Do you think a game could succeed without reaching into the realm of fiction?

What I mean by this is that do you feel a company like EA, ThatGameCompany, Sony, Nintendo, or even Square-Enix could make a game about a typical person living a typical life and dealing with their daily and rather normal struggle or do you feel gamers would be turned off without having some fantastical hook like the character solving a murder, or finding some dark secret, or aliens and zombies have to be required to push the sales up?

Many game like Heavy Rain and The Walking Dead deal with real life subject matters but are often pushed forward by a more sensational elements that helps drive the story and engage the player initially so the human interest part can then ensnare them and make them go to gaming blogs and write blogs about how wonderful it was. What I propose is whether you would be willing to play a game about a boy or girl living in a city, having a normal desk job, and dealing with pretty normal relationships? Think a Real Life simulator. Do you feel that due to the nature of gaming in our culture being a part of escapism makes it difficult for us to connect and we would probably ignore it on the idea the very premise doesn't sound engaging?

Interesting question. I think it depends on how you define 'living a normal life', especially in a game.

First, I don't think the big companies would go anywhere near such a title, however, such titles are (sort of) starting to appear from indie developers, for example 'Papers, Please'. But they focus solely on one aspect of life or work.
Even games that seem to focus around 'normal' life scenarios often have some form of objective to them or feature strange elements, such as The Sims and Sim City, which blare at you "THIS IS A GAME".

We also have games that feature real life locations, such as the Yakuza series' Kamurocho being based on Tokyo's Kabukicho in Shinjuku. But again, this is romanticised and features heavy RPG mechanics. Such games also quickly show their limitations with what you can actually do and this can break immersion.

So to answer your question. I would be willing to play such a game, but, and perhaps this contradicts my last statement, it would have to be based on a life I can't easily experience myself, such as a different culture, life style, or even a time in history. I don't think I would want to come home after work and play a game featuring 'myself' being at work. Damn, sounds like a living nightmare...

So basically, the game would have to be something new to me, it would also have to be realistic and accurate (especially if taking place in history), while at the same time offering so much choice that immersion is not broken. As a result, I don't think its possible, games are always limited by their programming.

Harvest Moon.

/thread

Your life is like Harvest Moon? Talking animals and all that? Limited choice of clothes, food? No where to go but a small farm/town/ball planet? Perks and awards for doing mundane tasks?

You're joking right? Harvest Moon is hardly a life simulator.

Successful video games are all about telling an engaging story in an engaging way. If you take away the interesting elements of the story, you're pretty much left with gameplay to do all the heavy lifting.

In theory, I guess it's possible. The Sims does get kind of get close to this, but like Uchu said, it's not exactly representative of real life.

I think if we took The Sims, set it up so that you can only control one person, create some gameplay elements around progressing through school, work and life instead of just point-and-click stuff like The Sims (e.g. those minigames in Bully whenever you went to class)... it could work.

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Originally Posted by Uchu

Your life is like Harvest Moon? Talking animals and all that? Limited choice of clothes, food? No where to go but a small farm/town/ball planet? Perks and awards for doing mundane tasks?

You're joking right? Harvest Moon is hardly a life simulator.

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Um, pretty much?

First, I've never played a Harvest Moon game with talking animals. Sure, maybe I can go other places. But I don't. I have maybe four locations I regularly visit, and that's it. I know about twenty people personally. I eat almost the exact same thing for breakfast every day. My food choice may not be specifically limited to the options in the game, but the variety is about the same size (at least, once they added in some variety, I admit I don't eat just the same thing every day).

Perks and awards for doing mundane tasks? What sorts are you talking about? The games really have no perks or awards besides money, which is pretty much the same reason why I do mundane tasks in real life.

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Successful video games are all about telling an engaging story in an engaging way. If you take away the interesting elements of the story, you're pretty much left with gameplay to do all the heavy lifting.

In theory, I guess it's possible. The Sims does get kind of get close to this, but like Uchu said, it's not exactly representative of real life.

I think if we took The Sims, set it up so that you can only control one person, create some gameplay elements around progressing through school, work and life instead of just point-and-click stuff like The Sims (e.g. those minigames in Bully whenever you went to class)... it could work.

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If the gameplay strays far enough, apparently it will no longer be a "life simulator".

So, that leaves us with reproducing life as exactly as possible. In which case, why bother? If the two are identical, I don't know anyone who would rather use the simulator than go out and experience life itself. We play video games for something different. Not necessarily "escapism" (though that is an aspect of it), but just because it offers a unique experience.

There's a lot of visual novels that deal with fairly mundane subject matter, like lame teenage high-school dating and whatnot. I guess they do pretty well. In Japan at least. Though they typically at least have anime style multi-color hair and whatnot. I guess you could make one with photos of real people rather than anime/manga drawings. Which I imagine has even been done. But to what success, I have no idea. Probably not very much..

The way I understand the question, will we ever have video game literature. I mean games that are to the rest of the genre what literature is to fiction.

No matter what, the game is fiction. Unless you're talking about a gaming loop: gamer plays himself playing himself playing himself, etc.

