The notion we are exploring is whether or not there are some fundamental structural differences in media in their ability to carry ideas or emotions. I always thought visual art, painting for example, was probably better at carrying emotional content than ideas. Certainly, the ideas are linked to emotions. Goya's The Third of May comes to mind.

If you accept that painting may not be as good a medium as writing for expressing abstract thought, then maybe it is possible that video games are not as good at carrying emtional thought.

TGCid's ideas, what I'd call the "lack of effort concept", has some weight in my mind. I'd be the last person to argue that this medium has flexed the muscle it has, much less worked much on developing more. Oddly, thought, I find this argument supporting the basic premise rather than arguing against it. If we don't have good examples, then, well, uh, we don't have good examples of video games carrying an emotional punch. And by emotional punch, I mean the kind of feeling you have when you finish a great book or watch a great movie and say to yourself, "I'm going to live my life differently!". The absence of proof does not argue strongly for the proposition of possibility.

md makes a point that really struck me--that because games allow for control in the interaction loop, that they take away manipulative control that some media have over the viewer, there is a parity in exchange of ideas and emotions. It's simply harder to tug heart strings, not impossible. Wow! That's more provocative than my original statement, and maybe a central truth. Just consider what it means to the social commentary games and the issues of violence in video games. This argument blunts both of those directions because it says (in my words) "Media effects are mitigated, not enhanced, in video game play because of the shift in power between the player and the game creator."

Brilliant! Thanks for the discussion!

"While the emotive power of motion pictures grew in fits and starts in its infancy, it still grew.  Movies got better and better at making us feel and care, and in the process honed the craft of telling stories on film to a razor's edge.  In the interactive entertainment industry all of the obvious solutions to making emotionally engaging products have apparently failed, leaving us battered and bruised at the foot of a wall that we can't seem to get over, around, under or through.  Making matters worse is the fact that we have managed to create a viable industry based on gaming and interactivity alone, which means money thrown at improving emotional involvement not only looks risky, but pointless."

This from an article titled "The Producers" which basically argues games are poor at the emotional stuff because game developers don't invest in the people that actually know how to do it--the writers. Don't know how true this is, but it's a wonderful article!

I think it's a matter of the types of methods that are used to generate emotion, with consideration to the way the player approaches a game.

Movies and books are so capable at affecting our emotions because their techniques have been honed not only since their inventions but since the birth of storytelling. Now most game producers try to wedge examples of these techniques into a medium that's poorly suited for them, relatively. This has worked rather well in a few examples, but for the most part such "cinematic" effects exist merely as a diversion from the essential part of a game: the simulation.

If games are to achieve an emotional impact on par with other forms of media, we have to use their one unique aspect: the interactivity. Perhaps at first glance it seems that interactivity precludes emotional involvement. But what about real life? It's the first, the ultimate interactive world--and, incidentally, the most emotionally charged. Instead of looking at literary techniques, which can only imitate emotional situations, let's find what turns us on in real life, distill that down, and put it into our simulations.

Perhaps you've played the "simulation" September 12th. Did you feel a pang of guilt the first time you flattened a bazaar full of civilians? Did it feel anything like that other time where you hurt someone, even though you had the best intentions?

When my Sims character got so lonely he started to cry, I felt kind of bad for him. However, this emotion got short-circuited. I chose to become frustrated with the rules of the game instead. Why does it have to take so long to use the phone to invite someone over? Why does my social bar go down when I'm at work(presumably where there are other people I could talk to)? This brings me to my next point.

This problem may be inherent in the nature of a game. When a player approaches a game, he may see its characters as beings worthy of emotional investment, or simply as a game pieces to be shifted about in order to gain progress/points/cash/XP/etc. It seems that either can occur for most games, probably depending on the player.

It's really a question of suspension of disbelief. The user needs to forget that (s)he's competing against the same machine that's feeding him content. When the player sees that health bar in the corner of the screen, the mathematical nature of the game is laid out before him. It's hard to cry about a collection of variables and processes. However, concealing the mechanics of the game frustrates players and makes the game seem unfair.

Does this mean that algorithmic simulation and meaningful emotional content cannot coexist? I think not; it's just hard to pull off, in my opinion. After all, as I said above, real life is a rule-based system, yet it provides an endless source of emotional fodder.

There are other considerations. What of the level of abstration employed in the game's presentation? Do I feel anything when my bishop is taken? Do I feel any more when Pac-Man gets caught by a ghost? Do I feel any more when my Morrowind character dies?