Train Wreck Valley

"Train wreck valley" is a curve that describes the increasing likelihood that you will walk out of a movie with craptacular acting, writing, special fx, etc. But as the curve approaches 100%, a funny thing happens: you stay to watch the entire film because it is so bad, you find yourself laughing hysterically.

My favorite train wreck: "Savage Planet", a distant planet plagued by budgets so low, the giant carnivorous bears that stalk the "actors" can't be shown in the same frame because they are all stock footage. Priceless.

Train wrecks have a strange appeal to us that is at the same time, both morbid and hysterical. Morbid, because even though we know the film is so awful, we can't help but to stare as we walk out of schadenfreude. Hysterical, because the execution is so bad that we experience a pleasure response from creative choices that are so far from logical as to be absurd. Train wrecks essentially become parodies of themselves.

So far, the Train wreck genre has found a comfy home in the vaults of SyFy, but translating this genre to games will be a more difficult challenge. The reasons are that the game will have to walk a thin line between logical outcomes and the absurd in order to achieve satisfying game-play. This is best achieved by creating ground rules in which the player understands that certain core elements of the the game will remain engaging and reliable, while other elements are fair game for absurdity.  By this standard, Atari's E.T. doesn't hold up, because while the game itself is so awful as to be amusing, there is not sufficient structure in the game to keep it engaging or predictable. Starship Titanic, on the other hand, does a great job of being absurd without sacrificing core game play.

The number of games that venture into the realm of humor and absurdity are already quite rare. The prospects of someone developing games that are both profitable and witty, scathing parodies is doubtful... but for the sake of advancing games into new genres, I'd love to see some.

Logic as Art

Bertrand Russell once expressed his sense of mathematical beauty in these words:

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.^[1]

Games certainly have the capacity to entertain and enchant us. But is the logic of game design so separated from the narrative as to be irrelevant to the aesthetic qualities? I recently examined this question by conducting the following analysis:

Games, by definition are formal systems. First of all, let's look at the definition of a system:

sys·tem, n.

1. A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. 

2. A functionally related group of elements, especially:

a. The human body regarded as a functional physiological unit.

b. An organism as a whole, especially with regard to its vital processes or functions.

c. A group of physiologically or anatomically complementary organs or parts: the nervous system; the skeletal system.

d. A group of interacting mechanical or electrical components.

e. A network of structures and channels, as for communication, travel, or distribution.

f. A network of related computer software, hardware, and data transmission devices.

3. An organized set of interrelated ideas or principles.

4. A social, economic, or political organizational form.

5. A naturally occurring group of objects or phenomena: the solar system.

6. A set of objects or phenomena grouped together for classification or analysis.

7. A condition of harmonious, orderly interaction.
8. An organized and coordinated method; a procedure. 

9. The prevailing social order; the establishment.

All of the definitions in red are directly applicable to games. Now, let's examine what makes a formal system.


According to M. Alan Kazlev [1], a formal system is [a construct] in which statements can be constructed and manipulated with logical rules. So at the core, a game is basically a logical construct. Everything else is superficial, that is to say, the narrative, characters, music and art is all window dressing placed on top of the construct for aesthetic reasons.

Here's an example from Raph Koster of how a story tacked onto a formal game structure can have profound ethical implications:

The bare mechanics of the game do not determine its semantic freight. Let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s picture a mass murder game wherein there is a gas chamber shaped like a well. You the player are dropping innocent victims down into the gas chamber, and they come in all shapes and sizes. There are old ones and young ones, fat ones and tall ones. As they fall to the bottom, they grab onto each other and try to form human pyramids to get to the top of the well. Should they manage to get out, the game is over and you lose. But if you pack them in tightly enough, the ones on the bottom succumb to the gas and die.

I do not want to play this game. Do you? Yet it is Tetris. You could have well-proven, stellar game design mechanics applied toward a repugnant premise. To those who say the art of the game is purely that of the mechanics, I say that film is not solely the art of cinematography or scriptwriting or directing or acting. The art of the game is the whole….

 …All artistic media have influence, and free will also has a say in what people say and do. Games right now seem to have a very narrow palette of expression. But let them grow….It is not surprising that we wonder whether games or TV or movies have a social responsibility–once upon a time we asked the same thing about poetry. Nobody really ever agreed on an answer.

