Playing Through
Part Two: What It Means To Play
Sept. 28, 2008
By stealth_toilet

Perhaps the pressure of being the internet’s foremost videogame blogger finally got to me. Or maybe it was a particularly strong brew of coffee that morning which beleaguered my senses. Indeed, it is also possible that the physical weight of my own hubris, combined with richly caffeinated concoctions, led my mind to connect dots that ought never be connected. Whatever the circumstances surrounding this epiphany, sitting in that dimly lit room oblivious to the demands and temptations of the real world, seeing Niko Bellic survey the picturesque skyline of Liberty City tore my virtual world asunder. I ceased to play Grand Theft Auto IV: The Game, and realized that instead I was playing Grand Theft Auto IV: The Toy. ‘Dear God,” I whispered, and the words dropped heavily into the fetid air, “I might as well be playing Boomblox!” The light faded, I tasted panic, and for a time, I drifted into darkness.

Part One of Playing Through may have seemed disjointed, unkempt, and indeed, entirely without purpose. I can only congratulate those stouthearted patrons who managed to wade through that vile swamp and emerge neither bitter nor accusatory to he (me) who it was that first suggested you embark on that specific path. In my defense I can only say it was necessary in establishing the difference in how pseudo-professional industry aficionados play games, and how gamers play games. The purpose of Part Two is to state, in no uncertain terms, why it will be increasingly important to understand this difference as gamers are being told that the games they know and love are now being driven into increasingly uncharted territory. Territory so uncharted it is erroneous to even use the word uncharted to describe it, and only variations of negative prefixes can explain just how intangible games of the future will be. Also monsters live there, monsters that hate traditional gaming experiences with depth and subtlety, and will only play games that are simple and derisive. Ok, perhaps “uncertain terms” was a poor choice of phrasing on my part. The point I want to make in Part Two is that making a distinction between games and toys is a damaging one, and that gamers need not fear the rhetoric or cynicism of the industry on this point, because the media just doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Most of the current discussion arose out of the now infamous Nintendo E3 showing, where Wii Music was internationally elected as the scapegoat for Nintendo’s cumulative failings. Wii music is a game centered around music, that unfortunately debuted in the wake of two well established, beloved, and unprecedentedly successful music games: Guitar Hero IV and Rock Band 2. The key difference between Wii Music and these two juggernauts of rhythm based gameplay is that Wii Music doesn’t really have any gameplay. There are no specific goals or challenges associated with the game. Its sole initiative is to provide people with something to play with, like a toy, as Shigeru Miyamoto phrased it. The fact that Wii Music looks ridiculous to anyone over the age of 6 has resulted in this use of the word “toy” to have all sorts of negative connotations, implying that games which can be categorized as toys have all of a sudden become plunked in the domain of children.

This is simply not the case, and the roots of the industry will attest to that. Before there were video game industry analysts who prophesized the fickle tendencies of the gaming public, and before there were print and web based institutions voicing so called professional opinions on games, even before the comparison of artistic video games and the Sistine Chapel were made, there was no problem dumping video games into the electronic toy bin at Wal-mart. Going to “Toys ‘R’ Us” to pick up a new game did not damage someone’s honor or integrity. Before the sophisticated and cultured distribution venues we enjoy today (sarcasm), no one took any offence when a video game was referred to as a toy. No one cared what it was called, because what the game actually was was enough of a reason to want it. And such is still the case today. I am surprised, after having played it for a good many hours, that Boomblox did not receive a reception like Wii Music. In fact, Boomblox was hailed as a landmark Wii title, even though it was nothing more than a virtual Jenga/Duplo simulator. Build stuff with blocks, and then knock it down by throwing other stuff at it, is the point and purpose of Boomblox, and incidentally describes one fifth of my childhood These are the sorts of simple precepts that found their way into many classic and arcade games. What Wii Music is proposing to do is no different than what old school games did quite openly, and even contemporary games such as Boomblox are still doing. Yet Boomblox has managed to fly through any such “criticism” of being called a toy, while Wii Music seems to be the proverbial last straw which affirms the fear that more of these types of games will be coming out. An odd fear to have, seeing as how these games have never ceased to release.

So why in a different time and a different era were these games acceptable, and now not? The difference of the modern day video game industry is that all these analysts, outlets, and artisans, have entered the scene and have become heavily invested in everyone else taking the medium seriously (for reals). It would be a great blow to their financial standing, not to mention their egos, if it all of a sudden revolved around mere toys. Video games are still something people primarily play, but the people who make, review, and analyze them have tried to elevate video games into some other sphere of categorization. In short, they are trying to justify their own involvement with video games, and to this end they ensure video games are not spoken of as fun factories, but as an untapped medium, a potentially limitless expressive art form, and a dollar-grabbing powerhouse. I believe video games can be and often are all of these things, but I retain the knowledge that a successful video game doesn’t have to be any of these things, and I don’t recoil at the notion that a video game is something that can be played, like a toy.

People are misinterpreting, and in the process undermining, the medium of video games by insinuating all games have to be a certain way and need to be played a certain way. Games like Wii Music and Boomblox may appear to have more in common with board games and toys, such as Jenga and pre-programmed plastic instruments, than they do with games like GTA IV and Rockband, but what remains constant throughout is the ability for these games to entertain, teach, and engage the player. The philosophy behind all of these requires the player to flex their imagination, look at things in an unconventional way, take on the role of someone or something else, and reap enjoyment from that process. There is no shame in video games being likened to a toy. What is important to understand is that some toys are more sophisticated than others, and while these more complex toys may provide us with delights, thoughts, and feelings simpler ones don’t, the simple ones still operate under the same principles.

I don’t want to put Wii Music up on a pedestal and try to convince everyone that it is so good at what it does it should be used as a form of currency. At the same time I don’t think it is a detriment to the medium, a black mark on the face of video games. However, it seems that every once in awhile when a game like this comes out it really makes one think about just what a video game is. Does some universal definition exist as to what a game should be, or is there no need for one because the physical, fiscal, or social constraints on video games have become synonymous with the medium? More to the point, is there any merit in trying to define what a video game should be, and is the undefinability of the term what makes it such a powerful medium?

Sometimes qualifying the experience one has with a game, coupled with the expectations one had for it, misses the point of playing it entirely. With so many people talking about how they played the game and what they think of it, one’s own opinion of the game inevitably becomes marred as it is filtered through the combined experiences of others. Ultimately, the medium of video games has become mature enough to incorporate multiple play styles and unique approaches to playing a game, even if it is not the intended way of playing it. In the same way an author may intend their words to have a specific meaning, they don’t own the words which they used to convey it, and some readers may interpret it in an entirely different way. The reader’s interpretation is just as valid as the author’s, and the discussion that arises from varying perspectives is not one of who is right or who is wrong, but of what could be and what that means to the entirety of the work. Such now is the case with video games, and the sooner we stop assigning numbers to games and trying to tell people how they should be played, we begin to really play games correctly ourselves.