My daughter loves movies. I’m still hoping I can parlay that interest into teaching her about animation and how to create it, since Couch Potato still isn’t a real career, unemployment reform attempts notwithstanding. Still, she loves animated movies, as most children are wont to do. My own childhood fascination with animation turned me early to the part of art and creativity, and despite my lifelong fascination and competence with math and the sciences, I simply find it more personally satisfying to do something artistic with my time.
I’ve had more than one occasion to wonder about the nature of work and welfare, and to wonder just what it is that I should be doing with my peculiar and particular talents. As I watched a bit of Disney’s Beauty and Beast with my little ones, I found my love for books framed in a new light.
As the Beast and Belle build their friendship/romance, Beast shows Belle to the castle library and tells her reverently that it’s now all hers. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of books there. It’s a great scene, as Belle adores books, and Beast clearly wants to do something nice for her. Beast is starting to understand the joy of giving, even as Belle takes in the sights.
I had to wonder… what if I had a library like that? What if I were a monarch, with a castle full of retainers, trained to cater to my every whim? What if I had no real purpose in life but to consume and be coddled? Would I spend all my time in that library? I think I would spend a lot of my time there, though I’d want a nice science lab next door and perhaps an orrery and observatory in the highest level of the library, maybe a foundry for some nice steampunk experimentation a little ways off, next to the wood shop.
I love books. I devour data, and am almost always reading a few books at a time. I love learning and thinking, finding new interconnections between bits of data.
And yet… I don’t think I’d be content with a life of pure consumption. At some point, the itch to create would grow unbearable, and I’d have to go paint, draw, build, sculpt or write. I just can’t life a life only comprised of taking, I have to give; I am driven to create, to contribute, to turn my energies to constructive ends.
Like Gordon’s “word monkeys”, the thoughts and ideas that are prompted by the education represented by consuming those books just have to go somewhere other than the recesses of my grey matter. This is why I blather at length about game design (and other tish tosh) rather than just letting myself get sucked into WoW or the latest Civilization game. Sure, I like consuming well-crafted pieces of gaming almost as much as I love reading… but I have a deeper itch to give, rather than take.
And sometimes, I have to wonder if perhaps games, of all forms of entertainment, might not be the best suited to scratch both itches at the same time. Ours is an interactive medium, after all, and we really can let the player do extraordinary things in fantastic settings that just couldn’t happen elsewhere. To me, that’s the strength of games; the ability to facilitate exploratory and investigative thought in situations that might not otherwise be available. Perhaps we might not harness gamer impulses to cure cancer or Save the Universe… but I do think it is very possible to let games foster creativity and constructive impulses rather than be mere passive entertainment.
This is why I write here on the blog, it’s why I pontificate about making new games and explore new ramifications for fictional constructs like magic, it’s why I’m not working on movies like I was trained to. I see something here in the medium of games… and I want to explore that potential. I want to contribute something positive to the world and my posterity, even though I’m a mere artist with delusions of adequacy.
Time will tell if I manage to do so, but in the meantime, please forgive my protracted blathering here and there; I’m muddling my way through like any good muggle with only a foggy view of the more expansive reality around me. Here’s hoping I can poke through to the light here and there, and show others some of the sights.
In the meantime, thank you for all of your comments and conversation. As much fun as it is sending these blog posts out into the digital ocean in little WordPress bottles, it’s gratifying and humbling to see when someone lobs a message back, and all of us learn a little more.
Best wishes for Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it! If you don’t, well, here’s hoping you have a good weekend anyway!
Tish Tosh Tesh 
My daughter is 9, and for the last few years she has been steadfast in the belief that she will grow up to be a game designer. It started when she was 4, and I showed her how to make her own maps in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or 4. Now she loves the Spore adventure creator; she’ll download other people’s creature designs or buildings and put her own characters into it.
User-created content makes games so much richer, and a lot of gaming companies know this. Civilization, heck, the whole DotA series, Minecraft. Give your customers the tools and framework to mold the world to suit their tastes and you’ll have a much wider audience. Of course there will always be folks who prefer a more passive consumption of a particular art form, like me.
So there are three tiers of enjoyment of games – as a pure consumer, as an artist who wants to tweak the content, and as a designer who wants to tweak the ruleset. Television and film don’t feed either the second or third set of people. Fiction does, when the visualization is left up to the reader. There you see the lure of (shudder) fanfiction.
