Two problematic videogame terms

I've never made a thread here in all these years and this feels like a weird thing to start with, but this text came out of me today and I don't know where else to put it. Maybe it reads like a blog entry but I am actually really interested in whether these terms seem inaccurate to the rest of the gaming public too and whether we the people can find even better substitutes than what I came up with. Feel free to discuss that topic without necessarily reading everything I've written.

I: LUDONARRATIVE DISSONANCE

What does it mean?

A severe difference of tone between the content which a game narrates through its writing and the content which a game portrays in its gameplay. For some players, this may cause the narrative to feel insincere, and difficult to take seriously or relate to. Most frequently, accusations of ludonarrative dissonance target games whose narrative content is perceived as not fully acknowledging the violence perpetrated during gameplay. It is important to note that ludonarrative dissonance differs from plot holes in that it is subjective, a matter of dissonating tones rather than contradicting facts.

Why is it problematic?

Casual critics of the term often pronounce it ‘pretentious.’ The word pretentious is sometimes used unjustly as a cynical anti-intellectual sledgehammer, but perhaps this is a case where the designation is actually justified. The one motivation I can think of for inventing the ad hoc adjective ‘ludonarrative’ is that of making one’s argument sound more academic. However, with its needless complication of a relatively straightforward concept and its arbitrary use of Latin the term almost achieves the opposite: it makes game criticism seem pretentious, a juvenile pursuit with delusions of scientific grandeur.

Better term: NARRATIVE DISSONANCE

In my opinion, the problem stems from the ‘ludo-‘ part of the term. The wide use of Latin in science is primarily aimed at making terminology internationally comprehensible. Yet, to intuit what ludonarrative dissonance means one must know the Latin ‘ludo’ in addition to the English ‘narrative’ and ‘dissonance’ and requiring skills in two languages obviously makes the term less rather than more internationally viable.

Moreover, it is my experience that Latin is rarely used in contemporary philosophy and critical theory for new concepts, having clearly been dethroned by English as the international language of science.

I feel that an abbreviation to ‘narrative dissonance’ is preferable to a full English translation to ‘gameplay-narrative dissonance’ or similar, because where it is something other than the gameplay that dissonates with the narrative (e.g. sound design or art style) addressing the issue hardly requires a special vocabulary.

II: ROGUELIKE-LIKE

What does it mean?

A game that is similar to a roguelike in that it has elements of permadeath and randomly generated levels, yet seems too distinctive to be called a true roguelike. Roguelikes had a brief bubble of mainstream popularity in the early goings of this decade, and while the trend proved temporary it did pique the gaming mainstream’s interest in permadeath in combination with randomly generated levels.

Why is it problematic?

I feel I must point out that I have no particular affinity for or history with roguelikes, so I am not someone who feels entitled to ownership of the term. Nevertheless I think it’s pretty clear that the 1980-game Rogue is not a good reference point for describing the roguelike-likes of today. Permadeath and randomly generated levels are defining elements of roguelikes, but they are not the sole defining elements and in my opinion they are not the most important elements of a roguelike. The idiosyncratic simultaneous turn- and tile-based movement is the thing that really jumps out to me as something that roguelikes have and other games do not. This last point is crucial; other game-genres feature permadeath and random levels. Off the top of my head Snake is a game that has both. Does Spelunky really borrow more from Rogue than it does from Snake? (A little more maybe but you see my point I hope.)

Better term: PERMADEATH GAMES

The thing that all games in the category we are discussing have in common is that they are designed around permadeath. Permadeath is a loose term which can sometimes mean the complete loss of level progress but not of upgrades and bonuses, sometimes vice versa and sometimes the loss of both. Player death is expected and the game is designed to make this complete loss of progress as tolerable as possible while still being a source of tension and a threat that could be realized in any moment. Strategies used to make replay less frustrating include randomized levels, sub-objectives that grant permanent bonuses and a focus on predictable behaviours that allow players to benefit from trial and error. In this they differ from other game genres that feature permanent death (e. g. arcade games and many games with an alternate permadeath “hardcore mode”) which are often designed to make final death as infuriating as possible.

