An Overview of A Theory of Fun (Raph Koster)

October 30th, 2009

theory-of-fun

I’m not sure when exactly, but sometime in the next 6 months I will don the felt hat and graduate from university. Actually, I probably won’t be in Australia for the ceremony, in fact I’m planning on having a faux graduation ceremony involving a lot of sea food and karaoke, but anyways, you get the point. It’s great news by all means, except that this year I’ve rediscovered the usefulness of the student library and losing my privileges there will be a bit of a bummer.

You see, I live some way from my campus and as I commute via public transport, I’m left with a plentiful amount of time in transit. I’m not the kind of person to take the DS or PSP out with me in public though, since the noise, glaring sun and commotion de-immersifies the experience, so long as I don’t bump into a friend along the way I prefer to read.

This year I’m not flooded by course material to read over, so I’ve turned my attention to the library and have been enjoying the works of Erving Goffman, Xiaolu Guo, Henry Jenkins and a series of readings on Chinese communication theory and culture. I’ve actually found myself on a bit of a roll and have moved on to a handful of books on game design, before I then start on material written by former left-wing British politician Tony Benn, shortly followed by a slew of graphic novels. I’m kinda trying to squeeze it all into my final year media binge before I return to China for work.

Anyways, along with the rest of the media I’ve consumed this year, I hope to reinforce what I’ve learnt by sharing my summative thoughts here on my blog. Not all of it will go here, some of it—irrelevant to games—I shall post elsewhere, but for now let’s talk about A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster.

Theory of Fun is about more than fun, it’s the layman’s book for understanding video games—and considering where our understanding of this medium currently is at the moment, Theory of Fun is no less essential reading. I can’t recommend this book enough. I want to buy a copy for my brother and then convince my whole family to read it as it simply makes sense of what is often an over complicated topic. Raph asks the fundamental questions and answers them in a personal, insightful and humourous way. Every second page features a hand drawn comic further explicating his logic, usually in a humourous and highly effective manner.

That’s the mini-review, let’s unpack a couple of the ideas I personally found of interest. Keep in mind though that for some of these headings I’m adding my own additional thoughts or forming my own conclusion from what was said, separate from the book.

Games are Perhaps More Real than Reality

Cognitive processes ensure that our brain packages much of the world around us thereby making it easy to interface with. It ensures that many of our actions are routinely done without much use of brain muscles at all. Think of how you got dressed this morning, what steps did you take? Did you put on a shirt first and then your underwear? Don’t remember? Thought not.

This process, according to Raph is called “chunking” and with it it’s easy to argue that much like the film The Matrix, the reality we perceive may in fact not be reality at all, but instead a reality in which our brain has trimmed down to only what is serviceable. Video games then, represent a different kind of reality. Of course, when we play games our brain still chunks whatever is happening on screen, but more to the point: The reality represented in games are realities which are delivered pre-chunked by the game designer. That is, all games are designed to be interfaced with, and the way interfacing is conveyed to the player is a design choice made by the game designer. Some obvious examples of chunking might be: the distribution of platforms and climbable objects in Prince of Persia, the greying of the screen nearing death in Killzone 2, the distribution of light in Thief or the way terrain guides the player in Half-life. These elements are representative of their respective functions.

Games are Education, Game Designers are Teachers

In order to survive and grow healthily, the brain needs to crunch patterns. Patterns are infinitely available and can be accessed through almost any means, such as communication with people, photography, music, observing nature, writing, falling in love. In essence, the brain craves education, we actually enjoy learning and all of the above examples involve some form of education.

Video games have become such a successful medium because they are good educators. Video games are all about acquainting a player with a set of continually elaborate rules and testing the player on their application of these rules in a situated context. As I’ll discuss to greater length later on when I talk about James Gee’s Good Video Games and Good Learning, games are fundamentally education driven by nature and therefore very powerful. In this regard, game designers are teachers crafting the education process.

Players are Destined to Make Games Boring

Because players play games to learn, we consequently play games to reach the point in which we’ve learnt everything that the game can offer us. That is, we play games in order to make them boring.

Grok

A term in which someone understands something to the point that they become one with it and therefore fall in love with it. When we play a good game we grok the system of rules and mechanics of the game.

How Boredom Settles In

The player may grok the game too quickly, therefore finding the game “too easy”.

