Difficult Questions About "Difficult Questions About Videogames"

It often seems that discussion of some of the broadest, most important questions about videogames often gets passed over in favor of endless, navel-gazing discussions about meaningless minutiae. Iain Simons and James Newman are trying to fix that through the Difficult Questions About Video Games project at PublicBeta and . From the introduction:



We’ve grown tired of reading about technology and features we don’t really understand and don’t really need to understand; we’re fed up with hearing scare stories about the effects of videogames on our behaviour, especially given the flimsy evidence; we’re weary of defending games against the charge that they turn us into misfits and loners; and we don’t want to read any more reviews that use phrases like ‘fluid controls’. It’s time to celebrate videogames. It’s time to take them seriously. It’s time to develop a sophisticated language we can use to talk about them.



I e-mailed Simons and Newman to find out more about the project and their thoughts on videogames in general and videogame journalism in particular.



The Video Game Ombudsman: First of all, who are you? (You're not the only one that can ask incredibly freeform questions)



Iain Simons: I'm Iain Simons, I'm the director of the PublicBeta project. I also run a creative projects company called Suppose in the UK - of which PB is now a major project and my principal focus.



James Newman: A fair question. I'm Dr. James Newman and I'm a Senior Lecturer in Media Communications and Cultural Studies at Bath Spa University College. My particular research interest is videogames. I've been teaching and writing about videogames in the university sector for about five years or so I guess and have been researching them since the mid 1990s. My most recent work was a book on videogames (in fact called 'Videogames') in the Routledge Introductions to Media and Communications series published earlier this year –- available at all good bookshops, keenly priced etc. etc. My primary role with regard to PublicBeta is working on the literary side of things, editing books and so on.



VGO: What inspired you to start the PublicBeta site and the DQAV project?



IS: PublicBeta as a site only really exists at the moment to support the other activities, details of which are being released gradually. We've been talking about the PB project for over a year now. It began when James and Dave Doak (Free Radical) came up to Nottingham to do an event for Suppose. The idea was to get people that we thought were interesting to come and talk about their ideas in places where we thought people would like to listen to them.



Invariably this meant pubs and restaurants. These events climaxed with Jeff Minter showing VLM / Unity work and giving a career retrospectives in an Indian Restaurant in Nottingham. The success of these evenings suggested that there might be a wider audience for a different way of talking about games.



JN: The germ of the idea for Difficult Questions is one I'd been toying with while writing the first chapter of 'Videogames' book where it became increasingly difficult to actually pin down what all these eminent scholars and commentators were actually talking about – it seems perfectly possible to go to an academic conference on games or read a bunch of papers and for there to be no real consensus on the objects and experiences we're actually discussing – Half-Life 2, Pac-Man, Snake on a mobile phone, Eyetoy, DDR are all fantastically diverse in a whole range of ways. So, given the huge variety of objects, experiences, technologies, ways of playing, etc., that come under the umbrella of 'videogame', it's not surprising that we all end up talking about different things and that our experience and predilections shape our thinking and theorizing, but nonetheless an important point. When Iain and I got together through the Suppose events with Dave Doak, Jeff Minter, etc., it transpired that we'd both been thinking about these kinds of difficult questions for a while so we thought we'd ask them and write down what happened.



I guess the other thing is that we, like a lot of people, have become frustrated by the absence of a critical language for talking intelligently about videogames and gaming. What does 'fluid controls' really mean? Now I'm not suggesting for one minute that DQAV will generate this critical language, but it's one of a number of steps and our particular take on this is to get to the really basic, fundamental questions and keep asking them with a childlike insistence to as many people as possible to pool their opinion and experience.



VGO: Who have you sent the questionnaire to so far? What has the response been like?



IS: It's gone to a lot of developers and players, some publishers and retailers. I have to say that personally I've been very surprised by the enthusiasm with which the project has been received. There are a lot of very busy people out there who are prepared to take time out of their schedule to answer these seemingly childish questions. The quality of response we have been getting has been consistently high. The project was always kind of risky, my personal fear was that people would view it as some sort of wind-up, and in a certain light I can see how it might read like that. It's deeply refreshing to know that our contributors are less cynical than I.