I think permadeath games is an expression that properly sums up the wide range of games this genre includes. Roguelikes sounds like a very narrow set of games and what roguelike-like adds in breadth it also adds in awkwardness and confusion.

And then there’s “roguelite.” Oh boy. I guess the idea is that it’s a game that’s like roguelike-likes – but with less Rogue? And more like-like? A simplified approximation of games in the likeness of games in the likeness of Rogue? When do we get a completely rogue-free rogue for all the rogue-vegans out there?

~

I've found that this kind of lingo, regardless of how appalling it may be, will stick if you leave it too long, like chewing gum under a high school classroom table. I watched it happen with MMORPG (How the hell are we still calling them that?) and I pray we are not too late to change these two expressions, if not to something more precise then at least to something a little more catchy.

If you are going to write an academic document you should atleast know the difference between Rouge the colour and Rogue the descriptor.

@corruptedevil: This not something as grand as an academic document but you are absolutely right. To my defense I think I only made one typo and I'm Swedish. Thank you.

Sorry, it's the only typo/mistake that really gets under my skin, and the recent Assassin's Creed thread where they refer to Rogue as Rouge multiple times has exacerbated it.

The solution for ludonarrative dissonance sounds worse than the problem the term creates. It's hiding what makes ludonarrative dissonance...well, that. The dissonance arises from both the game and the narrative together.

My solution? You shouldn't use the term until you have a basic understanding of ludology and narratology. That might sound elitist, but it's a lot easier than it sounds.

"Roguelike-like" and "Roguelite" are just snob terms for roguelikes that they don't like-like, aren't they? That might just be an assumption on my part.

Are you trying to be a dick?

Fantastic OP. I have my disagreements with your points on the term "roguelike-like," but I have a feeling you'd pummel me into the ground with far grander reasoning if I were to begin a debate! :P

@video_game_king: But given that you will always use the term while discussing a specific game, don't you think it will always be clear from the context that the game is involved? I'm a literary student and I have to admit, with the number of poorly translated old russian essays I had to read to gain a basic understanding of narratology I wouldn't recommend it to most people, but I'm pretty slow. I have no idea how you get a basic understanding of ludology, I feel like that academic community has barely established what the word means yet.

@gunslingerpanda: Haha, that's kind of what it sounds like now that you mention it. Maybe that's how the terms came into circulation, but I've definitely heard them used without sneer.

Isn't narratology just what any old literature class will teach you, anyway? The mechanics of narrative and whatnot?

Ludology is the mechanics of play. How you interact with a game. Its rules, its goals, the strategies you employ to achieve said goals, etc. Extra Credits and the Angry Video Game Nerd (surprisingly) demonstrate this mindset fairly well.

Ludonarrative dissonance is a better term than narrative dissonance. What is being dissonant with the narrative if it's just called narrative dissonance? Dumbing it down removes all the meaning behind the term. And just because ludo is Latin doesn't mean we don't use it in English. Lodology is the study of games.

I think I must be the only person on the planet who thinks of the football term instead of the colour when seeing the term rouge.

I hate when people bitch about narrative dissidence. Especially when the game gives you options. Saw lots of people complain about that in Watch_dogs saying "oh he's trying to be a good guy, but he's an asshole that runs people over to get to his next objective". No idiot, you're that asshole, don't drive so wrecklessly if you want to maintain narrative flow.

It's so rarely a real issue that whenever someone mentions it i just assume they're being a pretentious twat to look smart. Like if its Batman shooting guys in the face with a shotgun, then yeah thats a valid complaint. But a vigilante shooting guys can thinking he's the good guy. NEWS FLASH: thats what vigilantes do!

Sorry, gets under my skin.

@yoshisaur: I do possess a superhuman intellect but I only use it for good. If you change your mind I promise to pummel you gently.

@video_game_king: Narratology is essentially an approach to text analysis that rests on the assumptions of structuralism (but not post-structuralism) utilizing the tools of formal linguistics. Intimidated yet?

Your ludology seems like an interesting and worthwhile topic, but can't we just call it game studies?

@video_game_king: It was the fall that killed him...technically

Not really. I can probably do some research on how structuralism works and simply get a feel for that. Can't be as bad as deconstruction. I have little, if any, memory of how that works.

