In Tracy Fullerton’s The Structure of Games, Fullerton discusses the similarities between games and what exactly it even means to be one. She compares games to other media and explains a very important difference between the two: when it comes to games, the player is actively involved and has some sort of influence on the outcome. You can choose what you want to do when you’re playing a game. However, with regards to media, it is the opposite: the player has more of a passive role and doesn’t have an influence on the outcome. Another feature of games that Fullerton discusses is objective. The contrast between games and media is again stated: with media, characters still have objectives, but the viewer does not. With games, the player does have specific objectives. Along with player involvement and objectives, Fullerton further goes on to discuss what else truly makes a game, including procedures and rules. Rules are the structure to a game that state what a player can or cannot do, which we discussed in class. On Tuesday, I found it very interesting when we created/modified one rule to the board game that we were playing in class. It completely changed the game we were playing, which only goes to show how important rules really are. As soon as you change them up, the game becomes something entirely different. Rules are what make games unique.
Later on, Fullerton discusses player engagement in games, including detailed stories and concepts. This is incredibly important when it comes to board games, video games, etc., because without the players, there would be no game. Far too many games that have had great potential have ended up not being successful due to lack of player engagement from the creators. We see this a lot in video games where the developers become uninterested or don’t have enough funding to improve concepts / fix bugs that the community complains about. All in all, it becomes clear that to make a good game, you must be able to appropriately engage your players and make them want to come back for more. After reading this chapter, I definitely became more aware of the specific structure games have, so much so to the point where you could even find a similarity between Go Fish and Quake (a first person shooter).
Fullerton, Tracy, Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition, 2019
Its interesting how we classify a separation of normal media, like films, versus interactive media, like video games. In the Black Mirror Interactive Movie, the viewer can choose what happens next. Is this a game or a film? Can it be both? There must be a grey area for these types of things.
Also, the player is always the most important part of the game. It really does seem strange that creators don’t pay attention and focus on the money sometimes.
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