Exploring Believability
Sable Phoenix wrote on 22 Jan 2013 03:43
I'm not sure how many folks here, if anyone, reads the Exploring Believability blog, but I think it's one that everyone here would enjoy and find relevant to their interests. What incited me to post the link was his latest entry, which specifically addresses what makes art and whether games are. His ultimate conclusion is a resounding "of a sort". I found it quite insightful.
Just a warning, you will end up wanting to go back to the beginning and read the entire blog.
Comments: 48
page revision: 4, last edited: 25 Jan 2013 11:49
I've been reading that one for years.
And I follow him on Twitter.
Those two things are very different experiences.
Also, he hates Mass Effect and everything it stands for. It's a principled kind of hate, the kind I can respect if not agree with, but he's vehement about it. (He's vehement about a lot of things, half of which I agree with and half of which I shake my head about.)
ADDENDUM: I would say that the blog is absolutely worth reading in full. The twitter version…depends.
Oh, I definitely don't agree with him on everything either. But the things I don't agree with him on usually don't have to do with games and believability as much as worldview and how that influences his perspective on those games. Regardless, in the blog he always backs his points up in-depth, so even if you don't agree, it makes you think.
I get how you could simultaneously like and dislike this guy. Comments like:
… have a sharp degree of truth to them. But the following sentence:
Not only isn't supported by his previous assertion, but cannot stand by itself, either1. For a guy that just used algebraic variables, one would expect the last sentence of a paragraph to be a salient (rather than divergent) point2.
He then goes on to compare games-as-art to other established types of art, a trope we are all familiar with. No new ground broken here.
I would guess one of the reasons he hates Mass Effect is that it seeks to implode central parts of his critique when comparing "the human element" of literature to games.
He is right about ludonarrative dissonance. Credit where it is due. Not new territory, but a correct shot placement, anyway.
Dear Esther is conspicuously absent3, as is Myst. Both attack his central points. Bioware style games do as well. Speaking about Spec Ops: The Line is misleading, given that it is regarded as a failed experiment. By not acknowledging the places his arguments fall apart, he loses a lot of credibility. Of course, if he did leave enough examples of "doing it right" in there, he'd have to acknowledge that games aren't art yet, but his article seems to deny that it is even possible.
Thanks for sharing, but I am not impressed.4
EDIT: His article below that, titled Combat: Why They Fought demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of many aspects of combat psychology. Where it is correct, it is only so at a surface level. Once he tries to "go deep", it's mostly crap. Many of the concepts he is trying to lay out are only meaningful alongside historical and cultural contexts, which he doesn't even try to engage in a meaningful way. His section on "Gender Issues" is particularly short-sighted and not at all insightful.
I get that his summation is to show how gaming/fiction approaches characterizations of war and how this reflects a number of cultural and functional perceptions of soldiers and the enemy, but this article could have been a third the length and made that point without issue.
Perhaps you guys familiar with this blog could recommend an article that is genuinely well-done?
I personally like just about everything he has to say on the subject of functional character design and keeping the world and the people in it relatable by addressing utility before aesthetics; it's something that crops up repeatedly throughout the blog. I also found his analysis of orchestrated stories versus emergent narratives to be very thought provoking. Again, this is something that crops up throughout his blog entries, and it also makes a certain bias in the way he views games as a narrative vehicle quite clear, but it's also a perspective I find hard to disagree with, especially considering the ludonarrative dissonance he cites. It highlights some of the greatest weaknesses of the way games are currently designed, and whether you agree or disagree it certainly makes you pause and consider how they might be done better.
Oh, also… how does Myst attack his central point? It was one of the first things I thought of while reading his article, but then I realized that few games make you feel as completely isolated as Myst does, and if great art is (wholly accepting his premise for the moment) based upon the human condition and its permutations through adversity, Myst doesn't really say anything. Granted there is an underlying mystery that's revealed to be a semi-mythical, semi-Shakespearean story of jealousy and betrayal, but nobody was really changed by it. Was there really any theme you took away from Myst at the end?
