What's in a game- a personal journey

[Stefan Barton-Ross]

hello all, I thought I'd join up and share some of the work I've been doing over the past few years, this seems the sort of crowd who might find it interesting. Very early in my university career, one of my lectuers asked us a very tricky question- What is fun? Attempting to answer that question has taken up a lot of my thought for three or so years now, and led me into places not often trod.

We tend to be quite casual in what we throw around as to what games are, playing is, art is and so forth, but I came from a scientific upbringing, and lack of clearly defined terms makes me itch uneasily. So, like a trooper, I dug and dug and dug down to a level I was comfortable with. Through fun, through hormones and endorphins, through evolution, through mathematics and down to the basic levels of understanding we have about how things are.

In my searches, I found a startling thing. Nobody has done it before. People have poked things in here and there, trying to find reasons for tangential behaviors associated with other disciplines- economics, music, psychology etc. Perhaps because of this approach, I'm not sure anyone ever grasped what they were getting at.

It all starts with play. What is it? Why do we do it? Both in a sense of what the evolutionary reward is that makes it not just a ubiquitous but a universal behavior, but why we actually do it in the first place- animals don't do things simply because they're good, they do things because something drives them to- pain, hunger, libido etc. We're not the only animals to play, in fact most animals of a reasonably high order- mammals and birds, play. Play behavior can be characterised by ONE defining characteristic. It helps us learn. What we're learning about, it doesn't care. Whether it's how to survive or to figure out how to kill a completely abstract dragon, but if we're not learning, we're not playing. In my studies, I managed to broadly isolate three, perhaps four distinct areas of play.

Imitation: the most common of all play behaviors in animals, imitation is the copying of behaviors performed by successful others. For us humans, that begins with the parents and continues with our peers and rolemodels. We copy the way they dress, the way they talk, we interest ourselves in what interests them. The more successful they are, in our eyes, the stronger we feel the need to imitate them. What success means varies as we grow, from being well fed to being powerful, to being rich to being successful to being intelligent. Consequently the targets of our imitation shift from parent to friend to celebrity to intellectual depending on what we see as most successful. This is a clear evolutionary predisposition, explicable without any difficulty by laws of natural selection.

Experimentation: This could perhaps be considered two behaviors, or at least a line between two points. At one end is open experimentation, the manipulation and alteration of our environment in a mindless, directionless fashion. Hitting random keys on a piano, throwing stones into a pond, touching oneself experimentally. At the other end is a far more directed form of the same experimentation, with clear goals and consequent focus. Hitting keys to try and generate a pleasant chord, trying to skip the stones as many times as possible, trying to find the most ticklish or arousing point. It is this behavior that seems to set us apart from other animals. Infants and most animals can only play to the open end of the scale, directionless play that stumbles upon meaning with wide eyes. As humans mature, we seem to drift down the scale. Not only do we find it easier to focus our play- generate goals and boundaries, the nascence of formal games, but we find it harder to play with no direction for any length of time. Few animals travel far down this line, and none even come close to the powerful, directed play wielded by humans.

Again we must ask why. The answer is similar to imitation- the results of this behavior give us a library of understanding of what is successful and what is not. However, unlike imitation it does not simply copy existing behaviors, it generates new ones. That is perhaps why we, uniquely gifted in this regard as we seem to be, have gone as far as we have.

The final form of play I have explored is repetition. At first I was rather hesitant to do so, repetition seems to be one of the less playful behaviors we have. Yet so much of our play involves 'mindless' repetition- music, online MMO gaming, sports drills and martial arts. Children's playground games are particularly good examples. Rhythmic, ritualistic and regular. To answer how this is play we have to dive deeper still, into the way the mind works. Our brain is structured in a way I like to describe as a pocket calculator strapped to a supercomputer. The calculator is our conscious mind, the supercomputer our subconscious.

We could not act as effectively as we do if we had to think about things all the time. The power of our brain is that, with repetition, things become exponentially easier. Our brain seems to be able to recognize incoming information and act faster than we can 'think' in the traditional sense. The simplest example of this is speaking. At first, speaking a new language or as children, we must think of the word for each meaning we wish to express, and then consciously modulate our vocal chords to express it. However, with time, we say what we want to say not just as we think it, but BEFORE we think it. Try it out, talk to a friend and try and keep an eye on what your mouth is doing. It often says words before you actually think of them, because it knows what you want to say before you think to say it. This is the purpose of repetitive play, to teach the underbrain in the only fashion it can learn to perform what we need it to perform faster than would otherwise be possible. The benefits of this are, needless to say, obvious.

Ok, so there's the three. I'm fairly sure that covers just about all human play behavior, and a lot more besides. We have explored the whys, time for the hows.

We perform these behaviors for some reason not often gone into. Traditional psychology types games as actions performed because we know we'll get a reward from them- the reward and thus motivation to do this stuff is simply the material or social benefits. Status, in simple terms. But that makes no sense in light of the above. It's so much simpler to say that we play because it's the most powerful method of learning evolution has given us. We don't need to be dragged to do it with favours, it's worth it just in the doing. It makes so much more sense that we have something within us that pushes us to play. What is it, and how does it work?

