Games as Play

• Play - pertains to the Experiential System of the game. It only occurs as players experience the rules of the game in motion.
• The structure of a digital game space always grows directly from the formal system that defines the game. However, the space that a player experiences is also a function of representation (how the space is displayed) and interaction (how the player navigates the space).
• In understanding how games construct meaning, we are addressing the deeply felt ways that players engage with games and the emotional and social realities games reflect and construct.

What is Play? §

• Play is free movement within a more rigid structure. As an expression of the system, we take advantage of the space of possibility given by the system’s structure.
  • Play both exists because of and opposes rigid structures.
• Salen and Zimmerman provide a broad typology of three possible descriptors (from narrowest to broadest)
  • Game Play - the formalized interaction that occurs when players follow the rules of a game and experience its system through play
    • Games are a subset of play. Play is an element of games.
  • Ludic Activities - play activities that include not only games, but also non-game behaviors we think of as playing. We may categorize them as follows according to Callois’ Typology
  • Being Playful - the idea of being in a playful state of mind.
    • Play is latent in every human activity. You can take inspiration for play behavior and contexts anywhere.
• Transformative Play - a special case of play that occurs when the free movement of play alters the more rigid structure in which it takes shape.
  • Whether or not play is transformative depends on how we look at the system — that is, which elements actually change.
  • Every instance of play carries with it the seeds of transformative play. Thus maximize play for your participants at every possible moment.

Games as Experiential Systems §

Play of Experience §

• To play a game is to experience the game. Experience implies participation — the player as a part of the game system.
• Sutton-Smith’s model of the experience of games.
  • Visual Scanning - visual perception.
  • Auditory discriminations - listening for game events and signals.
  • Motor responses - physical action.
  • Concentration - intense focus on play.
  • Perceptual patterns of learning - coming to know the structure of the game itself.
• Experience come from the relationships between inputs, outputs, and internal player mechanisms.
  • Identifying the qualities of play you wish the players to experience is a useful way to frame game design problems.
  • Game designers indirectly design player experience by designing the rules.
• Every game has a core mechanic which is the essential play activity players perform repeatedly in a game.
  • The core mechanic contains the experiential building blocks of player interactivity.
  • If a game simply isn’t fun to play, it is often the core mechanic that is the problem.
  • We may design the core mechanic by breaking the rules or by taking inspiration from other core mechanics and varying them.
  • Remember, the core mechanic should facilitate meaningful play.
• Game designers create activities for players . Ask yourself what the player is actually doing when playing the game.

Play of Pleasure §

• A game is a space in which a player’s emotions and sense of desire undergoes manipulation and coercion.

  • This means translating the formal rules into an engaging experience of play.
  • Players accept rules not to restrict pleasure but to maximize them.

• Games are autotelic Every game implicitly asserts the premise that the value of the game is intrinsic, and separate from the real world. The goals of a game are non-utilitarian and artificial.

  • Playing the game is in itself the reward. We play for the sake of playing.
  • Games must provide their own Motivation and pleasures. After all Why play a game that isn’t fun?.

• When play starts, players are first seduced into entering the magic circle. Then, they are seduced into continuing to play.

  • Designers create not just the game, but the ways players enter the game. This is a hurdle as players must do things that lie on the border of the circle before they can enter.
  • In considering this seduction, we must consider all the formal, social, and cultural factors that contribute to experience.

• What is fun is a complex phenomenon. But, we have the following typologies of pleasures to understand it.

  • Apter and Leblanc’s typologies can be used to analyze what is “fun”
  • Callois’ Typology also applies.

• We may also consider the Flow State Model. Ideally, we aim to achieve a flow state, something which games tend to produce because meaningful play creates flow. Flow is one indicator of meaningful play..

• Same but different principle ¹. A game provides the same consistent structure each time but a different experience every time it is played.

  • Transformative play can help with this. Through repetition, play itself changes.

• Entertainment is the process of falling into a patterned activity. If entertainment is a form of pleasure, it is a pleasure at once structural and exponential. It is the experience of the same-but-different.

• The goal of the game is the main driver for pleasure.

  • Within the game the goal takes on enormous importance, but the goal itself as a formal construct is not the point: the goal is important only insofar as it serves to shape a player’s experience
  • The micro-interactions / short-term goals that move a player through a game are also important for player experience — to sustain interest and desire.
  • Games can also encourage players to conceive and achieve goals, giving them a sense of control. They key is to let players know what to expect, teach them the systems, and make them feel in control.

• Games can condition pleasure by encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors.

