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The new paradigm: it's not if you win, but the way that you do it
-------------
A very funny thing has been happening to me lately. When playing my favourite games I am becoming more concerned with playing well than with actually winning. The first game in which I consciously noticed this happening was Pro Evolution Soccer: if I had played great football but somehow been denied a goal, I would be a happy man; and even if I lost a last-minute goal I would be far from inconsolable. The joy for me was piecing together attractive moves and taking part in a flow of terrific football. On the other hand, had I clung desperately on for an undeserved 0-0 draw, or won with a fluke deflection from my only shot of the game, then I felt...well, almost nothing at all. My new gaming philosophy can be summed up quite easily: I want to win, but, even more than that, I want to win well. What exactly am I barking on about? What is the new paradigm? Well, I’m sorry, but you're just going to have to read on...
Success in a videogame has always been black and white: you win, or you lose. You kill every robot, or they inherit the earth. You rescue the princess, or she rots in her tower. There is no middle path in the gaming world, and you have but two possible destinies: win and you get fame, riches and the girl; lose, and you will die a sad, unnoticed death, remembered only in that worst of epitaphs - Game Over.
But real life isn't like that. The glorious losers are often remembered long after the pragmatic victors have faded from the collective memory. We know Spartacus, but not the general who ordered him tied to the cross. In Australia, the bushranger Ned Kelly has become a national hero; while the authorities who had him captured and hanged are reviled or forgotten. And then there is the Dutch football team of the 1970s, whose exuberant style of total football is still celebrated - despite the loss of two world cups to less inventive but ultimately more effective teams.
And the reason we remember these losers? They lost with style, never compromising their beliefs and principles, even in the face of defeat. To drag this topic back to gaming, these were people who, reduced to the last millimetre of their energy bar, never paused the game to enter a cheat code. They preferred to lose than accept the false victory offered by invincibility or unlimited ammo. Holland never stopped passing the ball. The rebellious slaves never sold out their leader Spartacus. And Ned Kelly took huge risks and flamboyantly evaded the law, right up until the moment of his capture at Glenrowan, where he attempted to shoot his way past the cordon of police, wearing a suit of homemade armour.
In fact, Ned Kelly would have been my kind of videogamer because, although a bandit and an outlaw, he was never just a common criminal. He was a highwayman who captured the hearts of his people. He robbed from the squatter elite, but paid handsomely for the supplies he bought from the poor; he was courteous to his victims, and gallant and charming if they were female; his gang executed daylight raids on banks not just to steal money, but also to burn the mortgages that kept the farmers poor; and when before his capture he was holed up in a busy hotel, facing death by bullet or the hangman, he bought every one of his supposed hostages drinks, before beginning the last party of his life.
Like every character in a videogame, Ned Kelly faced impossible odds. But it is not every videogame character who tries to overcome those odds with wit, flair and style. Games have always tended to reward safe, repetitive gameplay: for example, memorising enemy attack patterns, or exploiting an obvious glitch in the AI. The object was to win, not to win well. To a certain extent early videogames rewarded stylish play through the high-score system, and placement of time and pick-up bonuses. A fairly rudimentary title like Robotron also offered the player the freedom to play with daring and flair: should he choose to. In the main, however, such games were really too simplistic to allow the player to develop a style of his own: a high-score was normally more down to longevity than brave play. In any case, as games moved out of the arcade and into the bedroom, high-scores were replaced by steady progress through the game, culminating in the animated end sequence. Success came not by mastering the game but by finishing it.
And finishing a game rarely taxed a player's creativity. Of course, in an era of limited processing power, game designers were compelled to be dictatorial. For each problem there was one, and only one, solution: multiple paths would simply have appropriated precious cartridge or system space. The result was slick but shallow gaming; an experience that, while entertaining, offered no interaction between player and creator. Mario jumped from platform to platform, but never had the option of buying a jetpack to cross the gulf. A lost adventurer might possess enough weaponry to blow up the moon, but passing through one flimsy door required finding a particular key. And, though the digital footballer might wish to play swift and flowing total football, he was instead compelled to shoot and score from a particular 'hot-spot' on the pitch. Gaming like this only offered the chance to win, never the chance to win well.
