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 What is a videogame without interaction?
I’d call it an “algorithmic artifact.”
Bottling this concept of the interaction-less videogame in a new term helps me get to an answer for a question that been nagging for a while:
What is the difference between a film produced on computer, such as Toy Story, and a videogame, which, of course, is produced on a computer?
The answer probably seems obvious. But as is often the case, the obvious answer doesn’t quite answer the question.
The obvious answer to this question is that a movie is not interactive and game is. The trouble is, the counter example is no further away than your DVD player and a copy of Toy Story. You interact with the film using your DVD controller. You can pause, fast forward, turn on and off director commentaries and explore supplementary material.
I know that one move is to argue that even though a DVD copy of Toy Story might be interactive, it’s still not a game because it lacks other game elements—conflict, goals and objectives, strategy, etc. And while I’d argue that these elements (and many others) might be the measure of a good game, there are plenty of examples of simple games that are cooperative, open-ended and based pretty much on luck. At the least, I want to set aside these arguable structural differences for the moment and assert that they are not the significant differences between a game and an animated film.
Back to interaction for a moment. If we borrow Espen Aarseth’s concept of “ergodic literature”, we might come to the conclusion that manipulating Toy Story on a DVD player is a sort of trivial interaction. So it doesn’t count. It’s not real interaction because selecting things off a DVD menu doesn’t affect the outcome of the story and button presses you make to play the movie are not a part of the actual pleasure of watching the film.
Of course, this sets up a hair-splitting criteria. The outcome of the plot of a game in the Final Fantasyseries is determined. So, no amount of twiddling with the controls will alter the outcome, just like Toy Story, And while some players may enjoy the endless monster-smashing of a Diablo, there are plenty of players who find the hack-and-slash game mechanic entirely trivial. That is, if I don’t enjoy clicking away at my mouse until my wrist aches, does that mean Diablo is not a videogame?
The problem is, if you separate animated films and videogames based on the idea of interaction, or non-trivial interaction, you are on the path, but never reach your destination. You can never fully seperate them into the different objects they obviously are. Likewise we reach the same place with other apparently significant differences between games and computer-animated movies.
My answer lies nearby, but takes a different tact.
I would suggest that the difference lies in a separation of pleasures. Toy Story is enjoyed as an algorithmic artifact; a videogame is enjoyed as an algorithmic system.
I argued above that a DVD can be considered a form of interaction. I have argued before that videogames don’t need interaction as a part of their structural definition. The simple summary of this argument is this:
Pick your favorite two-player game. Set the computer to play the computer. Now sit back and watch. What are you watching? A videogame, right? It didn’t become a film (or even Machinima) just because you don’t happen to be interacting with it.
The pleasure in a videogame comes from experiencing the system in action—in the experience of the simulation. The pleasures might be more acute when you are directly participating. But the source of the game “fun” is the active algorithmic system.
The pleasure in watching Toy Story is not in watching an active system. The film is an Objet D’Art, a finished work, a product of algorithms, but not an active system of computation.
In this sense, an “algorithmic artifact” is a much closer kin to the classic visual arts such as painting and sculpture. “Algorithmic arts” such as videogames then are closer to the ephemeral performance arts such as dance, theater or music.
Do you have to be on stage playing an instrument to enjoy a musical performance? Is a recorded “live” performance the same thing as being at the show?
These distinctions are useful in separating and examining the difference between algorithmic artifacts and videogames, or algorithmic arts.
Why do we enjoy gazing at the finished, simulated scenes of Toy Story? Why is this a different type of pleasure than watching two players clear a level in Halo? Recognizing the difference in these types of media, and accepting that interaction is not the salient feature, is an important first step in answering these questions.
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What does a movie such as Toy Story have to do with an algorithm? It was merely rendered with a computer. It's not as if they used some sort of story generating machine to think up the plot. It came out of a writer's imagination.
A story is a retelling of something that might have happened. A game system, like life, is a system allowing for certain things to happen. So a game can tell many stories--many "algorithmic artifacts".
Pick your favorite two-player game. Set the computer to play the computer. Now sit back and watch. What are you watching? A videogame, right? It didn?t become a film (or even Machinima) just because you don?t happen to be interacting with it.
Certainly it is still a game, but aren't playing and watching two very different experiences? If I record the session and play it later, it's not a game anymore, but a remembered instance of something that happened: a story.
Say I showed you two computers playing a game in real time, but I told you it had been staged beforehand, or vice versa. From your point of view there is no difference. You can't interact with what is happening, and since you've never watched it before, you can't predict what will happen. It's just like watching a movie.
The story of a 'game' such as Final Fantasy is often no different from that of a movie. There just happens to be bits of gameplay scattered throughout. The production we call a game is most often a story and a game, presented in parallel. I'm waiting for the day when we have truly interactive stories, but until then, the game and the story barely interact with each other.
If you find the game portion of a production to be trivial, then it's simply a boring game. Hopefully the story can make up for the deficiency and keep you playing. In this case, You enjoy watching the story more than you do playing the game.
The pleasure in a videogame comes from experiencing the system in action--in the experience of the simulation. The pleasures might be more acute when you are directly participating. But the source of the game "fun" is the active algorithmic system.
Interesting. I suppose that by watching a game being played long enough, you can learn the game as well as if you had been playing it. However, you aren't in control of the learning. If I want to know how a certain strategy works, or see what's behind that door, I have to wait until it happens, or pester the player until he indulges me. When you can interact directly with the system, when the entire system is at your fingertips, that is when the most satisfying learning takes place.
A story only shows us what happens in a single set of circumstances. A game presents us with a dynamic system, and invites us to play it over and over until we know it inside and out. How could this be accomplished other than through interactivity?
Why do we enjoy gazing at the finished, simulated scenes of Toy Story? Why is this a different type of pleasure than watching two players clear a level in Halo? Recognizing the difference in these types of media, and accepting that interaction is not the salient feature, is an important first step in answering these questions.
Some people would watch Halo in the same way they would watch Toy Story. For these people, the game, with its lower emphasis on quality story telling, is disappointing. A female friend of mine, upon seeing Halo in action, quickly dismissed it as "guns and breathing noises". If one watches a game analytically, as a gamer does, they immediately see the depth of the gameplay.
I like the issues you are bringing up in this article, David. I feel like you are still working on this line of thought, so I'll wait and see where you go with it. Just remember to distinguish between the interactive parts of a game production and the non-interactive parts. The former is the one unique to games, and therefore, the one you need to focus on!