Why Video Games?

I'm doing a bit of research, and it would really help me if you could just answer one question. I know this sounds a little simple, but...

To both the fans and creators: Why video games? What is it about this particular medium that appeals to you?

Shooting things is a nice way to unwind? Shooting my friends is fun? Beating the crap out of someone in a wrestling ring without have to move more than my thumbs is awesome? Video games give me the delusion I'm good at driving. I can do lots of different things without actually needing to learn lots of different skills, doing them with my small pool of friends is better?

edited 14th Feb '12 2:12:09 PM by Cider

Well... to me they're fun and enjoyable!

Because you're (usually) in control of your own destiny, creating some kind of adventure.

Albeit, that's a general video game. It probably doesn't apply to Solitaire, but the rest, yeah. You aren't in full control, but it's like reading a book, except you make the decisions more directly.

I find the kind I like to be the perfect mix of both adrenaline-rushing yet and making me think just enough to feel like I've used my brain right when I win.

I don't really know. I enjoy actually taking part in the medium I'm enjoying, I guess?

The interactivity can get me far more invested in a plotline than a book or movie with the same plot could. For example, both Character A and I have fought our way through this dungeon only to find that it was all for nothing and it doesn't just hurt Character A, it hurts me as well because I have also put forward that effort to get there.

There's an investment of time and energy that doesn't really get matched by anything else. Beating a boss and advancing the plotline can be a physical relief as well as an emotional one in a game, but with a book or a movie it's just an emotional one because all you have to do is sit back and read or watch.

This doesn't mean I watch tv and movies or read any less. I just get more attached to games.

The interactive element really drives a lot of experiences home. A horror movie is one thing, but Silent Hill or Amnesia The Dark Descent are others entirely. Likewise, killing a monster in Monster Hunter is far more intense and investing than reading a fantasy dragon slaying.

It's all about the simulation of being there. An excellent game draws the player into their virtual avatar and has them empathise with, if not their emotional struggles, at leas their more visceral ones. Just like there are movies that keep you on the edge of your seat, there are games result in intense experiences that have strong psychological rewards because of their tension.

I suspect your answer will depend upon the gamer type, though. I like being a mundane warrior in fantasy games, using skill and cunning to take on adversaries that outclass me in pure power.

Why not?

But in all seriousness, it is a very interactive medium. Much more so than literature and films, both of which I adore. However, you can truly lose yourself in a video game and can take on any number of different fantastical roles. Wanna be a gunman in a huge war? Bam. Wanna control an entire nation? Bam. Wanna sick violent killing machines on others? Ta-da!

In conclusion, video games are more immersive and can be chosen to simulate almost any scenario you want. It truly is a unique medium in its potential.

Seconding. I don't think any major developers have realized yet how much could theoretically be done with the medium (though Atomic Games made an attempt.)

edited 14th Feb '12 6:56:20 PM by feotakahari

I grew up with prose, videos, and live theater, then got into comics. It takes time, patience, and concentration in order to appreciate all four media forms. Live theater has a modest amount of audience interactivity, but they don't determine the ending. Except for a few experimental examples from each media form, none of them let the audience have any say over what happens.

Gamebooks have a bit of interactivity (especially the ones which incorporate dice rolls). Nearly all board and card games have a lot of interaction. Physical role playing games almost always have quite a bit of gameplay and often more than a little narrative. They're similar and yet different from video games.

Overall, I think my answer to "why video games?" would be "Because they let me explore fictional worlds on my own, and have the ability to influence what happens." Some of the best examples of video games have excellent visuals (comparable to movies and television), right along with quality settings and plots (comparable to books), and fused with solid gameplay.

because im attracted to misery.

and because i need something to pass the time, and there are those rare occasions where i actually enjoy the game in question.

They're fun. A number of them have good art styles, and it's wonderful to watch them in motion. They let me hone my reflexes, and I feel accomplished when I beat something difficult. They allow me an outlet to live out my fantasies. They have good worldbuilding. They provide a great way for me to spend time with my friends and family, whether we play a multiplayer game like Mario Party or I just play something and they watch and make comments. Plus, it's an evolving medium, so it's wonderful to watch it and see how the stories grow, and the gameplay changes, and the graphics get better, and lots of things.

Also, they have some of the most wonderful music imaginable in them. I feel it's the one arena we really have right now where instrumental and experimental music can really flourish and be all it can be. Film scores right now tend to be really "safe" and don't go hog wild, with a few exceptions (See: The Coraline soundtrack), while video game music has its pick of genres, and can be just about anything they want to be. For a couple soundtracks that really embody what I mean, look up the music to Rayman Origins, Beyond Good And Evil, Opoona, Odin Sphere, Okami, and for something without a word in its title that doesn't begin with "O," Dragon Seeds.

