Intrinsic Incentives

A new age of intimacy has arrived – ecological politics and ethics is based on coexisting

Art must tell the story of its inability to tell the story of the spirit

Sincerity eats irony

Art in the age of asymmetry must be a practice of “tuning”

 Timothy Morton₁

Table Talk

A feature documentary, US AND THE GAME INDUSTRY (2013) has been made. Shooting took place in San Francisco, Davis.CA, Santa Monica, LA, Austin, Texas, New York and Copenhagen. Four years in the making, the film is located in 2D and 3D computer design aesthetic and within broader cultural ideas about play and life. The film has a WORLD PREMIERE in Los Angeles, June 6 at 2.45.pm at the Chinese Theatre 6. Hollywood Blvd and shall move outwards from there.

Field Work

 When I set out, the dynamic of designer and player relationships in the society was in proliferation. There were million of people participating in games. There were fandoms.

Wouldn’t it be charming to engage with personalities on a one on one levels to hear a few stories, ponder how games spark and indulge as objects of “asymmetry”, where, borrowing Timothy Morton language, “art outstrips reality” again, in a new form.₂ Wouldn’t it be important to bring to a wider public some of the wonder of such goings on? People were in happy exchanges about development. They were applying effort, knowledge and collegially – civilized accomplishment. I became excited by the thought of having an encounter with feats created in the game developer world, as this world was “happening”. People paint, animate and write music on computers. How was interest for games development flourishing? And what was play meaning? How was it opening out as an idea? This was my rudimentary start. In 2013, Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve Corporation, was in receipt of a BAFTA Fellowship Award in London for his dedication to the craft. Last year, a link forged partially by Brandon Boyer, the President of Independent Games Festivals, with La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris, had veteran Game Designer Eric Zimmerman and Architect Nathalie Pozzi share cross-discipline experience. Tides of such foregrounding as these are welcome sighting of a mesosphere of new engaging sets of practices.

In Computer Sciences, where arts and philosophy co-mingle, if you look at any people doing R&D, whether academically, salaried, entrepreneurial or self-supporting, the projects and passions of interest that are carried out that run seamlessly through days, nights and lives, are a sign that culture, especially in the Western tradition, is in, like, a….neo –Restoration period. Games, I remind myself, have always sat really well as performance pieces. These inspiring activities of ‘strangeness”, (still sustaining the vocabulary of Morton), are accompaniments of our humble lifestyle within the Anthropocene and with the non-human.  I shan’t take this new terrain further in this writing here. I leave it to say that I enjoy a value in thinking this context for my purpose. I address more directly herein, some ideas about what I saw to deliver in this film.

 I recall the heady experience as a film student in the 1970’s being exposed to dominant film theories that rose and declined from the 1920’s to the Bazin period. Cultural Studies writer, R.B. Ray refers to an economic history known as path dependence, essentially an economic view of the way an American Film Industry was structured tending to Eisenstein’s theories of montage. This was a decision no doubt made with logic for the assembly of a form for a free market, particularly one that is a technologically based capital- intensive medium. Ray says the theory explains why the  ‘free market’s invisible hand does not always chose the best products’₃ The games industry had not been free of path dependence trends. The intuition of independent game developers for critically new forms who took certain departure from dominant models within their industry in quite swift adaptive actions, would be not unsurprisingly informed by knowledge of film industry and other monopoly patterns. Either of these was, after all, a priori experience for all of this new culture.  In shifts emerging in the cultural crust, an intense and tight community was buzzing. Developer moments appeared dogged and fertile. I thought that this was a time to make an audio -visual document to mark the vigor of some dedicatedly critical people as event.

 When it comes to referencing the pulse and the under belly of these vital experiences, interrelationship seemed to prompt the film title best with plays on the first word there to be accessed by any for subjectivity. A long film affords a little time for history too, so US AND THE GAME INDUSTRY does start with a version of “long long ago”.

 As soon as I got underway, I traveled to the epicenter of public occasions in 2009, the GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) in San Francisco to visit the Flash Conference and the Independent Games Festival. By this time I had contacted and talked with Simon Carless, the then current President of IGF, who gave me welcome.

 There are five developers featured. Their games are deliverable to PC/Mac, Play Station 3, the I-pad or I- phone, the DS and for server supported play. Discourse about game design motives and approaches in the film are with Jason Rohrer, thatgamecompany, Alexander Bruce, Douglas Wilson and Zach Gage. The filmed subjects are presented in interviews, with their work and in dialogues with some peers. I framed some of my early thoughts about the workings of Jason Rohrer in my production log, May 8, 2012. In What’s the Motive.₄ Thatgamecompany’s latest release, JOURNEY, is an adventure game held to the form of a mono myth. Discussions about logics and stages in this game’s assembly are core components of the film’s structure, with the forays of all the other contributing developers provided in cameos. Seeming applications of theories that I thought about whilst editing the film during late 2012, I mention here.

