Whenever the conversation about 'violent video games' surfaces, so do a lot of misconceptions. As fans rush to defend their medium -- games don't make people violent and it's a healthy outlet and it's not real and so forth -- some nuance gets forgotten. Sometimes the problem people have with game violence isn't that it supposedly has real-world implications. Sometimes it's just that people are bored.
Game critic Michael Abbott felt a little bit alienated by some of the presentations at this year's E3, particularly Microsoft's show. He analyzed the content on offer and found that "58 percent of Microsoft's E3 briefing contained images of characters killing, preparing to kill, or otherwise battling a deadly on-screen enemy." That's 52 minutes total out of the company's entire sizzling 90-minute presentation, and that's not even including "ominous situations suggesting pending havoc."
Only 27.5 minutes out of a total 106 minutes of Sony's presentation contained similarly-violent imagery, although Sony spent more of its time talking (and spent, according to Abbott's study, about 25 minutes talking about hardware, PlayStation Network, PlayStation Now, Sony film and television, and similar). At the same time, says Abbott, "We can also fairly accuse Sony of delivering the two grisliest trailers shown at E3: Mortal Kombat X and Suda 51's Let It Die."
So what's the problem? "What concerns me about the avalanche of shooters we see at E3 every year is the way they're showcased as the very best the industry can do," Abbott tells Gamasutra. "We’re told these are important groundbreaking games, but we can see for ourselves they aren't. This year the endless stream of violence felt more like pandering than ever, and I felt bored and alienated. And old. Every E3 is pitched to the same 14-year-old adolescent male as the one before. And every year I have less in common with that boy."
The video game industry has had a problem for a long time with conflating "violence" with adulthood -- the label is "Mature content," isn't it, and therefore "maturity" tends to equate solely to as much gruesome imagery as possible. It's understandable to an extent: Video games have unfairly borne the mantle of moral panic for almost as long as they've been alive, and a dedication to brutality almost defiantly expresses that video games are a medium for adults, and the cartoon stabbings and vivisections we play in our "adult" games have nothing to do with the real world, so please stop blaming "us" for school shootings, thanks.
But why is grit and viscera often our primary way of proving our "adulthood?" Shouldn't the pleasure of play be ageless, independent of a particular domain? Says Abbott: "Ironically, as that 14-year-old seems to want ever more 'adult' and grisly games, I find myself yearning for more 'adult' games that enable joyful imaginative play. Violence in games feels played-out. I’m hungry for experiences that tap into other human impulses. I’m not offended by violence -- Suda 51 intrigues me because he explores and exploits violence in ways other designers don’t -- I just don’t find killing simulators very interesting anymore."
With the modern design vocabulary that video games' foremost innovators have developed, surely we can also explore tonalities of play that aren't solely blood-drenched in the way young men would describe as "sick". Violence isn't inherently bad, and can even be impactful. Yet where's joy?
Funomena's Robin Hunicke is passionate about joy, even silliness, as a quality of the game experience, and I asked her about video games she's experienced as joyful. "Hands down, the mostjoyful game experience that had the biggest impact on me would be Katamari Damacy," she says. "Playing Katamari for the first time, I knew I had to meet its creator. Everything about it was so fresh, vibrant and tactile... full of the spirit of curiosity, exploration and physical fun."
Hunicke and Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi would go on to work together -- he now draws faces all over everything there. Hunicke also cites Masaya Matsuura's PaRappa the Rapper as a "close second" influence: "From the rapping mechanics to the silly rhymes and characters, it just made me smile," she says. "It was actually the first game I had a party for on launch. We finished the game in one sitting, staying up soooo late! Giddy, silly, fun for everyone to sing along with... it was definitely a joyful experience."
Before founding Funomena, Hunicke worked with ThatGameCompany on Journey. For her, the studio's previous Flower occupies a position on the "contemplative" end of the joy spectrum: "The feeling of gliding through the air as the sun sets in the distance... it's amazing. Such an uplifting sense of freedom, motion and the beauty you find in nature. That's a lovely experience that so few games have captured."
Is joy something that games can "design for?" I asked Ricky Haggett of Honeyslug, creator of colorful, bright games like Frobisher Says and Hohokum, which releases on PSN in August (Honeyslug's website proudly declares, "Hello there, we make fun games"). "I definitely think it's possible to design for joy," Haggett tells me.
"Allowing the player to 'perform' within the game, with interactions rich enough to support a degree of creativity – perhaps even allow players to do some exuberant showboating," Haggett recommends. "Game actions which aren't required to succeed, but provided purely as a way to enhance the performance can help a lot here, as does the ability to chain together different game actions in interesting ways: the more variation the game allows in how the player interacts with it, the better."
"Joy is a feeling -- a desired aesthetic outcome," Hunicke agrees. "If you want people to experience a particular feeling as the outcome of a design, you begin with that feeling and ask yourself what mechanics and dynamics will create it! Design-wise, joyful play spaces should engage your sense of exploration and curiosity ... a la Katamari, with it's odd but pleasing parade of unique objects, carefully laid out for you to roll up as you explore different environments at different scales."
Joyful games also engage the player's sense of humor, Hunicke suggests, as with PaRappa's odd cast of characters, playful storyline and unexpected rhymes. Says Hunicke: "It's especially good at making silly sounds -- voices, sound effects and instrumentation -- which bolster the sense that the game doesn't take itself so seriously."
"And there's the element of beauty as well," she adds. "Flower's interactive grass and dynamic swarm of petals, combined with the beautiful lighting and sweeping level designs, really take your breath away. That sense of awe can be key in freeing your heart to soar along with the flying, gliding mechanics."