The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Little Computer People: why are they still so stupid?
=========
Some of the older posters on this forum might remember a game called Little Computer People. It was an early attempt at The Sims, I suppose, and very enjoyable at the time. The reason I bring it up is because of the LCPs themselves: they were stubborn and independent, and woe betide the human who forgot to add 'please' to an order. Nearly twenty years later gaming seems to have regressed: our little computer people are more pliant and feckless than ever before.
Think about games where you have control of a bunch of people: not just god games, but real time strategy games, or anything squad based. Play these games and a pattern emerges: civilisations rise and fall, buildings are stormed and defended, towns besieged, attackers repulsed or succumbed to. Superficially these are diverse experiences but, in essence, they are very similar. You win or you lose. And that's the crux of the matter: for all the detail of the game worlds, for all the millions of inhabitants they contain, only one person matters - and that's YOU. Whether you control a squad, a platoon, an army or an entire nation, the little computer people strive for just one purpose: your glory.
And this, it strikes me, is just a little bit weird.
In societies that put such a high value on individual freedom, why are free will and personal ambition so absent from videogames? Why are so many millions of videogame characters prepared to sacrifce their goals in pursuit of yours'?
We live in a depoliticised society. Nobody believes in anything anymore, except perhaps that mobile phones and fancy jeans will improve our sex lives. We work not for the glory of Britain, or Tony Blair, or any political ideology, but simply to buy stuff. We are part of a selfish generation, polluting the planet and grinding Third World farmers into poverty so that we can drive big cars and eat strawberries in winter.
We are about as far from the aquiescent videogame character as it is possible to be. But still the gaming industry produces them, thousands of passive drones, happily sacrificing themselves to advance us along our path to glory. The mindless soldiers and workers of a Command & Conquer are, it seems to me, the type of citizens so cherished in authoritarian China, and cultivated, and then destroyed, in the nationalist killing fields of World War One. People who are no longer people, but fodder for an ideal, a flag, a religion, or an exulted leader.
Consider a fairly common ploy in an RTS game: sending a cheap, expendable troop unit into an enemy base to scout it out, to briefly lift the fog-of-war and perhaps gather the vital bit of intelligence to tip the battle in your favour. Your infantry unit dies, of course, but it was all for the greater good: another victory chalked up for your generalship. But, while such fanatical devotion to the cause is commonplace in the digital world, our own real life leaders are committed to stamping out the martyrdom of Al Quaida recruits. Again, I find this to be a little bit weird. Instead of a recruit meekly trotting off to be mown down, I'd like to control a soldier with a little backbone. Someone with an instinct for self-preservation. Someone prepared to say, "You know what, Mr General, Sir, how about YOU single-handedly charge that nest of machine-gunners. I have a wife and three kids to think about."
I don't think that we're all fledgling dictators, desperate to command hordes of craven followers (I doubt that Tony Blair even PLAYS videogames). So why do designers persist in populating strategy games with willingly suicidal loons? In part, I guess, because it's easier to program an automated board game than a more dynamic affair where the counters are apt to have their own agendas, and may even decide not to play anymore. And there is also the fact that games have always been about controlling something, be it a football team or a portly plumber: and giving up authority is hard to do.
But given that we seem to be reaching a plateau in terms of game genres and graphical sophistication (how useful can that billionth extra polygon be to a Civ-style game?), perhaps games need new directions, new challenges, and even new philosophies. I for one would welcome the people I control becoming more independent, free-thinking and rebellious.
=========
Some of the older posters on this forum might remember a game called Little Computer People. It was an early attempt at The Sims, I suppose, and very enjoyable at the time. The reason I bring it up is because of the LCPs themselves: they were stubborn and independent, and woe betide the human who forgot to add 'please' to an order. Nearly twenty years later gaming seems to have regressed: our little computer people are more pliant and feckless than ever before.
Think about games where you have control of a bunch of people: not just god games, but real time strategy games, or anything squad based. Play these games and a pattern emerges: civilisations rise and fall, buildings are stormed and defended, towns besieged, attackers repulsed or succumbed to. Superficially these are diverse experiences but, in essence, they are very similar. You win or you lose. And that's the crux of the matter: for all the detail of the game worlds, for all the millions of inhabitants they contain, only one person matters - and that's YOU. Whether you control a squad, a platoon, an army or an entire nation, the little computer people strive for just one purpose: your glory.
And this, it strikes me, is just a little bit weird.
