This post is part of a series: “unfinished posts I wrote a year ago that are collecting dust on my hard drive.” Most of them are about videogames and/or storytelling from an artistic perspective. I’ve been waiting for certain points where I’d be inspired enough to dig them up, and a recent article by Ian Bogost about Heavy Rain and how it relates to cinema inspired me to dig this one up. You should check out his article. Also, I realized something new while writing this, so I’m happy to have made some progress.

In my dusty post, I was writing about storytelling, and I tried to think of artistic mediums. I realized that in the context of making art or telling a story, it would be very helpful to define them by what made them distinct. I’m probably not doing any of this incomplete list the justice it deserves, but hopefully this will make the point.

• Oral tradition – dynamic, three-dimensional, using language spoken orally
• Music – dynamic, three-dimensional, using the sound generated from the structured series of contacts of objects
• Live-action role-playing – dynamic, three-dimensional, using live actors playing roles in a defined space
• Token-based role-playing – dynamic, three-dimensional, using tokens playing roles in a defined space
• Light painting – static, two-dimensional, using a single image represented by the placement of light on a surface
  
• Painting – static, two-dimensional, using a single image represented by the placement of colored pigments on a surface
• Literature – static, two-dimensional, using written or printed language arranged on sheets of a semi-permanent surface
• Photography – static, two-dimensional, using a single image of a real-life scene captured by a camera obscura and transferred to light-sensitive paper
• Film – dynamic, two-dimensional, using a sequence of images and audio of a real-life scene captured by a camera obscura, cut into a linear series of arranged segments, and presented on a screen
• Animation – dynamic, two-dimensional, using a sequence of images represented by the placement of colored pigments on surfaces, cut into a linear series of arranged segments, and presented on a screen
• Software art?? – dynamic, two-dimensional, using a sequence of images and audio stored on a computer, programmed into an interactive system, presented on a screen

As you can see, artistic mediums are technological in nature in the sense that the technology being used (or not used) makes one medium distinct from another. For each of these, you will want to artistically use one of those properties in order to create an artistic experience through that medium. With literature, you’ll want to use language, arrange the language, or use the surface in some artistic way. With film, you’ll want the scene, the capturing of the scene, the arrangement of the segments, or the presenting of the images on a screen to be artistic.

None of these mediums have any mention of storytelling or games because both of these things are completely abstract structures for meaning. They don’t rely on technology at all; they’re basically systems created by thought. Therefore, in order to be expressed in a way that can be artistic, a story or a game must be presented through a medium. Storytelling presented through live-action role-playing gives you theatre. Storytelling presented through light painting gives you shadow puppeteering. Games presented through token-based role-playing gives you board games. Storytelling presented through painting gives you graphic novels.

That means videogames are games that are presented through the last medium. And what makes them distinct is that medium. It’s based on an interactive system that is virtual (computer-based) and fictional (artistic, not functional). EA probably put it most concisely in the manifesto promoting their indie game collective, calling it “software art.”

To bring it back around to Ian’s article, he was suggesting that in the same way film has editing at its core, videogames might have extension or prolonging at its core, which is basically the opposite of film. And after looking at what makes videogames unique, I can see how that could be true in part. Because videogames have at their core a computer, and computers are good at simulating, so they could be more about continuity than the breaking up of continuity.

However, I think a better way to put it might be that the use of editing is at the core of film, as opposed to the use of fast editing. In the same way, the use of simulations would be at the core of videogames, as opposed to the use of continuous simulations.

That means good artists in film would use editing (among other things) to provide meaning, whether it was fast or slow.  In videogames, good artists would use simulation (among other things) to provide meaning.  In the case of Heavy Rain, that simulation was used for everyday actions, which gave the experience a distinct feel.

I found this comment to be particularly poignant:

For a society that seems to love tolerance, we sure seem to hate Christians a lot.

The Left Behind games obviously aren’t helping things.  I’ve never played one, but based on my research, they seem to be poorly crafted and a little mixed-up theologically.  This, of course, is based on the theology of the Left Behind books themselves, the first of which is dissected in incredible – though often over-the-top – detail at the Slacktivist blog.

