Games - what's the point?

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On a quest to find out what exactly it is that I enjoy the most, I find myself asking ‘What is a game, anyway’? The term 'game is completely vague, as is my sense of who my audience is, or why I am trying to make a game at all. I don’t see the point.

Rewind time… before games, before pong, all we had was … software applications. Maybe doing some math, a bit of science, manipulating files etc. Very basic, functional displays. Then somewhere along the lines someone stepped back in a playful mood and wondered if they could get this computer to do something fun, something recreational, something casual that maybe doesn’t serve a functional purpose other than to be interesting or a way to slack off?

This is where software somehow started to turn into a way to entertain people. Or rather, people started to play with it to try to make it a more enjoyable experience, rather than just number-crunching. It seems we tried to take just regular software and skew its purpose away from practical functionality, toward ‘play’. We started to make it entertain us. This is quite bizarre really when you think about it… turning applications software into something that people find entertaining. It’s sort of like saying, my file manager tool is really fun to use… and taking it steps further until putting a smiley face on my file icon and making it bounce on top of the other files to make them delete is more fun. Then… let’s give my icon a a few more things to bounce against, maybe some obstacles. And then it turned into something much more complex, a strange device for testing people’s skill. And then entire worlds sprung from this.

So then I ask myself what is a game? … it is just a piece of software whose main focus is to … make people happy? And as I ponder this it makes me aware of what kind of role I would play, as the software developer, trying to make a piece of software that makes people happy. I would need to have a person in mind. And then I’d need to be thinking along the lines of, what can I make happen in order for personX to laugh? What can I show personX that they might find interesting or fun? Maybe I can put a crazy raccoon on the screen and make it jump up and down to make personX smile? Maybe I can have personX pretend they ARE the raccoon and have them control it, and then put a crazy black bear in the screen that the raccoon can jump on so that personX has this fun challenge of trying not to get their raccoon eaten by the bear while trying to jump on its head. Yeah… that’ll make personX happy.

Then this develops more and more into… let’s give personX some blocks and walls and ladders and stuff to jump on and climb up, that’ll give personX even more things to do in their play, more ways to have fun, more stuff to engage them. And maybe then we’ll paint an entire piece of landscape where personX can explore, and maybe add a little story to it, and add some fun animations, and all this together is going to make personX happy and entertained.

It’s kind of like… babysitting? The whole point of the game is to revolve around this person - my audience member - trying to make this piece of application software that happens to put strange pictures onto the screen and play weird sound effects so that they are … entertained, amused, engrossed, moved emotionally even? People pleased?

So then, if I am a game-maker, that basically should mean that I am in the business of … entertaining people, trying to get them to have a certain reaction. So a game is just a kind of entertainment device, trying to stroke someone’s ego, trying to make them feel something, etc… and then it starts to become a matter of … how long is the game entertaining for? does it suck? does it actually provide a lasting experience? will you want to keep playing it?

Then in an effort to overcome that and make the game more effective we get into all these business questions like how to keep the person’s focus, how to retain them, how to get them to play again, even how to make money off them while we do this, which is all kind of a reversal of the entire point of the game to begin with - to entertain the user and make them happy. Instead now we’re into the process of manipulating them into us GETTING more from them rather than us GIVING more to them. If we could give them a really really good experience we wouldn’t need to focus on getting at all, that would take care of itself, but as usual we get our ego’s involved, we start trying to maximize profits, it all becomes about what I can get out of it… and this is at odds with the entire basic foundation of what the game is for. I think this is why many people are at odds with the whole commercialization and profiteering, free-to-play etc, because all of those mindsets are about what can the developer get out of it rather, how to maximize what I can take from the user, instead of just being about how can I serve?

But this kind of isn’t the mindset that I’m usually in when working on a game…I’m thinking more about whether I like it, how the thing looks, what I think is interesting, whether it’s artistic, what I think might be fun for me to put into the environment etc, what looks good when it moves etc,… not usually totally focused on entertaining another person. Not having my audience member totally in mind ALL THE TIME and not focusing on what THEY want all the time just kind of makes it all about me, self-absorbed, a fan-boy, blinded by my own love for what’s happening and not seeing outside of my own perspective.

