In fiction. especially postmodern fiction, there’s a trope of characters who mutiny against their author (The People of Paper, Six Characters in Search of an Author, At Swim-Two-Birds, etc.). It’s a way for a writer to comment on the creative process and shake the reader awake a bit by putting some fissures in the fourth wall.
But to some game designers, having your characters rebel against you might seem like a passé or even quaint problem. After all, don’t many games cede great control of events and outcomes to their players?
I recently finished reading Tom Bissell’s Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, which talks about ludonarrative dissonance, or the struggle between a video game’s narrative and its gameplay.
I’m not going to lie, I was initially hesitant to pick up the book because the subhead made me think Bissell would spend his time on all the things people typically dwell on when defending video games: the growing financial footprint of the industry, the expansion of their demographics beyond the pimply teenage stereotype, the cognitive, emotional, social benefits of games. In short, I worried that he would preach, and I, in my choir robes, would fill the nave with snores.
But I’m glad I did pick up the book because in addition to being a sharp writer, Bissell is a devotee of console games, particularly open-world games, a genre I know appallingly little about, though I now hope to rectify that.
The most interesting quote in the book for me came on page 155, and it summarizes both the narrative conflict between game designer and player, and to my mind, though Bissell doesn’t put it in these terms, the implications for games for change designers.
“In video games, the assignation of meaning has traditionally seesawed between the game’s author (or authors) and the gamer. Authors had their say in static moments such as cut scenes, and gamers had their say during play. There is no doubt that this method of game design has produced many fine and fun games but very few experiences that have emotionally startled anyone.”
If I understand Bissell’s gist, even the most inventive or serpentine, unpredictable narrative out there fails to fully use the medium’s potential for emotional oomph. This is because the game designer’s storytelling is so often inherently at odds with the player’s infinitely branching choices.
Bissell has presented us with this problem, so what does he suggest game designers can do about it?
“For designers who want to change and startle gamers, they as authors must relinquish the impulse not only to declare meaning but also to suggest meaning. They have to think of themselves as shopkeepers of many possible meanings, some of which may be sick, nihilistic, and disturbing. Game designers will always have control over certain pivot points – they own the store, determine the hours, and stock its shelves, but once the gamer is inside, the designer cannot tell the gamer what meaning to pursue or purchase.”
First of all, I’ll acknowledge that not all designers or games for change designers necessarily see it as a goal to startle their players. But many games for change do truck in advocacy and awareness building where a little shock and awe might be a winning characteristic.
The problem of course is that this shopkeeper metaphor is easier said than done (for the record, Bissell is not a game designer by profession or even by hobby). Even if it were an easy feat technically, it unveils the costs of openness in games.
The first, and more readily evident, cost is the financial expense of making a physically expansive game which the player is free to explore, and whose narrative landscape they can terraform according to their whims. Games of this scope are put together by teams of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of specialists and the eye-popping price tag restricts the variety and audacity of games created in this way.
The other, less obvious, cost of openness in games, which Bissell alludes to, is the potential moral cost of giving the player so much free reign. Given an a la carte menu of actions to take, some of the player’s choices may be “sick, nihilistic, and disturbing,” in Bissell’s words.
A tame screenshot from the torture game, Manhunt.
Any game designer might need time to reconcile themselves to that possibility. After all, despite the fact that many of the big name console titles are digital gorefests, there are examples of games whose violence can still get under people’s skin (Bissell cites 2003’s Manhunt, whose graphic depictions of torture got it banned in a number of countries).
Games for change designers in particular are likely to struggle to give players this degree of freedom to make choices that could range from good to gruesome. Imagine applying for a grant to fund the development of a game in which players have the option to betray, maim, rape, or kill with gut-wrenching verisimilitude.
But if the ultimate goal is to surprise and/or change the player, would a game about deforestation, or human trafficking, or water boarding pack a greater moral and emotional wallop if the player had the choice to perpetrate, and thereby feel the culpability for, each heinous, unsavory, or rapacious act? And if so, do the ends justify those means? And forgetting the moral aspect, as a designer making a game for change, how do you put these sorts of choices into your games in a nuanced way so that the player does not simply perpetrate these activities but is forced to wrestle a bit with the issues behind them? Thoughts are welcomed in the comments.