If I were to unfairly distill Fred Clark’s analyses of the books down to a statement, it would be that the Left Behind series represents an anti-Anti-Christ perspective of the world which is not always pro-Christ.

I was having a recent conversation at my bible study lately involving the fire-and-brimstone preaching that you would hear on the street corner (or at the Des Moines Farmer’s Market).  To be clear, we didn’t agree with that behavior and concluded that neither would Deitrick Bonhoeffer, author of Life Together, which we’re currently studying.  I often wonder if this is what the Jewish authorities of Jesus’s day were like.  You know, the ones he had the most trouble with.  The ones that conspired to have him executed.  Not that what’s being preached on the corner is never true.  I think it can be, but so can swinging at a stranger’s head with a baseball bat in order to smash a fly that had landed there be technically “true.”

Nevertheless, I’m encouraged to see Walmart’s willingness to be open to more Christian games.

I still long for the day when I can play a game that is actually meaningful and says something about my faith.  Something real that actually represents the message of Jesus; “the last will be first,” “whatever you do to the least of these,” “love you neighbor as yourself,” and so on.  I guess that makes me just another game developer that is trying to make the kind of games I want to play.

For the past year, I’ve been working on my own interactive projects that don’t involve game mechanics, so it was very relieving to find out there are others out there wanting to do things that are like games, but not quite games. And when ToT invited developers to join them, I saw an opportunity to be part of a like-minded community.

If the essence of what I loved about The Dig wasn’t the puzzles, why have them? Why not have only the essence of what I loved?

I’m not 100% convinced that videogames proper are holding back the full potential for expression, but I have the same gut feeling as Tale of Tales that in many cases they are.

I suppose this comes from evidence that some of my favorite “games” lately have been things that actually have very minimal game elements to them. It took some dissection of Small Worlds, Today I Die, The Majesty of Colors, and others on the notgames forum in order to come to an official conclusion on that. But if I follow the trend forward, it could be possible that by having no elements at all, the experience would be even more expressive as a creator and enjoyable as a player.

An even larger amount of evidence comes when I stop to consider the unique elements of art forms (or media if you prefer), and how videogames don’t really offer anything truly unique.  This point is part of a very long-winded essay I have yet to publish, but the short story is that the “games” part of videogames isn’t unique to videogames, and the “video” part of videogames isn’t unique to videogames.

The “video” part I’m referring to – what I like to call a virtual, fictional interactive system – is what I love most about videogames. Basically it would be fictional media that fully utilizes the computer, including its input, computation, and output. Games would be a fine addition, but from my experience playing and creating them, they often create various forms of dissonance, especially when it comes to the more artistic/story-driven ones. A game system integrated with an artistic interactive experience usually feels duct-taped on top to me.

For example, the fact that I never finished The Dig because the puzzles were hard and I got tired of them really frustrates me. The puzzles are not why I loved The Dig, although they were interesting in their own right for a little while.  To me, it begs this question: If the essence of what I loved about The Dig wasn’t the puzzles, why have them? Why not have only the essence of what I loved?

Thus, my conclusion is that it’s well worth my time to answer this fundamental question of my experience with games by doing. I will create The Dig minus its puzzles, or more specific to the game I have in mind: “Myst minus the puzzles.”

EDIT: This sounds a little misleading. I sort of got “microwaved” with a vision – a specific story idea – almost a year ago at a game jam. Since then, I’ve come up with a game idea for it, and after explaining the idea to Ted Martens, he told me what I was describing was basically Myst but without the puzzles. I realized the connection to my frustrations with The Dig after the fact.

As a final note, one of my goals as a developer is to make games (and notgames) for a variety of people, including those that are intimidated by or apathetic about games. I found this information graphic to be great motivation toward my goal, pulled from the notgames manifesto:

Make love, notgames.