So if all games are fiction, the closest they will come to replicating reality is to approach literature, and by literature I mean the style of fiction wherein all things therein could and would happen. Based on real places, maybe real people. And I guess I'm specifically referring to Literary Realism, but the broader context works too.

My basic answer: I think anything that exists in one entertainment medium can be translated into another. e.g. There are movies that are poems. There are books that replicate Jazz (Toni Morrison et al), so why not a game that approaches the realism of literature. It would take a deft hand to pull off and it would almost necessarily be niche, but it could work. I know would play a game like this.

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

Um, pretty much?


First, I've never played a Harvest Moon game with talking animals. Sure, maybe I can go other places. But I don't. I have maybe four locations I regularly visit, and that's it. I know about twenty people personally. I eat almost the exact same thing for breakfast every day. My food choice may not be specifically limited to the options in the game, but the variety is about the same size (at least, once they added in some variety, I admit I don't eat just the same thing every day).

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But thats the point. You may choose to only go to a few places, but at the same time you have the choice to go elsewhere and try new things if you wish. If a game limits the user the ability to do that, it fails as a life simulator and shouldn't be called one, or at least in the same way that this thread is talking about.


Oh, and perhaps I made a mistake about the animals, as i seemed to have confused Harvest Moon for Animal Crossing, but the above point still stands. One persons life being 'similar' to that portrayed in a video game in a given state and time does not make it a simulation for everybody, and I would argue even for that of the person playing the game proclaiming such things. So, not a life sim.

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

Perks and awards for doing mundane tasks? What sorts are you talking about? The games really have no perks or awards besides money, which is pretty much the same reason why I do mundane tasks in real life.Um, pretty much?

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Again, as previously mentioned, I mistook the game for Animal Crossing, however, in a general sense what I was referring to is being rewarded for things, when in real life such rewards will not come by just because you put in time. Furthermore, a lot of mundane tasks are without immediate or any reward at all. "Well done, you brushed your teeth 20 times, have some money". "Well done, you entered 20 names into the database, have some money". Life isn't like that, sure you may 'earn' a reward eventually, like being paid or getting a gift for your hard work but this is not the same as a game. No one rewards you for looking after your health, thats all on you, but a game would in some way. Wii Fit. "Well done, you completed a challenge, have a new game to play!"
Also, take FF for example, no one in real life 'levels up' just because they spent 20 hours doing the exact same thing.
Again, made a mistake with Animal Crossing and haven't experienced Harvest Moon, so perhaps it does indeed require the same level of expertise, luck, hard work, dedication, patience, and heartbreak when you have a lousy harvest as a real farmer, but it's probably safe to assume it doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

If the gameplay strays far enough, apparently it will no longer be a "life simulator".


So, that leaves us with reproducing life as exactly as possible. In which case, why bother? If the two are identical, I don't know anyone who would rather use the simulator than go out and experience life itself. We play video games for something different. Not necessarily "escapism" (though that is an aspect of it), but just because it offers a unique experience.

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You hit the nail on the head there. This is exactly why I believe such 'games' will fail as a consumer product, they will still be labeled as simulation since they are, by definition, not real but as you said, why play something that is identical to your life?
Harvest Moon is successful and you obviously have fun playing it because it is a game, not a real life simulation (of yours or anyone else's for that matter). If it were so you wouldn't be playing it in the first place by the sounds of it.

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Originally Posted by chionos

The way I understand the question, will we ever have video game literature. I mean games that are to the rest of the genre what literature is to fiction.

No matter what, the game is fiction. Unless you're talking about a gaming loop: gamer plays himself playing himself playing himself, etc.

So if all games are fiction, the closest they will come to replicating reality is to approach literature, and by literature I mean the style of fiction wherein all things therein could and would happen. Based on real places, maybe real people. And I guess I'm specifically referring to Literary Realism, but the broader context works too.

My basic answer: I think anything that exists in one entertainment medium can be translated into another. e.g. There are movies that are poems. There are books that replicate Jazz (Toni Morrison et al), so why not a game that approaches the realism of literature. It would take a deft hand to pull off and it would almost necessarily be niche, but it could work. I know would play a game like this.

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Yes, this is what I'm going for. Can a game work like literature with a title that is mostly plausible and doesn't have to spill into other genres to be exciting. How about a game where a son is with his terminally ill father in a hospital and the father tells the son the story of his life with each chapter being a different game mechanic. How about a game similar to Heavy Rain's design about a marriage that is falling apart? No demons, no murder mysteries, no crazy driving mechanics, no shooting people or dealing with real drug lords or hard boiled revenge. Just a game about people.

I think it'll happen eventually. It's not going to be a revolution in gaming or anything, but it'll become a regular fixture in the landscape. I think as gaming has matured, it has become more and more artistic. Not all the time of course. I wouldn't call every game a piece of art. But they are out there. And I think as we continue to progress and gaming evolves there will be more and more people involved in designing the games who are true artists, who will push the boundaries of gaming, and one of these people will certainly find a way to craft a game in the way you describe it, WK. thatgamecompany has helped us move in that direction. At some point someone will bridge the gap between what tgc does and the world of simulation gaming, and that is where game "literature" exists, or will exist.