Using Games to Learn about Ourselves

A few weeks ago I wrote a short blog titled “What we can Learn from how we Play Games.” In it I tried to explain how the act of playing games, and specifically how you play games, is a form of self-expression. Unfortunately, I failed at that goal. Rather than explaining my larger idea I just explained how I have been expressing myself and my perspectives through games. So today I would like to try again.

Let’s start with the basics, videogames are an interactive medium. As such, no videogame is a complete work in and of itself. Without a player to play the game, every videogame ever made is essentially unfinished, since it is impossible to experience the entirety of a game without some input from a player. Therefore, unlike almost every other form of popular media, every game player is simultaneously an actor/director and a viewer. For example, “Of Mice and Men” will always have the same central plot, it will always be told the same way, and it will be identical in form whether I read it or you do. We may take different meanings away from the book or we may appreciate different parts of the narrative; however, the underlying text will always be the same. Though our unique perspectives shape how we view a book or a movie, those perspectives do not physically shape the work in question. Videogames throw that all out the window.

Videogames require us to shape both our physical experiences and narrative experiences. We must choose things as small as where to move and things as large as who lives and dies. We can choose to use particular characters over others. We can choose to complete side-quests or not. Heck, we can also invent our own rules to apply on top of a game, like speed running or role playing a character. Every one of these choices adds to the experience of playing a game, each one of them help make your version of the game. Now this may all seem self-apparent to you, but the interesting part about all of these player choices, to me, is how they affect analyzing games.

With traditional media, we often talk about how a work affects the reader or argues a point to the reader, as though the work was a complete whole created by the author or director. We examine passages or scenes and we dissect word choice and diction. All of these analyses are for the purpose of teasing out what the author or work is trying to say about the world, in the hopes of gaining potential insights into the world we live in. All of that is well and good. But, with games we gain another dimension of analysis. You see with traditional media we are treating the text as an authoritative and finished work by the author; however, games are by their very nature a collaborative effort between the developers and the player. As a result, we end up with two different routes of analysis, one that treats games like any other medium and views them as the product of a developer. Using this framework we can view each aspect of a game as a piece of evidence for the game’s interpretive significance. For example, Bioshock’s constant us of the Great Chain of Industry and objectivist rhetoric points to the objectivist philosophies of Ayn Rand, and as such its dystopian city can be viewed as a critique of objectivism. Alternatively, we can look at the experience of playing a game as a product of the player him/herself. By looking at games this way we can use bits of player input as a means to gain greater insight into the player and how the player views the world. For example, a player who consistently takes the “good” option in moral choice games may view themselves as moral or perhaps may view the character they are controlling as moral. Or perhaps the player in question consistently hoards money regardless of circumstance. This could imply that the player is very resource focused, always hoping to maximize their money, or they could just be cheap. These different play options are not necessarily indicative of the game’s design as much as the mindset of the player. In a way, we are still analyzing quotes and moments; but, the evidence is indicative of the player’s worldview, rather than the developers.

I think that as game writing progresses the ability to differentiate unique player driven experiences and designer created moments will be essential to game scholarship and criticism. However, the ability to use games and their options as a form of self-discovery and self-evaluation is very interesting. When analyzing books or movies you don’t really have a record of what you thought or felt as you were watching, unless you were taking notes. Playing a game leaves behind a record of your decisions, evaluations, and preferences in a way that I find truly unique and potentially enlightening. Videogames might be a way for your conscience or subconscious to show its work, if you care to look.