The world of English literature uses the phrase ‘intentional fallacy’ to mean believing that you can know what an author meant in writing something based on exterior information. A common example would be learning that JRR Tolkien fought at the Somme and inferring that Middle-earth was an allegory about the First and Second World Wars.
Invoking the intentional fallacy is generally considered bad. But in the more fluid universe of culture we cannot avoid the stories of authors. We want to know who Shakespeare was and what hijinks Hunter S Thompson got up to. We tend to ascribe mythical qualities to makers’ lives and turn them into heroes of a larger tale. They inspire us and, in wanting to be closer to them and their works, we conflate the two. It’s not enough to say that Jim Morrison happened to write songs; we have to turn him into a story. And we draw connections in so doing. The maker and the thing he makes become indivisible.
That meta-conversation takes on a life of its own. On social networks and blogs people talk about the narrative of media, whether being appalled by Miley Cyrus or re-energised by the latest DeLillo novel. They perennially ask whether we are approaching the death of the novel, and just as commonly refute the suggestion. And all of the above is just as true of games.
Consider The Last Of Us. It’s a tour de force of design and production, of style and substance. It’s fun, dark, morally ambiguous. Between its combat, crafting, skill, resource management and map design it’s got a lot going on. It’s also very ambitious in terms of its story. Like many high-end games it’s heavily influenced by film, using cutscenes, alongside dialogue, discoverables and quick-time events, to paint an image of a world and an urgency within it. The game takes time to develop strong character voices as a part of that and then crafts tasks that reinforce those relationships. Is it ultimately successful?
For an audience already reading intentions and participating in the meta-conversation, it is. The audience is predisposed to hear that message and it responds. And therein lies a danger for meta-conversations and the reason they must always be challenged.
The conversation around games is often circular because it’s based on belief in the future.
It begins with an article of faith – because games are interactive they are better than passive media – and then extrapolates from there. What follows is often closer to theology than critique.
If you accept this games axiom, then it follows that controlling Joel and Ellie creates a more powerful connection than if you were simply watching them in a story on a screen. Irrespective of the quality of acting, technique, interruptions to attention or whatever, that becomes the reasoning. If you accept the axiom, you must accept that the combination of cutscene and quick-time event is the most emotionally impactful because it is supposed to be.
Logic dictates that when the player loses his daughter at the start of the game it must be emotionally meaningful, more so than all the other times games have used the same device. The future axiom mandates that it must be so. When finding yourself as Joel assaulting a hospital to rescue Ellie, even though she’s the potential saviour of mankind, it must be a Great Moment. So too the lie Joel tells at the end.
But there are other views, ones that start with not being aware of the meta-conversation. The person who plays one game a year after everyone else, for example. For them the experience can be quite different. These are the people for whom the artifice of a modern game may seem baffling. They are the ones who interpret ‘significant’ role reversals as the game just repeatedly cheating her of her loot. Or for whom quick-time events are basically trial-and-error tests that lose their appeal quickly. Where a tuned-in player might delight at the bravura of Ellie’s character, another might find her interesting in glimpses, repetitive at others.
I’m not picking on story, or The Last Of Us, but rather talking about the role of a wider culture in the estimations of how great a game is. The inner workings of the Minecraft community are just as significant to understanding that game as for The Last Of Us. So too what goes on in the Steam indie scene. Papers, Please is not necessarily fun unless you’re plugged into the wider conversation.
Meta-conversations and the intentional fallacy are both impossible to avoid and key aspects of the joy of games. To enthuse about a game on Twitter is an important experience that brings both the game and the community closer together. But we should always remain aware of the potential for the meta-conversation to spin out of control.
As game makers, if we only ever serve the meta’s interests then we end up making games for a niche audience that hates change, spending all of our time listening to the same voices. It’s worth remembering those who don’t participate and making sure that a game is still fun for them, even if they don’t get our ten layers of meaning. It is they who keep the conversation alive.
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