A Matter of Choice

A few months ago, I finished up the single player campaign for the highly touted Halo 3. Under normal circumstances, I'd toss out a SPOILER WARNING, but if you havent beaten Halo by now, chances are you have no interest in doing so. Halo 3 ends with a funeral cut-scene, honoring the virtual soldiers who died in a virtual war, complete with a 21 gun salute. The funeral represents the end of a story that took 3 games to tell, and I suppose, by video game standards, you'd consider it dramatic.

But the scene is not what you'd call sad. In fact, its not really emotional in any way shape or form. Its not because the scene itself is poorly done, or because the voice acting is bad. There is just an emotional hollowness to it. One that left me wondering "why".

Inspired by this experience, I started trying to wrap my head around the idea of video games in an emotional context. A good television show can make you laugh. A good book can make you cry. But despite my undying love of them, video games are not a medium that has been particularly effective at creating emotional responses (fear and disgust not withstanding). This is surprising in my opinion, as the interactivity that makes games what they are seems like it would serve as the perfect adhesive between an individual and emotional experiences (or perhaps attachments?). Play the closing cemetery scene in Saving Private Ryan and I'm running for the Kleenex. Play the closing funeral in the Halo trilogy and I'm thinking about what to have for dinner. Whether the story is based on fact or fiction is irrelevant, at least in my opinion - the emotional impact comes from how its told. From the acting. From the film's ability to touch us. Video games have stories, and actors, and even directors. But I don't think, in the recorded history of man kind has a video game made anyone cry. Well... thats not entirely true. I did cry when I five starred Free Bird in Guitar Hero. It was beautiful. ;-) But you see what I'm saying - despite the interactivity, the "human connection" between people and movies is far stronger than the one between people and games.

There are three fairly obvious reasons for this disconnect. The first is that media like film or books have had a lot longer to hone their craft than video games have. The second is that making an emotional impact on the audience is not really the goal of a video game. Games are games because they are interactive, and thus will nearly always live and die by gameplay. The story, the game writing, the highly scripted cut-scenes - they all exist to create context for that gameplay. They are secondary priorities. Chief Johnson's facial expression and dying words in Halo are inconsequential if the game isnt fun enough for you to want to play that far. You won't play a terrible game, much less spend $60 on it just to watch the cut-scenes if the game itself isnt compelling. And by the same token the cut scenes can afford to be terrible if they game is good enough to make up for them. Movies on the other hand are games without gameplay. They are 2 hour long cut-scenes. Things that are second tier for video games - character development, voice acting quality, writing, plot, framing a scene - they are all movies have to work with. The result is that movies and books and television have refined the art of story telling in a way games have not yet done. And though the cinematic element of games is developing, in general, in ways that games have not yet had to do.

The third is that by their very nature, the artificiality of game's create a barrier to emotional attachment. The characters in a game, including whatever character you control, are not real. Even in the best games, that is always apparent. The movie Castaway isnt real either. But it is significant because Tom Hanks is real. Because his ability to act, to create a connection with his audience makes his story "real enough" to empathize with. He is a real human depicting human things and he does it very well. He is not a representation of a human doing human things. Imagine if Green Mile had been done with Pixar characters and you'll understand what I'm getting at. So when games do try to play off your humanity and your emotions, they are doing so at a disadvantage.

So what? Other than one Stub's puzzling interest in having video games challenge his emotional state, what purpose would a game that makes you feel something serve? The answer to that is relevance.

Back in October, Dr. Ian Bogost (Georgia Tech) speaking at the SIEGE conference, attempted to answer the question of what would be required in order for video games to be relevant in a cultural sense. His answer, in a highly oversimplified form, was that the importance of games could only be determined with the help of historical perspective, and would be predicated on their ability to accurately capture some aspect of the human condition.

For the longest time, Bogost's speech frustrated me, because as someone who spends much of his time contemplating the value of video games in our society, I had been hoping for something slightly less... philosophical. In a word, I had been hoping for ammunition - wisdom from a well known academic and game scholar to help me better spread the goodness of gaming to the masses. But though it was disappointing at the time, the speech stayed with me, and kick started this entire process into gear. More importantly though, mulling over my frustration eventually led me to realize that I had totally missed the point. Bogost was right. The ability for games to capture emotion, to capture some part of our humanity will eventually determine their cultural relevance because that is how media works. Historically famous works of art, literature, cinema, or television are not famous because they are just straight up awesome. They are famous because they meant something. Because they inspired something. Because their contribution to or effect on humanity is worth mentioning when the history of our species is recounted. Its a much "bigger picture" look at things than what is popular, or cool, or educational in the here and now. But its the only picture that will be remembered long after we're dead and gone.

Without some sort of deeper connection to their audience, video games will, at best, be remembered as an entertainment, educational, or cultural fad and little more. And as a video game addict who pretends to be an intellectual, such a fate is unacceptable to me.

But if you'll assume that video games do hope to stand up to the test of time - that they do hope to make be a part of the human story then how will it be accomplished? How do games become more than a pastime or a teaching tool, and evolve into their own chapter in the as yet unwritten chapter of the human history.

Choice.