The player may not see value in understanding the rule system and complexity (see how Super Paper Mario avoid this drama)

The player might fail to see any patterns, they just see noise “It’s too hard”

Pacing may be too slow, the game may seem too easy too quickly

The game may do the opposite as above: become too fast too quick

The player beats the game

Players are Always Interested in the Win

Raph argues that people are naturally lazy (and don’t wish to learn) therefore they exploit the game’s weaknesses and blind spots and cheat if possible. He says that players ought to avoid doing this as it demeans the point of playing which is to teach and then test the player. In this regard, lazy players are bad students.

This is also why Super Metroid is such a fantastic title, it guides the player into the mentality of exploiting as much as they possibly can out of the environment, yet always stays one step in front of them. Super Metroid effectively straddles the player for all they’re worth. This is what makes Super Metroid akin to a good fitness instructor: motivating yet always pushing.

Game Design and Dressing

There are two core parts to a game: the design and the dressing. The game design is obviously the fundamental components of a game, including the core and peripheral mechanics and the way everything is designed and put together. The dressing is the context that the game places itself in as represented by the game’s presentation. Differentiating the two, when a player plays the game they primarily see the game design, but when an onlooker watches the game they often just see the context, particularly if the onlooker is unfamiliar with games in general.

fig02

Raph later explores this dynamic with the GTA franchise. He says that in GTA, players see picking up a hooker, participating in a drive-by shooting or beating up civilians as a way to make progress (the game design), yet people who don’t play the game (ie. parents) see the player committing acts of virtual terrorism.

When minority groups and the media protest against video games, they protest against the wrapping and not the game design. Game design and mechanics are really just an abstract system of rules, context is what frames a video game as being socially responsible or destructive.

Even though many people say that graphics and presentation don’t matter, they actually do because after all we’re visual creatures which receive pleasure by the visual and aural landscapes that video games so fruitfully provide. In saying this, the game design is always the crux of the experience.

Lack of Evolution from the Roots of Design

Nearing the end of the book Raph discusses how game design has become increasingly more narrow, expanding primarily from the branches and not from the roots. He cites shoot ‘em ups as an example, saying that they’ve become completely irrelevant in today’s gaming society because the genre never evolved much beyond their original design.

Geometry Wars is a minor exception to his assertion, as I’ve discussed here before, through its use of technological capabilities the game managed to reignite interest in the genre by shifting the general design of arena based shoot ‘em ups. It’s not a fundamental divergence though, so in perspective the shift is only slight.

The Difference Between Games and Stories

I’m just going to quote directly from the book here.

Games are not stories. It is interesting to make the comparison, though:

Games tend to be experimental teaching. Stories teach vicariously.

Games are good at objectification. Stories are good at empathy.

Games tend to quantize, reduce, and classify. Stories tend to blur, deepen, and make subtle distinctions.

Games are external—they are about people’s actions. Stories (good ones, anyways) are internal—they are people’s emotions and thoughts. [Pg 88]

Rethinking Play Habits

In the same regard to his belief that players always want to cheat, Raph believes that players should not replay games as there is often little educational benefit in playing a game twice. I’m sure many would argue against his point here, myself included.

Self-serving Medium

I think most of us would agree with this one: video games have become too complicated and too arcane in their obedience to the core market. Players who enjoy games enter game development with the pursuit of making the games in which they enjoy, therefore the games industry is largely compiled of developers serving the interest of a small group of core players. This system doesn’t invite new players into the fold nor does it allow the medium to further expand.

The Next Step

According to Raph, for games to become designers need to design games which represent something of social importance. He says that games should begin to explore the human condition by representing and/or metaphoring game design as something of actual importance. Well said.

Additional Readings

A Modder’s Perspective: ‘A Theory of Fun for Game Design’ by Raph Koster

Good Game ‘Rei: The Blogosphere’ Dissection

July 14th, 2009

A few months ago I received an email from someone at the ABC (that’s the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) to help them with their research for an upcoming to be feature for TV show Good Game. They wanted to discuss games blogging in Australia and somehow discovered me. Surprised, I know. I would have figured they’d have wanted to quiz people like Jason Hill or those Hyper washouts not me. But anyways, I was already an avid viewer of the show, so with such a great opportunity I naturally I offered my services, firing back an email as soon as I could. In the following weeks though I never received a reply, but never chased it up either as I was caught in the usual end of semester crunch at uni. Upon making it through the clear, I sought to re-send my email or give them a call, but considering that by then they’d probably completed the piece, I decided to let it slide*. After all, given this prior information, it was inevitable that I’d eventually write a piece like this, so my thoughts would come out in the end anyways.

