"Why we need to kill gameplay to make better games"

[Michaël Samyn]

Don't take my word for it. The former Creative Director of Gears of War Judgment, Bulletstorm and Painkiller has seen the light!

http://www.theastronauts.com/2012/11/why-we-need-to-kill-gameplay-to-make-better-games/

I think than when we’re focused on overcoming a challenge – we try to kill an attacker or win a race – we go into savage beast’s survival mode and shut ourselves down for any “higher class” emotions. Our vision gets extremely narrow, and we’re no longer multi-tasking. Beating the challenge becomes the only thing that matters.

Does it mean that if you want a deeply emotional game, you should drop regular gameplay, with all its core combat loops, gameplay mechanics and other voodoo?

Yes.

[Thomas]

Saw this in the notgames tumbler. I first thought it was some random blogger. Then I saw that it was a dev, which felt extra coolt. But a dev that made Painkiller

[Thomas]

Lots of good stuff in such a sort post, such as:

If you read discussions like Most Jaw-dropping Scenery or Sequence in a Game you can see that the things that people remember from their favorite games are:
- Beautiful places
- One off events like a helicopter boss fight or escaping a house on fire
- Gameplay-less experiences like exploration or short interactive dramas

[György Dudas]

Saw this in the notgames tumbler. I first thought it was some random blogger. Then I saw that it was a dev, which felt extra coolt. But a dev that made Painkiller

Hey, Painkiller is a pretty classic FPS. Story almost nonexistent (good!), because if I have to choose between a mediocre/rubbish story and no story, I prefer not to have a story... It was a pretty entertaining game. Strange and weird.

I am interested if/what will come out of that corner of the industry. People grow up and suddenly they might realize, that they do not want to make FPS+1

[Thomas]

Hey, Painkiller is a pretty classic FPS. Story almost nonexistent (good!), because if I have to choose between a mediocre/rubbish story and no story, I prefer not to have a story... It was a pretty entertaining game. Strange and weird.

Did not mean it like that. I really like Painkiller. It was just an unexpected direction.

[Bruno de Figueiredo]

I find it interesting how he uses the verb "kill". He could have said "remove", "be done with", "dispose of" or any of the other thirty ways of conveying a similar idea - excluding "frag", that is. But he imprinted violence to the notion of eliminating gameplay in order to achieve some form of improvement. Boorish? Yes. But very consistent, coming as it does from a former FPS developer.

[QXD-me]

Don't take my word for it. The former Creative Director of Gears of War Judgment, Bulletstorm and Painkiller has seen the light!

Soon everyone shall agree...    (Although I think it depends on what's meant by "kill" and "gameplay", it seems like what he's saying is about right.)

I find it interesting how he uses the verb "kill".

It does seem to have become part of the videogame vernacular, in that people use it a lot when talking about videogames even when there's no explicit death and I don't even find it unusual (most of the time) except when I hear my younger brothers (or other people much younger than myself) say it, at which point I think "wait, what?!?"

[God at play]

Looks like the fine gents at Kill Screen picked it up and the author added a thought or two:
http://killscreendaily.com/headlines/gameplay-might-not-be-important-we-think/

This leads me to a theory...
What if non-gameplay moments create better memories, but gameplay moments hold some other value, like developing skills or something? If you want an experience to be remembered, you'd focus on non-gameplay. If you wanted to develop some skill, you'd focus on gameplay.

hmm...
Now that I think about it, this seems more common sense than I expected. Non-gameplay moments are simply more experiential in nature. So it makes sense that those moments would create better memories, and that's why your most memorable moments in games would be non-gameplay-based. Meanwhile gameplay often involves challenge, and overcoming that builds skills.

Any rebuttals on this theory?

[Michaël Samyn]

I recently realised that importance of doing nothing: http://tale-of-tales.com/bientotlete/blog/time/

I don't care much about the skills argument. Games are not sports to me. Just a bit of fun. That should be ok. No need to overestimate them. Or require that in some way they are equal to art.

[Michaël Samyn]

The argument that skill-based gameplay would be more repeatable is rubbish. I think we like repeating things that we like. I personally could never tire of listening to Bach's mass in c minor, or reading Duras' L'Amant.

[axcho]

I just found this, also. Glad you guys already picked it up. I found a few other nice articles from there, including these:
http://betterbyyouasking.com/2012/10/23/the-graveyard/
http://publicinterface.blogspot.com/2012/02/to-moon-tragedy-and-video-games.html
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/04/its-the-gameplay-stupid-shadow-of-the-colossus/

[ghostwheel]

Has anyone here contacted him? Does he know about the notgames initiative?

[Albin Bernhardsson]

Yes, he does.

[György Dudas]

If you want an experience to be remembered, you'd focus on non-gameplay. If you wanted to develop some skill, you'd focus on gameplay.

That's not always a valid assumptions. I am an avid chess player (playing in a club). Chess is pure gameplay and I have very great memories of some matches I've won or lost. Also I have memories of my opponents, how they behaved, who they were etc... so it is one, complete experience.

Chess is not an art form, but still...

I had some great complete experiences with games, where mechanics and audio-visual experience came together like in Tetris, REZ, Every Extend Extra Extreme, Bangai-O  (hm, all more or less abstract experiences). I would put them in the same category like a string quartet or a symphony (abstract music), opposed to opera etc...

I think when gameplay, mechanics, and the audio-visual experience come together, that's a great experience to have.

cheers