Ludonarrative dissonance is a problem not because of the definition of the word. It's because how and where it is used not applying to the overall greater picture. The greater sense of the game.

Hot dogs in trash cans in BioShock have been subject to the term ludonarrative dissonance by many. It makes no sense whatsoever. Ludonarrative dissonance should entail a game where everything is portrayed differently then how it plays. A recent example I can think of is in Watch Dogs where the police is actively seeking out the gangs in the city. Yet when some gameplay systems overlap, you find yourself in the position where the gang and police seem to have teamed up to try and take you out with no explanation or reason whatsoever why they have joined forces. You can use the term ludonarrative dissonance here. It is something that affects the greater sense of the game and your time playing it. Hot dogs in a trash can is something so ridiculously minor and has such a non-impact it makes the term lose all meaning.

While I can see flaws in certain terms and I think sometimes we do need to move away from certain kinds of language, I don't think there's a big problem with the terms you're describing, and I don't think the solutions you propose would have a particularly meaningful effect on the way we talk about video games.

With the "ludonarrative dissonance" example, yes, it is often seen as pretentious and is a bit wordy, but no, I do not think it purely exists in that form just to be pseudo-intellectual, I think it exists in that form to fully encapsulate what the term describes. It's talking about a dissonance between the gameplay (ludo) and the narrative. In a situation like that "ludonarrative dissonance", while perhaps a bit long-winded, is about the most straightforward and intuitive descriptor you can image. Maybe we could get by a better in some ways with "narrative dissonance", but as @video_game_king said it's sort of missing the crucial "game" part that describes what ludonarrative dissonance is, and I do think this line of thinking buys into a lot of the hysteria surrounding any kind of in-depth or meaningful games criticism beyond something like "The quest system isn't very good" being pretentious. I think our arguments should be judged as arguments and not on what individual terms we happen to use, and I've seen "You used that long word" utilised to unconstructively try to shut down discussions about games way too many times. Additionally I don't think academia = science or that games criticism shouldn't strive in some situations to be academic.

The "roguelike" thing I've seen rage for a while and I think it comes from the problem that genre boundaries are somewhat subjective. There is no single entirely objective definition of "roguelike" and so the lines we must draw on what is or is not a roguelike are somewhat arbitrary. Sure, a lot of the "roguelikes" of today may not be exactly like Rogue, but terms change and evolve and there are plenty of words in the English language with original meanings that they drifted away from but are still considered totally valid. Additionally, I don't think "permadeath games" fully covers a lot of what people are talking about when they use the term "roguelike". Yes, these games may have permadeath, but other common aspects of these games that this term does not cover are procedurally generated gameplay scenarios and a focus on loot collection.

I think I adressed that question in the text, although it's obviously fine if I did not convince you. Perhaps the fact that you have to specify what it is that dissonates with the narrative is a good thing? It prevents you from just slapping the ludonarrative dissonance sticker on a game without further discussion. I am unsure how you concluded that removing the ludo- is dumbing it down. In my experience, when you can't describe something with an existing word 90% of the time it is because you have not finished thinking about it.

@clonedzero: Yeah, maybe the bigger problem is that ludonarrative dissonance has become a catch-all term to use about game narratives you just can't seem to relate too.

I can't stand the term "Rogue-like" at all.

I agree with all of this. There's nothing wrong with either term. They both accurately describe the concepts that they're intended to represent. And in the case of ludonarrative dissonance specifically, I've seen way too many people become dismissive or attempt to shout down someone because they're using big, academic-sounding words. The problem here isn't in the words, or in the people that use them properly, but in an audience that has a tacit refusal to accept intellectual discourse about video game structure and narrative.

@zevvion: People are annoyed by different things, though. You're right that a coherent full picture matters more than the little details, but sometimes it's the details that stick in our mind.

A lot of people feel like you so I guess it's a valid issue even if I don't see it. The narrative to me is a part of the game, and ludonarrative dissonance is rarely so complete that it dissonates with every part of the game as a whole. There could be dissonance between the narrative and the voice acting, the narrative and the level of gore or even between one part of the narrative and another. The fact that the thing the narrative is dissonant with is another aspect of the game seems self-evident to me, what else would it dissonate with?