Ironically this was a result of games becoming more ambitious. In simulating more complex situations, game designers were forced to make sacrifices elsewhere: reducing the number of possible outcomes allowed crude approximations of football, fighting and war to reach our screens. But player freedom all but disappeared, along with the satisfaction of 'winning well'.
The consoles of the present day are vastly more powerful than the generation of machines that first hosted sports sims and platformers. But in many cases this extra oomph is used to tart up the graphics rather than extend gameplay. As an example of what I'm talking about, consider Sensible Soccer and the FIFA series. On the face of it FIFA offers a much more complex simulation than Sensi: look you can backheel! juggle the ball on the halfway line! score with a bicycle kick! But on closer examination FIFA is dull and unrewarding: tap once to cross, tap twice for an overhead kick, voila, a certain goal. Woo, and indeed Hoo. Sensible Soccer was, and is, a much better game. The controls were simple, but subtle enough that, when kicking the ball, the player had complete control over strength, direction and aftertouch. In effect, you were given complete freedom to play football in your style of choice. Yes, you could win playing Doncaster Rovers-style punt and rush; but even better, you could win playing a slick brand of passing football. It was incredibly satisfying. FIFA, though, took all the fun out of playing well by removing the option of playing badly: even Dundee played like Brazil.
The key to creating a game in which a player can win well or win badly seems to be trust. The player needs to trust the designer to come up with a consistent game world; and the designers need to trust the players to explore that world without constantly holding them by the hand. Consider PES: when I first played this game, my teams – no matter who they were – took on the appearance of 11 Sunday League no-hopers. But I persevered, and now I can string together the kind of move that would have Johann Cruyff in tears. I trusted the simulation of football, and was trusted to master it by the designers. And it worked out well for both of us!
Other designers, too, are giving the gaming public the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who has played GTA3 will have been astounded by the sheer freedom it affords the player. You are given a mission, a marker on your map...and that’s it. Instead of step-by-step instructions you have a whole city of possibilities. And you only have to look on internet help-sites to realise that people are taking advantage of that and using their creativity with this game: each mission has five or six possible solutions, each radically different from the other.
Another example, Deus Ex, also gave the player a wide choice in achieving his aims. You could play the game as you would any other gung-ho FPS; but equally you could sneak around avoiding enemy guards. And in your confrontations with enemies you were again given a choice: lethal or non-lethal takedowns; or even that old favourite, running away. I’ll always remember restarting the game after switching sides, just so that I could deal with the ‘terrorists’ more humanely. In this Deus Ex was quite revolutionary; it was the first game that rather than forcing its morals upon you (there is, after all, no room in Doom for the pacifist), moulded itself around your personality. Civilization 3 is another such game. No longer is victory purely a function of military might. Instead the would-be megalomaniac can create a cultural wonderland that wins over the citizens of the world through its peaceful achievements in the arts. Or you can win the space race and colonise the stars. And, for the expansionists among us, the option to crush all opposition under your tank tracks remains intact.
The common thread with all these games (other than being fantastic) is that they all offer a way to win well, a way to improve your performance based not on scores but on your own level of satisfaction. This, for me, is the future of gaming. Not a simple dichotomy of victory and defeat, but something truer to life, something less tangible. Perhaps, like ice-skaters, videogamers will be given marks for artistic impression. Or perhaps we will just know instinctively that we have done more than just win: we have won well.
-------------
A very funny thing has been happening to me lately. When playing my favourite games I am becoming more concerned with playing well than with actually winning. The first game in which I consciously noticed this happening was Pro Evolution Soccer: if I had played great football but somehow been denied a goal, I would be a happy man; and even if I lost a last-minute goal I would be far from inconsolable. The joy for me was piecing together attractive moves and taking part in a flow of terrific football. On the other hand, had I clung desperately on for an undeserved 0-0 draw, or won with a fluke deflection from my only shot of the game, then I felt...well, almost nothing at all. My new gaming philosophy can be summed up quite easily: I want to win, but, even more than that, I want to win well. What exactly am I barking on about? What is the new paradigm? Well, I’m sorry, but you're just going to have to read on...
Success in a videogame has always been black and white: you win, or you lose. You kill every robot, or they inherit the earth. You rescue the princess, or she rots in her tower. There is no middle path in the gaming world, and you have but two possible destinies: win and you get fame, riches and the girl; lose, and you will die a sad, unnoticed death, remembered only in that worst of epitaphs - Game Over.