Developers particularly seem to really enjoy being asked to answer questions about things other than gameplay details of their next title, 'can you do a double jump?' etc. etc.



JN: We've targeted developers, academics, journalists, but people from fairly diverse backgrounds have come on board as the project has been publicized. As for the response, if I say we're surprised at the quality and quantity that's not to sound rude, rather that our initial concern was that people would think we were having a laugh. Thankfully, people either generously assumed or, having been in dialogue with us, realized that we are serious. Our initial experience talking to the developers we knew in the UK was that they were just so delighted to be asked different questions and that we didn't just want to know how many polys their engine could shift.



VGO: How long have you been playing video games? What are some of your favorites?



IS: I wouldn't describe myself as a hardcore gamer. I started playing on my older brothers Vic-20, graduating to my own Commodore 64. Of that era I particularly remember Ancipital, Way of the Exploding Fist, Dropzone and the Brian Howarth / Scott Adams Adventures as favourites. I played a little on Amiga and Atari ST, but I got heavily into music for a few years, games dropped off my radar for a while until '95. Monkey Island and the early Lucasarts titles were very big for me. To this day I think there are few games that match (or even approach) what they achieved in terms of wit, pace and restraint. ScummVM has been a big find in the last few years and I'm warmed to find that they still stand up today in a way that a lot of my other old favourites don't... Currently I've been enjoying Spiderman 2, Hampsterball and Spheres of Chaos.



JN: I really became aware of games when my dad started bringing home computers from work – which eventually led to us getting a Dragon 32 when I was 10 maybe 11. I remember going to an interview for secondary school and my dad talking at great length to one of the teachers who had also just bought one. They were talking about programming or something, and I remember thinking at the time, this is going very well, I just hope he doesn't ask me anything because all I do with it is play Asteroids and he doesn't look like he'll be impressed with my high score. Luckily he didn't and my secret was safe.



I moved on to the Commodore 64, which I thought was just great. I used to buy games for the music – especially Rob Hubbard (never actually played Kentilla, just used to leave the music running). I have subsequently made CDs of them and latterly I have found myself ridiculed even by my friends for having Hubbard, Galway and Follin brothers playlists on my iPod.



Favourite games -– difficult one because if you ask me again tomorrow, they might be different. However, I love Super Mario 64 -– it came at a time when I was losing interest in games, and I remember sitting down at home and picking up that weird looking pad for the first time and feeling myself become Mario -– so much freedom and so effortlessly manipulable. Zelda 3 and Ocarina of Time are also very special. There'll always be a place in my heart for Parachute on the Game & Watch. If I say so myself, I was very good at that game –- it has the kind of complex mechanic that I look for and there's just the right balance of action and strategy (i.e. 100:0). Still play it. Animal Crossing is still great and makes me want to dust off Little Computer People and when you have MAME you're never alone.



VGO: What is the number one problem with videogame journalism as you see it today?



IS: Too much focus on the product itself, not enough on the experience of playing it. I think that *might* be linked to the alleged climate of aggressive advertiser influence within newsstand titles.



JN: Can I cheat and give you two things... first, we have an impoverished language for discussing games and play. This is not a criticism of videogames journalism per se, rather that there has been a long standing western tradition to denigrate play and games so we have a comparatively unsophisticated language to describe the structures and experiences.



Second, it feels like there is too much emphasis on the game as a kind of static text. For me, what's interesting about videogames (though this is not unique to them, by any means) is what happens when they are played. So, this could be a number of things – it's about the experience of taking part and engaging with them in a whole bunch of different social and physical settings, it's about your experience and feelings unfolding over time as you continue to play, or even as you think about what you played, and it's about how players actually play games – or perhaps play with them. I'm really interested in finding out more about the different things players do with games whether this is in terms of finding new ways to play them (some people might call this cheating...), or writing narratives about them, writing FAQs about, drawing pictures inspired by them, dressing up as the characters, modding them, even making their own games. Ultimately, it would be good to hear more about videogame cultures and the cultural significance of videogames.



VGO: How many answers are you planning on receiving for the book? How many will you actually publish? How heavily edited will the submissions be?



IS: We'll publish all of the ones that add something to the book. At the moment the problem is that that means about 98% of the material we have... The submissions won't be particularly edited as much as structured -- that is to say we plan to generate much meaning from the arrangement of different contributions alongside each other. There are a number of people who I suspect may not get their contributions in on time.



