I think it is because "play" belongs to the realm of "human freedom". As does art, I suppose?
Pehr

I guess I just never like the static image pseudo-virtual-reality thing. To me it will always feel like a weak, stopgap for true full-motion, explorable 3d spaces.

None the less you are looking at a 2D-projection of your perfect virtual 3D-world! And it is a camera-imitating projection.

I don't see what that has to do with my statement. I wasn't talking about cameras or cinema or imitating cinema.

Sorry, my thought took a leap there.  Let me try to express it in other words, and also elaborate it a bit more.
It seemed to me, from what you said,  that you are against the use of static 2D images.  Then the following reflection suggested itself to me.

You (and anyone using standard software for the purpose) put a lot of effort into constructing a digital representation of a 3D world in order to be able to produce a series of 2D images to be displayed in rapid sequence, giving the player the illusion of a 3D space with moving objects.
So in the end the experience of a virtual three-dimensional world is based on static framed two-dimensional images, after all.  That is what I call ”the cinematic paradigm”.

Now, to think one step further, it seems that two virtual 3D worlds are involved here:
-   the one given by a digitally encoded description in the computer
-   the one constructed by your perceptual system, from the impression of a flow of 2D images.

They are of course not independent but the connection is far from strictly one-to-one.
The perceptual one, present in your mind, is the one you directly experience. 
The encoded one, present in the computer memory,  the one you hope to find pleasure in exploring.

From an aesthetic point of view I would say the perceptually created one is the most important. It is dynamic, holistically integrated, adaptive, sensible for influences from mood, attitude, preconceptions, memories etc.

Pehr

Thanks for this excellent summary!
Since you both quote the same concise and abstract, but unnecessarily restrictive definition of ”game”, let me, just for joy, contribute another attempt at a general definition.

I found it in Jim Tompson’s  Computer Game Design Course, which I once read to get an overview of the field.  Starting with a retrospect on gameplay in general, Tompson quotes Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens, from 1938:

Play is a volontary activity or occupation executed within certain limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that it is ”different” from ”ordinary life”.

And Tompson himself adds: This root definition of gameplay encompasses whatever game is being played, from chess to the latest digital game.

Nobody will have the last word on this. (I once made an inventory of textbooks in Opticks, to find a good definition of the concept of ”light ray”. Wisely, most of them avoided giving any definition. )
Pehr

I guess I just never like the static image pseudo-virtual-reality thing. To me it will always feel like a weak, stopgap for true full-motion, explorable 3d spaces.

None the less you are looking at a 2D-projection of your perfect virtual 3D-world!
And it is a camera-imitating projection.  This faitfulness to the cinematic tradition from the last century is no necessity, when you are using a computer. You do not have to think about the camera as a physical object among the other objects on the stage.

See for instance the computer animated films by the ingenious artist Tamás Waliczky, www.waliczky.com  especially The Garden(1992), The Forest(1993), The Way(1994) and Landscape(1997) – each one of which utilizes a particular perspectival system. 

-Pehr

This topic is implicitly treated in many of the contribution to our forum. However, I think for us newbies it is valuable to get it summed up a bit.

So, what is the difference between a game and a not-game? As a matter of fact, in Swedish we cannot ask this question, because we do not have a word for "game". Everything is "spel" (cp German "Spiel") which rather corresponds to "play" in English (even if not totally so). Anyway, it is a word with very broad applicability.

According to Oxford dictionary,  game = diversion, amusing incident, an activity engaged in for amusement, contest played according to rules & decided by skill, strength, or luck.

So it is evident why ordinary computer-games are called games. The main aspect is the joy, the pleasure of playing, being skilful, win etc. 

A game is not a play. And a play is not a game.  You do not go to the theatre to see a game. Nor is a musical performance a game.  And in that case skill is not enough.  You may be a skilful piano player, but something more is demanded, your being able to communicate that mysterious something called ”music”.

So, by using the term not-game we (or at least I) indicate that we want to use the equipment used in constructing and playing computer games, but with that little ”extra” communicated, that makes it a ”play” – and, as the case may be – even a work of art.

In this case – as for instance with ”The Path” – you are not just playing the game, you play with and within the game.

I love the discussion surrounding the community about what constitutes a "game" or what doesn't?

I think we newbies can find it rewarding to discuss this issue. So let me tentatively open up such a thread!
Pehr

Probably 123D Catch is more useful for modelling objects than for environments?

By the way, I downloaded and looked into  ”The Hunter” (a hunting simulator). It has such an astonishingly dense, wild and variable forest to walk in. I cannot imagine that all that could have been ”hand-crafted”. On the other hand it doesn’t look as if made to pattern. It is very photo-realistic. It must have been based on photos, or films, in some way. Not to say that photo-realism is what we are looking for, but I just wonder how they did it.

