Serious Games

You could sum up my position as “games have potential not yet realized” and “part of that potential is allowing players to explore positive ways to work around problems.” This fits in to the concept of Serious Games, but I think that concept needs to be made more broad. Not all messages from author to player need to be about a Serious World Issue or an Important Educational Opportunity. Not everyone does, or needs to, think on those levels. I believe that games can teach players about sharing or compassion, and those would be just as much a Game For Change as a game about saving the rainforest.

ARGs as serious games

ARGs are better suited as serious games than most traditional console or PC games. While it is easy to make a game about “hit, punch, shoot” on a PC, it is actually very hard to allow a player to perform any of those actions in an ARG. With the exception of live events, most ARG players will never come in direct physical contact with characters in any way, shape or form. You cannot punch a character through the internet.

Players of ARGs are encouraged to explore and experiment. To send encouraging or hateful emails to characters, and see what the results are. Players’ actions within ARGs are, by necessity, at a distance and not of a violent sort. ARGs are therefore excellent teaching aids and can allow players to experiment in healthy, possibly life-changing ways.

I think that once ARG creators, and video game creators in general, recognize their position as artists instead of craftsmen they will begin to create games that challenge players. This challenge will not just be in a “this game is hard” sense, but it will challenge how a player thinks and interacts with their world.

Covert vs Overt

At least, the goal will be to challenge modes of thinking. I am reminded now about a quote from the author Kurt Vonnegut:

“When it became obvious what a dumb and cruel and spiritually and financially and militarily ruinous mistake our war in Vietnam was, every artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against the thing. We formed what might be described as a laser beam of protest, with everybody aimed in the same direction, focused and intense. This weapon proved to have the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high. “

I’m not calling for video game creators to be a laser beam focused in any direction. One of the big pitfalls of the move towards “Serious Games” is what I think of as “Too Serious Games.” Those games are the ones that come out of the starting gate (sometimes even on the packaging!), trumpets blaring and drums booming, pronouncing to the player that they are going to be Taught a Lesson.

Nothing turns off an audience faster than a proclamation like that.

Game creators must have a softer touch. You have to get off your soap box and allow players to play, to learn and experiment in the world you have created. You also have to allow them to disagree with you, at least a little. Remember: games are a conversation, even if the player never gets to talk directly to the game creator. If I’m a player, and I’m just being preached at, I’m going to tune you out. But if you allow me to experiment, to learn and see your point of view, I might be convinced to agree with you in the end.

In fact, I want to praise World Without Oil as a Serious Game done right. I see very little preaching going on, from game creator to player. In fact, it seems that the creators, for the most part, have stepped into the player’s shoes and are now part of a greater dialogue that is mostly created by the players. The players are allowed to think about the situation, the world without oil, and are allowed to come to their own conclusions. I think that a lot of people will change how they look at the world through this, and the change will come from within, not just from the game telling them they should. That’s my prediction, anyway.

My thoughts in a paragraph: Serious Games are a good thing and there should be more of them. Serious games should be big, but they should also be small. Serious games need to be a conversation, not a lecture… and they should be fun. As game designer Raph Koster says, “Fun is when my brain tells me I am learning.”