JN: Depends how many we get. Once you need two hands to lift it, we'll have to rethink, but the current policy is to print those responses that further the discussion. So, if it's interesting, it's in. We want to take a light touch regards editing -– typos and stuff like that -– but we'd rather think about positioning responses against each other where they present contradictory stances or support each other's position. As editors, we'll be framing the sections and questions but not to directly comment on or critique them as such, but rather to draw out themes or emergent issues and resonances. We see the value of the book as deriving from the diversity of responses to these simple but difficult questions gathered in one place and rubbing up against each other.



VGO: You say you want to hear from "developers, or... academics, or players, or publishers..." What about non-gamers or people who only have a tenuous view or understanding of videogames? Will their views be in the book?



IS: There's an obvious practical issue here to do with not being able to ask everyone. I think it's fair to say that most of the people on the book have some kind of insight and opinion into games, and more importantly are able to express it in words. We've had to be fairly focused in this instance just to be able to manage it. We do have plans to extend the life of this project in other forms, more about that later though...



JN: Yes, this is one of those difficult questions that we've grappled with. At present, most of the people we've asked and who have responded without us asking have some obvious connection with videogames. However, we are aware that non-game acolytes can contribute a great deal to a lot of our questions –- particularly things like, 'what is a videogame?' We do have plans in this area but if I told you I'd have to kill you...



VGO: You say on the site that you're publishing the book yourself and launching at the European Developers Forum. How will the book be distributed? How many copies do you plan on selling?



IS: The book will be distributed to bookstores in the UK. We're still looking at international distribution/publishing options. We'll be selling it at events and online through the site. As for how many, we genuinely have no real idea. Economically we're trying to do with as little risk as possible, but...



JN: I suspect Iain has filled you in on this. But, at the risk of duplication, distribution is initially limited to the UK via bookstores. There'll also be direct sales – specifically through the site and events.



VGO: Your site includes quite a few references to cheating in games. Is this a pet subject of yours? What are your own views on video game cheating?



IS: It is indeed a pet subject of James' who I'm sure will elaborate more than I. I find cheating a fascinating philosophical area, particularly the blurred distinction between strategy guides and cheating.



JN: Yes it does, and yes it is. My views on cheating can be read about in a series of forthcoming publications. It's another one of those things where the word is trying to do too many things. My interest is in trying to unravel all the activities and practices that get called 'cheating' (with all the unwelcome baggage that the term comes with) and working out what they really are, why people engage in them, what the pleasures are, etc. My current academic research is centred on thinking about how 'cheating' helps us understand the various pleasures of playing videogames (more of those difficult questions – why do you play? Is it fun?) When you think about videogames and the 'digital literacy', there's some really interesting moral and ethical dimensions to this area. There's a lot of work to be done.



VGO: Your site mentions, "creating brilliant live events," and, "a series of unique liveshows about cheating." Can you elaborate on these plans?



IS: There will be a U.K. tour of a 'Difficult Questions' show this October to promote the book, we're planning a series of other shows to help build the community around the publications. There are many other site-specific nights planned...



JN: There's some interesting stuff in the pipeline and I'm sure Iain's told you about the things that are coming up like the DQAV live events. Can't really say too much about the cheating event other than it will be fantastic and perhaps not what you might expect. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?



VGO: Finally, a seemingly simple yet surprisingly hard journalism question for you: Is videogames one word or two and why?



IS: Frankly, I've not done a great deal of research into this. My personal opinion is that it's one. It feels like one, although people have argued against that within some of their responses. "Gameplay" vs. "game play" has also been an issue for many...



JN: What did Iain say? If he said two words, then I'll say it's one. It's one on the cover of my book...



At least one of our respondents picks this up and strongly feels that it should be two words (as it is in the OED, though I tend to chastise my students for using dictionary definitions). Most of our respondents have used 'videogames' but they may be being led by us...? Perhaps this is the most difficult question of all. What do you think? One or two?



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If you've read this far, chances are you fall into the target audience for submissions to the project, so I encourage you to head over to take some time out of your busy schedule and fill out their questionnaire.