Well, puzzle games have changed a lot over the years - Portal has very little in common with Tetris - but at least they still have puzzles. If Portal 3 comes out and is a straight FPS I don't think we should say "Fuck it, this is what 'puzzle game' means now." Puzzle games is a good example of a genre that I think is very generous and allows for a great variety of game types while still excluding games that lack its defining characteristics. To me permadeath games is has the same combination of generosity and specificity, whereas roguelike is very specific. I think we should avoid using the noun roguelike about games we would not describe with the adjective roguelike, precisely for the reason you state, if we do it will catch on.

Procedurally generated stuff I see as a design choice that grows out of permadeath, it is a way to make repeated replay bearable. By loot collection, do you just mean item/powerup collection like in Spelunky or specifically the type of dynamically generated loot you find in Diablo or Borderlands? If it's the latter I guess that does make this genre pretty similar to Rogue, I hadn't noticed this as a trend.

Many interesting points here! Thank you for writing so much.

Really? I love it, personally. It sounds like a badass future Clockwork Orange word.

"Permadeath Game" is worse than "Roguelike-like" because the name sounds like it might include Fire Emblem or something like it. Fire Emblem isn't a roguelike at all.

"Roguelite" and "Roguelike-like" are the same thing - an attempt by those who don't like it to come up with a word that replaces what is quickly becoming accepted as the name of a genre.

I've found that this kind of lingo, regardless of how appalling it may be, will stick if you leave it too long, like chewing gum under a high school classroom table. I watched it happen with MMORPG (How the hell are we still calling them that?) and I pray we are not too late to change these two expressions, if not to something more precise then at least to something a little more catchy.

Once a term has caught on, you cannot change it. It's a fool's errand. You can try all you like - you can come up with silly alternative names, you can post about it and explain why, but at the end of the day, people are still going to be using "ludonarrative dissonance" and "roguelike". Those words have already been linked to a meaning and it's not going to change, regardless of how wrong it might be when you take the word apart and examine it.

I don't necessarily mean that it isn't painful, by the way, but you can't really do much about the way that language accepts new words and changes, so whatever. I'll just use these terms like everybody else does. Or, rather, I won't use ludonarrative dissonance much at all because

this.

In the case of ludonarrative dissonance I agree, the problem is not that it is inaccurate, just profoundly unappealing. You seem confident that people disregard it out of prejudice for intellectual discourse, but I am convinced they simply disregard it out of prejudice for the term itself. It may be accurate but it sounds so childish. Every time I use it I feel like a seven year old wearing fake glasses his father's oversized lab coat. (Whoa that's pretty specific, maybe I have issues.)

In the case of rougelike-like: really? You really think that's accurate? If you think Spelunky hits close to the bullseye that is Rogue you must have a pretty big dartboard. Or you are just drunk, in which case you should not be playing darts in the first place. (The last sentence was just to add flavour to the allegory.)

As soon as someone says 'ludonarrative dissonance' I simply assume they are a satchel-owning cunt and therefore not worth listening to about anything. Problem solved.

But whatever, your interpretation works too I guess.

Oh my, this did not occur to me at all. Fire Emblem is a game that is designed around permadeath without being designed around extensive replay. I have no real defence against that, except possibly that permadeath is optional in the latest game as I understand it, and from that you could argue that it is not central to the game design, even though it kind of is. I guess this is harder than I thought.

The problem with ludonarrative dissonance, when it occurs, isn't a matter of how complete it is. All it takes is enough to draw the player out of the world and narrative. And the stronger the narrative and world you construct, the less lenience is afforded. It's a problem that open-world crime games frequently suffer from and a main reason why I don't play many of them anymore. Setting aside Watch Dogs, as GTA games have tried to paint their protagonists in a more sympathetic light, it's become harder and harder to believe them. Particularly once you're in control of the character and start doing things that are supposedly against what that character would do. Or worse, when the game forces you to do things that your character wouldn't supposedly do because of their established personality and nature, but you do them anyway without argument because that's the game design and you need to do it to progress.