But real life isn't like that. The glorious losers are often remembered long after the pragmatic victors have faded from the collective memory. We know Spartacus, but not the general who ordered him tied to the cross. In Australia, the bushranger Ned Kelly has become a national hero; while the authorities who had him captured and hanged are reviled or forgotten. And then there is the Dutch football team of the 1970s, whose exuberant style of total football is still celebrated - despite the loss of two world cups to less inventive but ultimately more effective teams.
And the reason we remember these losers? They lost with style, never compromising their beliefs and principles, even in the face of defeat. To drag this topic back to gaming, these were people who, reduced to the last millimetre of their energy bar, never paused the game to enter a cheat code. They preferred to lose than accept the false victory offered by invincibility or unlimited ammo. Holland never stopped passing the ball. The rebellious slaves never sold out their leader Spartacus. And Ned Kelly took huge risks and flamboyantly evaded the law, right up until the moment of his capture at Glenrowan, where he attempted to shoot his way past the cordon of police, wearing a suit of homemade armour.
In fact, Ned Kelly would have been my kind of videogamer because, although a bandit and an outlaw, he was never just a common criminal. He was a highwayman who captured the hearts of his people. He robbed from the squatter elite, but paid handsomely for the supplies he bought from the poor; he was courteous to his victims, and gallant and charming if they were female; his gang executed daylight raids on banks not just to steal money, but also to burn the mortgages that kept the farmers poor; and when before his capture he was holed up in a busy hotel, facing death by bullet or the hangman, he bought every one of his supposed hostages drinks, before beginning the last party of his life.
Like every character in a videogame, Ned Kelly faced impossible odds. But it is not every videogame character who tries to overcome those odds with wit, flair and style. Games have always tended to reward safe, repetitive gameplay: for example, memorising enemy attack patterns, or exploiting an obvious glitch in the AI. The object was to win, not to win well. To a certain extent early videogames rewarded stylish play through the high-score system, and placement of time and pick-up bonuses. A fairly rudimentary title like Robotron also offered the player the freedom to play with daring and flair: should he choose to. In the main, however, such games were really too simplistic to allow the player to develop a style of his own: a high-score was normally more down to longevity than brave play. In any case, as games moved out of the arcade and into the bedroom, high-scores were replaced by steady progress through the game, culminating in the animated end sequence. Success came not by mastering the game but by finishing it.
And finishing a game rarely taxed a player's creativity. Of course, in an era of limited processing power, game designers were compelled to be dictatorial. For each problem there was one, and only one, solution: multiple paths would simply have appropriated precious cartridge or system space. The result was slick but shallow gaming; an experience that, while entertaining, offered no interaction between player and creator. Mario jumped from platform to platform, but never had the option of buying a jetpack to cross the gulf. A lost adventurer might possess enough weaponry to blow up the moon, but passing through one flimsy door required finding a particular key. And, though the digital footballer might wish to play swift and flowing total football, he was instead compelled to shoot and score from a particular 'hot-spot' on the pitch. Gaming like this only offered the chance to win, never the chance to win well.
Ironically this was a result of games becoming more ambitious. In simulating more complex situations, game designers were forced to make sacrifices elsewhere: reducing the number of possible outcomes allowed crude approximations of football, fighting and war to reach our screens. But player freedom all but disappeared, along with the satisfaction of 'winning well'.
The consoles of the present day are vastly more powerful than the generation of machines that first hosted sports sims and platformers. But in many cases this extra oomph is used to tart up the graphics rather than extend gameplay. As an example of what I'm talking about, consider Sensible Soccer and the FIFA series. On the face of it FIFA offers a much more complex simulation than Sensi: look you can backheel! juggle the ball on the halfway line! score with a bicycle kick! But on closer examination FIFA is dull and unrewarding: tap once to cross, tap twice for an overhead kick, voila, a certain goal. Woo, and indeed Hoo. Sensible Soccer was, and is, a much better game. The controls were simple, but subtle enough that, when kicking the ball, the player had complete control over strength, direction and aftertouch. In effect, you were given complete freedom to play football in your style of choice. Yes, you could win playing Doncaster Rovers-style punt and rush; but even better, you could win playing a slick brand of passing football. It was incredibly satisfying. FIFA, though, took all the fun out of playing well by removing the option of playing badly: even Dundee played like Brazil.