Should they cease to exist tomorrow, theater, film, television, music, literature and art have all proven their value in the human story. They all have shown their ability to capture something - some part of our tale. And yet all of them are frozen - mediums in which "choice" is an irrelevant notion. When you go see a movie, you don't choose what the main characters look like. You can't choose how they respond to situations. Those choices are made for you, by the film's actors, directors, screenwriters, and producers. When you read a book, you are offered slightly more choice, in so much as your imagination can build the story out visually in your mind. But in the end, you are still at the discretion of the writer as to the story of the book, and whatever facts your you are given to build your imaginary world. Its a passive experience - writers, actors, artists, musicians, and directors bank on their ability to capture some "thing" in a way that it will mean something to you (or in some cases, in a way that means something to them). In more complex media, the notion of interpretation or perception can be discussed, but in the end the medium itself it no different.

Unlike any other form of media, video games do offer the potential for choice, and with it an experience where a story is told through the decisions of the audience. An active experience that is yours, not a passive story being presented to you by someone else. A chance for who you are to play into what you are doing, not by way of interpretation, but by way of a change in the medium itself. Or perhaps more significantly, a chance to explore something about who you are not.

Last week I picked up the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect, a space drama RPG that is essentially built around the concept of choice. The game itself is very story driven, and while controlling the main character, you essentially dictate that story, or at least parts of it. You choose what your own "Commander Shepard" looks like. You give him or her a past. You respond to other characters and situations in the way you choose, and the story is built out accordingly. Negotiate with the kidnapper for a peaceful solution, or gun down his entire unit. Respond to your superiors with polite, well mannered answers or snide, sarcastic quips. Risk the lives of a few or risk the lives of a galaxy. The best part of the game is that you decide it all, and your choices can have a significant impact on the story.

The game itself is also built to be far more "human", in so much as its not about polar truths - right or wrong, good or bad, righteous or evil. It is a game about the gray areas. A game about imperfections. A game about choices and their consequences, and the fact that there isnt always a perfect answer.

The effect is one unlike any I have ever experienced before in a video game; part movie, part video game, part choose your own adventure book. Hesitation, self doubt, remorse, guilt, frustration - they are all a part of Mass Effect. Not because the game builds them in. But rather because your choices demand it. You don't feel bad because character X dies. You feel bad because you chose to send character X to that death and you wonder if you needed to. Or maybe you don't feel bad at all. Maybe you are confident that you made the decision that needed to be made. But when you play the game, you do feel something because you are directly responsible for whatever it is that happens. Its absolutely fascinating, though I'm sure all you non gamers out there are wondering how much medication I should be taking =) Regardless, the fact remains that Mass Effect is a game filled with humanity, and that makes for a compelling and emotionally charged experience. The talents of Tom Hanks or Stephen King are not required to convey meaning to you - because the meaning comes THROUGH you, comes because of you. The barrier of artificially is torn down because its not an artificial character anymore. Its you.

Now obviously Mass Effect is not the game that has revolutionized everything. I consider it to be a tremendous title and a tremendous opportunity to expand the genre into one with far more depth than it currently posses. But it is still a program that must live within its own limitations. Every option must be programmed, every branching decision must be accounted for by someone, so I should be clear that Mass Effect is not some sort of utopian, organic experience. There are finite limits to the things you can do and say, and to suggest that they scratch the surface of the possibilities of the human response would be tom foolery. The greatest strength of Mass Effect is not that it accounts for everything the human mind could conceive, but rather allows for you to create a meaningful story with human decisions, even if those decisions are finite. It demands you to ask yourself "what would I do", in a way that no other form of media can.

Despite my attempt to explain, I have no illusions about the fact that for most of you, this post will make little to no sense. To be honest, I'm not even sure it makes sense to me yet. Why is any of this meaningful and why in the name of all things good have I wasted so much time thinking about it? =)

Maybe I've had some sort of existentialist brain washing. Maybe I have emotional repression issues. Maybe I'm just tired of watching challenging movies and then playing "hollow" games. But maybe, just maybe, its something more.

Video games are touted for their interactivity - for their exploratory nature. So when you look to the future of gaming, or when someone else 100 years from now looks back, maybe its not about better graphics and better sound and cooler levels and infinitely more cowbell. Maybe its about using an exploratory medium to explore ourselves. About questioning or exploring the nature of our own humanity, our own morals, in a made world where nothing is real and nothing matters beyond the boundaries of your television set. The choices we make in life are part of what makes us who we are. And even if recreated in a scripted way, if video games can allow us to explore those choices, then they offer us an opportunity to answer questions about who we really are. My mind is teaming with sociological studies waiting to happen....

Or maybe all of this is nothing more than the most unbelievably ridiculous thing you've ever read. Maybe you don't want your games to make you question anything. Maybe their mindlessness, their ability to make you question nothing rather than question everything is what gives them their appeal. But maybe not...

The best part is, you get to choose.

Image from filefront.com

P.S. I should also mention that Mass Effect is not the first RPG by the game studio Bioware - they are also responsible for the two Knights of the Old Republic Games and Jade Empire among others if this sort of stuff interests you.