Click Nothing: Understanding Games (by proxy)
Click Nothing: Understanding Games (by proxy) is Clint Hocking assessing Understanding Comics for game design. But this is the bit that really caught my eye:
Pong was a systemic simplification of the rules of a number of racket-based sports. Thirty-four years later, Rockstar Table Tennis has complexified the rules considerably. Now it cannot represent tennis, squash, 1 vs 1 volleyball, or any other racket-based sport… it represents ping pong. Period.
Imagine if Pong had been called ‘Argument’. And instead of squares for paddles, they were shaped like faces in profile. Imagine if instead of a moving square, the ‘ball’ was a comic-style speech bubble with the word ‘Yes’ written in it when one player returned it, and the word ‘No’ written in it when another player returned it. No rule changes. The words ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ would be bouncing back and forth from the mouths, occasionally slipping by and not being responded to. It’s clear, then, that this simplification of systems represented by Pong could have been about any number of things aside from a racket-based sport. The rules were simple enough that they could in fact represent a huge range of things. If Pong had been called ‘Argument’, what would its successor look like 34 years later?
10 Responses to “Click Nothing: Understanding Games (by proxy)”
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I think this is one of the problems with the ever-increasing graphics capabilities of games; you can represent anything specific much more precisely, but it gets to be impossible to see it in any other way. Pong could be seen abstractly; Table Tennis can’t.
UO’s graphics are considered dated by some. But in what other game can you use some of its basic object-graphics in the tile-based world — and a lot of creativity — to create an aquarium, a hot tub, or a mantlepiece? To do that in SWG, say, you really have to have the item in and of itself; it’s more work for the designers, and it’s less creative and fulfilling for (some of) the players.
Does appealing to the massmarket with ever more specific and detailed graphics really mean losing this level of creativity we can potentially offer to the player?
I know this is a bit offtopic, but honestly, I’m not certain that Pong could have been an argument. It needed to be simple, and it’s simplest the way it is.
EA’s top seller might be Kerry-Bush 2004 ?
I know this is a bit offtopic, but honestly, I’m not certain that Pong could have been an argument.
Many arguments are very simple things. In some cases, the way you win an argument is to just keep the ball in play, and eventually the other guy gets tired and drops out.
EA’s top seller might be Kerry-Bush 2004 ?
HAH!
what would its successor look like 34 years later?
Courtroom.
Now it cannot represent tennis, squash, 1 vs 1 volleyball, or any other racket-based sport… it represents ping pong. Period.
We know that extra constraints can facilitate heightened creativity. So perhaps the counter-question is: How many types of Ping Pong could you imagine with Table Tennis? That doesn’t necessarily work as well, but as a generalized question, maybe it’s merely a trade-off?
Of course, the creativity must be there in the first place…
“what would its successor look like 34 years later?”
“Courtroom.”
Nay, I say its called “The Apprentice” or better yet…
My new reality show:
“Divorce TV”
‘Argument’ upgraded for the Internet generation? I’m not sure but I suspect it would involve flamethrowers.
[…] Comments […]
Custody Battle 3.
Remember, we’re talking games, not TV shows. (Though the line is kinda blurred.)
“Custody Battle 3.”
“Remember, we’re talking games, not TV shows. (Though the line is kinda blurred.)”
mmmm gotcha, thanks for keeping me on track:
Grand Theft Attorney: Divorce in Malibu
Sans the secret code, because really who’d want to see THAT?
Well said. Game companies need to rediscover abstraction. Instead of ever more powerful physics engines, game developers should look at what experience they are trying to give their players and create (or recycle) mechanisms to do that… “Argument” could look like something completely different to capture the designers goals, even if the underlying mechanism is Pong… why not use Pong as a metaphor for a police interrogation in a CSI game? It makes as much sense as searching around the screen for the magic pixel.
But will people pay the full $50 for an abstract game?
I suspect the days of basic Tetris selling for $50 are over.