This is my best summary of a vision and history of notgames:
VisionNotgames is not a self-declared category of videogame experiences, but rather a project of sorts. It's a videogame development philosophy, a perspective or attitude that can be adopted by a game developer in the attempt to create an experience that explores new territory for videogames. That territory has a focus, which is defined as the territory not occupied by games in the formal sense of the word, i.e. structural elements like points, typical competitive win-or-lose gameplay, game-like challenges, etc.
Notgames looks to the vast, unexplored land of fictional, computer-based virtual experience and hopefully declares "Something amazing could be out there!" Then, like in Chris Crawford's dragon speech, runs triumphantly out the room with sword in hand. However, unlike Crawford, we are doing this together as a community.
HistoryLet's start with the definition of a game:
A system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.
This definition is intentionally vague as to the medium in which the system is expressed. That makes this system completely abstract. In that way, a game does not exist at all as something that can be physically experienced. Only an
expression of a game exists as something that can be experienced physically. That fact creates a domino effect that I will attempt to guide you through.
Of course, most recently games are being expressed on computers through the medium of a fictional, virtual, and interactive system. I call it the
unnamed medium, others the
digital medium, others
software art. The fascinating thing is that the expression of these games through this medium has grown in complexity along with computers themselves.
The definition of "game" I gave mentioned a system, and so scientists experimenting with early computers thought "What happens if I use the system of the game as the system of this new medium?" It was a simple conclusion, but the result was profound. It spawned an entire industry! Added to the arcade room next to pinball were cabinets with early computers in them dedicated to a single game each.
This means many peoples' first experiences of videogames were in the arcade, and they were glorious. Books have been written and movies have been made detailing the intensity of emotions first felt in the arcade. A caveat to this is that many of the first videogame designs were specifically meant for the arcade setting, where the game needed to take enough money from the player to remain profitable for the arcade. A fine balance had to be struck between making a game hard enough that it made money, but not too hard that the player stopped playing. Playing the game became a battle for not only a virtual score, but for the money in the player's pocket. This and other things created a bias toward arcade design that is still around to this day.
In addition, the first videogames ran on complicated and primitive computer machinery, the details of which were only understood by engineering-minded people. Creating an early videogame was a serious technical undertaking. That created a bias toward engineering that is still around to this day.
During all this time, society was having a hard time coping with not only this new medium in general, but also this new expression of games. Playing videogames was seen as an antisocial activity for geeks and delinquents. That meant only the truly dedicated stayed consistent gamers. And when some of them grew up enough to design games themselves, they looked back to the glory days of the arcade with fondness. This created a bias toward dedicated gamers that is still around to this day.
By now (1980s), computers had become cheap enough to make it into the living room by way of companies like Atari, Commodore, Sinclair, and many more. That led to explosive growth in the videogame industry. People could use their home computers to make their own games, and release them by hand or through a burgeoning book-like publishing industry.
The future was truly looking bright; more and more experimentation was being done. Computers were fast enough, and the public was getting large enough that game developers began to create magical, impressive virtual worlds and virtual systems as part of their game experiences. They started to explore themes and ideas beyond the shallower, geekier ones from before. It provided a glimpse of the potential that this new medium really had.
But then something horrible happened, before a breakthrough could be made.
Due to a myriad of causes, including rampant cloning of games, computer companies growing too fast, and a recession, the industry imploded on itself. Not completely, but enough to mame it for several years. Everyone - publisher and game developer alike - got more conservative. Many of them turned to sports, to digitizing boardgames, or back to videogaming's roots: arcade-like experiences for the dedicated core of players.
Computers, of course, grew more and more powerful, and videogames worlds more complex. Even the publishing industry grew more complex as Nintendo refined a publishing model that was able to grow out of the implosion of the early 80s. But the arcade-like roots of videogames remained as the industry was back onto a more healthy level of growth.
By the 1990s, videogames were advanced enough that the virtual worlds and systems being created for them started to resemble the complexity of worlds and systems in the real world. Another generation of gamers grew to love videogames for just this reason. Again, it was a glimpse of the potential of a new and powerful medium.
But the arcade bias, the engineering bias, and the dedicated (i.e. hardcore) gamer bias remained. These amazing worlds were often locked away behind competitive gameplay, behind puzzles, behind points and game-like rules. By the end of the 1990s, game developers and publishers developed a habit of spending all their money on engineering virtual worlds and complex game systems, so they had no money left over for researching gameplay not based on the now-ingrained biases inherent in videogames.
Fast forward to the late-2000s. The Internet allowed anyone to learn how to make videogames and to sell them in large enough quantities to make a living. Game development became accessible enough that more artistic game developers could make videogames. They saw the inherent biases evident in videogames, and caught a glimpse of the medium that game-like structures often seemed to obscure. They wanted to make videogames free from these obscurities. So they looked for like minds, and many of them found Tale of Tales.
Tale of Tales proposed starting a community dedicated to this goal, so those people joined. We invited others, and have slowly grown since then, but we remain a small and dedicated few.
Personally, I am hopeful for the future. Some in this community have found tremendous success and/or critical acclaim adopting a notgames mindset. Some of them are working hard this very second on finishing greatly anticipated games.
It's going to be an awesome 2012.