• More than just shaping good and bad behaviors, rewards and punishments shape a player’s sense of pleasure and overall play experience

  • Rewards of Glory - have no impact on the gameplay, but will be things that they end up taking away from the experience.
  • Rewards of Sustenance - given so player can maintain their avatar’s status quo.
  • Rewards of Access - allows a player access to new locations that were previously inaccessible.
  • Rewards of Facility - allows a player’s avatar to do things they couldn’t do before, opening up new strategies.

• Also consider scheduling when rewards / punishments are given.

  • Consider having a fixed schedule for punishment.
  • Consider having variable schedules for positive reinforcement.
  • It is the rewards that sustain players throughout a game.

• No challenge = no game conflict to struggle against = no pleasure emerging from the process of overcoming the challenge.

  • Challenge while maintaining flow can be achieved by making the game easy to learn, difficult to master.
    • If the game is too easy, there is no challenge and players will get bored.
    • If the game is too hard, the player is not confident in their skills, and the players will get anxious.
  • Boredom indicates dead space — where there is not enough choices in the game
  • Anxiety indicates learned helplessness — the player feels like that no matter what choice they make, bad things happen. The game feels arbitrary.

• Meaningful play can become addictive — players engrossed in the game want to play again.

  • A game that is addictive is indicative of meaningful play ²
  • When a game becomes pathologically addictive, there is no longer any play — players are compelled to play rather than being free to move in the structure of the game.

Play of Meaning §

• Games take place within a representational universe. To play a game is to interact with representations the game generates

  • Games can represent by creating narrative, ideas or behavior. Items in the game universe gain meaning within the universe, and these meanings are experienced through play.
  • Games are representations. They represent something simulated.

• The complexity of game systems means that the representations that generate meaning can also be complex — generating many meanings at once.

  • The meaning of the signs present in the game can only be understood in the context of the larger whole — in the context of the game’s meaning.
  • Meaning in a game sets up complex representational loops, generating representations that affect and are affected by player interaction.
  • Meaning emerges from play.

• Games create meaning through the interplay of system and context. In other words, Meaning is emergent.

  • Actions and outcomes are important. As players experience them, they develop rules about the game’s universe. Context establishes what actions mean.
  • When the meaning of an action is unclear or ambiguous, meaningful play breaks down
  • Structure and context organize what signs mean but also how they are used..

• In the play of meaning, movement occurs both between signs and contexts.

• Consider the cognitive frame — they create contexts and interpretations that affect how we look at the world.

  • The frame of a game communicates that those contained it are playing. We delineate play with the magic circle.

• Metacommunication - play not only grants distinctive meanings in actions, but also communicates an attitude towards those actions

  • Thus, to play is to continually communicate the idea that play actions are just play and not something else.
  • Play is metacommunication. We reframe events so that actions of play are related to but not the same as other actions of not play.

• Games facilitate complex representation systems, and yet players experience them simply — they do not have to think about things as being “for play”. They just experience play itself.

Narrative Play §

• Games create possibility spaces that provide compelling problems within an overarching narrative, afford creative opportunities for dealing with these problems and then respond to player choices with meaningful consequences.

• There are three ways to think of this:

  • Narrative is used for everything
  • Games feature narrative introductions and backstories to put a game into context.
  • Games use narrative techniques and other tools for crafting narrative experiences.

• There are two structures we can use to understand the narrative components of a game.

  • Embedded narrative - Players can experience the narrative as a crafted story interactively told.

    • This tends to be in line with linear story telling
    • Tends to operate on the macro scale (a game would be not meaningful if gameplay itself is linear)

  • Emergent Narrative Players can engage with narrative as an emergent experience that happens while the game is played

    • This is in line with non-linear story-telling.
    • They can also be found in the moment-to-moment gameplay influenced by player choice
    • or even as representations of game objects (strategies, game items, rules) that the players have formulated for themselves.
    • This is unique to games because games are systems, and as a result they come from the formal structures of the game.

  • The game’s narrative comes from a balance between embedded and emergent elements.

  • Mission / Episodic story structures are used because the game designer can control the larger narrative while giving the player agency for emergent narrative.

• Another fundamental element is the goal of the game that describes the nature of the player’s interaction with the narrative context.

  • Completion of the game’s levels translate to story beats.
  • As players struggle towards the goal, conflict arises which contextualizes and motivates the player’s actions.
    • Games must have elements that oppose the player.
  • Introduce uncertainty to add narrative tension.

• Use narrative and tie it with the formal game structure itself (for example tie conflict with moment-to-moment gameplay.)

  • If moment-to-moment play is narrative play, we should pay attention to exactly what players are doing in the game, how their choices are represented, and how they fit the larger narrative.
  • Games are not just plot, but activities that the player goes through. Hence, design what these activities are (the core mechanic) and fit them to the narrative context.

• The space occupied by the game creates narrative — the characters are the game objects. The space is the context. The space patterns narrative experience over time for the player.

