Author Archives: David Mullich
Defining Play, Game, and Gaming
One of the recruiters in The Los Angeles Film School’s Admissions Department recently asked our Game Production faculty to define three terms: play, game, and gaming. My assumption was that it was to help when describing our program to potential students, but regardless of the reason, I was happy to comply. One of the other instructors came up with some very philosophical definitions, but after a couple of paragraphs, came to the conclusion that “game” couldn’t be defined. But what’s the purpose of words for communication if they have no commonly understood meaning? So, I decided to give this one some thought.
I had just spent an entire day in my introductory game production course describing the psychology of play, and I actually provide a number of definitions for each of these terms. One of the definitions of play I use is “the freedom of movement within a more rigid structure.” That’s a definition I found in my textbook, Game Design Workshop, and I use it when just describing the elements of a game, where “freedom of movement” translates to “player actions” and “rigid structure” translates to “rules, goals, conflict, resources, boundaries, etc.” That works for the lecture, but it isn’t a very practical definition. After all, commuting to work is also freedom of moment (driving) within a more rigid structure (streets and highways).
The definition for “play” I ultimately decided upon was “to engage in an activity for pleasure and recreation.” To me, play is not about what you are doing, but why you are doing it. You can play baseball for fun, but if you’re a professional athlete, it’s work. Household chores can be tedious, but if you approach it with a playful attitude, it can be more fun. Besides, the definition was simple and straightforward.
“Game” is a little bit trickier. It needs to cover board games, card games, tile games, party games, pen and paper games, sports, electronic games, and video games (which in turn includes console games, computer games, mobile games, and browser-based games).
I provide a lot of definitions of “games” in my class. Sid Meier describes games as “a series of interesting choices.” Well, so is a multiple-choice test. Jesse Schell has an alternate description: ““A game is a problem-solving activity, approached with a playful attitude.” My problem with that definition is that the problem-solving in some games, such as Rock-Paper-Scissors or Candyland, is so trivial as to be virtually non-existent. Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen defines “game” as “a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.” Yeah, that will attract potential students!
In my game design class, I describe games as having the following elements: players, goals, procedures, rules, conflict, resources, boundaries, and outcomes. However, in very simple games, resources can be non-existent, and the conflict can be trivial. I eventually decided that the essence of games was this: “a playful activity with rules and goals.” Short and sweet.
Gaming! The final definition I had to come up with. Well, strictly speaking, “gaming” means “to play games of chance for money.” Our campus is in Hollywood, not Las Vegas, so I came up with an modified definition, specific to our program” “to play video games.”
I was happy with my working definition of “play”, “game”, and “gaming.” But if you have others, I’d love to see them in the comments below.
Creativity Within Constraints
Many people thinking about entering the video game industry do so under the impression that they will get have creative freedom to do whatever type of game they want. Unfortunately, the reality is that they will be working on whatever they are assigned, just like any other job. If they are programmers, they will be coding the game mechanics and game rules determined by the game’s designers. If they are artists, they will be creating the pieces specified by the game design under style guidelines enforced by the art director. And if they are game designers, they might not even be designing for their own game idea, but for a concept thought up by their boss or their publisher.
And so many wannabe game developers dream of starting their own companies, of being indie game developers, rather than working as an employee of an established game studio or publisher. Yet, even then there are constraints. If you are self-funded, you are constrained by the budget you have available for developing your game (this is, of course, true, for any game project, but indie game developers work under much tighter budgets than do developers working on AAA games for major publishers). If you do manage to get investors who can contribute a substantial budget, they will undoubtedly also demand some say-so on your project so that they can ensure that their investment is being spent wisely. Even if you raise money through crowdfunding, your supporters will put pressure on you to stick to the vision that you outlined in your initial proposal.
Then there are the technical constraints. Every platform — console, pc, mobile, browser — has constraints in terms of screen resolution, processing speed, internal memory, external storage memory, download speed, input device capabilities, and so on. There may be additional constraints imposed by the features of your game engine or the capabilities of your fellow development team members.
Your team members may also put up additional constraints in terms of their own ideas about the direction and details of a project; after all, game development is a team sport. And if you are working on a console project, you can bet that the console manufacturer will have a long list of changes they will want you to make on your game before they will license it for their system.
Finally, there’s the player, the one you ultimately have to please. No matter how much you love your game idea, if the customers don’t like it, they aren’t going to buy it. So, to prevent yourself from finding that out after spending many months and millions of dollars on your project, you should be constantly holding playtest sessions with target players, listening very carefully to their reactions to your game, and make the necessary changes needed to please them.
There are a lot of constraints developers work under in game development, but that does not mean that there is no room for creativity. In fact, quite the opposite. What restrictions do is take away some of the choices available to us, and with them, the paralysis of choice that may stop you from starting to do actual work. If instead you are given a blank, white page from which to work and you allowed to do whatever you want, it s almost too much freedom.
Many creative people are actually inspired by their constraints. Constraints often force you to think outside the the box and come up with innovative ideas that you might not have otherwise. You should think about your constraints not as obstacles to your ability to innovate, but instead as a puzzle that holds the opportunity for creativity and great work.
On the other hand, if you cannot be bothered to strive for creativity in spite of whatever limitations are placed on you, or to revise your initial idea when you run into a roadblock, you better get used to saying the phrase, “Would you like fries with that?”
David Mullich 