The key to creating a game in which a player can win well or win badly seems to be trust. The player needs to trust the designer to come up with a consistent game world; and the designers need to trust the players to explore that world without constantly holding them by the hand. Consider PES: when I first played this game, my teams – no matter who they were – took on the appearance of 11 Sunday League no-hopers. But I persevered, and now I can string together the kind of move that would have Johann Cruyff in tears. I trusted the simulation of football, and was trusted to master it by the designers. And it worked out well for both of us!
Other designers, too, are giving the gaming public the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who has played GTA3 will have been astounded by the sheer freedom it affords the player. You are given a mission, a marker on your map...and that’s it. Instead of step-by-step instructions you have a whole city of possibilities. And you only have to look on internet help-sites to realise that people are taking advantage of that and using their creativity with this game: each mission has five or six possible solutions, each radically different from the other.
Another example, Deus Ex, also gave the player a wide choice in achieving his aims. You could play the game as you would any other gung-ho FPS; but equally you could sneak around avoiding enemy guards. And in your confrontations with enemies you were again given a choice: lethal or non-lethal takedowns; or even that old favourite, running away. I’ll always remember restarting the game after switching sides, just so that I could deal with the ‘terrorists’ more humanely. In this Deus Ex was quite revolutionary; it was the first game that rather than forcing its morals upon you (there is, after all, no room in Doom for the pacifist), moulded itself around your personality. Civilization 3 is another such game. No longer is victory purely a function of military might. Instead the would-be megalomaniac can create a cultural wonderland that wins over the citizens of the world through its peaceful achievements in the arts. Or you can win the space race and colonise the stars. And, for the expansionists among us, the option to crush all opposition under your tank tracks remains intact.
The common thread with all these games (other than being fantastic) is that they all offer a way to win well, a way to improve your performance based not on scores but on your own level of satisfaction. This, for me, is the future of gaming. Not a simple dichotomy of victory and defeat, but something truer to life, something less tangible. Perhaps, like ice-skaters, videogamers will be given marks for artistic impression. Or perhaps we will just know instinctively that we have done more than just win: we have won well.
Well deserved GAD win.
I guess you could say you won with style.
I guess you could say you won with style.
Damn good post and a worthy GaD winner.
In reply to it, I normally play it safe/easy the first time round while I'm learning to get to grips with the game, but the second time round, I'm more likely to go for style over simply winning.
This might be down to using a weaker weapon, going for accuracy, using wits and tactics to avoid being hit at all...
Playing with style also makes multiplayer games more fun.
Sure, on Smash Brothers I could play my friend as Samus and continually charge up my big laser blast until my opponent is off the screen, leaving my friend bored and unimpressed.
OR, I could give my friend every opportunity to attack, only to dodge at the last minute by jumping or rolling, following it up with a weak tap or short combo.
Working round like this would give a more intense game because you're working hard and you friend as a chance if you mess up, and if you do pull it off and weave around everything they throw at you, and bringing them down with a variety of moves without them managing to touch you, you'll look like the ultimate games master.
In reply to it, I normally play it safe/easy the first time round while I'm learning to get to grips with the game, but the second time round, I'm more likely to go for style over simply winning.
This might be down to using a weaker weapon, going for accuracy, using wits and tactics to avoid being hit at all...
Playing with style also makes multiplayer games more fun.
Sure, on Smash Brothers I could play my friend as Samus and continually charge up my big laser blast until my opponent is off the screen, leaving my friend bored and unimpressed.
OR, I could give my friend every opportunity to attack, only to dodge at the last minute by jumping or rolling, following it up with a weak tap or short combo.
Working round like this would give a more intense game because you're working hard and you friend as a chance if you mess up, and if you do pull it off and weave around everything they throw at you, and bringing them down with a variety of moves without them managing to touch you, you'll look like the ultimate games master.
well done unknown kernel, a quality post
look at my original posts - I was right, wasn't I?
look at my original posts - I was right, wasn't I?
Thanks to the early morning crew for the feedback: that's real committment!
