Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
person think anything about a dead loved one, and so it is clear that it's
the game's theme and not the system itself that is conveying the sense of
personal meaning. We can take this example a step further by attaching
the image of a dead character to just about anything—a poster, a video,
even a lunchbox—where it could very well evoke the same reaction that
it did in the video game. Therefore, it's clear that these kinds of mean-
ings aren't generally found in the mechanisms but rather in the themes
of video games—and as should be clear by now, my proposed definition
of
game
doesn't directly include a thematic layer. This isn't to say that
games shouldn't have a theme, just that a theme should only support
game mechanisms, which are
what the game actually is
.
So, a
meaningful decision
is a decision that has effects inside the sys-
tem. A meaningful decision usually has a rippling effect in a game, and
not all effects can be known, which makes the correct choice ambiguous.
Modern video games are rife with decisions that are
not
meaningful and
are merely thematic, meaning they have very little effect on the system
itself. These decisions are almost always false choices, and I'll get into
that more in
Chapter 2
.
Are Games Art?
There are many definitions of art—if you ask a hundred people you'll
surely get a hundred different answers. Personally, my definition for art
is
the product of human creativity
, and this definition is quite close to
most relevant dictionary definitions. Merriam-Webster's fourth defini-
tion of art is shown, in part, below.
Art: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination.
At the time of writing, the first line of the relevant Wikipedia
page
defines art in a similar way.
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with
symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more
of the senses, emotions, and intellect.
Trying to define art more precisely does very little except to ex-
clude some kinds of works arbitrarily, so I don't think it's productive.
(Although many people seem to get something out of it, and I doubt that
they'll stop anytime soon.) The question of whether games are art is not
productive because the answer depends entirely on one's definition of
art. By my definition (and that of most dictionaries), however, games are
absolutely works of art.