That segment went to air last night, and I subsequently have quite a few opinions on it. Actually its timing works out perfectly as I’m falling behind in the next article in my mini-series evaluation of various professional and enthusiast publications. I’ll be covering gamesTM next, you can read about Official Nintendo Magazine and Hyper here and here.

Good Game (ABC) Show Overview

As mentioned, Good Game is a television program on the ABC, it’s a half hour show which runs weekly and has been active for an endearing three years – rather successful for a show of its nature. As recently announced on the community forums, Good Game was the most downloaded show off the ABC last month, another testament to the production. Good Game’s success – and the key reason why I continue to watch – lies in two parts. The first being the two presenters, referred to as their screen names; Bajo and Junglist. The duo are characterized as typical gamers and their performances thrive off the subculture to colour their on-screen personas. Yet unlike other productions this is never done in a way that’s degrading or diminutive towards the medium. Also the two – players themselves – comfortably fit their roles and use the available thematic to create a fun on-screen dynamic which is warmly enjoyed by both players and non-players. The two present what is rather constructive and well researched material. The producers clearly care about the quality of the show’s content. The historical feature ‘Backwards Compatible’ is mostly well researched, interviews flesh out the features, while a myriad of neat ideas are incorporated into the reviews such as the two presenters reflecting opposing sides, using the video medium to highlight obscurities within appointed games and using gags to highlight opinions and more personal responses to games. This is all kept rather diverse most of the time. Sure, the odd feature may be a little textbook-y at times, but the crew generally cover fairly appropriate topics as well as hand-picking a good variety of games for review, including downloadable, niche, indie and casual titles.

These two elements ensure Good Game maintains a respectable quality, far away from the demeaning overkill of similarly-minded, video game-themed productions. Additionally, everything is kept jargon-free which low barriers to entry.

Rei: The Blogosphere – Good Game Segment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccOlji5zNlk

Rei is Good Game’s semi-regular investigative feature segment by Tracey “Rei” Lien of Hyper Magazine fame. Tracy is a new recruit for the latest season. To date she’s covered topics such as the Australian internet filter, casual and flash games, and cosplaying, while doing a pretty admirable job at it too. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed most of her work and was naturally anticipating the blogging feature. I guess part of my anticipation was waiting for them to make a mess of it. I could just see it coming…sorry.

Key Issues

The key problem with Tracey’s feature was that its predominate angle (online bloggers vs print media journalists) pigeonholed the blogging and print media mediums espectively. Basically the angle typecasts each medium as a single, polarized writing style (objective and subjective news writing) and then compares the two on these grounds, with journalistic qualities being the point of contention. The two key players; Daniel Staines and Ben Mansill play out their respective roles, but their argument doesn’t actually make sense.

The irksome “video games journalism” phrase is the root cause and carelessly used throughout. Journalism is the word for collective print media, as well as the profession of reporting news stories. Video game enthusiasts and writers tend to ignore “journalism”’s connotation towards professional news reporting (and associated ideals), instead using the term “video games journalism” as a blanket statement for “video games writing”. Good Game and the participants fall into this trap, and what inevitably ensues is a bit of a mess. This is to be expected when you question a print media journalist and a games blogger who over what is naturally an often misconstrued topic; games journalism. The journalist gives the clichéd objectivity talk, while the games blogger talks about opinion writing as if it were (news) journalism. This makes for a very confusing segment.

The feature ignores this issue – seemingly a part of the problem – and puts the irrelevant opinions together to form some sort of incohesive argument which never makes little sense. Fortunately the feature digresses near the end where the other participants discuss games blogging beyond the generalized perception of opinionated-news, effectively putting the original angle of the piece out of its misery. Considering that we now that we know what the key issues, let’s look at the segment specifically as it’ll flesh out my assertions, while drawing attention to some other issues.

Analysis

Tracey’s introduction sets the precedence of this battle between print and web fighting for precious real estate, with readers migrating to websites and blogs.

Dan Staines of Eegra (yes, I’ve never heard of it either) begins with the introductory spiel on blogging which is geared as a contrast to print, not specially journalism, he’s just talking about the assets of the medium which is good. Ben Mansill, who we find out founded some pretty terrible magazines, follows by taking the opposing side, trumpeting the qualities of print media as well as some behaviorial flaws of web writers. The pair are discussing general print vs. web differences, which is suitable.