Saints Row ultimately abandoned these concerns as the series has gone on by embracing the lunacy and casting the protagonist as an unrepentant psychopath. Sleeping Dogs tries to strike a balance by casting the player as an undercover cop that forms deep bonds in the Triad world while struggling with a vague, confusing, and ultimately corrupt superior in the Hong Kong Police Department. Watch Dogs, by contast, wants you to be the sympathetic good guy, or at the very least, an antihero, seeking revenge for the death of a relative, but Aiden ultimately causes far more destruction and potential harm through his actions. And to add to that, he's able to cause citywide havoc through the use of a smart phone that's so comically powerful as a hacking tool it might as well be a magic wand.

Ludonarrative dissonance is unappealing to you personally, not to everyone. That's like demanding that people come up with a term to replace Metroidvania because you don't like the way it rolls off of the tongue.

As for roguelike-like, I feel that there is a very definite idea of what a roguelike is; a dungeon crawler structured in a way very similar to Rogue, whether that be Nethack, the Mysterious Dungeon series, Baroque, or what have you. A roguelike-like is taking gameplay elements of the roguelike and applying them other genres entirely. Spelunky is not a roguelike; it's a 2D platformer that shares elements of the roguelike such as permanent death and randomized stage layouts, but it is ultimately not a dungeoncrawler RPG.

@hailinel: I think you and I agree on what ludonarrative dissonance is. I was saying that the ludo-part indicates that the narrative clashes with the game as a whole, which I don't think always is the case. The problem with ludonarrative dissonance that you bring up, breaking the suspension of disbelief, is probably the biggest problem it causes for most people. It is probably where the word is most useful, when describing your personal playing experiences, and this is part of the reason why I think a fancy scientific-sounding word is not called for; ludonarrative dissonance is an everyday occurrence, it doesn't take a scholarly mind to notice it.

EDIT: And yes, of course when I use a word like unappealing I am making a subjective value judgement. In this case I know for a fact that there are others who agree with me, which is why it is worth mentioning at all. Of course no matter how many people agree on it it is still subjective, but if a lot of people dislike a word and most people don't care at all, which is my impression, maybe it's worth considering changing. Turns out there are a lot of people who like it though. I did not know that.

I have said everything I have against the word roguelike-like, if you still think it is good I think I must accept I was unable to convert you.

While I agree in general with everything you said about the subject, this point I feel is highly subjective. The point where you are brought out of the immersion is going to potentially be vastly different from me, or the next person. But then, I think whenever you are talking about anything narrative, you are venturing into subjective waters.

Arguing against the use of a term because it sounds high-minded or scientific is a weak argument. Again, it's little more than, "I don't personally like this term. Use something else."

There's always going to be some subjectivity in how far suspension of disbelief will allow players to accept the presence of ludonarrative dissonance. And that personal acceptance can vary greatly from game to game, depending on how each person perceives it.

Getting rapped up in jargon is navel gazing. If one wants to educate laymen then it is possible to present what you are talking about where part of it is the discussion of the aspects that define the jargon.

You wish to simplify the term by removing the Latin from it simply because it sounds too pretentious and academic. How is that not dumbing it down?

What if you end up using more jargon to define the original term? That seems to be a potential problem for video game discourse.

As someone who played through Fire Emblem Awakening with permadeath off, I can assure you that it is central to the game design. It's really easy to cheese that game when winning with one character alive doesn't mean crippling your army.

@mosespippy: I want to remove ludo primarily because I think it's irrelevant. I feel that ludo only makes it sound more academic, it doesn't actually make it more academic, that would be a different question. If I call a football a pedosphere it does not facilitate academic discussion about it. Instead it makes me sound like I vastly overestimate the complexity of the thing I am discussing; as though I am perplexed by an ordinary household object. Likewise, ludonarrative dissoance is simple and easy to understand and the word should reflect that. Simpler is smarter.

I actually thought about this when I wrote the OP. I'm sure we can all agree it is difficult to define ludonarrative dissonance without using the word gameplay. A lot of smart people don't like that word. Personally I resort to using it a lot, it seems irreplaceable, but deep inside I suspect it might be one of those words that are only useful because they mean everything.

Why is it irrelevant? Again, it feels like you're dumbing down the term because your personal preference is against it rather than out of any deeper meaning or reasoning for doing so.

