Player Expectations.

Courtesy of Critical Distance last Sunday, I was directed to these two articles analyzing Modern Warfare 3.  The first, written by John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun, is fairly critical of MW3's design and lack of choice. The second is a rebuttal by Brendan Keogh (a writer for Edge and Kill Screen) defending the game a bit more.

When we play games, we tacitly agree to a contract.  We agree to be bound by the rules of the game as long as the game will give us the experience we're looking for.  In soccer, that means that only 11 players can be on the field at a time.  If we didn't follow this contract, some teams would rush the field with 25 vs. 5.  The experience of competition and teamwork that most players play soccer for would be ruined by the unfair odds.  In Hide and Seek, opening your eyes while people hide ruins the exploratory and deductive fun to be had by actually following the rules.  Likewise, by obeying the rules of video games, we gain the entertainment, challenge, competition, etc., that its gameplay has to offer.

For example, no one complains about Zelda's linearity.  I've never read a review that complains that a Zelda game doesn't allow you to join Gannondorf or asks for the ability to kill random townspeople.  No, in Hyrule, we are on our best behavior.  We put the cuccos back in their cages, we go on fetch quest after fetch quest, we save the children, rescue the horse, and, at the end of the day, prevent the end of freedom and goodness at the hands of Ganon.  In so doing, we feel like a hero.  We are challenged.  We participate in a story of courage and sacrifice.  These choices are part of what we expect from the game and we submit to the limitations of "goodness" gladly.

I think this is the central point that Keogh makes in his follow-up article.  Modern Warfare 3 makes no attempt to be a free-flowing, open world game where choice is a central theme (and mechanic).  This in no way makes it less of a game (After all, choices are still being made on a moment-by-moment, objective-by-objective level), it just makes it a different kind of game than Walker wanted to play or expected to play.

The core difference between Keogh and Walker's playthroughs also comes down to their beliefs of what a player should be.  Increasingly, I think this is what will divide games more than anything else in the coming few years.  Must players, necessarily, be the sole decision maker for how the game progresses (e.g. Minecraft)?  Or can players take a slight back-seat position to the designer's decisions (e.g. Final Fantasy)?

I wholeheartedly support Keogh's final conclusion and I think he says it more elegantly than I could.  So here it is:

So this is what I ask of you [Walker], and of all videogame critics and players alike: stop using “freedom” as a metric for a game’s quality or, even worse, for a game’s gameness. Every game is a dance between player and code, but that doesn’t mean the player always gets to lead. A game that leads the player can be just as meaningful, significant, intelligent, stimulating or exhilarating as a game that lets the player do whatever they wish (within the games confines). The player is not the centre of the equation, and neither is the game. It’s the interrelationship between the player and the game that matters most.