Stripped of all context there is a single ability true to all video games: amplification of input, the translation of a simple input into a complex output: I press this button and a whole new range of options become available to me; I pull this trigger and that car explodes. The idea is not to exactly replicate the input required to achieve the desired output; the chain of causality from action to consequence is often long and complicated, one single action rarely leads to a complex output without a myriad other factors.
The underlying aim of all games is the codification and abstraction of complex ideas and situations into ones over which it’s easier to obtain competence in, and eventually master of. Through mastery comes insight, understanding, and an appreciation of the complexity of the original situation. In order to achieve this insight, this appreciation, the simplification and abstraction of the original situation must be achieved in such a manner that the simplified version is easier to master but that the lessons learned from this simplified form are still applicable to the original.
Chess is not warfare, it is a highly abstracted conflict with some contextual association to warfare. It is a lot easier to learn Chess than it is to learn how to command a real military force, however a lot of the high level strategic lessons still hold. It is still applicable to the concept of warfare.
The closer games move to complete 1:1 replication of input to output, the smaller this amplification effect becomes until the gap between the skills required for a video game version of Golf and an actual game of Golf start to disappear. Is this really a problem? Well I didn’t turn on the video game of Golf in order to play Golf, I did so in order to play a video game representation of Golf.
The appeal of the representation is different to the appeal of the reality.
7 replies on “Amplification of Input.”
This makes some sense for golf – or any sports game – or any activity that can be performed in real life. It doesn’t make much sense to perfectly replicate in a videogame something you can already do. However, a game about – let’s say… – killing monsters. In that case, simulating the whole situation to near-reality, getting close to what would be a “1:1 replication” if the situation existed in real life, seems like a valid gaming experience.
Anyway, there’s no golf camp in my city, neither do I have the money to travel and begin to play it, so… You get what I mean ;)
We should be highly suspicious of any sentence beginning “The underlying aim of all games…” However, the amplification of input is a pretty decent candidate for a close to universal quality of game experience.
But I don’t understand the second half of your post.
“The closer games move to complete 1:1 replication of input to output, the smaller this amplification effect becomes”
You seem to be equating input and output to a subject and its representation.
But the inputs in a golf video game are not “real golf”, they are the player’s decisions and actions (and the complex, infinitely small microdecisions that make up actions) and the outputs are the discrete results of these choices and actions (where the ball ends up, the final score, etc…).
This is true of video game golf and regular golf. They aren’t all that different in the way they amplify player input, unpacking a huge amount of interesting variety out of tiny variations in player action.
I like to think of it like this – a golf club is a simple machine that magnifies physical force. The game of golf is a simple machine that magnifies cause and effect itself. A perfect example of your concept of input amplification.
But I’m not sure what this has to do with the appeal of representation.
I’m not personally happy with my initial paragraph, though I preferred a more direct sentiment to spending half the post equivocating as I am wont to do. Any and all “blanket statements” should be taken with a grain of salt.
My concern regarding 1:1 replication of input (as is being presented in some quarters as an ideal now available to us with the various motion control solutions) is that unless handled with a degree of abstraction the skills required to successful play the video game version of golf will be the same as those required to play the real world game of golf.
The essential inputs in both instances are, as you describe, the microdecisions and thought processes that occur in the head of the player, these are then mediated through some liminal device to produce amplified outputs.
The representation of an action allows that liminal device, that mediating machine, to be used with a reduced level of skill compared to the act itself. I can invest my time and learn how to pull off a mentally rewarding and stimulating, golf swing in a video game version of golf in much less time that it would take to pull off the actual swing in reality. The same basic idea holds for any represented action, flying a plane, shooting a gun, driving a car, playing a guitar, a representation of these actions can allow me to obtain rewarding mastery of them with a greatly reduced investment.