To everyone else: sorry it's so long, but please give it a read. It's good, honest. ;~)
One thing I didn't mention was that giving players freedom in a game can allow them to discover things not consciously programmed in. For example, I read a feature about the making of Streetfighter II, saying that combos were actually discovered by playtesters. Nowadays of course games like Tekken require you to memorise pre-programmed sequences to unleash a combo: not quite as satisfying, I don't think.
To everyone else: sorry it's so long, but please give it a read. It's good, honest. ;~)
One thing I didn't mention was that giving players freedom in a game can allow them to discover things not consciously programmed in. For example, I read a feature about the making of Streetfighter II, saying that combos were actually discovered by playtesters. Nowadays of course games like Tekken require you to memorise pre-programmed sequences to unleash a combo: not quite as satisfying, I don't think.
Good post.
The greater the options and choices on what style the player wishes to adopt within a game the better.
If there are several ways of achieving your aims in any given situation; if the player can create his own style - this will give games an unlimited quality, and replay value will be greatly increased as a result.
I think as AI slowly improves, this kind of thing will become more and more common.
It's all about immersion: it's all about believing that what you are doing and the in-game decisions you make really affects the gameworld.
The greater the options and choices on what style the player wishes to adopt within a game the better.
If there are several ways of achieving your aims in any given situation; if the player can create his own style - this will give games an unlimited quality, and replay value will be greatly increased as a result.
I think as AI slowly improves, this kind of thing will become more and more common.
It's all about immersion: it's all about believing that what you are doing and the in-game decisions you make really affects the gameworld.
Excellent post, I can see a potential GAD coming your way...
I too am like that a little. Back inb the days when I was young and stupid and bought FIFA games, I got fed up scoring, because, well, it was so easy. Therefore I went on a crusade to score the most outrageous goal ever. Similarly, if you play through MGS2, you don't want to keep getting hit and scrape through do you? No, you want to use superb infiltration tactics that makes you feel really good.
I too am like that a little. Back inb the days when I was young and stupid and bought FIFA games, I got fed up scoring, because, well, it was so easy. Therefore I went on a crusade to score the most outrageous goal ever. Similarly, if you play through MGS2, you don't want to keep getting hit and scrape through do you? No, you want to use superb infiltration tactics that makes you feel really good.
The new paradigm: it's not if you win, but the way that you do it
-------------
A very funny thing has been happening to me lately. When playing my favourite games I am becoming more concerned with playing well than with actually winning. The first game in which I consciously noticed this happening was Pro Evolution Soccer: if I had played great football but somehow been denied a goal, I would be a happy man; and even if I lost a last-minute goal I would be far from inconsolable. The joy for me was piecing together attractive moves and taking part in a flow of terrific football. On the other hand, had I clung desperately on for an undeserved 0-0 draw, or won with a fluke deflection from my only shot of the game, then I felt...well, almost nothing at all. My new gaming philosophy can be summed up quite easily: I want to win, but, even more than that, I want to win well. What exactly am I barking on about? What is the new paradigm? Well, I’m sorry, but you're just going to have to read on...
Success in a videogame has always been black and white: you win, or you lose. You kill every robot, or they inherit the earth. You rescue the princess, or she rots in her tower. There is no middle path in the gaming world, and you have but two possible destinies: win and you get fame, riches and the girl; lose, and you will die a sad, unnoticed death, remembered only in that worst of epitaphs - Game Over.
But real life isn't like that. The glorious losers are often remembered long after the pragmatic victors have faded from the collective memory. We know Spartacus, but not the general who ordered him tied to the cross. In Australia, the bushranger Ned Kelly has become a national hero; while the authorities who had him captured and hanged are reviled or forgotten. And then there is the Dutch football team of the 1970s, whose exuberant style of total football is still celebrated - despite the loss of two world cups to less inventive but ultimately more effective teams.
And the reason we remember these losers? They lost with style, never compromising their beliefs and principles, even in the face of defeat. To drag this topic back to gaming, these were people who, reduced to the last millimetre of their energy bar, never paused the game to enter a cheat code. They preferred to lose than accept the false victory offered by invincibility or unlimited ammo. Holland never stopped passing the ball. The rebellious slaves never sold out their leader Spartacus. And Ned Kelly took huge risks and flamboyantly evaded the law, right up until the moment of his capture at Glenrowan, where he attempted to shoot his way past the cordon of police, wearing a suit of homemade armour.