Greg just wrote about Why do we do what we do? and eloquently summed up the hard-to-define reason for why we at Intuition create art:

These are all things that fester inside me and I desperately want to expel them.  Not that they’re demons of any shape, but it’s this compulsion to create that drives me.

I really like how he put this because it can be difficult to put into words.  He makes it look easy.  The only other thing I can compare this to is something from Judeo-Christian culture – the psalm.  This compulsion is why I created MEHC.  It’s not the kind of game I like to play, but I just needed to make it somehow.

Alec Holowka was kind enough to respond to Greg’s post and suggested we check out his recent post Why Art?.  I was inspired enough by both of them that my comment to both of their posts turned into this.  Check them out if you haven’t yet.

In Response To “Why Art?”

I’m very comforted and honored to be amongst such final gentlemen who can present a rational argument.  Alec makes a good point that anger about discussing art often comes from fear or misunderstanding.  I especially like the video he posted – that says as much about his point as the words that follow it.  We’re just a part of the continuum, communicating something about humanity to each other through time.  And because we are unique, the message will be different for each person.  I like that attitude.

What I got from his argument about why games are art specifically seems to be that art gives him something about life to relate to, and because games also give him something to relate to, that makes them art.  I would go even further and say that art is created (it doesn’t just happen), communicates something human (a story/idea/emotion), and is otherwise “non-functional.”  By that, I mean that the thing in question has no function other than the act of communication itself (thus separating the word from design).  And because video games have these properties, they are art, too.

I was a little confused by the statement about art being subjective, though.  Did he mean that the experience of art is subjective?  Or the work of art itself is subjective?  There is a distinction to make here, and it partially forms the basis to my answer of “Why art?”.

I believe that art can be perceived in a subjective way.  But isn’t the work of art itself – the video game in this case – an object?  It is a collection of code and binary data running on a computer of some sort with input and output.  That makes it material, existing in reality, which is objective by definition.

Furthermore, because art “speaks to us,” that seems to make it objective, too.  Something is doing the speaking, and I think the thing that speaks doesn’t really change.  It is we who change and hear different things.

Therefore, I’d say that a more specific argument would state that the perception of art is subjective, based on each of our life experiences and unique brains, while the work itself is objective.  That can explain why we can look at a film several years later and see or learn something different.  The film itself remains unchanged, but our perception of it changes.  It communicates something about humanity in a different way than before, because we understand humanity in a different way than before.

I think this distinction is important because it suggests that a work of art is unchanging, yet communicates on a level higher than normal understanding.  The fact that we can return to an object and subjectively learn something new suggests that we can’t fully comprehend the work all at once.

To me, that gives art a magical quality (in the emotional sense).  That is one of the reasons why I think it’s important to call games art.

Saving the World

In the comments of Greg’s post, Alex and Greg were discussing saving the world with art.  The notion may seem impossible to some, but I’d argue that we are living proof that it can work.  Inspiring people through creation seems to be one of the simplest (though still very hard!) ways to change the world with art.  Saving it is just a few steps away.

By making something of incredible quality that communicates to people and inspires them in a lasting way, you can inspire them to either change or to create themselves.  And them creating will often lead to change later.  Here’s a quote from Eva Zeisel to illustrate my point:

It’s very difficult to know exactly whether to live for an ideology or even to live for doing good.  But there cannot be anything wrong in making a pot, I’ll tell you.  When making a pot you can’t bring any evil into the world.

Just think about the games we’ve played that have inspired us to make games ourselves.  Those games have done good things because they have inspired us to create, and those acts of creation have changed us.  Those games have changed the world.  Saving it is just a few steps away.

In gamer lingo, it’s a 3d, physics-y, psuedo-pixel-art cannon-shooting game with a strategic probability management element.  Based on tester feedback, it seems to be pretty addictive, too.  Here’s the “official” description:

As a producer for the Japanese game show Megabank Executive Humiliation Challenge (MEHC), the nation is counting on you to keep them entertained by humiliating the best of the best in Western banking executives. Balance money-making obstacles and hire better executives to make the most profit you can in one season. Don’t let your nation down!