In societies that put such a high value on individual freedom, why are free will and personal ambition so absent from videogames? Why are so many millions of videogame characters prepared to sacrifce their goals in pursuit of yours'?
We live in a depoliticised society. Nobody believes in anything anymore, except perhaps that mobile phones and fancy jeans will improve our sex lives. We work not for the glory of Britain, or Tony Blair, or any political ideology, but simply to buy stuff. We are part of a selfish generation, polluting the planet and grinding Third World farmers into poverty so that we can drive big cars and eat strawberries in winter.
We are about as far from the aquiescent videogame character as it is possible to be. But still the gaming industry produces them, thousands of passive drones, happily sacrificing themselves to advance us along our path to glory. The mindless soldiers and workers of a Command & Conquer are, it seems to me, the type of citizens so cherished in authoritarian China, and cultivated, and then destroyed, in the nationalist killing fields of World War One. People who are no longer people, but fodder for an ideal, a flag, a religion, or an exulted leader.
Consider a fairly common ploy in an RTS game: sending a cheap, expendable troop unit into an enemy base to scout it out, to briefly lift the fog-of-war and perhaps gather the vital bit of intelligence to tip the battle in your favour. Your infantry unit dies, of course, but it was all for the greater good: another victory chalked up for your generalship. But, while such fanatical devotion to the cause is commonplace in the digital world, our own real life leaders are committed to stamping out the martyrdom of Al Quaida recruits. Again, I find this to be a little bit weird. Instead of a recruit meekly trotting off to be mown down, I'd like to control a soldier with a little backbone. Someone with an instinct for self-preservation. Someone prepared to say, "You know what, Mr General, Sir, how about YOU single-handedly charge that nest of machine-gunners. I have a wife and three kids to think about."
I don't think that we're all fledgling dictators, desperate to command hordes of craven followers (I doubt that Tony Blair even PLAYS videogames). So why do designers persist in populating strategy games with willingly suicidal loons? In part, I guess, because it's easier to program an automated board game than a more dynamic affair where the counters are apt to have their own agendas, and may even decide not to play anymore. And there is also the fact that games have always been about controlling something, be it a football team or a portly plumber: and giving up authority is hard to do.
But given that we seem to be reaching a plateau in terms of game genres and graphical sophistication (how useful can that billionth extra polygon be to a Civ-style game?), perhaps games need new directions, new challenges, and even new philosophies. I for one would welcome the people I control becoming more independent, free-thinking and rebellious.
pb wrote:
> hm. Interesting topic that. Though I'd have to disagree about Little
> Computer People, they were REAL. I know because they lived in my
> computer and one day when I opened the cassette recorder one of them
> popped out. So you can't tell me it was just a game.
You could be right. The way I remember the Little Computer People, they were THIS close to passing the Turing test. I was going to download an emulator and play the game again, but then I thought, nah, why spoil a beautiful memory. Plus they freaked me out.
You're right about AI, though, it does seem to be going in the right direction. I haven't heard much about Lord of the Rings - mainly because I'm a Tolkeinophobe - but The Thing sounds interesting. Teammates getting paranoid, or jumpy, and turning hostile. Much cooler than the 'Wuh? Guh!' AI you get in most games.
> hm. Interesting topic that. Though I'd have to disagree about Little
> Computer People, they were REAL. I know because they lived in my
> computer and one day when I opened the cassette recorder one of them
> popped out. So you can't tell me it was just a game.
You could be right. The way I remember the Little Computer People, they were THIS close to passing the Turing test. I was going to download an emulator and play the game again, but then I thought, nah, why spoil a beautiful memory. Plus they freaked me out.
You're right about AI, though, it does seem to be going in the right direction. I haven't heard much about Lord of the Rings - mainly because I'm a Tolkeinophobe - but The Thing sounds interesting. Teammates getting paranoid, or jumpy, and turning hostile. Much cooler than the 'Wuh? Guh!' AI you get in most games.
hm. Interesting topic that. Though I'd have to disagree about Little Computer People, they were REAL. I know because they lived in my computer and one day when I opened the cassette recorder one of them popped out. So you can't tell me it was just a game.
Back to the other bit, I agree that it would be far more interesting to have individual characters, and AI is now going some way to making that happen, but it takes a heck of a lot of processing time and programming. If you look at the stuff that has been done for Lord of the Rings, it's a step in the right direction.