In fact, Ned Kelly would have been my kind of videogamer because, although a bandit and an outlaw, he was never just a common criminal. He was a highwayman who captured the hearts of his people. He robbed from the squatter elite, but paid handsomely for the supplies he bought from the poor; he was courteous to his victims, and gallant and charming if they were female; his gang executed daylight raids on banks not just to steal money, but also to burn the mortgages that kept the farmers poor; and when before his capture he was holed up in a busy hotel, facing death by bullet or the hangman, he bought every one of his supposed hostages drinks, before beginning the last party of his life.
Like every character in a videogame, Ned Kelly faced impossible odds. But it is not every videogame character who tries to overcome those odds with wit, flair and style. Games have always tended to reward safe, repetitive gameplay: for example, memorising enemy attack patterns, or exploiting an obvious glitch in the AI. The object was to win, not to win well. To a certain extent early videogames rewarded stylish play through the high-score system, and placement of time and pick-up bonuses. A fairly rudimentary title like Robotron also offered the player the freedom to play with daring and flair: should he choose to. In the main, however, such games were really too simplistic to allow the player to develop a style of his own: a high-score was normally more down to longevity than brave play. In any case, as games moved out of the arcade and into the bedroom, high-scores were replaced by steady progress through the game, culminating in the animated end sequence. Success came not by mastering the game but by finishing it.
And finishing a game rarely taxed a player's creativity. Of course, in an era of limited processing power, game designers were compelled to be dictatorial. For each problem there was one, and only one, solution: multiple paths would simply have appropriated precious cartridge or system space. The result was slick but shallow gaming; an experience that, while entertaining, offered no interaction between player and creator. Mario jumped from platform to platform, but never had the option of buying a jetpack to cross the gulf. A lost adventurer might possess enough weaponry to blow up the moon, but passing through one flimsy door required finding a particular key. And, though the digital footballer might wish to play swift and flowing total football, he was instead compelled to shoot and score from a particular 'hot-spot' on the pitch. Gaming like this only offered the chance to win, never the chance to win well.
Ironically this was a result of games becoming more ambitious. In simulating more complex situations, game designers were forced to make sacrifices elsewhere: reducing the number of possible outcomes allowed crude approximations of football, fighting and war to reach our screens. But player freedom all but disappeared, along with the satisfaction of 'winning well'.
The consoles of the present day are vastly more powerful than the generation of machines that first hosted sports sims and platformers. But in many cases this extra oomph is used to tart up the graphics rather than extend gameplay. As an example of what I'm talking about, consider Sensible Soccer and the FIFA series. On the face of it FIFA offers a much more complex simulation than Sensi: look you can backheel! juggle the ball on the halfway line! score with a bicycle kick! But on closer examination FIFA is dull and unrewarding: tap once to cross, tap twice for an overhead kick, voila, a certain goal. Woo, and indeed Hoo. Sensible Soccer was, and is, a much better game. The controls were simple, but subtle enough that, when kicking the ball, the player had complete control over strength, direction and aftertouch. In effect, you were given complete freedom to play football in your style of choice. Yes, you could win playing Doncaster Rovers-style punt and rush; but even better, you could win playing a slick brand of passing football. It was incredibly satisfying. FIFA, though, took all the fun out of playing well by removing the option of playing badly: even Dundee played like Brazil.
The key to creating a game in which a player can win well or win badly seems to be trust. The player needs to trust the designer to come up with a consistent game world; and the designers need to trust the players to explore that world without constantly holding them by the hand. Consider PES: when I first played this game, my teams – no matter who they were – took on the appearance of 11 Sunday League no-hopers. But I persevered, and now I can string together the kind of move that would have Johann Cruyff in tears. I trusted the simulation of football, and was trusted to master it by the designers. And it worked out well for both of us!
Other designers, too, are giving the gaming public the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who has played GTA3 will have been astounded by the sheer freedom it affords the player. You are given a mission, a marker on your map...and that’s it. Instead of step-by-step instructions you have a whole city of possibilities. And you only have to look on internet help-sites to realise that people are taking advantage of that and using their creativity with this game: each mission has five or six possible solutions, each radically different from the other.
