RE: Content

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@3DProgrammer.com>]

> What the game can do that the book cannot is to allow the user to
> explore the consequences of various actions in the directions they
> find interesting..

Not true.  A person is perfectly entitled to think about the consequences of
a book, to play games of "what if" with the storyline.  Good writing often
encourages this creative play within the mind of the audience.  Of course,
it doesn't have to do this, a story can succeed simply by telling the
audience exactly what it wants to hear, violating no expectations
whatsoever.  That bores some kinds of people, but stimulates most others.

Similarly, just because something is "action" doesn't mean it allows for
exploration.  If all you can do is shoot a grenade, then that's all you can
do.  If all you can do is find keys to insert them into locks, then that's
the philosophical extent of your universe.

What games do that books don't, is give a role to the player.  The player
*knows* he's supposed to do things for his own benefit, that he is in charge
of actions.  Society has said that this is his proper role of participation
within the work.  Whereas in passive entertainment, he's socially expected
to sit back and receive it.  Ornery cusses like myself don't, but then
again, I'm trying to author things.  Most people aren't.

So, a player in a game knows he can act.  But just as with books, they
usually don't know that they can exercise their imaginations, that they can
choose to perceive and deal with the content in their own way.  Instead,
players usually act in the most straightforward, perfunctory way, as set
forth by the axioms of the game system.  They don't march around in special
ritualistic patterns before killing the enemy.  They don't suddenly stop and
have moral monologues with themselves about why they're killing their
opponents.  Their role-play is limited to the exceedingly obvious, whatever
was provided by the axioms.

I think we need programs dumped into our brains to stay sane.  It's like
eating food or breathing air, as a species it's something we have to have.
Most of us don't enjoy sitting around like a plant, fluttering our leaves in
passive nihilism.  And so, we need the codes.  The code is a nugget, a
resource, like picking an apple off a tree.

The question is, where do the codes come from?  Do we synthesize our own
codes, like plants producing food from raw materials?  Or do we consume the
codes that other people hand us?  One is more work than the other.
Consequently, most people consume codes rather than produce them.

So... to me it is about manufacture.  Not different kinds of content, but
different ways of manufacturing it.  Different responsibilities and
expectations for *who* shall manufacture it.  Am I the author supposed to do
it?  Are you the reader supposed to do it?  Are you supposed to sit quietly
or run around pushing buttons?


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.