It’s an experiment in many ways, including emotional, commercial, and production..al, but not so much in gameplay. It’s kind of weird to look back at your baby after you’ve given birth. Sometimes you didn’t see yourself making that kind of game, and I can say that about this game.  However, I’m happy with the work I’ve done.  It’s quite a fun game.  I’d also like to thank the Gratton brothers from the Napkin Sketch collective for doing the sound.

Even though I didn’t originally see myself making this kind of game, I think in some ways I needed to make it, at least to just express my frustration with my current feelings on the nation’s economy and moreso on capitalism in general. I’ve grown increasingly dissatisfied with it as a system lately.  And maybe I needed a break from taking game design so seriously, too.

I’m hoping to find a sponsor for it by the end of the year.  And it should end up on FGL in some form or another soon for auction.  The sponsorship space seems pretty barren when it comes to Unity games, so who knows what will happen…

I’ve taken a few minutes here and there in the past few days to play Star Guard by Vacuum Flowers, after being introduced to it by my partner Mike via twitter. It just got frontpaged on TIGSource. Here’s an excerpt where Xander mentions his one qualm about the game:

Where as typically mines/traps would require caution and dexterity, these will simply not respawn so even if you die you can just get through the section without worrying about the consequences.

One of my favorite things about the game is Xander’s problem – i.e. it’s not a big deal at all when you die. To me, that made dying in the game fun in itself. I reveled in the fact that I could carelessly blast forward with glee, knowing that if I would die, I’d come back to the same spot in a matter of a couple seconds.

The character design is amazing, considering they’re expressed in just a few pixels.  The player has a surprising amount of life through the animations, and the Zomboid and charging rhino characters have a very distinctive personality.

Also, the game’s sound design is superb. I’m not saying that just because it’s created with SFXR, but because the sound choices made within that 8-bit limitation were very tasteful. Jumping is noticable, yet not obnoxious. The explosions are just right, the lava sounds are charming, and timer-based platforms give you a perfect feeling of urgency before they blow up.

The character design, sound design, and effects combine to form a polished feel from an otherwise minimal, low-budget aesthetic. For the past few months, I’ve been trying to take the same perspective on art direction. Vacuum Flowers has nailed it and made it look easy.

The story is presented in a minimal and pleasing way. As the image above suggests, it is simply displayed in the background of the level. There’s rarely more than 12 words to read. And the level design usually suggests what the words of the story are trying to express. It works so well that I’m sure we’ll see more of that in the future.

It’s an excellent game all around, with solid tuning to the platforming. I just wish I could get to the 8th and 9th level since there’s a random level-loading bug with the OS X version.

They discussed their stories on developing Aquaria and Goo!, emphasizing how much work development takes, and how it can often be depressing.  Both of them were in a situation where it seemed like the project would never end, and they had to persevere in order to finish.  The whole talk was very candid.  I really admire their boldness to speak on such personal things.

We have a very similar story for the development of Dinowaurs, so I was relieved to know we weren’t the only ones who had gone through this.  It got me thinking that talks like the one they gave provide a very therapeutic benefit to all game developers.  I would imagine it is like the same benefit people get from Alcoholics Anonymous.  I feel we were created to be in community, so it seems natural that sharing our troubles helps us to realize that we’re not alone.  On the outside, everyone else seems so successful, but we all struggle with things on the inside.  It’s comforting to know that.

Ron Carmel (World of Goo) put it best when he said “Alec and Tommy deliver what in my mind (and heart) was the most important and honest talk of the IGS.”  I couldn’t agree more.

The Game Industry of the Early 80s

During the early 80s, we had Atari raking it in with lots of consoles in homes, although they were totally screwing over developers by doing so.  Developers basically didn’t get any of the money, and they certainly weren’t getting the credit they deserved.  As a revolt, some of them formed Activision, with similar goals as EA.  In fact, both companies shipped their games with tasteful album covers to draw the parallel to being an independent music label.