Welcome Heather,
your thesis project sounds interesting! I did some studies on how lighting influences the perception of space; once, when I was associated with the School of Architecture in Stockholm.
Pehr

And now I found Autodesks 123D Catch
http://www.123dapp.com/catch

which looks really promising ..
Pehr

A found this
http://www.easypano.com
Better than I had expected. Yet, well .. hm ... don't know. Pehaps worthwhile to look a bit closer into.
Pehr

Maybe what we need is a way to record 3D reality. So we don't have to start with this empty "space-less" world.

In fact, Manovich mentions such a project, "Aspen Movie Map" (1978) and remarks:
The idea of constructing a large-scale virtual space from photographs or a video of a real space was never systematically attempted again, despite the fact that it opens up unique aesthetic possibilities not available with 3-D computer graphics.

Using your eyes to read a text and using your eyes to look at an image are two very different activities.
So I am much in favour of keeping them apart. But "manual" sounds too technical - why not just "companion".
Pehr

Hello György and Michaël,
I am new on this forum, but it so happened that I started by reading your discussion, and spontaneously wanted to join in.

I think the issue is partly a question of  personality. I myself is the type that likes to study a map and site descriptions before I travel to a place. I like imagining the place beforehand, speculate over what I can and cannot expect to meet and experience there etc.  Of course reality always turns out astonishingly different from what I had imagined … but that is as it should be.  No question about replacing the authentic experience with an idea about it, or picture of it. c

An introductory guide to a computer game could serve to eliminate the wrong and unfruitful preconceptions one may have when appoaching it. Which is of course especially important if it is a ”new” game, un unconventional game, that demands something different from me than what I am used to.

And why not permit me to join the creators adventure, by getting to know a bit about the intentions behind the game .. (OK. For many an artist it can be difficult to describe their intentions in words. Just let the work speak for itself !  I respect that attitude – but let us not turn it into a principle. )

Pehr

Michael, I would like to return to your initial comment, that started this thread.
 Maybe the difficulties you feel, working with current 3D-world modelling, has to do with what Lev Manovich says, in ”The language of new media”, I am currently studying:

Virtual spaces are most often not true spaces but collections of separate objects.

What is missing from computer space is space in the sense of medium – an environment in which objects are embedded, and the effect of these objects on each other.

The concept of  ”space-medium” is something mainstream computer graphics still has to discover.

Although 3-D computer generated virtual worlds are usually rendered in linear perspective, they are really collections of separate objects, unrelated to each other.

The ontology of virtual space as defined by software itself is fundamentally aggregate, a set of objects without a unifying point of view.

This is interesting. It seems to me that what he means is that an ensemble of objects should define its own space by their presence and mutual interactions.  (As in physics: Newton believed in an absolute space, whereas in general relativity the mere presence of material objects influences the metrics of space, e.g. what is meant by travelling in a straight line.) 

I have been into this in connection with ”colour space”.  Given a number of colour samples, you are asked to pairwise visually estimate their degree of simularity.  (For instance an orange sample has an evident similarity with red and yellow, but much less with green, and none at all with blue. )  Now, if the degree of likeness is represented as a distance, you get a kind of space – a colour space – defined by the given samples.  By statistical methods you can investigate the dimensionality of this space. It turns out that 2 dimensions is not appropriate, but 3 dimensions fits quite well, 4 dimensions would not make a better fit.  So we conclude: colour space is 3-dimensional (for a normal observer).
So the 3D space of colour is not postulated a priori, but follows from the interrelations of the ”inhabitants” of the space.

Could we accomplish something like that with computer-game spaces??
Pehr

I was once specialized within elementary particle physics, but I early came to change my interest over to human colour vision and the very phenomenon of ”colour”. This took me into perception psychology, aesthesiology (= general theory of the senses) as well as the history and practice of the visual arts.
So, besides being involved in arranging conferences in systems theory, artificial intelligence, tacit knowledge, and the like, I have spent most of my life lecturing, teaching, experimenting and writing about colour.

In later years I have looked quite a lot on movies, with the question in mind: can there be films with real artistic qualities?  That is: can film ever tell me something deeper, better, more insightful and memorable than a well written book or a well made painting?  -- I found some undeniable examples. Now I ask the same question concerning computer games.

 Since a couple of years I entertain the idea of making a video about colour. However, the alternative of giving it the shape of an interactive game would be more appropriate, considering that ”colour theory must, as you know, not only be read and studied, but also be done”, as Goethe once upon a time pointed out in conversation with J.P.Eckermann. 

The interactive programs I have developed for colour education are on these lines. What they miss, so far, is this wonderful experience of ”going into a virtual world”. So I am looking around for ideas.

That is the reason why it made me happy to find ”Tale-of-Tales” and ”nogames”, and read Michael´s clever and bold statements about what computer games as art could really be, if we dare to skip many of the ridgid and old-fashioned conventions that are in command of the genre.  I will follow with pleasure the discussions on this forum!
Yours Pehr
www.pscolour.eu
www.youtube.com/user/PehrSall