 System formalism, abstraction and impressionism in non-linear aesthetic

Gage likens the design process for games as similar to that of architecture. SPELLTOWER (2012) became extremely popular. It is a word game with emergent properties. The game has clear points of entry. The dynamic of word building by touch is fluent and satisfying. The aesthetic of falling tiles and the mode choices for challenge are visually fresh. The system continues to offer play at more layers of depth. It invites thoughtfulness, spreads time and wholly intrigues the specialist player.

                  Fig 1. SPELLTOWER. The object of the game is to score word counts by
  emptying the screen of letters. Options include horizontal, diagonal and
zigzag word gathering. A letter coloured blue harnesses a row to fall away for bonus points.

 With JOURNEY, Chen decided to try out an enduring narrative shape -a quest saga. In it’s construction the game suggests the theme of mortality all the way through to transcendence. The MDA framework (Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics) coined and discussed by Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek, suggests a way to assist a study of formal design with such games artifacts. The MDA three -point framework points out that,

“From the designer’s perspective, the mechanics give rise to dynamic system behavior, which in turn leads to particular aesthetic experiences. From the player’s perspective, aesthetics set the tone, which is born out in observable dynamics and eventually, operable mechanics.” ₅

Thus, to feed a narrative arc for transcendence, a refined achievement for both the dynamic operability of the mechanics and the nudging properties of the aesthetics were set as the goals for this game. The mechanics task included transporting the avatar through open sands to watery taverns to the mountain- top and beyond. At the outset, the sand ground and distant mountain give a context for the figure. Ancient artifacts and references to past civilizations provide connotations and music enters to humanize the “score”. The two traditions (Art and music) facilitate an opportunity for a player to become wrapped into solo player experiences with the potential for more. Colour and texture palates were executed to help as tonal qualities just enough, provide space and a sense of scale just enough and offer a structured world that invites player identify with avatar and avatar choices for action.

SANCTURY

              Fig 2. Sanctury. Drawing research by Artist Matt Nava for the game JOURNEY.

 Hunicke analyses this gameʼs qualities as holding up to scrutiny when she refers to the qwan, a concept coined by the architect Christopher Alexander to refer to the best things we make as almost seeming alive. Ruins, both in detail, pixilation and scale, were polished for the interactive play experience. Propulsion amongst them enabled identification with immensity and wonder. One could refer to this integration of ideas for the form as a well-conceived ʻaggregateʼ ₆

ANCIENT RUN AND CORRIDOOR.

        Fig 3. A building detailed and scaled as a generative grammar with door,
        passageway,  levels and light to more entrances or exits in JOURNEY. 2012.

Sensory data is a significant feature within JOURNEY. The score composed by Austin Wintory took three years to write- composition as a living process. A work methodology was that the programmer’s night build down at the studio might have influence upon the composer when it uploaded the next day to Wintory or Wintoryʼs daily score might modulate the coding in turn. Such were the particulars of the aggregation over months when levels were being built. This manner of composition was a groundbreaking point to counterpoint process. As Wintory states in the film,

 “ This is how Art is made”.

JOURNEY SCORE

           Fig 4.  Score fragment for JOURNEY'

 Without a striving for design integrations Journeys ʻsystematic coherenceʼ would not reach to standard and the impact of the game might have failed. In formal work, the beauty is in the constraints. Aesthetic constraints are guiding frameworks for not only the actions of the player but also the internal world of player sensibility. The designed atmosphere might then, through all its cultural associations imbedded throughout the design layers, offer the opportunity for a player to feel touched as she behaves with the game. Thus, thematically, the notion of transcendence as it was to be motivated within this work with its classical/ fable like patina, would be a virtue with which to identify in some wonder during play. The theme offered the whole game experience sincerity. Final design features also would ensure the thrill of interactive behaviour itself to have choice.

          Fig 5. Landscape, figures and mountain in JOURNEY - icons  the design space.

 Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salens had shared their frustration about the reality of the 2004 game store, where the "endless racks of adolescent power fantasies, witless cartoons characters, and literal minded sports simulations." sat [2004] ₇ The gamer generation was now aging as consumer and a new sub-set was shifting to the other side to become producers. In 2008, Weiss and Rusch strove to further investigations in “thinking about game design as metaphorical process”₈  Arriving to Jason Rohrer we see that Rohrer had explored ideas in 2D in the abstract not the figurative. There are those who like to offer frameworks for stories and there are those who like to set out challenges for deductive thinking or strategy. His works tend to the latter, though his GM experiment, Sleep is Death (2011) proved satisfying as part of the research oeuvre in the narrative realm and has provided affection and laughter.