So you have Activision and Electronic Arts both trying to support devs who were doing good things for games.  And then the Great Crash of 1984, caused largely by actions of publisher/manufacturers like Atari, Mattel, Coleco, and Commodore, left the industry in shambles.  As a result, EA resorted to actions that became increasingly different from their manifesto in order to gain the success they desired.

From Software Artists to Engineers

It started out innocently enough.  EA switched its marketing style to promote the game as a brand, and its genre, moreso than the “software artists.”  This apparently made more sense to the customer, who didn’t care as much about individual developers as EA thought.  But of course that was the case because gaming was new and customers didn’t really understand it completely.  Not only that, but the developers themselves hadn’t made too many games yet, so there wasn’t much to care about or relate to at this point.

Therefore, EA “adapted” to focus less on the developer as an artist.  Activision had the same trend, too.  And what happened when they focused less on the developers as artists over time?  They published fewer artistic games.

For EA, this meant continuing to publish more games like One on One, which was a basketball title.  Marketing One on One was easier when it featured people who were already celebrities, like Larry Bird and Julius Erving.  After the crash, EA pursued this direction by publishing several licensed basketball, racing, and baseball games.

This was working out so well, that a few years later EA decided to develop a game in-house – Skate or Die.  No longer would they focus completely on indie developers; they had their own developers to worry about now, too.  Right after this, EA developed John Madden Football, based on founder Trip Hawkins’ passion for football simulation.  The combination of first and third-party titles led to enough success that EA had room to expand.

The obvious next step for expansion was to consoles, like the upcoming Sega Genesis.  By then, EA – or more accurately, its founder Hawkins – had quite a different focus.  Hawkins had to convince the rest of his company, who had up to this point believed in his vision, to go the other direction.  Gamasutra’s History of EA article quotes him as saying,

The goal was to stop making esoteric products for an elite customer base, and go make it in the big-time with mainstream gamers.  Several employees were outraged and quit, but I convinced the team that if the public chose to buy consoles like the Genesis, then to satisfy our customers we had to make the best games possible on the platforms chosen by the public, not the ones our engineers wished they could afford.

Compare this to EA’s manifesto previously advertised:

Why do we cry? Why do we laugh, or love, or smile? What are the touchstones of our emotions?

Until now, the people who asked such questions tended not to be the same people who ran software companies. Instead, they were writers, filmmakers, painters, musicians. They were, in the traditional sense, artists.

Since when did the “touchstones of our emotions” become esoteric?  Isn’t that why books and film are so popular?  And since when did “software artists” become engineers?  It seems that somewhere along the line, Trip Hawkins became one of the “people who ran software companies” that EA’s original manifesto was reacting against.

Was it the crash that caused him to change views?  Was it based on his new experience from leading game development with Madden?  Just simply greed?  What happened?  Maybe someday I’ll really get to the bottom of it.  Until then, I’m left wondering what the world would have been like had Electronic Arts stuck to its original vision.

Pertinent Links:
Part 1 of What Happened to EA?
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070216/fleming_01.shtml
http://www.edge-online.com/features/a-short-history-of-activision
http://www.edge-online.com/features/a-short-history-electronic-arts

Butterflies & Hurricanes Lyrics

I’ve always enjoyed Butterflies & Hurricanes because of its inspirational mood and appealing mix of rock and classical style.  I could never fully understand the lyrics, and for some reason, I was moved to look them up today.  They are excerpted below:

Change everything you are

And everything you were

Your number has been called

 

Fights and battles have begun

Revenge will surely come

Your hard times are ahead

 

Best, you’ve got to be the best

You’ve got to change the world

And use this chance to be heard

Your time is now

 

Don’t let yourself down

And don’t let yourself go

Your last chance has arrived

 

Best, you’ve got to be the best

You’ve got to change the world

And use this chance to be heard

Your time is now

I’m no musical expert, but to me Muse is creating a metaphor based on chaos theory.  Among other things, the song is drawing a parallel between the ability of a butterfly to change weather patterns and the ability of a human to change the world.  Let me explain.

What is Chaos Theory?

