RE: Mechanics are the message

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

> With fiction, it might instead take the audience a
> bit of effort to notice some of the messages, and this makes them
> feel smart.. and they thus have a more positive reaction to the
> message.

That only matters for people who either aren't possessed of critical
faculties, or are so ego-driven in their critical faculties that they
automatically react negatively to anyone else's idea.  People past a certain
brigtness level react to the work however they jolly well feel like, and
being made to "feel smart" isn't an issue.  Your insight might be valid for
mass markets though.  On the other hand, if you're making a fairly
intellectual game, what market are you chasing?

> They not only accept the message, but they must
> RELY on the message's truth in order to do well in the game.. They
> have a vested interest in it.

Or, they disagree with the message and it pushes them away from accepting
the game as real.  They see it as flawed.  For instance, the ridiculous
knee-jerk environmentalist "global warming" scenarios of Sid Meyer's Alpha
Centauri.  If the mechanical system of the game is amusing, they'll keep
playing, noting the lack of realism.  If the system is tedious, they'll
bitch about both the tedium and the lack of realism.

> Of course, people aren't idiots, and they do realize that just
> because it's part of the game doesn't mean it's necessarily true, but
> I do think that human psychology probably makes us accept messages in
> fiction better than messages in non-fiction, and messages in game
> mechanics more than messages in fiction.

I don't think fiction makes us do a darned thing.  I think authors have to
work very hard at getting people to suspend disbelief.  You can reasonably
assume that the audience is at least in a mood to play a game or hear a
joke, but you can lose that willingness pretty quickly by putting
dumb/boring/long stuff in front of the audience.


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.