• A narrative descriptor is any component that participates in the game’s system of representation.

• Everything in a game is potentially a narrative descriptor. Elements inside and outside of a game communicate a story.

  • However, written descriptors for narrative are not always effective in creating a clear context for interaction, especially when they are disconnected from player interaction.
  • Sometimes, narrative descriptors simply provide a more general narrative genre.
  • They serve (1) to identify objects or events, and (2) to provide frameworks for interaction.

• Well designed games have many narrative descriptors to orient the player. This is even if a player skips some of them.

  • Important: Never assume the player will carefully examine every narrative descriptor. Make the story come alive through the gameplay itself.

• Representations in games do not exist in isolation from culture. Conventions exist in particular narrative genre that guide player expectations.

  • As cultural representations, game narratives have two components: fictive worlds — the narrative context; and story events - the actual game incidents within the world.
  • Fictive worlds and story events shape each other.

• Narrative descriptors imply representational logic that constraints the design of the game to follow the setting described by the game.

  • Ludonarrative dissonance - a dissonance between gameplay and narrative.
  • Even when breaking the rules of narrative genre, games must incorporate this rule-breaking in a coherent way.

• Meaningful narrative play follows from bridging the formal system with the player experience .

• Cutscenes are a way of leading players through the narrative space of a game, highlighting key moments. As a kind of narrative in miniature, cutscenes help fill out the larger narrative frame of the game to establish the fictive world of a game’s story.

  • They can allow a player to glimpse another part of the game space.
  • They can work to catapult a player into a new situation (i.e., starting in media res)
  • They can establish the mood of the game.
  • They give designers the power to dramatically reveal the outcomes of a player’s choices.
  • They allow for pacing and rhythm, slowing down the action or hyping it up.
  • They can be used to illustrate player success or failure.

• Narrative play can also occur in recounting a game’s experience, creating narratives that exist separately from the actual narrative of the game. This is the phenomenon of retelling play.

  • Replay mode is one such example, making use of cinematography to cast game events in a particular light.
  • Recams - involves altering the perspective after a replay. It allows players to experience the story from a different point of view.

Play of Simulation §

• Games are representation systems where representations can arise from the player interacting with the game systems itself.

  • This type of representation is called procedural representation — it is the kind of representation that emerges from a process.
  • As a simulation, a game is a procedural representation of aspects of “reality”.
  • The objects within a game gain their meanings and representations in part because of how they interact with the formal systems.
  • Unlike other simulations, games are not beholden to a notion of representing empirical truth.
  • Games as simulations also include the ways in which the system permits player action.
  • Games simulate for the purpose of entertainment rather than accuracy.

• Every game, on some level represents conflict. Games simulate some form of conflict through its formal systems.

  • Territorial Conflict - the play area dynamically represents the territory over which battle is waged.
  • Economic Conflict - what is contested is not territory but a unit of value (money, points, etc). This is rooted in the fact that the thing of value is finite.
  • Conflict over Knowledge - inherently cultural conflicts that engage with the cultural space outside of the game. They rely on information brought into the game from external sources.

• Simulation necessitates some form of simplification or stylization. It is a process of abstracting away properties from a real world phenomenon.

  • Simulations are abstractions. We can only approximate reality with simulations, nor do simulations attempt to do such a thing.
  • Simulations are systems - the systemic aspect is harnessed directly for representational effect.
  • Simulations are numerical - they are formal structures related to some mathematical structure.
  • Simulations are limited - they can only depict a tiny slice of any real world or imagined phenomenon.

• As designers, we choose which aspects to simulate — ultimately the goal is to simulate what would contribute to meaningful play.

  • Promise the right amount of breadth - if players expect the game to be an immersive simulation, they may be disappointed if their options are limited.
  • Limitation is not a bad thing.
  • It is generally bad design to include information that does not contribute to an understanding of what is going on
  • Designers ultimately abstract reality by eliminating aspects that do not contribute to the experience and by simplifying the complexities of reality that have little effect to the mechanics.
    • As such Simulations are not real to begin with because the designers choose what to abstract away.
    • Analogous Simulations - are based on a relationship between the source system and their simulation mechanics. Similar mechanisms are replaced with one mechanism
    • Symbolic Simulations - are based on an arbitrary and conventional relationship between the source and the simulation (for example, dice being used to represent the outcome of a battle). Disparate mechanisms become connected.
    • Both analogous and symbolic simulations reduce the system to be simpler but still capture the essential dynamics of the real life source. This has some advantages
      • The player can focus on the essential details of the game
      • The system gives more feedback and can cycle through faster
      • The game designer can design the game easier.
      • Insights gathered from an abstracted system can be applied to other situations too.

• Narrative Play can also be framed as a form of simulation — players simulate the lived experiences of the player character. In turn, the simulation of the player character brings it to life as a representation of a character.