Chaos theory is a field of scientific study dedicated to studying the behavior of complex and dynamical (i.e. chaotic) systems.  It’s absolutely crucial to realize that the word chaos used in this context refers to a deterministic system.  In other words, given the right formulas, one could determine how the system will behave over time.  However, the system is complex enough that its outputs appear to be random over time – even though it isn’t purely random – hence the term deterministic chaos, or just chaos.

The Butterfly Effect

One of three core properties of a chaotic system is that it is sensitive to initial conditions.  This means, roughly speaking, that the points that are close to each other at the initial stages of a system will be greatly different in the future.  This implies that small changes in the points early on will result in very large changes later.  In 1952, Ray Bradbury illustrated the concept in a book about time travel, where he explained that the death of a butterfly during prehistoric times could lead to a much different reality in the future.

Edward Lorenz later reported scientific evidence of this concept while running a weather simulation.  To make things easier for himself, he shortened the decimal .506127 to .506 while inputting values into the simulation, which resulted in a much different output in the weather system.  After doing further study, he reported his findings in a talk Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?, choosing a butterfly as a nod to Bardbury’s book.  Ever since, the butterfly effect has been used to illustrate a core component of chaotic systems.

Using the Butterfly Effect in Game Design

The basic concept behind the butterfly effect is that a very small change early on can have a large impact later.  Because the changes made early on have a large impact, they are meaningful.  However, because the changes made early on are small, they seem meaningless.  This creates a dichotomy where the changes made to the system seem to have much less meaning than they actually do.  In addition, the difference between the perceived meaning and actual meaning is not realized until later.

The game designer can use this dichotomy as a tool in several ways.  If the player makes a wrong choice early on, the player could feel regret later.  If play continued after that regret, the player would be more careful about his decisions the next time around.  This tool is used in the game Jumpman to good effect.  The avatar in Jumpman has little friction, so a small movement causes the player to slide easily.  This is like creating a miniature butterfly effect every time the avatar moves.  As the player progresses through the game, he learns to be very careful about his movements, because one small error could lead the avatar to instant death.

Another way the designer could use this dichotomy is as a way to create hope.  If the player knew the meaning of the actions he made early on, he could gain hope that later those actions would have a large impact that would give him an advantage.  Chess is a good example of this.  Players must move the pawns first in order to free up the more powerful pieces.  This makes the first few moves in a Chess game pretty important.  In fact, expert players will be able to recognize a particular play style by watching the first several moves in a Chess game.  Being able to see the pattern early will help them to understand meaningful moves that could be made later.  This gives the player hope that he can overcome his opponent successfully.

A designer can also use the butterfly effect in the story of a game.  The most obvious way would be force the player to make decisions at certain points in the game, branching the story into alternate versions.  This was made popular by the Choose Your Own Adventure books.  Lately, Daniel Benmergui and Gregory Weir have used this technique in their games I Wish I Were the Moon and (I Fell In Love With) The Majesty of Colors.  Each game gives the player the freedom to explore the consequences of his actions made to the characters and the environment.  Those consequences are played out in short animations as endings to the game.  The final goal of the game is to experience all of the endings.  Both games are pretty small in scope, so the designers have not created a lot of room for the early actions in the game to branch very far and therefore to cause much impact.  The Majesty of Colors takes the concept a little further, and after playing it, one can see how this concept could be extended so that the stories become even more different over time.

I’m sure the best way to create meaning with the butterfly effect is yet to come.  Until then, these directions should be explored further in games.  Doing so just might change the world. . .

I’ve been visiting blogs of people I respect, and one of them linked me to Chris Hecker’s website, which is infrequently updated and more of an archive at this point.  I remember hearing about his rantings given at various GDC talks, so I thought I’d poke around a bit to see what I could find.  One page was particularly interesting.  Entitled Can a Computer Make You Cry?, it featured an intriguing essay on exploring the emotional and expressive possibilities that computers can provide.  In fact, I would go so far as to say it is a manifesto.

EA Had a Manifesto?!