I have the same instincts as you–I love to create and share with others. I am also always trying out and/or discussing new game design ideas. I think we’re very similar people.
In one of my classes the other day, we were talking about damaging effects of media, and a couple of people started flipping out about video games. They made it sound like video games are the root of all evil and are the only reason we have any murders or terrorist attacks.
Obviously, these people don’t play video games. I find it unlikely they’ve ever even watched someone else play a video game. I happen to know that video games are incredibly fun, and as weird as it maybe is to say it, I think they’ve shaped me in positive ways.
I do understand that video games, as with any other kind of media, can be used for evil. What I don’t understand is why so many people seem to have some kind of personal vendetta against video games in general, especially when they DO allow interaction and (hopefully) make you think, unlike many other forms of media.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m glad there are people out there that appreciate the good things about video games and blog about them. Next time I hear someone going on about how video games cause some kind of global destruction, maybe I’ll just send them over to this blog. 🙂
I wondered about the format of wow and such when I think how I’d want to change/create something new. Aimed just at myself, am I being hypocritical? I mean, I take a format which only allows consumption and yet I want to change it – as if I get to, but all ya’ll poor slobs out there can stick with just consuming.
Callan, there’s definitely an interesting middle ground where both players and devs can be creative. That’s one of the things that I think Minecraft does well, incidentally.
I should note that those who only want to consume entertainment (as opposed to wanting creative entertainment) aren’t doing anything wrong, it’s just not really what I want out of games, and I think that it undersells their potential. Similarly, making entertainment purely for consumption isn’t a bad thing either (look at Pixar; I firmly believe they are a strong force for good), it just doesn’t work for me as a developer either. I want to share that creative streak.
Becca, thanks! I really should write up some more philosophical stuff one of these days. I believe games have made me better, too, and that just something that doesn’t come up all that often. The interactive nature of games has vast and unique potential in the entertainment world. Yeah, it’s abused too often, but that doesn’t nullify the potential for good or, more importantly, the responsibility for those who can create games to create good ones.
Anton, agreed. 🙂 Isn’t it fun? One of these days we should talk about collaborating.
Nina, nicely stated. Those levels of control are a nice classification.
Oh, and though fanfiction can dredge the depths of soul-sucking mediocrity and ineptitude, it can also open the gates for some very cool ideas. Giving players control in games is scary, but it really can be a good thing in appropriate games. The stuff players come up with in Minecraft, for one example:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=9986
I think one of the things I like the most about Guild Wars is the user-created content. No really, bear with me. XD
Builds are user created content. O.o
I think I have more fun when I’m writing/testing/refining a build than at any other time in Guild Wars.
Does it have any relevance or significance outside of Guild Wars? Nope!
But it’s still user-created content. And I’d like to think it’s still creative. And not just that, it’s content that can be shared, refined, and changed by all the people who touch it.
I’m a Grade 8 pianist (for anyone who knows what it means), but I’m totally unable to compose any melodies of my own.
Give me Guild Wars though, and I can sit there and compose symphonies of death, destruction, healing, and protection.
…as usual I’m not really sure what I was trying to say with this nuggetty ramble other than what I just said, so make of it what you will. XD
Be careful though man. I used to love animation and movies as a kid too, but I’m thankful my parents didn’t push it because I simply don’t have the artistic skill to be such. Not everyone who enjoys something can also create something well.
The library…well, its not just consuming, it can also be curating. I think we need people to preserve what others create and enjoy them.
Dblade, yeah, it’s a soft touch. I’m fairly strict when it comes to things *not* to do, but when it comes to what she wants to *do*, I’m pretty relaxed. If she winds up an artist or scientist like her old man, that’s great, and I’ll be there to help her develop those interests, but if she’s a medical sort like her mother or something else entirely, I’ll be happy if she is.
Oh, and curating is good, too. Preservation is a noble cause, I think. I didn’t consider that angle, so thanks for bringing it up.
Nugget, I can see that. Much like I see deckbuilding in magic, the Gathering as an art form, I see builds in GW as being nicely creative. It’s one I’ve not mastered in any way, but I love that it’s possible and encouraged in the game design.