RE: Mechanics are the message

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

> If you spend a long time doing some sort of activity, you tend to
> justify it in your mind as something that surely must be worth doing!

Whenever anyone complains to me about something they do over and over again,
I tell them they must be getting something out of it.

> Likewise, my theory that people like to play games that make them
> feel good doesn't imply that people are stupid.

Before, you were talking about making people feel "smart" or "dumb."  I said
some people don't care about that, so you can't manipulate them that way.
You can't manipulate people that you don't have any leverage on.  What you
call "psychological manipulation" I call "sales pitch," and it's important
to realize the relative position of buyer and seller.

> Why is [Civ/SMAC] so addictive?
> It's because at every point in the game, you
> always feel like there's something rewarding about to happen if you
> play for "just a few more turns".

I agree that even after all my zillion hours of play time, SMAC feels like
something *should* happen.  Of course, nothing *does* happen, and that's why
I'm working on a better game that solves the pacing problems.  Some people
like Civ/SMAC because they're micromanaging control freaks.  Others hate it
for the same reason.

> The global warming thing is a great example, actually.  For someone
> who's read up a lot about it and reject the premise of the game
> mechanic, it can be very distracting and annoying.  However, for
> someone who doesn't know as much about global warming, playing the
> game will make them accept it to some degree.

Countered by the irritation value of "Goddamnit, I just wanna build my units
and nuke everybody!!!  What's this crapola moralist Global Warming crap
messing up my game!!!"  A lot of people despise SMAC's moralizing
environmentalist mechanics.  The main problem is that the message is "To be
moral, one must be boring and take an excruciatingly long time to mop up the
game."

> Think about how novels or movies can make you care about the main
> character.. and if the main character subtlely has a few causes (not
> necessarily political; they could be moral), people will tend to buy
> in to those causes more because they care about the main character.
> Are these people stupid?  No, they're human.

I think you're underestimating how critical and cynical the intelligensia
are.  As an author I'm thinking about "securing character buy-in."  I know
that what I'm offering the audience is a sales pitch.  I know there are some
kinds of people who aren't going to buy my sales pitch no matter what I
write.  I do *not* expect most people to start believing that bombing
Afghanistan is good just because I have a likeable main character.


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.