I was shocked to find out that the manifesto was actually an ad for Electronic Arts.  EA?!  This blew my mind.  I felt like I had stumbled upon a dusty but rare classic at the record store.  Apparently, EA had aspirations of exploring the essence of humanity using technology.  That’s definitely something I can relate to!

The Manifesto

Let’s take a look:

Why do we cry? Why do we laugh, or love, or smile? What are the touchstones of our emotions?

Until now, the people who asked such questions tended not to be the same people who ran software companies. Instead, they were writers, filmmakers, painters, musicians. They were, in the traditional sense, artists.

We’re about to change that tradition. The name of our company is Electronic Arts.

That is pretty deep for a company who devotes itself to sequels and franchises based on veteran gameplay systems.  I wonder what happened to change their course.  And what’s so striking to me is the pure truth that this ad speaks.  In fact, it’s still true today that the people who run software companies don’t usually ask those questions.  Continuing:

SOFTWARE WORTHY OF THE MINDS THAT USE IT.

We are a new association of electronic artists united by a common goal—to fulfill the enormous potential of the personal computer.

In the short term, this means transcending its present use as a facilitator of unimaginative tasks and a medium for blasting aliens. In the long term, however, we can expect a great deal more.

That first statement is interesting to me because it assumes that prior to this, software wasn’t worthy of the minds that use it.  That it was a lowly servant of its master, the human, or that it didn’t fully stimulate the human mind.  It’s amazing how things have come full circle now.  EA in general is considered something like the Wal-Mart of the games industry, almost like some necessary evil.

Notice the goals listed next.  The short term goal is to “transcend its present use as a … medium for blasting aliens” and the long term goal is something that is “a great deal more.”  At some point, EA ended up actually taking a step back from even its short term goal.  It certainly didn’t make it close to the long term goal.  Maybe they set their sights too high?  One last quote:

We’re providing a special environment for talented, independent software artists. It’s a supportive environment, in which big ideas are given room to grow. And some of America’s most respected software artists are beginning to take notice.

We think our current work reflects this very special commitment. And though we are few in number today and apart from the mainstream of the mass software marketplace, we are confident that both time and vision are on our side.

Again, it seems that EA ended up taking a pretty big step backwards.  EA is the company that has one of the worst reputations when it comes to a “special environment.”  Now certainly, much of the hate developers direct to EA is unwarranted.  But I’ve heard plenty of horror stories that confirm it can be far from special.  In addition, this section and the accompanying photo presents EA as supporting a collective of indie game developers.  If one were to take a photo of 8 popular indie game developers today, I bet it’d look pretty similar to the one in this ad (accounting for change in fashion of course).

What Happened?

All of these things beg the question:  What happened to you, EA?  This manifesto presents you as a publisher who supports a collective of indie game developers who aspire to realize the true potential of using computers to explore the depths of humanity.  Something happened along the way to derail this goal, and I’m dying to find out.  This warrants some historical research, and I hope to come back with some information of why they changed their focus.

The Word “Game”

Lastly, I’d like to touch on something that Chris Hecker picked up on in his comments about this ad.  He mentioned that the title is Can a Computer Make You Cry? and not Can a Computer Game Make You Cry? and that games aren’t mentioned much at all in this ad.

This is something that I feel pretty passionate about, which is the problem with using the term “game” all the time.  When one is developing an interactive experience, I think it’s really important to only think of the word game in the semantic sense, sort of as a necessary evil, and try to remove one’s self from all the baggage associated with games in the past.  It’s surprisingly difficult.  Depending on the idea, turning an experience into a traditional game might be a bad idea.  According to Tale of Tales, you should specifically avoid making a game if you want to reach the true potential of interactive experience – assuming that’s your goal.  I’m not really going into any more detail than that, since I’ll return to this subject more later.

However, I wanted to point out that this is another example of not assuming a good interactive experience automatically means you have a game.  I’ll continue to refer to interactive experience as “game” because the term is only four letters long.  But I certainly intend on pushing the limits of interactive experience and changing people’s perception of what that word means to them.