Why Games?

Why Games?

I get asked by my wife, my friends (the Opera singers) and some part of the rest of the world.

Thanks to this video that came to my attention I can easily answer that question. Because games “go right”, from the ancient “GO” to “Braid”, “GTAIV”, "Prince of Persia" or "Bioshock" games “Go Right”. Of course this video is intended as an homage for the platformer style, but it does resonate inside to something else.

Games were born with us as a Darwinian mechanism of survival training when we were naked and barely walking straight as the ancient “homo habilis”, and today it’s an art form that I see constantly challenging itself,  it’s infinite amount of possibilities to entertain us through raw game play, story telling or both keep evolving in a way only games do, still striving to find a standard construction frame the way movies have for their scripts. But you know what? , ... I think we will never get there. And that is good. As long as we have passionate scholars like Jason Ferrari, loving outsiders like Tom Bissel, dreamers like McGonigal and visionaries like Blow, Molineaux or Will Wright. We’ll keep “Going Right”

... and I loved the music. 

Opera helps to make better Videogames.

Ok. I have to write this one sooner or later. So let’s get it over with.

A regular discussion with an Opera singer is the eternal dispute between singing vs acting. I have found a similar dispute in the video game industry about Story Telling vs Game Play.

At first glance, the answer on both situations seems very easy. Singers sing, if you want acting on stage go to the theatre (I was actually told this by a renown conductor)  and Games are played, if you want story on the TV put on a DVD. It appears that each art form, Opera and Videogames, should add other elements as a sweetener, a something that flavors your already established medium. 

Opera is an art form that feeds from others; fashion and light design, architecture, acting, music composing, singing, choreography, dance, staging, etc. etc. But even if all this elements are present, one rule must prevail: Singing is King. And same goes for videogames, they feed from music, architecture, lighting, level design, game design, writing, etc. and one rule prevails: Gameplay is King.

So why did acting became such a big deal for Opera and Storytelling for Games?, why are we seeing less and less of those Opera casts in which the singers just “Park and Bark” the same way we start too see better voice and character acting on videogames?. Was acting or story telling never important in the first place?. No. Acting has always been important, but in a different way, Mozart, for example, was keen on making each word count, he even accounts for the dramatic abilities of his different singers in many of his letters. I have debated this point in Opera with stage directors who worked at the Metropolitan Opera, with fellow top star singers, composers and conductors, and finally, in the words of one of my favorite stage directors, Renaud Ducet; “People just want to be entertained”. 

Today’s audiences are not in tune with what the Opera world from 30, 15 or even 5 years ago had to offer. They are in tune with Jennifer Aniston (here) and all other gratification candies that spring out from our fast paced zapping society.

Rolando Villazon, Natalie Dessay, Jonas Kauffman, Netrevko, Lucca Pissaroni … I can keep going with the names of so many singers who have understood the way to connect with today’s audiences through singing-acting. (Villazon and Dessay being two of my favorites) I will confess this; when faced with the question: Who’s show would you rather attend, Pavarotti or Domingo’s?, … Domingo. Forever.

Little by little, successful Opera singers have been able to cope with good acting and good singing, not to act while they sing or vice-versa, but embedding one into the other; yes , the natural evolution of the art makes this happen almost automatically, but also because those artists have worked hard on making it happen.

One HUGE mistake that I see happening over and over on the Opera stages is this:

-        
                      We need a different approach to opera for it to survive, better acting! 
         Let’s hire a theatre director!          
         Great idea!

No, … no, no. That’s a stupid idea; it’s actually the worst idea ever. Theatre productions take almost a month of rehearsals, Opera takes 2 weeks, theatre productions do not have choruses, Opera does, theatre stage directors do not read music, everyone on stage in the Opera does. I have found (with it’s exceptions of course) that the most effective Opera stage directors are choreographers. They just get things done effectively and with meaningful results. 

Coming back to our Videogame context, I find the same dichotomy. There is a jewel on the internet that contains a debate between Tom Bissell and Simon Ferrari (here) at some point in the back and forward of their letters the discussion points towards the Videogame critiques based on Game Design (Ferrari) and the Critique based on play experience (Bissell)

Bissell:

As a fiction writer used to, I guess, analog literary experiences, the experience of working some of this stuff out revitalized my faith in what makes video games--at least, those that attempt to tell stories--so interesting and exciting. And nothing about it seemed to me ludological at all. It seemed, and seems, like an entirely new way for the storyteller to think about storytelling.

And he finishes his letter asking if Ferrari cares about storytelling, to which Ferrari answered:

The short answer is, “No, I do not care about videogame storytelling.”

The long answer is indeed long.

