Valuable Games

In this in-depth interview with Gamasutra (May 1), game developer Peter Molyneux explains how he approaches offering players deep moral choices:

PM: What’s fascinating about it is that when we thought about good and evil, it’s so tempting to say, “Well, good is saving lives, and evil is hurting lives and killing people.” But actually, I think where the real emotion comes is when you really start testing people.

If I said to you, “Your family is over there. What would you do to save them?” “Well, I would do anything.” “Really? Would you really do anything? Would you actually kill a thousand people to save your family? And what does that say about you?”

I think, finally, that decision made people think, because it forced them to think, “My goodness, my natural reaction is of course I’d save my family. Of course I would save the people I love.” But actually, when it comes down to it, would you? Would you sacrifice everything for that very selfish act of having what you want? There are a lot of philosophical questions that come up in your mind when you’re doing that.

David Nieborg had written an excellent review of Fable 2’s moral dimensions earlier.

Games for Change today unveiled a set of talks and tutorials that help organizations figure out whether and how games can advance their core mission. It’s called the Games for Change Toolkit, made possible by AMD.

At last night’s monthly meetup, Doris Rusch shared with us the game her GAMBIT team built this past summer (Doris was the product owner). See Doris’s own writeup of Akrasia — a game about addiction. Her presentation largely covered the points she made on her blog post, but here are some major takeaways from her experience:

• A rhetorical game should have a clear perspective: something specific to say.
• When developing a game around a vision, meaning must precede mechanics — in contradiction to the usual approach to game development.
• In playtesting and iteration, it’s important for the keeper of the vision to hold the team to the message rather than just respond to player feedback. The goal isn’t merely to get the game to “work;” if it’s to succeed at the core theme, it must hew to it as well.
• One of the major questions that arose is: How do we know that the game is “successful”? (1) When players “get” what the game is about, or (2) When they “get” the experience? Ultimately, Doris concluded that the game need not be understood in the way the creators intend — “Interpretive richness is important for profundity.”

Several of us at the meetup had played with the game in beta state during the summer and were excited to see how it turned out. It’s worth trying — download Akrasia here.

There is a market for meaning. – Christophe Watkins (Artificial Mind and Movement).

Notes from the “Moving Markets” panel at G4C…

Robert Nashak (Worldwide Casual Studios, EA) — we’re looking for emotional connection, and what better way to connect emotionally than to do something people care about?

Richard Lemarchand (Naughty Dog) — grow our audience, deeper narrative — story games that marry videogame play with rich storytelling, strong characters.

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Puzzle solving != problem solving
Simulation for “what if” scenarios: direct the “what if” at social issues, values, concerns
Goal driven vs. purely narrative experience
TINAG vs. explicit game experience

World Without Oil: Rather than teaching that oil dependency is bad, instead ask how an oil shortage would affect your (real person’s) life.

ARGs are more self-aware as an active agent in culture — not a box off the shelf to be consumed. Also as inherently collaborative, interactive.

Content as most expensive, least interesting part of ARGs — get the players to create the content.

At lunch, Mary Flanagan walked us through a very simplified version of the Values at Play process. Each table of participants picked one “Value” card and then identified existing games that highlight that particular value. (Ours was “Privacy” — we came up with such games as poker and just about every other card game). This warmup was to help flex our minds around the ubiquitous presence of values in games. Then we drew a second card naming an existing game which we were to mod to include the value from Card 1 (we drew “Monopoly”).

Some of the designs I found most interesting coming out of this very brief process (maybe 10 minutes) explored the tensions around each value (e.g. setting up incentives to defect from cooperation to build conflict over the value). We didn’t come to a proposal for modding Monopoly to address privacy, but we played with mechanisms where both protecting and revealing information would give the player strategic advantages. Perhaps each player has a secret goal that, if accomplished, would grant that player bonus points at the end.

I found the Values @ Play process fascinating and rich, and hope to be able to play with it at one of our upcoming meetings.

Celia Pearce (Georgia Tech) aims to cultivate “critical play” — especially difficult to break “gamers” out of their mold. Following are student games emerging from V@P process.

• Robin Hood Portal Mod: Portal mechanic, avoidance verb, generosity value, class division problem. (Apparently, using portal mechanic to steal stuff and decide what to do with l00t).
• Rockasaurus Rangers: Developed without the cards but values made aware from earlier learning. Main value: cooperation. Appropriated Rock Star-like mechanic.
• Heroin Shooter: Appropriate WarioWare mechanic — minigames to prepare to shoot up. Two outcomes: (1) withdrawal; (2) overdose. No “win state.” In this game, danger of “Landlord Game” (inspiration for Monopoly) — game that made exploiting the renters fun.

Tracy Fullerton (USC) applied V@P curriculum in intermediate course to “small games with big ideas.” Main focus on verbs and values (tried to avoid existing mechanisms). Initial ideation followed by formal playtesting at design (not interface) with outsiders. Some ideas that did or didn’t make it through the process:

• Pilgrimage: miracles and suffering to create belief
• Cante, Florezca: nurture a plant in Picasso’s apartment
• Leaving: about a breakup — praising and trust — different actions have different effects at different points in time.
• Welcome to 35th St — subverting and autonomy — choices on how to deal with gang members, striking the balance between becoming threat and victim
• Frankenfarmer — nurturing, politics — parody of Monsanto’s business
• Hush — singing, human rights — mother calming babies to hide from 1994 Rwanda genocide. Won the first Make a Better Game contest.

Jamie Antonisse and Devon Johnson described the process of creating the Hush game. Singing as a very personal mechanic. Inspired by Darfur is Dying. Going for a powerful and personal experience. Make use of the universal experience of mother and child for emotional impact, possibly emotion as a gameplay element.

(I strongly recommend experiencing Hush — I would love to discuss this one at our next meeting. Pay particular attention to the sound design).

Mary Flanagan (Tiltfactor, Values @ Play) — “a humanistic approach to game design.” How to think about / change existing gameplay to incorporate human values? How to embed human values/principles into design processes such as game design? Some of the values include privacy, creative expression, diversity, cooperation/, commons, community/collective decision making, altruism/sharing, inclusivity?

V@P recreating iterative design process to examine human values.

Studies to test impact of V@P curriculum on designers. “Grow a game” brainstorming cards. (Verbs, Challenges, Games, Values). Stages of Concern Instrument to measure changes in attitudes about values-conscious design.

Findings:

1. The big issue with making activist games is a perceived conflict between fun and the seriousness of the social issue (don’t want to make light of that issue). Going too serious leads to strange unintended consequences, e.g. Jena 6 game ends up seeming racist — therefore need to maintain the values.
2. Students’ three strategies: (1) the unwinnable game; (2) appropriate mainstream games for activist purposes; (3) most difficult to accomplish — invent new mechanics

See V@P public contest — deadline July 1.