I struck upon an interesting answer one day. Sex. Why do we have sex? because it feels good. Why does it feel good? because the body wants us to procreate, this is rather advantageous behavior, evolutionarily. If you can imagine sex without a 'feel good' factor- no physical pleasure, it's not exactly the most... tasteful... of experiences. Messy, dirty, more than often a bit painful, exhausting and plenty else besides. But it's all worth it because it feels so good. I have the pleasure of knowing a couple of people who unfortunately do not get that pleasure, and they were crucial to this next leap. They view sex just as predicted- messy, uncomfortable and something to be avoided if at all possible. They still feel attracted to people, still love cuddling and intimacy. But sex? Nope, not in a million years.

This, evolutionarily, is called the carrot. It's a powerful sense of pleasure as reward for engaging in successful behaviors. The opposite, the stick, is being punished for unsuccessful ones- hunger, pain, stress etc. Many essential behaviors like eating have a bit of both, but sex is very strongly biased towards the carrot. So is, perhaps, play.

It cannot be denied that play feels good. Again, the critical thought occurred to me (in a sort of sweet irony, come to think of it) in a non-existent flash of light, as to what makes that happen. For sex it's simple- rub the relevant bits together and your somato-sensory system will do the rest. For play it's a little more subtle. I personally call it the eureka factor, as that moment of revelation is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. When you make a connection, solve a puzzle, see a pattern in a series of dots, vindicate the results of experimentation, you get a feeling that there's actually no word to describe. Eureka seemed appropriate. It's not actually physically pleasurable, but it's absolutely, undoubtedly good. Throughout history, we have a series of words used for it intermittently that are tinged with more than a bit of the divine- exaltation, revelation, moment of truth, of closeness to heaven, nirvana. The point where the dominoes of meaning collapse each other into a great big 42.

That is the concept emblematic to why I think we play. It occurs when two or more once separate, unconnected bits of information snap together into something bigger. The sum becomes greater than the parts. You can now see not just the dots, but the lines that join them. So, I thought, if we have this powerful feeling- so powerful and so ubiquitous that it HAS to have some biological basis- What if we get something like that not just at moments of divine revelation, but whenever two dots connect. Of course, the effect would be proportional to the amount of lines added at a single stroke, to follow the dot pattern analogy. A single link releases a touch of warmth. A hundred produces a blazing sensation. A thousand is quite simply overwhelming, an orgasm of of the mind. You will have no doubt experienced all three.

And so, we have a carrot, for what does play do better but reveal lines where once there were not? Nothing we can do is more likely to give us a hit of whatever it is that produces that sensation.

From this, things follow swiftly. What we call games in the traditional sense are simply a method of getting some more of that mental sugar. Once a line is made, it cannot be unmade, so we must seek new ones for our fix. Directionless play doesn't do this very efficiently, so we hungrily seek out new experiences and experiments to find more. The more we grow, the trickier finding new patterns in the environment becomes, so we start to make our own. X happens normally, but what if we, say, block Y from interfering, will that still be true. Let's find out. And so games are formed.

Interestingly, the last part of that flowing of ideas shows that as a society perhaps we don't see play everywhere it truly is (by this definition at any rate), for if this holds true, then a mathematician or an engineer solving a challenge is at play, a musician constructing melodies is at play, as is a listener deconstructing them- music is, after all, simply extraordinarily complex patterns that the listener enjoys by both exploring and linking to other things- pattern recognition and construction. That, after all this time pondering, is perhaps where fun comes from at the most basic.
 
This all solidified perhaps half a year ago. Since then I have been exploring whether all those thoughts can hold water. So far, so good. It's also allowed me to understand what I am as a games designer. If I may enter 'fist raised with dramatic music playing in the background' mode for a moment:

I am a forger of patterns, I lay the trail of crumbs that lead to understanding. I create mountains that force people to climb ladders of meaning, I hide things from them cunningly, only to reveal them in such a way that a hundred dots I placed before are at once illuminated as a picture they can grasp. I show them how things clip together and how they come apart. My ultimate failure is if someone 'doesn't get it'. My duty is to never haul someone up by the hand, but to always place enough cracks in the wall that they can, at the very verge of their strength, climb it themselves and see what's on the other side.

That, to me, is the essence of games design. I hope you've enjoyed this and that it's given you something to think about. This is all conjecture, by the way, I have anecdotal evidence supporting everything, but I haven't done any really hard scientific research yet, so everything is really still up in the air and so open for debate. I'll be here all week. Don't try the veal. It's poisoned.

[Michaël Samyn]

I don't have sex because it's fun. I have sex because I love someone.

I don't think the only motivation for humans to do things is the prospect of pleasure. I think we are a lot more complex than that.

[Stefan Barton-Ross]

ah yes, but you are not people, as it might be said. Plenty of people have sex for fun, others choose to abstain in most cases.