Further on Ferrari says:

A more subjective answer to your question is that I tend to ignore videogame stories in order to maintain my sanity—I find almost all of them terrible in every conceivable way. 

And I mildly agree, there’s some terrible stuff out there, but just because there is stuff to be improved does not mean we should disregard it all together. Videogames are made by artists, for the most part; animators, concept artists, writers, designers, hell! , even producers!!, and artists are hungry to tell a story, to “say” something. One would think:

"Hollywood has helped us to define a form of narrative that is concrete and precise for movies. So why not use Hollywood to write our videogame stories?." 

AHA! I’ll tell you why, because it would be as stupid as bringing a theatre director to the Opera stage. Videogames have yet to refine story telling THROUGH game play as Scott Rogers affirms on "Level Up" , the way Opera singers are learning to embed a more refined acting into their singing (which is different than acting while singing). The way videogames tell stories will definitely borrow from writing on TV and Movies, the same as it will borrow from Playwriting, but just borrow, because it will have to (and is currently doing it anyways) spawn it’s own way of delivering the message taking into account the many other players. Once again; Gameplay is King. Telling a story through video games does not mean better writing in videogames:

Anyone of the belief that games will better establish themselves artistically primarily through "better" storytelling is, I have no doubt, absolutely wrong. It's not going to work that way, because it can't work that way. (Tom Bissell)

Those who, like Ferrari said, rely on storytelling to cover poor game play will fail, the same as actors who jump into the Opera stage with a medium well trained voice fail. Those who disregard story telling in favor of amazing gameplay and design, will succeed, just as many good singers out there have done and none knows their names, but it is those who embrace and fuse to perfection the human appetite for telling and hearing stories with game play who will level up our industry and will be remembered. Just as those great singers who where and are more than just another beautiful bird. 

Darwinian Stupid Games

     This week a great article appeared on the NY times regarding; “stupid games” (here). A little bit of demonization for the industry was thrown in there. I found this particular phrase worthy of further exploration:

"This, I fear, is the dystopian future of stupid games: amoral corporations hiring teams of behavioral psychologists to laser-target our addiction cycles for profit."

I read this as if corporations will be able to abuse our brains without our knowledge to a point in which we become helpless innocent victims of their greed. I say, that’s not going to happen, not that bad. But let’s take it by parts.

My initial reaction to this was a little inner giggle and my acknowledgement for an interesting counterpoint to Jane McGonigal’s thesis (which is “games as a tool to build a better world”). I continued on through the article and the thought of Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) talking to the Chair of a company called Buyology came to mind. In his movie; “The greatest movie ever sold” Spurlock interviews Martin Lindtstorm, a man who helps companies fine tune their advertising campaigns through “Neuro-Marketing”, a tool used in marketing to analyze people’s response to advertising at a neurological level.

I remember Spurlock’s fear and almost remorseful look when he asked:  

“Is neuro-marketing evil?” (a-moral)

Lindtstorm answered; “It’s like anything else, in the end of the day there WILL be people abusing it”, it looked like the man was guiltless, until he said “which is a reason it’s fantastic that you now dare to go through it (…) to show what really goes on” Aha! a bit of remorse perhaps Mr. Lindtstorm?

If we bring this interview to the realm of videogames; in comparison with “Neuro-Marketing” we have “Neuro-Game-Design” when talking about a game company targeting our brains using neuroscience.  

Zynga “Ville” games, for example, (of course I’m going to use Zynga … who else?) does seem to be doing pretty well, and they are farming away our short term gratification desires. Did they hire a Martin Lindstorm to fine tune the formula of their “games” so they can play our brains like a piano?, It sounds like a conspiracy theory to me, I think they did not, most probably their success was the result of years and years of game-design specialization, an almost Darwinian evolution of game design. Leigh Alexander of Gamasutra gives an elegant account for this formula in the “Ville” type of games (here), its clear that it was just a matter of time for someone to grab that golden egg hen. 

But the “Dystopian Future” we are talking about is precisely about the future, not the past or the present.

“The idea is that somehow neuromarketing is going to be so much more powerful that, like zombies, we are all going to go out and buy soap (…)  that is just not realistic in terms of the way the brain works.”

Says  Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Emory Center for Ethics for the NY Times.(here) If we continue to pair up “Neuro Marketing” with “Neuro Game Design” under the umbrella of this statement and the results of say, the film industry so far; it’s clear that just because one company builds a game aiming to hit specific targets in the brain, does not guarantee that we will have a blockbuster game that enables the studios to empty our bank accounts.