  • A player relates to a game character through the double consciousness of play
    • The protagonist is a persona through which the player exerts themselves on the imaginary world.
    • At the same time, the character is a puppet, and the player is fully aware they are artificial.
    • The player consciousness has three levels — a character in a simulated world, a player in a game, a person in a larger social setting.

• Case-based logic implies creating simulations where the relationship between each element is specified in advanced. Generalized Logic replies on system elements sharing common attributes and relying on emergence.

• A case for generalized simulation:

  • It decreases work time because we do not need to specify all forms of interactions.
  • It leads to more emergent games.
  • It increases play options. More choices.

• However, no game can rely solely on generalized simulation. Designers need to be able to craft some forms of interactions.

  • The generalized approach may end up being too overcomplicated.
  • It may introduce ambiguities.

• The Immersive Fallacy — the idea that pleasure of a media experience lies in its ability to sensually transport the participant into an illusory, simulated reality ².

  • The cognitive frame falls away, and the player truly believes they are a part of an imaginary world.
  • Remember: A game player can become engrossed in the game, but only through play itself.
  • Immersion is not just tied to the attributes of a game, but the way it functions with respect to the experience of the player
  • Focus on the double consciousness of play rather than immersion.

Social Play §

• Consider the social dimension of play.

• As players mingle with each other, their social interactions highlight aspects of the game’s design. Meaningful play can be framed as a social phenomenon.

  • Social interactions can either take place within the magic circle or outside of it.
  • Social interactions can be modified by actions taken in the game. Social roles transform as the game proceeds.
  • Games can facilitate symbolic communication.

• Sutton-Smith’s and Bartle’s typologies pply

• A play community occurs when a group of player gets together to play a game. The exact scale of the community depends on the game design problem you are trying to solve.

  • Most play communities are informal, temporary affairs.
  • The social boundaries of a play community are tied to the boundaries of its games.
  • The play community emerges from the game system. At the same time, the game cannot have life without a play community. This happens because games as play systems are both closed and open systems.

• Within the bounded play community of a game, the community arises with the onset of the game and disappears when the game is finished.

  • There is a sense in which games create their own private social sphere.
  • Bounded play implies a social contract consisting of the rules, and the meanings and values the players give life through play. The social contract dictates what it means to enter the magic circle.
  • Generally players must feel a sense of safety and trust to be comfortable to enter into the social space of a game. Such safety and trust relies on knowledge of the rules — especially the implicit rules.
    • Once the rules are known, a free decision can be reached through respectful mutual consent.

• In transformative social play, players use the game context to transform social relationships.

  • It forces us to reevaluate a formal understanding of rules as fixed, unambiguous and omnipotent authorities. The structures are reshaped by player action.
  • The formal rules the game operates in may be different from the actual rules that players agree on. Players can generate their own rules and propagate them in the player community
  • The real rules of the game refer to a standard of social behavior that players had to accept and uphold if they were to remain a part of the game.
  • In this sense, the goal is not just to win, but to play the game in a way that embodies the proper spirit of play, to play the game in a way that expresses their social being. In this sense, players game the game itself — manipulating the boundaries established by the game.

• Games can permit or encourage normally taboo behavior via forbidden play — games can subvert social norms since games can play with meaning itself.

  • The player is always at risk of overstepping boundaries and breaking the magic circle.
  • However, even though the behavior is normally taboo, it exists within a restricted context.

• Metagaming - refers to the relationship between the game and outside elements. According to Richard Garfield, it manifests as follows:

  • What a player brings to a game
    • Game resources - the necessary components for playing the game
    • Strategic Preparation or training
    • Peripheral Game Resources - optional elements like game guides.
    • Player Reputation
  • What a player takes away from a game
    • The stakes of the game.
    • The experience of the game itself
    • The retelling of the game
    • Some resources for future games.
  • What happens between games
    • Reflection of players regarding strategy, training or planning.
    • Player communicating to each other about what happened last game
    • Anything that add to the meaning of the play experience.
  • What happens during a game other than the game itself.
    • Any aspect of real life that influences a game in play — competition and camaraderie for example.
    • The physical environment of the play itself.

• The emergence of a rich metagame comes from key game design decisions

  • For example by making many variants on a set of standard rules
  • However, at the same time, most metagaming comes from when play communicates with the outside context.

Links §

• Salen and Zimmerman
• Adams and Dormans - Ch. 12 - more on the simulation aspects of games.

Footnotes §

1. This applies to most things Creativity as well. ↩

2. Debatable if we’re using the conventional definitions of addiction considering a game can be psychologically manipulative instead. But good games can be addictive too. However what the authors mean by this is the positive dimension of addiction ↩ ↩²