In fact, if the feature stayed on course like this I think it would have been rather good. The wider angle would have allowed them to explain how the qualities of self authorship, url, images, video and networking features affect the type of writing that bloggers produce. It’s the same reason why we abbreviate when we text; forces of the communicative medium. This approach would have allowed them to clearly explain why a great deal of games blogging is rather subjective in the first place.

Dan returns and uses the point of how blogging is independent as a strength. It would have been nice to know exactly how the medium is “independant”, but sure. Ben cuts back, shaking his head, rebutting to Dan’s comment and repeating the journalistic flim-flam. It’s at this stage that the feature derails. Good Game have in this instance pitted the a quality of the blogging medium (independence) against news reporting which Dan and Ben unknowingly playing out their roles. The independence of bloggers is unrelated to journalism practices of objectivity. Yet the way they’ve been piece together implies a rebutall, an argument. Ben’s comments also generalize games blogging, thanks for that.

Surprise, surprise, John Keefer from Crispy Gamer arrives, I never expected the show to feature him, nor was I familiar that such an old codger actually worked at Crispy Gamer. He points out the difference between enthusiast press and journalists. Even now I’m a little confused with the different entities floating around. There’s print journalism (seemingly, entirely objective “journalism”), print journalism-esque, wannabe blogger (enthusiast media, which by Ben’s account seems to be too subjective and totally opinion) and then another entity which may or may not include what Dan was talking about, ummm…criticizing PR and games, maybe opinion too, hard to separate the differences. Each participant is talking about unrelated matters yet the piece is put together as though they are talking about the same thing, in turn confusing viewers.

Tracey then asks Dan directly about objectivity, which he provides the most dubious answer that journalism isn’t about reporting facts. He highlights the misunderstandings that I discussed before.
Of course, he isn’t actually talking about journalism. He’s talking about games writing on the whole, most likely criticism and opinion pieces; the sort of writing he does, in which his comments are valid. The show is comparing journalists to opinion writers and having them square off on objectivity, this is irrelevant to blogging which can swing either way.

Tracey’s next segue is baffling. She starts with “while..” but never enters the second clause. Oh well, it’s about niche, opinion sites. Finally, acknowledgement that we do cover more than news articles slimed with opinion, yay! Oh look it’s Ben Abraham, ringleader of blogging boy’s club Critical-Distance and that Graffiti Gamer dude Daniel Purvis, another pair of Dans and Bens. The duo cover their bases pretty well, highlighting the individuality created by self authorship. Still, it’s unknown how their ideas are related to the journalism argument. In anycase, Ben and Daniel’s comments finally steer the show back on track, emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses of either medium, rather then causing headaches with an over-generalized, nonsensical argument. Their digression put the show back on track somewhat, the ending comments are in the same vein, ditching the ill thought out comparison.

That’s basically all that needs to be said, the the concluding comments are fine, irrelevant to the bulk of the segment.

I can’t help myself but mention John’s particularly hypocritical and rather amusing comment that he has “a very, very hard time with information put out there for the sake of hits”. Obviously he’s referring to news piece, but it’s a rather bizarre comment from a writer who works for a site brimming with tasteful, attention-grabbing editorials such as STFU 2009: The 10 People We Hope Will Shut the F*** Up at This Year’s E3.

*I think it’s probably a mistake on my behalf as at the time Gmail was failing to receive and send a number of emails. I think I have the problem sorted now, in any case I’ve updated my about page with instant messaging and Skype details, so feel free to use those instead if you’re ever feeling lonely.

Additional Readings

Good Game Interview – PALGN

Zero Lightseeds – Tracey Lien

Posted in Analysis | Comments (12)
Tags: blog, good game

Official Nintendo Magazine (June 09) Opinions

July 1st, 2009

A while ago I scrutinized Australian multiplatform games magazine Hyper for clinging to norms that would only see the publication into a slow, barbecued demise. It’s only fair then that I do the rounds and examine other examples of copy that fills Australian news agencies. I want to begin this critical crusade of print media by looking at Official Nintendo Magazine (Australia). Later I hope to re-examine Pixel Hunt alongside retrogaming e-zine Retroaction, before concluding with supposed EDGE killer GamesTM.

Official Nintendo Magazine (Australia) – June 2009

magazine

General Impressions

A follow up to the heavily flawed, but much adored Nintendo Magazine System, how could I refuse? ONM live ups to the Nintendo Seal of Quality lost somewhere on every front page. The magazine’s aesthetic tastefully match the new sanitized look Nintendo are going for, and the writing isn’t too bad either. The team clearly makes use of their prescribed relationship to the brand by bagging plenty of exclusive interviews, covering the digital distribution areas well, while prioritizing the best art assets. The writing is fine – falling in line with a standard good quality UK games magazine, appealing to the average enthusiast Nintendo fan more so than the expanded audience as might be infered by the neutral-esque design. The magazine’s standard journalistic fair teamed with exclusive content which make this a priority read for Nintendo fans looking for fitting copy with a wide coverage of their platforms. The magazine portions WiiWare, DSiWare and Virtual Console coverage much more evenly than other publications both online and in print, which I heatedly admire.

Overall the standard Ninty fan can’t go wrong with ONM, it’s a much more cleanly written, professional publication than NMS and covers all fronts quite admirably.

Criticisms of the June Issue

Standard fair might sound decent enough (and rest assure, this magazine is not poor by any means), but in my mind publications like this and Hyper are given a greater stature than their content earns them. While – like Hyper – I enjoyed the clean read, and have no problems recommending this to players that are solely fans of the Nintendo products, there’s plenty of holes as well as a couple of suspicions.

Usually magazines not sponsored by the brand or system they’re covering (ie. unofficial) make a holler and fuss about conflict of interest issues with these rival magazines. Basically they’re accusing their competitors of unflinching bias. Although their whiny jealousy is annoying, they do hold a weight of truth. Starting from the editor’s introduction, over the page into the news and then into previews and even reviews, the magazine can’t help but consistently remind the reader of the benefits of Wii MotionPlus. Sure, it makes sense for the MotionPlus to be a talking points in the Red Steel 2 and Grand Slam Tennis previews, but when you’re spruiking the add-on in reviews unrelated to the device, it’s annoying!

Reviewer Chris Scullion seems to have a problem criticizing the games he writes about, constantly using softeners to lower his tone when he wants to discuss a game’s weaknesses. This was most evident in the Pokemon Platinum review and other parts of the magazine as I recall. The softener “if we’re honest” doesn’t really say much, shouldn’t you always be honest to your readers?

On the topic of reviews, the crew seems obsessed with percentages. Take for example the way…oh look, Chris Scullion, makes a point to fret over what percentage he’d assign Punch-Out!! before he reached the unlocked World B mode. Further, in face-cringing fashion, the magazine even has a ‘Settling Scores’ segment in their review index, where readers propose their own score for a game in lieu of what the OMN crew awarded. It’s really petty.

The bulk of their featured content such as their 31 Reasons to Start Stockpiling Nintendo Points…NOW! as well as several news and previews pieces were well matched with good developer interviews. The Red Steel preview is thin information spread out into a feature piece. Fortunately the screenshots and interview make up for this in part. The Zelda feature is extensive, but doesn’t capture the spirit nor all of the significant details for each game, maybe they should have allowed more text on the page. By the way, I like the IGN logos in some of the Zelda screenshots. Did you try MobyGames, no tags there?

It must be some hip trend that I’m unaware of - in the same vein as that Hyper issue I covered some months ago, ONM included a flip-over segment at the back of the magazine. Argh, I hate it when they make me flip the magazine! The flipped content comprises of a 100 Greatest Nintendo Games Ever List! feature The main problem with such mammoth lists is that within the limit of 25 pages, you’re essentially providing a list and very little explanation as to the significance of each title. Couple with a bloated number of page filling images, and it’s a rather pointless piece. Conversely I could have just said that they ranked Mario Kart Wii as the 4th best game ever released on a Nintendo platform and you would have believed me.

Oh, the Dragon Quest guide was filled with noting but common sense too, not sure why they included it.

Lastly, I noticed that in the Australian magazine, the Pikmin 2 review states “With Australia being a nation of Wii owners”, yet this is a simple copy edit of the review featured in the ONM UK, evidence here. This is simply a ruse to throw readers away from the indiscriminate fact that ONM Australia is simply ONM UK with some edits shifted in. The cracks become obvious very quickly with the overall British flavour of writing teamed with obvious British references (.co.uk). Furthermore the most useful thing the Australian website offers is a link to the feature packed UK website. Crafty eh? Unexpected? No.

Additional Readings

Column: Game Mag Weaseling – GameSetWatch

Posted in Analysis | Comments (2)
Tags: magazine, nintendo

« Older Entries