Back to the other bit, I agree that it would be far more interesting to have individual characters, and AI is now going some way to making that happen, but it takes a heck of a lot of processing time and programming. If you look at the stuff that has been done for Lord of the Rings, it's a step in the right direction.
Thanks for the reply, RM18. I'd hope that real people aren't passive drones, however much politicians and marketing executives might wish we were. I think history has shown us to be a bit more rebellious than that, and if games were to incorporate that side of our nature, they would be better for it. The latest Civilization was a good example: pacifism amongst your citizens made the 'nuke-em-all' philosophy untenable - take note George Bush.
God games have to be about controlling people at some level but adding free will makes it more challenging. Initially this post was going to be about all virtual citizens being like the eponymous heroes of the classic Lemmings series. But Lemmings is actually a really good example of what I'd like to see in games: you can order the lemmings about, but only within reason. If that game had featured your average pliable characters then there would have been a button marked 'Everybody stop! I need to figure this out.' Instead they plunged onwards to their doom, creating a brilliant game in the process.
God games have to be about controlling people at some level but adding free will makes it more challenging. Initially this post was going to be about all virtual citizens being like the eponymous heroes of the classic Lemmings series. But Lemmings is actually a really good example of what I'd like to see in games: you can order the lemmings about, but only within reason. If that game had featured your average pliable characters then there would have been a button marked 'Everybody stop! I need to figure this out.' Instead they plunged onwards to their doom, creating a brilliant game in the process.
Thousands of passive drones? Judging by your perception of today's society, it seems that the gaming world is simply a microcosm of the real world. Try looking at the perspective that in the grand scheme of things, us in today's society are just people controlled and maniuplated to provide targets and help achieve aims for a few individuals, just like those in today's videogames. Just like every soldier we sacrifice in a game, it is probable that someone is similarly sacrificed in real life to see if something works, or if we can succeed in a new and untried area, with the ready made excuse of its for good of the human race.
Maybe the computer games are closer to life than you think. An excellent, thought provoking post, worth of a shiny new game.
Maybe the computer games are closer to life than you think. An excellent, thought provoking post, worth of a shiny new game.
Little Computer People: why are they still so stupid?
=========
Some of the older posters on this forum might remember a game called Little Computer People. It was an early attempt at The Sims, I suppose, and very enjoyable at the time. The reason I bring it up is because of the LCPs themselves: they were stubborn and independent, and woe betide the human who forgot to add 'please' to an order. Nearly twenty years later gaming seems to have regressed: our little computer people are more pliant and feckless than ever before.
Think about games where you have control of a bunch of people: not just god games, but real time strategy games, or anything squad based. Play these games and a pattern emerges: civilisations rise and fall, buildings are stormed and defended, towns besieged, attackers repulsed or succumbed to. Superficially these are diverse experiences but, in essence, they are very similar. You win or you lose. And that's the crux of the matter: for all the detail of the game worlds, for all the millions of inhabitants they contain, only one person matters - and that's YOU. Whether you control a squad, a platoon, an army or an entire nation, the little computer people strive for just one purpose: your glory.
And this, it strikes me, is just a little bit weird.
In societies that put such a high value on individual freedom, why are free will and personal ambition so absent from videogames? Why are so many millions of videogame characters prepared to sacrifce their goals in pursuit of yours'?
We live in a depoliticised society. Nobody believes in anything anymore, except perhaps that mobile phones and fancy jeans will improve our sex lives. We work not for the glory of Britain, or Tony Blair, or any political ideology, but simply to buy stuff. We are part of a selfish generation, polluting the planet and grinding Third World farmers into poverty so that we can drive big cars and eat strawberries in winter.
We are about as far from the aquiescent videogame character as it is possible to be. But still the gaming industry produces them, thousands of passive drones, happily sacrificing themselves to advance us along our path to glory. The mindless soldiers and workers of a Command & Conquer are, it seems to me, the type of citizens so cherished in authoritarian China, and cultivated, and then destroyed, in the nationalist killing fields of World War One. People who are no longer people, but fodder for an ideal, a flag, a religion, or an exulted leader.
Consider a fairly common ploy in an RTS game: sending a cheap, expendable troop unit into an enemy base to scout it out, to briefly lift the fog-of-war and perhaps gather the vital bit of intelligence to tip the battle in your favour. Your infantry unit dies, of course, but it was all for the greater good: another victory chalked up for your generalship. But, while such fanatical devotion to the cause is commonplace in the digital world, our own real life leaders are committed to stamping out the martyrdom of Al Quaida recruits. Again, I find this to be a little bit weird. Instead of a recruit meekly trotting off to be mown down, I'd like to control a soldier with a little backbone. Someone with an instinct for self-preservation. Someone prepared to say, "You know what, Mr General, Sir, how about YOU single-handedly charge that nest of machine-gunners. I have a wife and three kids to think about."