I do believe however, that games are becoming more and more stylish in the way they engage us, Microsoft’s testing labs are one of many functional proof of this. The “Stupid Games” will be less and less stupid, and Mr. Lindstorm’s services will be required to fine tune them the same way advertising does or the same way some AAA games are doing it right now.

So, in response to the Stupid Games article, I would tone down the fatalistic approach of the “gamification state of society”, as long as we keep in mind one last thing Mr. Lindstom said:  

“Don’t be fooled because when you go into the super-market and you think you are safe, that’s when most vulnerable you are”

In Videogame words I would say: “Don’t be fooled because when you download a free game and you think you’ll play for free, that’s when most vulnerable you are”

Community Management at IGDA Montreal.

On Tuesday 27 I attended my first IGDA round table gathering, I asked to be present at the Community Management topic. And it was awesome.

As a brief disclaimer, I will not talk about community management within the game, but rather “Studio – Audience”, otherwise it will be a complete different discussion, … imagine all there will be to be said about MMO’s!

SO! 

Our moderator started: “Do you think developers are talking too much or too little to their audiences?”,

I was the 6^th or 7^th person in line to answer, so I had time to inject forbidden chemicals to the obese hamster in my head and make him spin the wheel. I realized that this question embeds in essence that there is something already established about the amount of communication that a developer must/should observe when flirting with the public, therefore, such question could be (and was) dismissed with a simple “It all depends on your game” so I thought about changing the approach a little bit, “there is no such thing as much or little communication, but rather effective or ineffective delivery of your message”. So, I would reconfigurate the question: 

Are studios being effective when communicating with their audiences?

The “much or little” should be one of many characteristics of the communication plan we traced beforehand, this way our message will be as the famous soup in the story of that annoying and stupid blonde kid who ate the hungry bear’s food; “Just right”.

Now, let’s keep in mind that this talk was about community management, and under that context it does appear to make sense if we ask whether or not developers are talking too much or too little, as one of the attendees pointed out, so right here is where the line must be traced so I can build my point since it was argued that; “if the message is effective or not, it has little to do with community management, given that this branch of the studio deals with day to day communications, gives the audience a grass level view of how the game develops and keeps the social media interaction going”. To this I would say No. Not only.

My argument during the whole session was that community management should be 4 things:

1.- Equal to the PR department.

Because they both share the arena, it’s like a priest and a warrior or your ground units with sniper support or … you get the idea. While the PR people (among a million other things) will take care of the heavy media (TV, Radio, Magazines, News Papers etc.) your CM will take care of your social media efforts (also, among a million other things). It will be jaw dropping for me to be attending a strategy meeting where PR and CM are not aligned or fighting for a bone.

2.- Aligned to the marketing strategy.

Another question that was brought up by our moderator was: “What is the goal of community management?” my answer was “Drive revenue”, (even though my hamster was getting tired I managed to pull that one off). The marketing department in all its ancestral and unfathomable wisdom knows how to do this, and knows which key words, sentences, and images to show in order to bring the goods, and most importantly, what NOT to show. Every interaction of the CM with its audience should be like every move in Chess. Be that; a super geeky inside interview with your development team, a video game development diary on YouTube, or updates on Twitter, all of those should be tailor fitted to your strategy, this way you’ll avoid information redundancy and noise around the game.  

3.- A voice inside the studio that speaks for the audience.

Not only the CM will serve as a voice going out, but as a voice coming in. Posting in blogs, on facebook or listening through Radian6 is the least of the worries here.

Since we already established that the CM is aligned with the strategy, she/he will have the right tools to filter all the noise on the streets to deliver the most valuable information to the different teams inside the studio. I’m not saying choosing what should the developers know, (You’ll never know where your best idea might come from), what I’m saying is channeling the right messages to the right internal audience. A well informed, trained and judicious CM will be able to do this and also bring in new ideas to produce the best game.

4.- A cool dude twitting little secrets.

Yes, also throwing crumbs of information to the starved masses and make them know how much the studio loves them is essential.   

So; Are studios being effective when communicating with their audiences?

From what I gathered at the round table: More and more yes they are, but only those who have understood the value of the CRM and have empowered its members with a sound voice inside the studio.

This whole conversation brought more questions than answers, but we know that questions are all we need to understand the universe, don’t we?, so it’s ok. After our formal conversation inside the conference room, a bunch of us gathered at the lobby of the hotel, (between the electrical stairs and the bar to be precise) and the conversation continued. I, of course, with a fried hamster in my head had only voice for my enthusiasm for this industry and the massive amount of possibilities it has to shape our future, games are getting more dynamic, specialized and shoot closer and closer to harvest happiness right from the core of our brains. Fine detail criticism should be made to it’s cultural dynamics in order to healthily profit from it.

Amazing discussions await.