THE CASTLE DOCTRINE

         Fig 6. Still fragment of a frame of The Castle Doctrine.

 One may read in an article in ROCK, PAPER, SHOTGUN, about “the charming, weird and beautiful tale Galvin played with SiD’s creator Jason Rohrer” ₉

         Fig 7 Sleep is Death played by Galvin and Rohrer 2010.

 Rohrer’s game ideas have carved varied spots in the landscape. They offer a focus yet a freeing to indeterminacy. Their “stripped bare nature” are benchmarks against which a short new culture study of these digital games will likely continue. My extended interviews would reveal that he held preference for the auteur methodology.

 Rohrer’s thinking extends on and off the game screen. It is not a surprise how effusively he connected to Zimmerman’s ‘stirrings’ in this important time of early game development history. Reading the lines between the accounts, Zimmerman exuded a perception and awareness with his provocative and playful workshops held the Game Developer’s Conferences for one decade. Three times Rohrer has been invited to these “Game Design Challenge” challenges. Twice he won, by all accounts clearly with his latest in 2013.

 I felt the scale of North America and the scale of ideas that uplift all to responsibilities as I flew over to and then stood above Las Cruses out from Los Angeles when I went to see Rohrer one time. Not having been on the USA shores lately to have heard the clapping audience at Zimmermanʼs closing ʻevent” with “The last game for humanityʼ at GDC, 2013, where Rohrerʼs winning game appealed, it was clear that another stamp had been made by this auteur by his fruitful consciousness.

 The several developers in the film, it would seem, are energized by their autonomy in practice and results. Their engagements become intrinsically rewarding for players and themselves.


The film runs ninety-five minutes. It releases mid 2013. Readers may hunt down the film's travels. More information about the film is on the site www.usandthegameindustry.com The first starting point is its selection to a world premiere at DANCES WITH FILMS Film Festival in Hollywood Blvd, in Los Angeles on June 6, 2.45pm.www.danceswithfilms.com 

  Stephanie Beth

                     Fig. 8. Still of a supplementary document to ʻLast Game for Humanity” by                               Rohrer  for the last game challenge designed by Eric Zimmerman, for GDC, 2013  

Jason Rohrer meets Jenova Chen in the flesh, 2009

Wrap Party thatgamecompany 2012

References

1.2. Public talk, Sacramento. Nov. 2011. Timothy Morton on hyper objects. Live Show. Object Orientated Ontology.

3. Ray.R.B. How a Film Theory Got Lost and Other Mysteries of Cultural Studies. P 10. Indiana University Press. 2001.

4. Production Log. Stephanie Beth. May 8,2012. What’s the Motive? Http//www.usandthegameindustry.com

5. Hunicke. R, LeBlanc. M, Zubek. R MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research. http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf 2001-2006

6. Cook, D. https://plus.google.com/u/0/105363132599081141035/posts/3cQkimSPwuy

7. Salens and Zimmerman. Rules of Play. Classes 395. Potsdam. 2004.

8,Rusch. D & Weiss. M. p 89 -97. Games about LOVE and TRUST? harnessing the power of metaphors for experience design. Sandbox proceedings of the 2008 ACM Siggraph Symposium on video games. MIT. Gambit. Game Lab. Cambridge MA. ACM Digital library. 2008

9.Sleep is Death played between Shannon Galvin and Rohrer.2010. http:// www.rockpapershotgun.com/ 2010/04/22/sleep-is-death-is-very-much-alive/#more-29092/ 2010 http://sleepisdeath.net/AreWeHome/ index.php? frame=00065

Figs

1 stfj.net  SPELLTOWER by Zach Gage

2,3.  Sanctury.  Research artwork. Ancient ruin. Filmed still.  Art by Matt Nava

 4. The cello motif for JOURNEY filmed at the studio of Austin Wintroy

5. Landscape. JOURNEY. Art by Matt Nava

6.The Castle Doctrine. Computer image. Jason Rohrer

7. Still frames. Sleep is Death. Played between Shannon Galvin and Rohrer.2010. http:// www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/04/22/sleep-is-death

8.Still of the instructions left under seats to developers attending the Design Game Challenge for Rohrer’s Game idea for “Last Game for Humanity “ at GDC, 2013.

9. Production still. March 2009.

10. Production still.thatgamecompany’s wrap party. Los Angeles. February. 2012