (its sheer length and depth) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is another (it really makes you work for progress).
I like the idea that perhaps we should be approaching game design decisions like this – that is, if it’s not fun, then make it not fun in a good way (difficult to quantify, though, right?). I think that’s why Pippin Barr’s games work because a lot of them aren’t “fun” but that lack of fun is the point.
That’s also probably why Dear Esther is a complicated one for me because there wasn’t that much fun in it and I didn’t find its obfuscated narrative compelling. Whereas Richard Hofmeier’s Cart Life’s substitution of fun with grind works as meticulous depiction of life at the bottom (unlike Spent because it’s too obvious and mechanical consequences are just not that interesting or as detailed).
This thread raises an interesting (to me, at least) question about the nature of entertainment and the suitability of different types of media to convey different types of message and/or depth of experience.
On the whole, I prefer my films and games to be escapist and upbeat. If I want a greater depth or different type of experience I would expect to seek it in a book, but even then my usually preferred fare will be escapist fiction (especially sci-fi or violent thrillers).
These will all tend to have what I would term a high level of “fun,” but for me that can legitimately include a fair amount of what I know that others might find inappropriate or unacceptable.
I suspect that this probably says a great deal more about me than it does about the nature of the genres, but the same is no doubt true of Matt’s own apparent compulsion to subject himself to heavy doses of angst. I am also mindful of AJ’s declared fascination with games of sexual deviation mentioned in another thread!
I acknowledge that I may well have a particularly warped sense of humour and a (usually concealed)lack of respect for convention. I blame this upon the exposure to a fair amount of human misery that comes through work and perhaps through some sort of potential tendency toward depression.
If I am in the right(?) frame of mind, I may be prepared to deliberately dip my toe in the water of an entirely different overtly message-bearing experience. This led me to read the Grapes of Wrath and other works by Steinbeck, but I would not have chosen to absorb that sort of theme through film or game (although perhaps on stage or on radio).
More often a “meaningful” theme will have to creep up on me to have any hope of catching my attention, probably by being packaged in conventional “fun” wrapping. I have in mind a book such as the Shack (which had the welcome incidental effect of introducing me to the music of Bruce Cockburn) and the endings of various other books and films, such as On the Beach, Easy Rider and even Black Adder Goes Forth. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest just about makes it into this category, as I think that I first watched it to be entertained (and then read the book). I even read the Road wrongly expecting “fun” entertainment (after No Country For Old Men) but I would not want to watch the film.
Time to get back to computer games: again, I suspect that the non “fun” would have to creep up on me, but I do not think I have yet experienced that in a game. I have STALKER and like the idea of it, but the bleakness deters me. I also sniffed around the Path, but never really got into it. The nearest thing so far would have been Sanitarium, and I am waiting to see what Dark Souls may bring forth (having been lured into that by another thread here)…
Apologies if I have exceeded my quota or gone too far off topic, and without even touching upon the serious side of fun in popular music! 🙂