This said, there was one time that I did focus on the right thing… I made a little game for some cousins where photos of their heads were attached to the mouse pointer, and various enemies were bouncing around the screen and they had to try to pick up the good stuff and avoid touching the bad stuff… very very crude, but they actually found it fun - it was a game, and the reason I made it was because I thought I would be able to get them to smile and laugh… and it did work. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Serving others, making them happy?

I guess I’m just trying to get very clear about exactly what it is I’m doing and why I’m doing it, not just blindly making another game because everyone’s doing it or because its cool or democratized or because the tools are great or whatever. What’s the point, if not to be of selfless service to others, to make them happy? If it’s about me and what I want and I’m trying to entertain myself, then I’m not really thinking about the audience, and quite possibly my selfishness is going to show through in the final result when lots of people are disinterested. Should we be our own audience, or should we focus on a nobler purpose such as lifting people’s spirits?

Maybe if I’m mainly focused on what I like, what I want, what I enjoy, what makes me happy, in the hopes that maybe it also makes other people happy, maybe I am not in the business of making games but simply am a hobbyist? or if I’m not into trying to please other people, maybe I’m more into creating a form of art, where the creation itself is meant for other people to come to IT to appreciate it, rather than for it to reach out to other people?

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That might be a bit too philosophical to be constructive.

They did what they could with the tech available. There were board games and sports so why not attempt to make emulate those things virtually? You’re making a piece of entertainment, it’s purpose is to entertain while in use. Just do something that accomplishes that and you’re solid.

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This IS meant to be a philosophical discussion, it’s not really about why people started making games, it’s about why make games at all and why would I want to make them. I’m just trying to get my perspective clear on what the motivation is, what my role is, why I am doing this at all, where my priorities/focus needs to be, because right now I don’t have that clarity and all it produces is a sense of vagueness and confusion about what to do or why I should bother.

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I can’t tell you why you would want to make games. But I can share what motivates me.

On one level, it is the sheer art of it. Well written-code is beautiful and inherently satisfying to create. A well-crafted game, even more so. When I create something that looks good, feels good, and plays well, I find that very rewarding. If others appreciate it too, so much the better. I have all these ideas in my head, and getting them out and giving them form is the only (or at least, the best) way to relieve the creative pressure. I suspect this is the same basic motivation felt by any artist.

On another level, my current major project has a higher purpose, which is to spread the idea of orbital space colonies and educate people about how they work. This is a topic I have felt passionate about ever since I was a yoot. If I could be out there, actually contributing to the development of space colonies — even if it meant swinging a hammer or scrubbing the toilets — that’s where I’d be. But no such opportunities are available to me. So, this video game is a way for me to contribute to opening the frontier as well as I can, using the skills that I have.

Of course that’s much too specific to be much help to you. But maybe the general lesson is: find something you’re passionate about, and work that into your art (or vice versa). Yeah, we’re here to entertain people, but the world doesn’t really need more entertainment; it’s awash in that already. If you can find something the world does need, and entertain while contributing to that, then I think you’ve got a winner.

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In my opinion, first, I agree with JoeStrout’s point about being an art. That’s one of my motivators.

I’m making a game inspired by Minecraft, but with very special focus on the creative building aspect. I’m making this game for a few reasons:

  1. I’m making the game I really want to play, but that doesn’t exist currently and therefore I can’t play it.

That may be selfish, and maybe I should be trying to analyze people and figure out what people actually would want to play. However, the process is much more enjoyable if I can make a game I would love to play myself. Surely I’m not so different from everyone else to where there won’t be any significant group of people out there who will like a game for the same reasons I would.

  1. I actually think this sort of game goes well beyond simply being entertainment. I think it’s a tool to expand a person’s creative capacity - a tool to exercise the brain in a way that normally never occurs in a person’s life. Most people don’t get the chance to really be creative and build things in a sandbox environment. Games such as Minecraft and the one I’m making fill that role.

Those are my three main motivations, personally.

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@imaginaryhuman_1 - Such philosophy. Much early. Very life.

What is a game? I’ve researched that question for almost a decade. Raph Koster, Jesse Schell, and dozens of academics have provided definitions. And the one that resonated with me came from an average bloke, Ted Brown, who said:

If we use the word Mechanics in place of ‘way to achieve that goal’, then we can simplify this further. The definition becomes: Goals + Mechanics + Feedback. The thing people struggle with is that this definition includes lots of things that we might not classify describe as games. And, I’m okay with that.

Here’s what I loved most from your post.

It’s a good place to start,
Gigi

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So you’ve dipped your toe into what is the greatest debate to be a part of gaming (hell, any medium really): are games just entertainment or are they something more, something cathartic and healing, something empathetic. If you really want to get deep, ask what entertainment is. Is it just a way to keep someone from idling for a period of time, or is it some way/attempt to elicit fun? Then what is the reason for fun? Is it some meter that needs to be refilled to keep productivity high, or is it some unconscious attempt by people to patch themselves up, to keep themselves going, by filling an ever growing emptiness? Are humans fundamentally broken, and can they be fixed?

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Good questions :slight_smile: It also makes me think of comedians, why do thy try to make people laugh? It feels good to feel happy. It doesn’t feel good to feel unhappy. People inherently have a natural happiness which is there automatically, provided it is not suppressed. If the game suppresses it, they will not be happy. If the game liberates them from blocks they previously had and gives them some kind of relief or a lightening of their load or a release of stress or something like that, to where they can return to peace/happiness, maybe that’s the goal? That said, I think about playing one of my favorite shootemups and how it was an intense, action-packed, thrill-a-minute ride - it was fun, enjoyable, also somewhat stressful and probably kicked in a bunch of adrenaline and other chemistry. It was ‘addictive’ (chemically?). Are we supposed to make people into addicts, tempting them with a carrot that we dangle but never fully deliver (like endless runnders?).

Why do people WANT to play games at all?

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Good stuff and I think this is definitely something only you can answer. Different people will have different reasons. Obviously a lot of people around here are in it mainly for the money. It is obvious because that is where their focus is. Not asking questions such as what can I do to improve my game and instead asking questions about how to use ad networks, how to get more people to buy their game or download their game and so forth.

Others do it out of a passion for games or even development itself. Also just learning and experimenting with different things even if an actual game is never completed can also be very rewarding.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money by bringing a little entertainment to people’s lives. I know that probably seems strange coming from me. I am not against people making money from making games. I just think it is a shame that so many people seem to be into this stuff to make money first and foremost. When people say spending “all of that time and effort” to make little to nothing was just a waste of time that is a pretty clear indicator their driving force and satisfaction was based on making money. Whereas others would see it as a lot of fun and a learning experience valuable in itself.

There is also nothing wrong with simply enjoying working on pieces of games or building complete games just for the satisfaction you gain from doing so.

My own enjoyment from this stuff comes from the software engineering side first and the game design a close second. Originally I got into it because I thought it was cool how we could build little virtual worlds populated with whatever critters we imagined and establishing whatever laws we wanted. So it was and probably is the creative aspect that I value the most. Even if nobody else ever sees what I am working on and I do not make a penny from it I still enjoy it. However, I do get a lot of satisfaction from helping other people. This is one of the major reasons I just released the source to my latest game project on my website. I am sure someone out there will find it useful in some way and I find that rewarding on its own.

I guess the question is why did you start doing this stuff to begin with? Did you read about Angry Birds or Flappy Bird or whatever making a ton of money and suddenly became interested in game development? Or did you play games and wonder how they were made and think it would be cool to make one for yourself? Or some other reason?

If you know what started you into this stuff to begin with the odds are you will know what you really hope to get out of it.

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Happiness is having a goal and achieving it. Some positive feedback along the way definitely helps.

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When these discussions of art come up – whether it’s computer games or the Epic of Gilgamesh on clay tablets (<-- MS Excel for ancient Sumerians) – it’s interesting that people often state two somewhat conflicting ideas: “I create for myself” and “I create to connect with others”. People create art for others, to inspire others, to commiserate with others. The enjoyment I derive from “creating for myself” has the implicit assumption that someone else would appreciate it, understand it, understand something about me, even if in reality they’ll never actually see it.

Since everyone is a bundle of unique experiences, art’s always new. There’s always something new to say, even if it’s just “I enjoy a few minutes of mindless fun making a bird flap between pipes, and I think you will, too.” I know people who have charted their entire careers, or turned their lives around, or simply felt a little more like they belong to the world, based on some new way that a film or book or game said something to them. Heck, I’m sure I’ve been influenced in a million ways like this, too.

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One of the best things great comedians do is ridicule what gets taken seriously, and point out it’s bullshit. It’s detoxifying to be re-centered and have things that we get so worked up on be viewed from a perspective where it’s shallow. Comedians who talk about marriage are primo cases. The ancient metaphor is to shamans and witch doctors who were in effect intentionally operating on this level of psyche.

As for why people play games, if you follow the line of reasoning that fun is about patching people up, then the reason globally is that people seek to be transformed, whether consciously or not. If they don’t understand the need for this transformation and actively shape themselves, then what transformations do take place are haphazard and often lead to a shambled mess of a human being. If you broke down the types of transformations (or probably their origins), then you could end up with some kind of taxonomy of reasons for why people play.

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42

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Not convinced this summation is accurate. According to some hasty Wikipedia research, computer games have been around as long as there have been computers. Prior to that every age of history has had games that match up with the associated tech of the time. Going back even further we can identify game like behaviour in our ape realitives, and right down throughout the animal kingdom.

This implies that play in and of itself confers some benefit on an organism. It’s something we are hard wired to do, just like eating or sex. Because for some strange reason, playing games enhances out ability to survive.

So by making games we are not just providing distractions. We are helping to enhance our ability to survive and develop as a species.

Now enough philosophy, get back to work. The world isn’t exactly about to save itself.

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I guess people have an inherent ability to reinterpret reality in whatever way they want to, to be subjective, and they like to have subjective experiences… or at least, they keep choosing to do so. They want to go on adventures, imagine themselves as other identities, and have interesting experiences. I guess that’s why they play … they are looking for an answer to who they really are, by experimenting with who they are not, just because they can.

I guess it’s also kind of like… if you could do anything you like, be anyone you like, without any consequences, and you could just walk away from it without any punishment or retribution afterwards, completely unchanged, like you were just a actor in a grand play (metaphor for life here), then you’d just choose to entertain the suggestion of pretending that you are not immortal like this, in order to just experiment with it and play with it. Based on joy? creativity? the fun of innocence? So a game is really a metaphor for being an actor that plays a part temporarily, just because it’s enjoyable to do so… not because the acting is a joy, but because you already are joyful and wish to express it.

So if people are interested in deliberately pretending to be something they’re not (like wearing a costume), what is my role in that? To provide them with a movie, costumes, a theater stage, an environment in which they can pretend to be something? To spin dreams and invent worlds?

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Yes. And to hide the machine behind it.

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Maybe, we also like solving puzzles - our brain rewards us for learning, applying, and mastering patterns. It makes us happy. Happiness is its own meaning. Even mother nature agrees on that point.

Gigi

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You should be careful pulling at that particular thread. The vast majority of what we do is ultimately pointless, not just games. Questioning the “purpose” of games will just lead you down a rabbit hole you may not be prepared for.

As to motivations, they are as varied as the people who play games. Everyone has their own reasons for enjoying games, and everyone gets something different out of the experience. In order to drill down, you have to take this on a case-by-case basis. You can attempt to boil it down to common, recurring elements. But in doing so you will lose the more personal significance. I’ve never felt comfortable attempting to reduce these things to trends, it excises the human element. It feels too much like marketing, which is by its nature dehumanizing.

This is why some of the best games aren’t necessarily made for other people. More often than not, they are made simply because their creators knew that their creation was something that they liked. The fact that a lot of other people liked it too was just a happy coincidence.

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And then there were the Aztecs… they didn’t quite catch on to that philosophy.

Ah, but what kind of work can someone do without understanding philosophy? The self-interested works of others? The self-interested works of yourself? A work to better the world?

Simply put: fantasy. To leave their baggage behind and assume another’s life.

But why is happiness desirable? Because our brains tell us it is? Our brains tell us sweets are desirable, but much of maturity is seeing past (let’s all cringe in unison) this illusion to understand that it’s actually shallow sustenance. So is happiness a necessary nutrient for life, or is it the sugar of the soul?

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Neurotransmitters. That is a serious answer.

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