Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
in intense battle—all of the testing, pushing, pulling, responding, and
reactions literally can be seen, forming a complete web that illustrates
a human discussion. Which gets me to my final point about games and
their value: games are beautiful. Anyone who has an appreciation for na-
ture will delight at the beauty and perfection of a game that is brilliantly
designed. In nature, systems of rules in which agents compete by making
ambiguous decisions spring up all the time, and all around us. In this
sense, the game designer is trying to simulate a nature that never was.
Misconceptions about Games
In today's culture, the word
game
has a lot of negative and positive values
associated with it that are unfair and incorrect. Before we go on, I think
it's important to address these head on.
Games are for children.
As of this writing, the average age of
a game player is 37.
2
Furthermore, when you take games as a
whole—as opposed to just digital games—it becomes clear that
games are not just for children. For instance, checkers and con-
tract bridge usually are associated with the elderly, and competi-
tive games like Go or sports like football are clearly of great inter-
est to people of all ages.
If you're saying x is not a game, that's an attack on x
!
I have en-
countered many people who got upset when I said one of their
favorite video games was not a game.
World of Warcraft
has more
in common with a theme park than it does a game, and
Garry's
Mod
has more in common with Legos or a sandbox than it does
a game. This does not at all speak to the quality of those things,
however. Is it an insult to theme parks to say that a theme park is
not a game? Is it an insult to a sandbox to say that it is not a game?
It's possible that the current cultural rock-star status that games
have achieved has attached a certain silly cultural value to the
word
game. We have to remember that
game
does not mean
good
.
The worst game you ever played is still a game, and your favorite
thing can be something other than a game and still be just as le-
gitimate as if it were one. We simply need to be consistent with
our words.
Fun is a fundamental part of games.
As I've explained, fun is not
a building block of games but instead is a byproduct of games in
action. Much like the art issue addressed earlier, it also depends
on how you define the word
fun
.
A game can be a completely mis-
2
Entertainment Software Association (ESA) 2011 report (
http://www.theesa.com/facts/