Another example, Deus Ex, also gave the player a wide choice in achieving his aims. You could play the game as you would any other gung-ho FPS; but equally you could sneak around avoiding enemy guards. And in your confrontations with enemies you were again given a choice: lethal or non-lethal takedowns; or even that old favourite, running away. I’ll always remember restarting the game after switching sides, just so that I could deal with the ‘terrorists’ more humanely. In this Deus Ex was quite revolutionary; it was the first game that rather than forcing its morals upon you (there is, after all, no room in Doom for the pacifist), moulded itself around your personality. Civilization 3 is another such game. No longer is victory purely a function of military might. Instead the would-be megalomaniac can create a cultural wonderland that wins over the citizens of the world through its peaceful achievements in the arts. Or you can win the space race and colonise the stars. And, for the expansionists among us, the option to crush all opposition under your tank tracks remains intact.
The common thread with all these games (other than being fantastic) is that they all offer a way to win well, a way to improve your performance based not on scores but on your own level of satisfaction. This, for me, is the future of gaming. Not a simple dichotomy of victory and defeat, but something truer to life, something less tangible. Perhaps, like ice-skaters, videogamers will be given marks for artistic impression. Or perhaps we will just know instinctively that we have done more than just win: we have won well.
-------------
A very funny thing has been happening to me lately. When playing my favourite games I am becoming more concerned with playing well than with actually winning. The first game in which I consciously noticed this happening was Pro Evolution Soccer: if I had played great football but somehow been denied a goal, I would be a happy man; and even if I lost a last-minute goal I would be far from inconsolable. The joy for me was piecing together attractive moves and taking part in a flow of terrific football. On the other hand, had I clung desperately on for an undeserved 0-0 draw, or won with a fluke deflection from my only shot of the game, then I felt...well, almost nothing at all. My new gaming philosophy can be summed up quite easily: I want to win, but, even more than that, I want to win well. What exactly am I barking on about? What is the new paradigm? Well, I’m sorry, but you're just going to have to read on...
Success in a videogame has always been black and white: you win, or you lose. You kill every robot, or they inherit the earth. You rescue the princess, or she rots in her tower. There is no middle path in the gaming world, and you have but two possible destinies: win and you get fame, riches and the girl; lose, and you will die a sad, unnoticed death, remembered only in that worst of epitaphs - Game Over.
But real life isn't like that. The glorious losers are often remembered long after the pragmatic victors have faded from the collective memory. We know Spartacus, but not the general who ordered him tied to the cross. In Australia, the bushranger Ned Kelly has become a national hero; while the authorities who had him captured and hanged are reviled or forgotten. And then there is the Dutch football team of the 1970s, whose exuberant style of total football is still celebrated - despite the loss of two world cups to less inventive but ultimately more effective teams.
And the reason we remember these losers? They lost with style, never compromising their beliefs and principles, even in the face of defeat. To drag this topic back to gaming, these were people who, reduced to the last millimetre of their energy bar, never paused the game to enter a cheat code. They preferred to lose than accept the false victory offered by invincibility or unlimited ammo. Holland never stopped passing the ball. The rebellious slaves never sold out their leader Spartacus. And Ned Kelly took huge risks and flamboyantly evaded the law, right up until the moment of his capture at Glenrowan, where he attempted to shoot his way past the cordon of police, wearing a suit of homemade armour.
In fact, Ned Kelly would have been my kind of videogamer because, although a bandit and an outlaw, he was never just a common criminal. He was a highwayman who captured the hearts of his people. He robbed from the squatter elite, but paid handsomely for the supplies he bought from the poor; he was courteous to his victims, and gallant and charming if they were female; his gang executed daylight raids on banks not just to steal money, but also to burn the mortgages that kept the farmers poor; and when before his capture he was holed up in a busy hotel, facing death by bullet or the hangman, he bought every one of his supposed hostages drinks, before beginning the last party of his life.
Like every character in a videogame, Ned Kelly faced impossible odds. But it is not every videogame character who tries to overcome those odds with wit, flair and style. Games have always tended to reward safe, repetitive gameplay: for example, memorising enemy attack patterns, or exploiting an obvious glitch in the AI. The object was to win, not to win well. To a certain extent early videogames rewarded stylish play through the high-score system, and placement of time and pick-up bonuses. A fairly rudimentary title like Robotron also offered the player the freedom to play with daring and flair: should he choose to. In the main, however, such games were really too simplistic to allow the player to develop a style of his own: a high-score was normally more down to longevity than brave play. In any case, as games moved out of the arcade and into the bedroom, high-scores were replaced by steady progress through the game, culminating in the animated end sequence. Success came not by mastering the game but by finishing it.