This is the inherent appeal of the representation, that I can obtain mastery and through that understanding, at a reduced investment in times and money. This can only occur if the skills required for the representation are less demanding than the skills required for the act itself. If in order to swing a sword accurately in the next Red Steel title I have to just as accurately swing the Wii-mote then the representation starts to demand the level of investment required of the act itself.
Of course it could be countered that the increased potential for amplification created by a video game means that even increasing the required skill level would still lead to rewarding experience of input amplification.
Ok, thanks for the clarification. I understand your point much better now.
>> I can invest my time and learn how to pull off a mentally rewarding and stimulating, golf swing in a video game version of golf in much less time that it would take to pull off the actual swing in reality.
I think this is where our thinking diverges. I don’t see a big difference between the time and effort required to master an analog game (like golf) and that required to master a digital game.
Maybe your point would be clearer if the real world activity represented in the video game wasn’t itself a game. So let’s take brain surgery. You could say that a brain surgery video game amplifies the little bit of skill I apply to it, making me feel like an expert without all the effort. I just don’t think this really captures what’s going on in a game experience. Sure, there are aspects of games that are about this, about making you feel good about yourself for less work, about amplifying success. But I think it’s truer to say that games amplify success AND failure. They amplify choice and consequence. The real purpose of the abstraction in games is not just to magnify mastery, but to make the whole process of learning and mastery visible to us, to frame it and highlight it and make it both more intense and at the same time allow us to step outside of it and observe it and contemplate it in a way that we can’t do with, say, brain surgery.
You’re absolutely right. I didn’t mean to imply the amplification affect was limited strictly to success. It’s amplification of consequence, or we might even risk saying manifestation of consequence; taking abstract choices and casting them into a less abstract context, though that depends on how you view the virtual worlds players inhabit.
I also think I’d have been better served using a different example, maybe Rock Band, or Gran Turismo. Both are examples of instances where the digital representation of an action has given me a renewed appreciation for, and understanding of, the action itself.
I was attempting to be pithy and may have done my core argument a disservice in the process.
Reading through the comments, something catched my attention: Do we play a video game of golf because we can’t play real golf for some reason? This thought seems to connect to an older theory of games that sees play as a preparation or replacement for real life activities. Some people would problematize such approach for its functionalist assumptions.
The theoretical aspect aside, I can say that for me it worked totally in the opposite way: I played Golf only in video games so far and I haven’t desired even once to play *real* Golf. I probably never ever related the various golf games I played with real golf. To put it in other words: Golf as a “culture” and as a “commodity” met me in form of video games and I never ever felt the urge to look beyond that form. I rarely watch Golf on TV. I do not follow anything about Golf unless it is in form of a video game. I guess this is because I like to play golf (and many other games) for the narrative (or gaming) situation that is part of the video game medium. It’s this habit to interact with a certain type of medium and place myself into its rituals that I ultimately draw joy from.
This fondness for the medium basically just means that I’m sharing the Zeitgeist of this era. I like to do sports and war and all that… in the form of video games. It’s one of the key modalities of my age and I’m not independent from it. However, this modality might build up already on other modalities. I might enjoy this experience of playing golf as a video game, because it narrates golf to me based on conventions of another medium that I’m already familiar with, like TV for example. Now Golf on TV is already a round of golf narrated audio-visually and therefore consumed as a screen event. So basically my idea about *real* golf might be already a mediated one before I actually meet golf as a video game. It would mean that the functionality I seek in playing a video game of golf is not because I see it as a replacement of my inability to play *real* golf, but because I can place myself as an actant into a narrated/mediated event of golf. I play golf as a video game because I derive pleasure from participating into the screen event, not real golf.
Marc Prensky has two articles that deal with games as simulated systems and their levels of abstraction. You might find them interesting.
One discusses the “input” and “output” issue:
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Why%20NOT%20Simulation.pdf
The other one discusses the abstraction/level of representation issue (the 1:1 thing) based on a concept called “fidelity to reality”: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Simulations-Are%20They%20Games.pdf