I think the best rebuttal to his points that we have in gaming up to this point would probably have to be Planescape:Torment.
@Sable, Re: Myst
I mentioned it because it has no dissonance or combat to speak of, and the story flows naturally from the bizarre discoveries, regardless of what order you complete them in (thus, not requiring a linear plot of any sort). You are correct though, Planescape: Torment is a much better example of the weaknesses in his argument.
And I wouldn't say that he has no valid points, merely that he is cherry-picking his examples without a nod towards those games which defy them. If his assertion was "games are not yet sophisticated structurally/narratively/functionally to be art", then I'd have no cause for great disagreement. It is his belief that "Games are not art. Period. Full stop." that sets me off.
I think "Playing At War" and "Casualties and Narrative" are worth reading, and contain some of those sharp truths about the limits of game design compared to its intentions.
I disagree with him frequently about art — its definition, criteria, purpose, intent, etc.1 His view on that tends to color the rest of his arguments to some degree or another.
In general, though, I do find his observations about the limitations of games are useful to consider, if not necessarily authoritative.
Oh sweet fancy moses, I am becoming cranky in my old age.
To me, that blog reads as "Captain Obvious lists things everyone knows, while providing no useful insight or solutions at all," or "Dude who doesn't think too hard about making or selling thing tells people how to make or sell things."
Yes, games treat death more lightly than any other medium. I've known this since I was eight. Do you want a cookie?
Oh really, you want enemies to react to suppressive fire and grenades? Great, spend the next three years learning to code AI and show us how it's done.
I don't know what's ticking me off so much about these articles (I only read the two that Delta recommended). Maybe it's the tone? It's probably the tone.
I've been getting a slight kick out of this thread thus far.
I investigated his twitter feed a few weeks ago, and I'm going to say this was putting it diplomatically.
That's more like. That was my initial knee jerk reaction too.
Having seen many people I greatly respect interact with him on twitter, I was wondering if I was the only person who thought he was a bit of an ass. It's a relief to know I'm not alone in that assessment.
Okay, now that I've gotten the hating out of the way, I'll be a grown up and read some posts, and develop a better informed opinion of him.
PS
@Sable Phoenix
It's nice to see you back here. I hope you continue to post.
@CGG
Eh, cranky's fine. We're all getting old. Comes with the territory.
I continually attempt to dampen my reaction to tone, lest the majority of the internet1 become entirely unreadable, so it's entirely possible that I'm giving him a pass on that.
For games and death, well, yeah. Everyone who plays games knows how cheap death is on some (gut) level. I do think there's a difference, though, when games make something useful out of it instead of proceeding as if it were not only obvious, but beyond comment. Hell, my favorite games this year (Dark Souls, FTL, XCOM) all specifically dealt with the nature of videogame death, and in so doing became better games. For all the talk we've done around here about permadeath, about consequences, about loss, it certainly seems like a topic worth making explicit.
Also, while I know you know all this, CGG2, there are plenty of game designers who seem to forget these lessons over and over again, and we get Yet Another Fucking Checkpoint System instead of something more interesting.
As for AI, well — I'm not exactly a master programmer myself, but I could probably do a whole long-ass article3 about intricate AI systems a decade4 old or more5 that are sadly, criminally underused because most games expect their enemies to exist for a grand total of ten seconds, give or take.
This is structural. This ties into a lot of the queasiness about videogame violence currently in the critical air, about shooters and RPGs both predicated on four-digit bodycounts by the time the player finishes. It's a fundamental issue of how conflict is designed, not in all games, obviously, but in enough to make it de rigeur.
It's worth having someone play Captain Obvious and spell it all out so we can just point and link instead of reformulating the same things every few years. Consider it the equivalent of a town crier. Annoying when you have a watch, but occasionally useful as a reminder.
@Hawk
I can be diplomatic when required.
No, you're not the only one. Not by a long shot.
But if I refused to read anyone who was ever an ass, my reading list would dry up very, very quickly. Occasionally asses can make useful points.
@Sable
Like Hawk, I'm glad to see you around again. Do drop by more often.