    The constructive thing to do is to push the boundary gently so that it doesn’t backfire. That’s how we got Lolita and Catcher in the Rye and how we got Apocalypse Now. As a medium, we have to earn the right to be taken seriously. [2]

But it is important to note that while all games are formal systems, they are also media. All media has the capacity to be art and in fact achieves the status of art when the communicative element is either exceptional or is open to multiple interpretations:

Raph Koster argues that Media becomes art when the communicative element is either novel or exceptionally well done. This communicative element should be open to multiple interpretations, for if there is only one possible meaning, the message no longer becomes an interactive dialog between the piece and the observer. He further argues that there is a crucial difference between games portraying the human condition and the human condition merely existing in games. [2]

Games, therefore, possess a unique duality, in that they are simultaneously constructs of logic and media. The implications of this formal duality is that games are constructs in which logic manifests as art in such cases where an underlying narrative exists within the game. While the narrative of a game can be distinguished from the game itself, the outcome of the narrative resulting from gameplay is inseparable from the formal system of the game itself.

[1] http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45b2b9be57dea
[2] "A Theory of Fun for Game Design" Raph Koster, 2004  http://www.theoryoffun.com/

What is real in social gaming?

In a recent editorial in the New York Times, a reader laments that 60 million people playing Farmville might better spend their time getting out and growing some actual plants.

I actually agree with the dismay of the author that so many people would spend both money and time investing in Farmville. It can be argued in defense of Farmville that people enjoy playing games and as such it stands on the merit of entertainment. However, I would argue that Farmville offers poor value as social entertainment and to this point I should draw some very important distinctions between Farmville and social networks such as Facebook or Real Life Plus, a social network I am currently building.

The first point is that Farmville is not truly socially interactive. Players build and optimize their farms in a bubble without any real time interaction with friends. The sole purpose of roping in your friends is to increase your farm efficiency through networking, not meaningful socializing. The mechanic exists for marketing purposes and it is very good at sucking in new players. Social networks like Real Life Plus want to facilitate genuine, lasting friendships through chat, sharing and interactive social play.

The second point is that Farmville is completely endogenous. No value is created from Farmville that exists beyond the scope of the game. Social games ought to build an online community by building a space in which users can play, explore and chat in real time. Real Life Plus creates meaningful value that is tied into the real world through our Personal Assistant who will suggest movies, books and activities the user might like based on their personalities. After you have your adventures, we encourage users to share their experiences with friends online.  In the end, both Farmville and RLP will teach players basic skills in economics, but players at RLP will have additionally built meaningful friendships.

Online social spaces are now the norm for the new generation. You can't separate online socialization from reality - it is part of our society in every sense that cell phones and e-mail are part of our society. The lack of a cell phone or e-mail is considered a huge social handicap. Ultimately, I believe games like Farmville will fall in and out of fashion, but social networks like Facebook and RLP will have a lasting presence because they have the social glue of true friendships to sustain them. I can't wait to look backwards ten years from now to see where things went.

The Future of Gaming

Jesse Schell spoke about the Future of Gaming at this year's Dice Summit, which points to a future in which economic systems are improved through social game play theory. This is a phenomenon that Schell refers to as "Gamification".

The applications of Gamification does not end with economics, of course. By extension, game play theory could be applied towards and improve almost any system you could imagine, such as education, civil engineering or even bureaucracies. Indeed, my game designer friends often marvel at poor design in nearly every facet of daily existence. Some are obvious, like maps, intersection designs, interior spaces, etc. Professionals who work in these spaces are at least trained to learn some fundamentals of design. There are also examples of poor design that abound in abstract systems that affect us every day, such as policies, procedures, correspondence and finance. These are all things that we must cope with every day at both the professional and personal level, yet almost nobody receives any training towards designing within these disciplines until they reach a decision to specialize.

It is in this context that I often marvel that a bachelor's degree does not require the study of design as applied to abstract systems. I imagine that if such a course of study was taught, I would no longer be subjected to e-mail with horrible cognitive structure, or company policies that encourage the opposite of what they are meant to achieve. Imagine a world in which ordinary professionals applied game design skills towards creating better systems in all aspects of life. I think if we taught the application of ideas such as 'efficiency of structure' and 'risk vs. reward', we would have a more engaged and productive society. 

Social Laws

Are social network's ruled by Reed's Law or Metcalfe's law? Are they limited by Dunbar's number and is it even relevant?