Also, I think working with more limited systems has really brought out the best in some composers. This music makes me want to rock out, and it's done with the 8-bit limitations of the Game Boy:

"DE Rnernernerner! Dah dah dumdumdum Doododododah DER ner ner ner naaah!"

I mainly enjoy video games because they manage to be cathartic while still maintaining some degree of involvement.

TV and Movies you just sit and watch. In video games, you still get to relax, but you feel like you're actually doing something at the same time.

Video games is a combination of so many mediums in one. They allow the viewer to interact with the medium. Multiplayer games can provide a good icebreaker to people. And best of all, there's challenge, accomplishment and satisfaction to be found in playing it.

Hmm. I can see that this will be a tough variety of media to penetrate, since it's do diverse. The main goal here is to look at different kinds of interactivity, and how they affect the audience. I'll need to come up with more questions, but for now:

• What kinds of emotions or experiences can interactivity provide that other 'static' media cannot? For instance, I once heard Will Wright say that video games can give a sense of pride in your accomplishments, which something like movies cannot.

• What I'm hearing here is that two things that are really important to people are the challenge and/or giving the player control over the story and the world (exploration, going at your own pace, doing things your own way, etc). But what if a game was stripped away both of those things, and was very linear and not challenging. Could it still be good? How? Photopia springs to mind as an example of a 'game' that does this.

And I also think it's important to ask what drawbacks interactivity has.

• Does the creator have less control over the finished product, since the experience can be different each time and the audience is given more control over the pace and focus of the work (compare with film or a book)?

• Does the medium actively exclude people who are not skilled at them?

edited 14th Feb '12 10:12:45 PM by AlexisPius

It depends on the type of game, really. In general, I would say I like them, because it helps relieve stress and it's amusing and enjoyable.

Since my favorite type are RP Gs, however, I would say that I play them in part because of the storytelling. I love stories, especially good ones, so finding an RPG with a good and engaging story is still a bit hard, sadly. But when I do, it's great. A game that gives me a story I can control and help create. That's what I like the most.

And another thing I enjoy about them is that they're a form of art. At least, that's how I see them. Creating a video game requires artists and programmers, and a lot of other people. For every game, there's a specific style of drawing the characters, kind of like in animation. And the end result is an animation that not only gives you a story and visuals to appreciate, but can also be controlled by you.

Beyond Good & Evil has no word that begins with O.

That's the big one for me. A sense of accomplishment. Honestly, I don't feel much of this "immersion" and "freedom" that people like to talk about, for me games are puzzles to be solved. Some require reflex, some require planning, but at the end of the day I just like the feeling that comes from having skills that achieved a reward of some sort. The fact that the reward is intangible doesn't seem to make any kind of difference to my brain.

In some ways, it's a "simulation of productivity". You do something, you get a reward for it. It just happens to be the case that the "something" is also something you find interesting, so you get the reward for doing something you want anyway. It's like having the perfect job that you love doing and get paid for. Except you're paid in pride rather than money.

Sounds like a Visual Novel. I think most people nowadays don't really think of those as games.

I think that's the wrong question to ask. They have a different kind of control. They control the rules. They control what you can and cannot do, and these limitations define your gameplay. They can be more or less restrictive but all games have rules. Incidentally, there's a reason we call them "games". Think about sports. The rules create a narrative. Where the ball gets places after a point is scored in basketball or football or hockey or whatever determines how the players act. In general, sports want to tell a story of back and forth struggle so the ball gets placed so as to give advantage to the loser, or simply stay consistently neutral. Rules create narrative.

Depends on the game you're playing. In general though, no more or less than any form of allusion. There's a whole genre of movie parodies that would make no sense at all unless the audience is deeply familiar with movies. Clever twists in a novel assume the reader is familiar with how things are expected to play out. At a certain level of sophistication I think it's unavoidable for a medium to assume familiarity with itself. Historically speaking, people needed to be taught "how to watch a movie". If you're not familiar from a young age with "movie storytelling", quick cuts, close-ups and various other ubiquitous film techniques would make no sense at all. There's an old anecdote about someone who thought the first film they saw was disgusting because the camera kept "chopping people up".

I think a more interesting question to ask is why games are seen as "optional" in a way that other media aren't. Why is it normal for someone to have never tried a game while if they said they've never seen a movie you'd wonder what kind of strange and oppressive childhood they must have had.

edited 14th Feb '12 10:30:53 PM by Clarste

To put it simply (and this has probably been said a thousand times already in this thread), it's basically that games are active participation.

I love reading books or watching movies or animation to amuse myself, but almost always they're a one-time deal. That episode of Thundercats isn't gonna change the next time you watch it. That E. Honda vs. Balrog matchup you just fought through though could play out completely differently. Even if the result is the same both times, the road to said result could've involved different techniques or strategems.