And finishing a game rarely taxed a player's creativity. Of course, in an era of limited processing power, game designers were compelled to be dictatorial. For each problem there was one, and only one, solution: multiple paths would simply have appropriated precious cartridge or system space. The result was slick but shallow gaming; an experience that, while entertaining, offered no interaction between player and creator. Mario jumped from platform to platform, but never had the option of buying a jetpack to cross the gulf. A lost adventurer might possess enough weaponry to blow up the moon, but passing through one flimsy door required finding a particular key. And, though the digital footballer might wish to play swift and flowing total football, he was instead compelled to shoot and score from a particular 'hot-spot' on the pitch. Gaming like this only offered the chance to win, never the chance to win well.
Ironically this was a result of games becoming more ambitious. In simulating more complex situations, game designers were forced to make sacrifices elsewhere: reducing the number of possible outcomes allowed crude approximations of football, fighting and war to reach our screens. But player freedom all but disappeared, along with the satisfaction of 'winning well'.
The consoles of the present day are vastly more powerful than the generation of machines that first hosted sports sims and platformers. But in many cases this extra oomph is used to tart up the graphics rather than extend gameplay. As an example of what I'm talking about, consider Sensible Soccer and the FIFA series. On the face of it FIFA offers a much more complex simulation than Sensi: look you can backheel! juggle the ball on the halfway line! score with a bicycle kick! But on closer examination FIFA is dull and unrewarding: tap once to cross, tap twice for an overhead kick, voila, a certain goal. Woo, and indeed Hoo. Sensible Soccer was, and is, a much better game. The controls were simple, but subtle enough that, when kicking the ball, the player had complete control over strength, direction and aftertouch. In effect, you were given complete freedom to play football in your style of choice. Yes, you could win playing Doncaster Rovers-style punt and rush; but even better, you could win playing a slick brand of passing football. It was incredibly satisfying. FIFA, though, took all the fun out of playing well by removing the option of playing badly: even Dundee played like Brazil.
The key to creating a game in which a player can win well or win badly seems to be trust. The player needs to trust the designer to come up with a consistent game world; and the designers need to trust the players to explore that world without constantly holding them by the hand. Consider PES: when I first played this game, my teams – no matter who they were – took on the appearance of 11 Sunday League no-hopers. But I persevered, and now I can string together the kind of move that would have Johann Cruyff in tears. I trusted the simulation of football, and was trusted to master it by the designers. And it worked out well for both of us!
Other designers, too, are giving the gaming public the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who has played GTA3 will have been astounded by the sheer freedom it affords the player. You are given a mission, a marker on your map...and that’s it. Instead of step-by-step instructions you have a whole city of possibilities. And you only have to look on internet help-sites to realise that people are taking advantage of that and using their creativity with this game: each mission has five or six possible solutions, each radically different from the other.
Another example, Deus Ex, also gave the player a wide choice in achieving his aims. You could play the game as you would any other gung-ho FPS; but equally you could sneak around avoiding enemy guards. And in your confrontations with enemies you were again given a choice: lethal or non-lethal takedowns; or even that old favourite, running away. I’ll always remember restarting the game after switching sides, just so that I could deal with the ‘terrorists’ more humanely. In this Deus Ex was quite revolutionary; it was the first game that rather than forcing its morals upon you (there is, after all, no room in Doom for the pacifist), moulded itself around your personality. Civilization 3 is another such game. No longer is victory purely a function of military might. Instead the would-be megalomaniac can create a cultural wonderland that wins over the citizens of the world through its peaceful achievements in the arts. Or you can win the space race and colonise the stars. And, for the expansionists among us, the option to crush all opposition under your tank tracks remains intact.
The common thread with all these games (other than being fantastic) is that they all offer a way to win well, a way to improve your performance based not on scores but on your own level of satisfaction. This, for me, is the future of gaming. Not a simple dichotomy of victory and defeat, but something truer to life, something less tangible. Perhaps, like ice-skaters, videogamers will be given marks for artistic impression. Or perhaps we will just know instinctively that we have done more than just win: we have won well.