@hailinel: I think you're giving people who use it way too much credit. It's usually a petty nitpick and an excuse to attempt to look smart.

Having a discussion about ludo-narrative dissonance in games like tomb raider, Watch_dogs and uncharted (which are the common examples i see it being used in) just comes off as pretentious snobbery because it's not a real issue except in extreme examples. Which none of those are.

Everytime i've heard ludo-narrative dissonance discussed in a game its from people who seem to be actively trying to find reasons to dislike it and look smart at the same time. It doesn't work.

@hailinel: I think it's irrelevant because by the only discussions ludonarrative dissonance could conceivably be brought up in are discussions about games, and as such it should always be clear from the context that the thing the narrative is dissonant with is some aspect of the game. Superfluous would have been a better word than irrelevant I guess. I believe you have already addressed this opinion though, so no need to make this into a circle argument; I hear you. You have made many good points and the volume of defensive voices for these two terms have definitely shaken my faith that my ideas were better.

What do you mean by "game"?

Sudo narrative disco sauce. At this point ludonarrative dissonance is just fun to say/make fun of.

"Permadeath games" fails to acknowledge the randomization element though. Roguelike at this point implies permadeath and randomized levels. Actual roguelikes are more specific than that in other ways, but with Spelunky and Binding of Isaac and the 6543243 other "roguelikes" to come out, that term's been hijacked to mean just permadeath and random levels.

It's only because some folks got so uppity about it that the "-like" was added to the end to appease/circumvent them.

Both seem fiiiiiine.

I got no problem with Ludonarrative Dissonance. If someone dislikes it because it sounds pretentious to them, that's their problem. The term converys well what it is trying to describe

However Roguelike,(or any of the Roguelike-like/Roguelite nonsense) QWOPlike and even Metroidvania strike me as terms that are only going to have a temporary lifespan until something more mechanically descriptive and more inclusive achieves general acceptance. I think those kinds of names are too limiting and uninformative to be super useful.

not too mention they don't fit generally accepted naming conventions for the majority of other genres like platformer (Mariolike?), adventure (KingsQuestlike?), Shoot 'em ups (Defenderlike?), puzzle (Tetrislike?),Sports games (Ponglike?), fighters (Streetfighterlike?), RTS (Warcraftlike?), Racing (PolePositionlike?), MMORPG (EverQuestlike?), Openworld (GTAlike?) etc etc.

FPS (Doomclones) games and MOBAs (DOTAlikes) originally had similar naming conventions but over time as other games became prominent in that vein and helped flesh out the boundaries of the genre, they developed a more inclusive naming convention.

Whoa. I guess in that sentence I mean anything covered by the ludo-prefix? People have argued that the ludo- is important to specify that it is the the game and the narrative that are dissonant, but consider this conversation:

A: I think Uncharted suffers from narrative dissonance.

B: Well, what is the narrative dissonant with?

A: The game.

A does not actually provide any clarification with its second line. It is quite clear from its first statement that it is the game Uncharted, or some aspect thereof, which is the other party of the alleged dissonance. Given that ludo- means game (and maybe that is the part you disagree with?) ludo- is similarly not needed for clarification. Ergo, it is superflous. That's the easiest way I can think to put it. I am totally open to the possibility that you guys have understood me from the start and that I'm the one who doesn't understand you counter-arguments at this point. Hope it's clear what I mean at least.

@theht: I think the randomization is a consequence of permadeath, it is needed to make repeated attempts interesting. If you think there are no problems with these terms then of course we can only agree to disagree.

@slag: You are a real optimist if you think metroidvania will change after all these years, and I'm probably as big of an optimist for thinking ludonarrative dissonance can change. You never know though.

It could also be dissonant with the music, as an example. Or any element that isn't the game.

And this is the problem I keep referencing: you use the term "game" to refer to two separate things. (It's the language's fault.) There's more to Uncharted than the game.

@video_game_king: I feel like an idiot for being this stubborn but I do think I mean the same thing when I say it. Are you saying that things like music are not part of the game? Or do you mean that it could be dissonant with something completely outside the game like the glass of wine I had while playing?

Here you go, 46:15: