Games and Value

RinkuHero — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:00:23 -0700

I want to write about the topic of a conversation I had with TeeGee, another indie developer friend.

The question was whether people have the right (through games, for instance) of trying to take people outside of their comfort zones -- to get them to think harder about things, to get them more aware of the world, to do things unexpected, to do things that they might not enjoy at first but might find memorable or valuable later, and so on, or whether games should focus just on giving people want they want: entertainment, fun, relaxation, since that itself can be valuable to people.

One of his points was that we can't be sure that games which provoke thought will always have good effects; conceivably they could have negative as well as positive effects. For instance, some art has been known to provoke people into suicide. My response to that was that it's better to focus on doing good than avoiding bad, and that I'd rather take the chance and try to do good, even if it means some bad might happen as well, and that it's superior to avoiding doing anything significant, and that most people are happy and content as they are and don't need to be changed.

His main point though was that we don't have the right to change others or to get them to think differently. I didn't think it was a matter of right, it was more a matter of duty: I believe we've a duty to do good, like if we see someone dying on the street we've a duty to help them. Similarly, if we see someone asleep so to speak it'd be cruel to leave them in that state when we could enrich their life, and that they'd appreciate it much more later on, more than if we had just given them what they wanted with no surprises, something that amused them for a time but didn't impact their lives significantly one way or the other besides bringing temporary pleasure.

Another point of his is that it's annoying when someone tries to get others to think the way they do. I agreed, but said that the goal wasn't to change people's thoughts in that way, but to just provoke thought, not to get them aware of any particular things or get them on any side, but just to increase their awareness as a whole.

My point was that it is crucial to improve people's awareness, because most of the problems in the world come from a lack of reflection or forethought, and that anything that can make people live less on automatic pilot, like sleepwalkers, and more on manual pilot, more appreciative of the beauty of reality, is a good thing and good for the world, even if doing it causes temporary discomfort and and even some terribly bad effects here and there. That's my main motivation for making games.

I'm not trying to totally dismiss his point. To be fair, it's an understandable position that we shouldn't have the right to change the way other people think, that a game has no right to give anyone anything that they don't expect or desire, and that we should just meet their expectancies and desires rather than experimenting on them, and that to make entertaining games is just a service we were providing for people on demand, and to go beyond that is to violate that relationship. So in a sense I agree that it's rude to do otherwise, and it's reasonable to dislike someone who tries that on you. But I think it's important to do anyway.

I think it's important because the world is already oversaturated with anaesthetic media: mainstream movies which always have happy endings, music which doesn't break any conventions or harmonies, in general media which doesn't require much thought to interpret, because it's designed to fit into someone's worldview without stretching it very much. I view such media as forms of thought control, and I think that such things perform a disservice toward mankind, because we are not fundamentally thoughtless beings driven by automatic impulses, we have consciousness and curiosity about the world, and culture should foster that essentially human element rather than suppress it, and that to create games which just give people entertainment without giving them anything of greater value than that is a form of suppression of those important human qualities, and just adding to all the other information that has the same goal. And that, especially with indie games, we have the freedom to create works which make people more wise and more human rather than less, and it'd be a pity if indie games just became budget or "lite" versions of mainstream games instead.

TeeGee's response to reading this entry:

"My point wasn't that games shouldn't change the way people think. I think they should, but I also think the people should be the ones to make the choice if they want entertainment or enlightment.
The discussion was spawned by speculations if a casual game should feature death and other heavy topics that might be unpleasent but ultimately thought-provoking. I claim that people should be able to just have fun if they want to.

"One of the analogies I used, was that if in the Indiana Jones movie Indy would suddenly die during a chase, people would feel cheated, unhappy and guilty about enjoying the chase scene. And all they wanted was to spend a nice evening.

"Though, I also believe people should be able to pick Bergman's Seventh Seal over Indiana Jones. Thought provoking art should definitely be there, but I feel no one has the right to impose it on people who just want to have fun. Enjoyment, in my opinion, is equally important and a value in itself.

"So yeah, please, do bring more Psychosomniums and Graveyards. Just don't make my Kratos or Bejewelled diamonds suddenly preach me about the meaning of life."

aesthetics

Games and Value