Digital vs. Physical Games

  Video game designers and often lump games that take place in the so-called real world and those that take place in the digital together when discussing game design theory. While I despise the digital/virtual vs. real/physical distinction, since anyone with half a brain realizes that computers and code also obey the laws of physics, I find that there are some useful (mostly practical) differences between what we can do when creating/enforcing rules in digital games and physical games (board games being somewhere in between).

By the former I mean of course the medium of video games as we know it and by the latter I mean games such as tag, foursquare, football, capture the flag, NASCAR, etc. Within the latter category I'd like to distinguish between games with apparatus and those without (of course another useful but false distinction). NASCAR or Formula One are examples where the apparatus used to play the game is almost as important as the player's ability (the unsung heroes of course, are the mechanics and engineers who build and maintain the car). Tag, of course, requires nothing but a body (this is kind of ableist, is there a disabled version of tag? I imagine wheelchair tag exists) and a space (preferably open).

Here we see the murkiness of the the rules and fun of social games. The rules of tag don't say anything about where it should be played (though many physical games have set boundary sizes or at least recommend space considerations) but for optimal fun you need a space sized to the participants that makes it neither too easy to get away nor too hard.

OK, I’ve digressed a bit from the main point I wanted to make, which was inspired by this article: http://gamecareerguide.com/features/851/public_space_and_the_rhetoric_of_.php

            The guys thesis looks fascinating and he is citing a bunch of interesting theorists (Situationists rock!), but in a certain paragraph I think he loses an important distinction between rules in physical and digital games.

            “Unlike videogames, where the rules that shape gameplay are inscribed in their algorithmic code (Galloway, 2006; Wark, 2007), locative games are determined by the specific characteristics of public spaces in addition to the rules (both algorithmic and non-algorithmic) of the game.

These spaces contain their own rules and regulations that are external to the game, whose rules are fixed, temporary, and make up the structure of the game universe. Game rules constrain play in certain ways, but they also make play possible -- they give it shape and structure, providing a common set of rules for its participants (Huizinga, 1970). In contrast, the rules of social space are discontinuous, constantly changing, and -- crucially -- negotiable. They confront locative gamers with concrete structures and behavioural norms that consciously and unconsciously constrain their actions.

However, as Lawrence Lessig notes, the constraints of the real world can clash, contradict one another, or be altered as the law, marketplace, physical architecture, and our ideas of acceptable behaviour change (2006: 126). This means that they are enforced not through an abstract set of rules, but real regulations imposed on individuals through constantly changing mechanisms of control.”

Now this may be a lot to digest at once. The main error I see here is in seeing game rules as algorithmic in contrast to social rules as constantly changing. Social play of physical games means that rules are enforced not by a hard unyielding computer but by the other participants or referees. The rules of a physical game only exist so far as they are enforced, unlike in digital games. Of course hacking and admins who ban people and exploits and “bad” play all exist in the digital realm as many scholars have noted.

But my point is (as I said earlier this is a practical distinction) that it is easier to enforce rules in digital games, because these rules can be hard coded.

Perhaps this should come with the corollary that it is harder to enforce social rules of play in digital games(where the players aren’t colocated), because these rules are not rules-of-the-game per se but expectations of players and thus difficult to code for/against (admins will almost always be needed).

It is also important to look at the larger (implicit/meta) rules that govern physical and digital games. One thing I feel the game industry could greatly benefit from is forgetting about the laws of physics. In this physical vs. digital divide, why are we so concerned with accurately reproducing the limitations of the physical world? Often, of course, developers pay lip service to the ideals of realism and immersion and then go off and make a game whose physics are perfectly suited to fun gameplay. But often this is by tweaking the real world physics slightly to suit it, rather than reimagining an alternate universe in which the basic laws of the world are so different that there would have to be a new name invented to describe them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My point is that one can view the laws of physics as pre-existing rules within which physical games are always enmeshed.

Digital games need not reproduce these constraints, and moreover it is the advantage of the medium that it doesn’t.

No physics simulation will ever be more than a simulation, just as no photograph will ever capture the experience of seeing something. But, as many have realized, that is not really what photography or simulation are about. Of course realism has its place, but not as the sole objective or at least sole ideology. Even if everywhere disobeyed, this central idea about what a physics engine should be is damaging to the creativity of the industry. In some ways physics engines are like still life paintings, great but not if they’re the only picture acceptable to paint.

As I said earlier, board games are the intermediate example. They have rules written on a sheet that can be referred to (easing enforcement) and have game pieces and other (apparatus) objects that helpfully suggest the “correct” form of play. The turn-based nature also helps with enforcement of rules, whereas real-time, fast paced physical games like football in many ways call for a referee (or, as we are seeing with slow introduction of video replays, etc., a digital referee that is “impartial”). Board games often have little to do with the laws of physics (except for holding pieces to the board) in their rules, but as is obvious to anyone who has played through half of a game only to realize they had forgotten an important rule, not as infallibly rule-enforcing as video games.

            In this way they represent the converse rule to consider when creating physical games: It is all about working within/”against” the laws of physics.

So if this is a long, rambly mess without a definite conclusion I apologize, but I was trying to think through some of the important (practical-theoretical as opposed to “truth”-theoretical) distinctions between physical and digital games. I think there are lots of outliers and maybe it would be better to have soft categories, but I think for my and other game designers purposes these distinctions I have made are the ones most important to consider.