I don't think that we're all fledgling dictators, desperate to command hordes of craven followers (I doubt that Tony Blair even PLAYS videogames). So why do designers persist in populating strategy games with willingly suicidal loons? In part, I guess, because it's easier to program an automated board game than a more dynamic affair where the counters are apt to have their own agendas, and may even decide not to play anymore. And there is also the fact that games have always been about controlling something, be it a football team or a portly plumber: and giving up authority is hard to do.
But given that we seem to be reaching a plateau in terms of game genres and graphical sophistication (how useful can that billionth extra polygon be to a Civ-style game?), perhaps games need new directions, new challenges, and even new philosophies. I for one would welcome the people I control becoming more independent, free-thinking and rebellious.
=========
Some of the older posters on this forum might remember a game called Little Computer People. It was an early attempt at The Sims, I suppose, and very enjoyable at the time. The reason I bring it up is because of the LCPs themselves: they were stubborn and independent, and woe betide the human who forgot to add 'please' to an order. Nearly twenty years later gaming seems to have regressed: our little computer people are more pliant and feckless than ever before.
Think about games where you have control of a bunch of people: not just god games, but real time strategy games, or anything squad based. Play these games and a pattern emerges: civilisations rise and fall, buildings are stormed and defended, towns besieged, attackers repulsed or succumbed to. Superficially these are diverse experiences but, in essence, they are very similar. You win or you lose. And that's the crux of the matter: for all the detail of the game worlds, for all the millions of inhabitants they contain, only one person matters - and that's YOU. Whether you control a squad, a platoon, an army or an entire nation, the little computer people strive for just one purpose: your glory.
And this, it strikes me, is just a little bit weird.
In societies that put such a high value on individual freedom, why are free will and personal ambition so absent from videogames? Why are so many millions of videogame characters prepared to sacrifce their goals in pursuit of yours'?
We live in a depoliticised society. Nobody believes in anything anymore, except perhaps that mobile phones and fancy jeans will improve our sex lives. We work not for the glory of Britain, or Tony Blair, or any political ideology, but simply to buy stuff. We are part of a selfish generation, polluting the planet and grinding Third World farmers into poverty so that we can drive big cars and eat strawberries in winter.
We are about as far from the aquiescent videogame character as it is possible to be. But still the gaming industry produces them, thousands of passive drones, happily sacrificing themselves to advance us along our path to glory. The mindless soldiers and workers of a Command & Conquer are, it seems to me, the type of citizens so cherished in authoritarian China, and cultivated, and then destroyed, in the nationalist killing fields of World War One. People who are no longer people, but fodder for an ideal, a flag, a religion, or an exulted leader.
Consider a fairly common ploy in an RTS game: sending a cheap, expendable troop unit into an enemy base to scout it out, to briefly lift the fog-of-war and perhaps gather the vital bit of intelligence to tip the battle in your favour. Your infantry unit dies, of course, but it was all for the greater good: another victory chalked up for your generalship. But, while such fanatical devotion to the cause is commonplace in the digital world, our own real life leaders are committed to stamping out the martyrdom of Al Quaida recruits. Again, I find this to be a little bit weird. Instead of a recruit meekly trotting off to be mown down, I'd like to control a soldier with a little backbone. Someone with an instinct for self-preservation. Someone prepared to say, "You know what, Mr General, Sir, how about YOU single-handedly charge that nest of machine-gunners. I have a wife and three kids to think about."
I don't think that we're all fledgling dictators, desperate to command hordes of craven followers (I doubt that Tony Blair even PLAYS videogames). So why do designers persist in populating strategy games with willingly suicidal loons? In part, I guess, because it's easier to program an automated board game than a more dynamic affair where the counters are apt to have their own agendas, and may even decide not to play anymore. And there is also the fact that games have always been about controlling something, be it a football team or a portly plumber: and giving up authority is hard to do.
But given that we seem to be reaching a plateau in terms of game genres and graphical sophistication (how useful can that billionth extra polygon be to a Civ-style game?), perhaps games need new directions, new challenges, and even new philosophies. I for one would welcome the people I control becoming more independent, free-thinking and rebellious.