A Message From the Author
It’s Round Table time again! Continuing with the theme of literary games, this month, we’re focussing on the role that the author’s “voice” plays in a game design. To what extent is it important, and to what extent should we do without it?
The answer, as always, tends to depend on personal taste, and mine, as always, is heavily biased. Of course the author’s voice is important! Isn’t that why I myself develop games in the first place? So that I can express myself? If I’m not supposed to express myself at all, then what’s the point? What am I making? Why am I doing this? Who am I and what am I doing here?
Yes, I know. They’re selfish motivations. You may be asking “but what about as a player, Deirdra? Don’t you want freedom? Don’t you hate it when other authors try to force their voices down your throat?” And my answer to that is… well, no. In fact, what I’ve noticed about my play preferences is that I happen to prefer games with a definitive authorial slant. Because here’s the thing: what do you get when you remove the voice of an author entirely from a game? Essentially, it’s a simulation. A sandbox. The Holodeck. A carbon copy of the real world for testing purposes. You pretty much end up with something like Second Life.
As you may have noticed, the idea of a facsimile of the world we live in doesn’t really appeal to me all that much. I want rules. I want constraints on my freedom around which I must figure out how to move. I want interesting characters. I want colourful, whimsical art direction. These are all products of someone else’s imagination. In essence, the very reason I play games in the first place is so I can run around in someone else’s brain for awhile. I don’t want to be myself, because I have the entire rest of my life to be myself. [1] As such, I’m more than happy to let an author have complete control over his or her game’s universe.
“Okay,” you may be saying. “then why games and not novels/short stories/movies/TV/comics/insert other linear media here?” Corvus asked me this question in the recent BoRT podcast, and my answer has to do with both my personality’s predispositions to working in innovative new media rather than mastering pre-established forms, [2] as well as the fact that it’s actually pretty damn hard to break in as a success in said pre-established forms. [3] Yet, whatever the case may be, the properties of games only really change the nature of the audience’s interaction with the world and the story and the characters. The players of the kinds of games I enjoy are not co-authors; they are free to act, but they don’t get to determine the consequences of said actions.
So, yes, I emphatically believe the author is important in games. I don’t, however, mean to say that the author must be a single person; in fact, many of the best games I’ve played and worked on were created in teams. The key characteristic of said teams, however, was that they were unified by common values and goals, with each person doing his or her part to bring said values and goals to life. Of course, I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for games created entirely by a single person. I personally believe there needs to be both. As for games created by a team but guided by one person’s creative vision? (i.e. the whole “auteur theory” shebangbang) Well, I have some reservations about that, but it’s probably because I’m not yet notorious enough to have an army of programmer and artist minions of my own and am therefore envious.
- This is why I’ve never really caught on with the whole user-generated content phenomenon. Why be creative in an imaginary world when it’s so much more rewarding to be creative in the real world? Why play with Legos when drawing and painting and sculpting is so much more fun? Why write fan fiction when you can write real fiction? ↩
- In Scott McCloud terms, I’m an Iconoclast with some Formalist and Animist tendencies. ↩
- And for the record, I have written linear stories, and will likely continue to do so. I just need to find a proper avenue for them. ↩
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I think you are just a tiny bit harsh on UGC in your first footnote. At least in the case of fan fiction it can serve as a gentle entry point to deeper writing (often there is an already baked community to critique and teach and uplift young talent). It saves (particularly for a Sci-Fi/Fantasy aspiring writer) complicated juggling acts like world building for when the writer has the skills to best explore it. It’s a shame those big franchises that frown upon it, because it can often lead to some of the best writers in that franchise… (Sure fans also produce a lot of drek fiction, particularly as you edge towards the more ero-fiction, but that’s no crime.)
The line between real and virtual is entirely fuzzy and sometimes arbitrary. The skills to build interesting structures in Legos are similar skills that are useful in sculpture and architecture. Any creative effort can be “worth it” in the long run.
Well, I don’t intend for my views to be The Gospel Truth™ or anything like that. I can accept that creating user-generated content can be a worthwhile effort for many people, and it’s not like I’m calling for it to be abolished. What I really meant to say was that it’s something I don’t find personally appealing, given that I have the means and the motivation to create things I have greater control over.
I have, however, been known to enjoy a good parody now and again.
One thought that came to my mind when reading this (it may not be completely relevant, but I find it interesting) is this: Look at Spore. It’s a game talked about much for its sandboxyness. (I haven’t played it myself yet.) Look at Spore, and despite all the talk about user generated and procedural content, it still has a distinct style forced by the game. I think that’s a good thing.
Regarding fan fiction: “The time to write fan fiction is “never.”" – Orson Scott Card
( http://www.hatrack.com/research/questions/q0121.shtml )
Ok, that’s a bit harsh, but if you read it in context, you’ll understand his point (even if you may not agree). I find the last part particularly interesting: “the “experience” you gain is worthless, since you steal precisely those story elements that you must invent for yourself in order to learn how to create workable original fiction.”
@Rikard: For as much as I respect OSC for some of his novels, I seem to have just about as much disregard for his opinion pieces. Your link is a particular case in point. His near immediate association of fan fiction and litigation is a sign that sometimes OSC is the big bully in the cultural sandbox that gets angry when people want to play with his toys… He might not be “wrong”, but he certainly isn’t “right” either. (To some extent he’s become his own worst fan fiction writer, which makes things even weirder/sadder.)
Some people need the discipline of playing within other people’s rule systems before they can strive to create their own rule systems effectively. Not everyone can run before walking.
As for Spore: there certainly exists no/few known ways to do procedural sandbox without some sort of common aesthetic, because the base attributes from which things are built from are from a common core group of artists. I don’t think shared aesthetic is necessarily equivalent to authorial intent, however.