Notgames Forum

Is Jason Rohrer after all taking the opposite path to the one we are pursuing here?

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38330/MIGS_2011_Redefining_Challenge_In_Games_Can_Push_Artistic_Boundaries_Says_Rohrer.php

I´m not quite convienced by his point so far.

depends on how you define challenge. A Picasso can be very challenging. Being good and fast at pressing buttons at the right time is challenging, but I want to be challenged in the Picasso-way.

I do not really understand what he is after either, but then this is just a summary.

Wow. This was unexpected. I can see some points concerning challenge, but challenge per se, as he seems to think (like a large chunk of the contemporary indie scene), does not make an interactive work (see - not a game) interesting. Then it is after all just a game. If a "game" as a term is something to move beyond, then Rohrer took the first train getting the fuck away from his last years of work, it seems, standing firmly within conformity.

And we should care about what he thinks because...?

I think it's a legit concern that a lot of art games are boring.  However, the idea that a conclusion has been reached that it's a dead end is patently absurd.  Maybe he has personally grown tired of the effort and is projecting his disappointment onto the field at large.  I'm not sure how increasing challenge will help create more involved plot (that's the main thrust I got out of the article, anyway).

Of course games should not be boring, but to me: challenge is boring. At least if we're talking challenge on a superficial level rather than an intellectual challenge.

The problem with 'boring' is that it's an overused and unspecific word. People call Andrei Tarkovsky's work boring, and I disagree in every way. So when people call my work boring it's hard to seperate the ones who have a legitimate point from the ones that, for lack of better terminology, "just don't get it" (which is perfectly fine not to do). I agree that many art games are not engaging enough (often through the use of, in my opinion, too abstract representations*).

*Abstraction can work fine, or even better than realism, in certain topics but the problem is that the abstraction often seems to be used not because it's effective but because of either time-constraints or lack of artistic talent.

Jason Rohrer has always been on the opposite side. Simply because he believes that game rules are the thing that should express everything, while we here look at the medium of video-games as a much broader thing that offers opportunity for all sorts of formats. We simply disagree that game rules are the essence of this medium.

The politically incorrect secret as to Why All Those Art Game Are So Boring is that most of the people who make them are not very good artists. And I don't exclude myself from this. But one should not blame a medium for the faults of its users.

When I see games like Beyond Good & Evil, Zeno Clash and Sacrifice, which are challenge games within an interesting context (I think), I am often reminded that what is keeping most games uninteresting for me is the very same problem; the people making them are not artistically interesting. They focus on challenge, which they do well, but thematically they are quite dull. I suppose 'art games' (he says as-if it is ahuge thing we just wish it was) have that problem more vocally because without the challenge, all the other defects are more visible (whereas Zeno Clash' story is just silly, but it works as a fighting backdrop because I feel challenged).

EDIT: I do not think that removing challenge is like removing plot from films; it is like removing the arbitrary fighting scenes from films

Another reason why art games are so boring is because they are boring compared to creations that have for over 30 years perfected the science of making player addicted to competitive interaction. If I may also be politically incorrect, then art games are like giving people addicted to heroine the first attempts at making wine. It is really hard for the addicts what the fuzz should be about when they got such a potent stimuli already.

There have been so very very few attempts at making art games that remove challenge compared to the vast space of games with challenge that it is not fair to compare at at all. The challenge based games have also had the advantage of thousands of years of evolution in sports and traditional games. Also they can utilize very rooted traits that have been apart with us before we were amphibians. Art games try and speak to much more recent additions to us are very much specific to humans. It is a much tougher challenge.

So to say that the removal of challenge has been tried and fail is not really a proper stance on the subject.

depending who you ask, even the greatest art is considered boring by many, many people. Art is boring if you do not invest in it. Mathematics is boring if you do not invest in it, if you do not try to learn and understand it. Once you have done your investment, you will find that Mathematics is quite interesting. If someone says to me: your game is boring, I feel the urge to reply, "No, you are boring!"

I like how you make challenge-based games seem like belonging to the natural domain, while artistic games belong to the cultural domain, Thomas.

This is true to some extent, of course. But it's a slippery path. Because if you do an effort and stare at a blank wall for over an hour, you'll probably also experience something deeply meaningful.

Also, art experience cannot be learned explicitly, I think. You need to have grown up in a cultured context. If you haven't, you're probably pretty much lost. Or it will take an enormous amount of effort.

I also fear that the sensitivity required to appreciate art may be in part genetic. Much like some people are better runners, some are more intelligent or have blond hairs, some simply have a larger capacity to enjoy art.

That being said, we do currently seem to live in a culture that rejects complex forms of amusement (like art) in favor of simple fun (like games). This is almost expressed like a political right: the right to be stupid. So, probably, many people with the genetic capacity and the cultural background required for the enjoyment of art, may end up rejecting it because that is the right/popular/cool thing to do.

While it is obviously a much bigger task, I also agree that the challenges facing those/us making works outside of normal game contexts are not limited to a hermetic packaging - that is, our problems can't be solved by us, inside and only within our sphere of interest. Being "cultured" or sensitive to experiences that are not plainly visceral is likely a major step in becoming a part of the audience of these kinds of works.

I fear however that the biological implications of current "visceralist" culture may create subjectivities that could possibly auto-negate these attempts. I place a great deal of hope in related fields, such as art, pedagogy/education and various social agents (among other things) as the primary instances in society that can counter-act a devolution of sorts.

I am not a biologist or scientist by any means, but as I've made clear, I find it laughable that issues of biopolitics have not been raised more often as that may be where a current battle (will) stands at.