And the fact that its me in the driver's seat makes me care more. I mean, its one thing to see Mega Man stop Dr. Wily's latest harebrained scheme on television, and that's cool. But in a video game, its MY story, I'M the one taking down Dr. Wily, and its MY victory when I do. I didn't just hear a story, I actually accomplished something.

As a storytelling medium I think video games offer things other mediums don't. One of them is that characterization can be implicit. This is why fighting game characters like Terry Bogard or Ryu have strong personalities even though they don't talk much or get involved in very complicated plotlines—their body language conveys a lot of information. Admittedly, you could adapt this to animation easily, but the allowance of dialogue means most authors are gonna prefer to tell rather than show even if its not a good idea, and worse, the audience will expect that so any character done in such a way will come off as "having no personality." I hate to say it, but television really has diminished our ability to pick up on subtle cues. This is the medium, after all, where you need an extreme close-up of someone crying for the audience to understand "they're sad."

I think that's potentially one thing, but it's more a positive symptom of a root element. Psychological rewards don't necessarily need to fall under a particular name, but for games, it's important that they exist. And I suppose that's the heart of the matter. Games are built to psychologically manipulate the player into feeling a reward response — the better the game does this, the more played and successful it'll be.

We can largely attribute different tastes to how this reward response is triggered in individuals.

I think asking whether it could still be "good" might be missing the point. The relevant point is that it should still be a game — otherwise its relevance is in question. Certainly video games aren't the first form of interactive media, but they're a very specific type.

One distinction it might be interesting to note is that between a "puzzle" and a "game". Before reading onward, try to think about the differences between them and see if you can get it clear cut.

A puzzle is essentially a type of game, but there's one significant different. Whereas games are supposed to be, to some extent, open-ended systemic experiences (even linear games let you move freely and interact as you please within the mechanics), puzzles are games with what's called a "dominant strategy". A dominant strategy is a way of solving problems that invalidates other possible solutions via is efficiency. Finding the dominant strategy is the whole point of puzzles, because then its solved.

Notice how a video game can be fun even after you've beaten it, but a puzzle stops holding interest once it's solved? Despite the psychological reward of the puzzle, it was always going to be a one-time thing.

I think the creator has limited control due to the nature of the industry more than anything else. Financial risk is bad, so publishers want to sell reliable games. Essentially, game developers with the most cash at their disposal are restricted by the nature of the market.

In any case, I think any good game designer makes games precisely because the end user can self-generate an experience to some extent. That's a part of what's fun — no two people will have exactly the same experience. Any game designer that is unhappy with that probably shouldn't be designing games. Film might be their thing.

Between casual games and the wealth of genres, I don't think so. This might've been true in the late 90s or early 2000s, but these days games are designed to be picked up and played by gamers of any level of skill — sometimes to the detriment of their quality, or to the extent of in-game information being condescending. In fact, gaming is so casual friendly these days that some more esoteric games in the pipes couldn't get funding when they might've ten years ago. I appreciate that developers want to bring new people into the fold, of course, but we might've erred too heavily into accessibility somewhere down the line.

Why video games? Personally it's something that adds variety to my recreational habits. It's, uh, "another fun thing to do".

Why?

Because I WILL be the very best, like no one ever was. I WILL pwn teh interwebs. I WILL be unstoppable. I WILL forge my destiny. I WILL defy your plot.

I WILL BE.

Going hand in hand with pride, video games can make you feel very determined. Take, say, Dark Souls. It can be maddeningly difficult at times, but it's fair and you can see yourself get better (or at least learning) with each of your attempts in an area. For me it made me want to try again and again, which ultimately ended with that wonderful blast of pride. Usually about something relatively mundane like "I GOT PAST THAT BRIDGE! HELL YEAH. I AM THE AWESOME."

If it doesn't have challenge it better have an absolutely glorious story to make up for it.

Like someone above, I think that the creator just has to be, well, creative with their control. They decide how you can interact with the environment, the dialogue options, the different endings the story can have. I mostly play jrpgs which don't usually have the problem of getting a different story each time, but getting the entire story can be a problem so sometimes the creators need to find ways to influence the player to explore around them to get a full experience. Reward mechanics and soforth for being inquisitive.

Many games come with an easy-mode, so introducing someone to video games shouldn't be a problem. The big hurdle is prejudice against the medium, the still prevailing opinion of those who have never played a video game or looked at how many different types there are that it's nothing but trying to get the highest kill score. Plot? What plot? Deep? You gotta be kidding me. Great music? You mean those bloops and bleeps? Get outta town.

I think to answer that, you need to consider the question "Why games in the first place?". Why do we play board games, or childhood games like hide-and-seek?

Once you've answered that question, you can delve into why video games specifically are so popular. Personally, I like stories. Movies, books, TV, whatever. I just like to have an interesting story told to me. Video games are attractive to me because they combine a story with whatever element it is that compels us to play games.