It can be tricky to get the idea that when talking about behavior at such fundamental levels, any actual behavior by a grown human includes many interlocking causes and effects triggered by many different experiences and sensory inputs.  So it's wrong to say 'humans have sex because it's pleasurable', just that this is the basic evolutionary mechanism to encourage it. As the friends I mentioned in the above post show, if you take that away, you might still love someone but have no desire to have sex with them- that is the case for both of these. So at the very least, we can say that love is not a fundamental part of sexuality.

The results of the above thought also shine some interesting light on the idea of sex and love. Loving people seek to understand each other and align together, they try and weave their thoughts together. They use each other to explore the mind and body of another human openly and freely (assuming the love is mutual). This is all play behavior, and if the above holds true, should grant a level of excitement and pleasure beyond the physical. Exactly, in other words, what it does. Again, that's not say a state of love does not have other benefits, just that this may be the reason behind the feelings and sensations it generates.

It's hard to get down to it, but everything you feel *has* to be some kind of physical feedback in your brain or body. Sensation just doesn't come from nowhere, unless you want to ignore every experimental result of physics, chemistry and biology we've made so far. So, complex or no, there are reasons there. My goal was to try and find these, because in understanding what they are, we can understand both how they work and what they do to us.

Telltale has produced some very interesting games to date. Yes they are games, by my definition at least, they are boundaried regions designed to encourage and focus play in a particular direction. Watch someone playing any of those games and they are definitely at play, commendable in that it is far more open play than typical in computer games. Your goal as a games designer was not to get your player to recognize patterns of things like damage potential, fields of fire or economic efficiency, but giving them a mind to explore and to (hopefully) see the patterns you see there, or at least find their own. Perhaps you wouldn't call it that, I understand that I'm not exactly being traditional in my descriptions, the above would just as easily be described as someone creating a work of art.

To me though, both are fundamentally the same, and with that understanding- and an understanding of why that is the case- one can more easily produce both games and art that are at once enjoyable and meaningful. That's why I'm here, on this forum at least. 

[Michaël Samyn]

It's hard to get down to it, but everything you feel *has* to be some kind of physical feedback in your brain or body.

When you're on that route, why stop there? Maybe there's a cause or a reason for this physical feedback. Why assume that it is the most basic motivation?

What I mean to say is that there is no way for us to be sure about anything. As a result, we might as well believe in fairy tales. It's amsuing and it helps us deal with the world, find our place in it, enjoy life.

one can more easily produce both games and art that are at once enjoyable and meaningful.

Sure. There's just not much point in limiting oneself. If games allow you to express yourself artistically, go for it. But no artist should feel limited by the format requirements of games. If it helps, use them. If not abandon them.

[Stefan Barton-Ross]

When you're on that route, why stop there? Maybe there's a cause or a reason for this physical feedback. Why assume that it is the most basic motivation?

What I mean to say is that there is no way for us to be sure about anything. As a result, we might as well believe in fairy tales. It's amsuing and it helps us deal with the world, find our place in it, enjoy life.

Of course there is a reason for this physical feedback. All evidence points to that it was derived through evolutionary processes, which in turn was shown almost mathematically by darwin and subsequent theorists in the field of natural selection, using axioms which were in turn based on the work of the likes of newton. And from there, as they say, it's turtles all the way down.

The reason why I stop there is because I'm not concerned particularly with why. at that level whys are listed as mathematical or chemical formulae and demonstrated in test tubes and particle accelerators. They are simple, quantifiable and testable.

It is the lowest level at which we *don't* actually know more or less exactly why things happen. We know HOW we feel good, that's one step down, but we still don't know precisely why, and that's why at that point the why starts mattering. For art and games, at least. libido and hunger are a bit more obvious.

By the way, if you're going to call bullshit on semantics, please allow me to do the same for epistemological stuff on what we can and cannot know. If it is useful to predict and encourage advantageous behavior or discourage disadvantageous behavior, sure, go ahead, but none of this 'oh but we can't really know that because what is truth' etc crap. That stuff doesn't kick in and become useful till waaaaay higher levels of complexity.

We are as sure of the basics as we can be sure of anything, and that means it is true in every single case that has ever come up ever. I feel comfortable betting my reputation, my happiness and my life on those odds. Fairy tales, on the other hand, have none of the above going for them, so giving them equal standing is being more than a little ridiculous.

I understand what you're saying but every scientist nerve in me is screaming at the foolishness of it. It's nice, it's cozy, it gives us an excuse not to stick our noses into places that might end up being a little scary, but it's the cause of more death and suffering in history than every genocidal maniac combined.

Sure. There's just not much point in limiting oneself. If games allow you to express yourself artistically, go for it. But no artist should feel limited by the format requirements of games. If it helps, use them. If not abandon them.

For me the only format requirements of a game that I could produce are that the audience interacts with it in some way and that interaction has some impact on what they take away from the experience. It's kind of hard to limit oneself with guidelines that broad

[Michaël Samyn]

I guess I find uncertainty much more inspiring. Maybe because it's because I think the world is a horrible place, that I want to believe in fairy tales.

I don't really care about where things come from. I care about where they're trying to go.