It is interesting to note how most games, regardless of their inception, evolve to be an interesting study in team play. A lot of successful games have the intention of an individual’s exploration through a world or type of game mechanic. Eventually, all of these games get modded into a community based platform involving team play. It is as though the experience of a game cannot be fully realized unless it is a collective realization. I think this raises a few interesting questions – “As social creatures, to realize the nature of play, do we have to realize it together?” “To create alternative game movements, do we have to consider this factor of social realization?”
DeKoven says a game is well-played when played well together. What he means is that equal participation in the game by all players is the most significant part of experiencing the game. This seems to be a recurring necessity for most games to evolve to a successful community based game.Based on this, I think it is not the sheer presence of people in the game but their emotional investment that decides how an art game could be perceived. DeKoven quite aptly juxtaposes this type of participation to taking part in a well-played symphony or a well-played ballet (DeKoven, 149).
John Cage says that for the selection
of games as an art medium, you have to “give yourself up” (Pearce, p.5). For
certain games to be considered in an artistic context, we should have a
subconscious understanding of the initial constraints and then give
"ourselves" up while engaging in its game play with the other
participants. An example of this would be Liquid Chess “which consisted of
viles of liquid to be indentified by smell” (Pearce, p.15). The realization of
the quirky constraints of this game has to be realized specifically by both the
players involved to be fully realized as an artistic experience.
Another game which involves a “team
appreciation” is Rock-Paper-Scissors-Tag (Fron et al, p.4). As straight forward
and as “UnArt-Like” the original Rock-Paper-Scissors game was, a certain mod to
the game(the addition of Tag) adds a quirky artistic value to it. To fully
experience this game, there has to be a social understanding of the nature of
the new constraint that is introduced. This collective realization is what
eventually leads to a complete experience of the game by suspending its lack of
conventional game mechanics. Most of DeKoven’s games have this conceptual
feeling lingering in them.
Certain games manifest this phenomenon
in their evolution. Brand repeatedly points out the success of Spacewar was due
to the community based approach taken in playing and creating the game. The
game was initially created by one person experimenting with technology in an
unconventional way. But the true nature of its playability was tested with the
introduction of a multiplayer game mechanic. Again, just the space created for
a game to be a group indulgence changed the entire experience of the game.
I think the true nature of game art
might lie in us experiencing the artistic values of certain games only in a
social construct. We might “appreciate” the artistic value of GameArt but to
truly “experience it”, we need to realize it collectively. On the community of
play, DeKoven says that “We are together because we want to be together. By our
mere presence we reaffirm our commitment to the play community” (DeKoven, p.
74).
Citations and References:
Brand,
Stewart. 1972. Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death
Among the Computer Bums. Rolling
Stone, December 7.
DeKoven,
Bernie. 2002. The Well-Played
Game, 3rd ed. Lincoln, NE: Writers Club Press.
Ludica
(Fron et al.). 2005. Sustainable Play: Towards A New Games
Movement for the Digital Age. In Digital
Arts & Culture Conference Proceedings, Copenhagen, December 2005.
Pearce, Celia. 2006.
Games as Art: The Aesthetics of Interactivity. Visible Language: Special Issue on Fluxus, January 2006.
Vignesh, you won't be surprised to hear that I think this essay is really FANTASTIC, given my own philosophy about multiplayer games. One point you've made here that is really excellent is that even single-player games become multiplayer games in some form. My nephews used to play Indiana Jones and The Sims, all sitting together on the same chair; for them it was ALWAYS a multiplayer game, even though there was only one input. Some have called The Sims a "massively single player game," which I think it an appropriate characterization: what has really sustained the game's success is the community that built up around it, even though the gameplay itself is designed for a single-player. It makes me wonder...are game designers really that out of touch with their players that they would continue to design with this one-player/one-screen paradigm? Maybe we (collectively!) need to rethink this model entirely.
Posted by: gamegrrrl | 11/15/2009 at 03:38 PM