What Lies Beyond The End of Gameplay? Or: A Letter to a Developer

[droqen]

RE: David Giles'
"What Lies Beyond The End of Gameplay?
Or: A Letter to a Developer"

[droqen]

David Giles started a conversation with me on bluesky which eventually led to the creation of the video; probably some of this conversation {inspired / made it into} the video, so it may be relevant: "I just beat The End of Gameplay and was reading through some of your posts[ on newforum.droqen.com, I expect]. . ."

[droqen]

[0:05] "I want to talk to you about our preconceived notions of what is good art"

^ David doesn't get back into this right away, instead goes into Starseed Pilgrim stuff! I won't touch on it, but, he mentions his connecting with its poetry which is nice.

[3:45] "The End of Gameplay doesn't really have the most exhilarating gameplay."
^ ah, i see this expressed in aplove's video, too! it's funny to say that the gameplay is not exhilarating or is standard, but then to praise it later on (aplove does, anyway?).

"intentional decision" re my square pixel art guys

[4:20] "Why does it become acceptable if the creator knows better? Why is Picasso or Jackson Pollock high art when your nephew's watercolor belongs on the fridge?" no conclusion provided here :) just the question. "I love a lot of classically trained creative goes off the deep end and makes weird shit type stuff . . . the intentionality is obvious . . . in what it's communicating in a way that an amateur isn't really going to be able to do."

David discusses punk and basement rock type stuff. "Punk music's raw emotion and energy isn't able to be replicated by experienced musicians." I sort of disagree with this! It's pretty common for experienced musicians to move away from this kind of raw emotion and energy, but I don't think it's because they've lost the ability to do so. Rather they've, I would say, fallen into a certain kind of trap... I say that because I really value the raw emotion and energy (BLOOD, I might say), and I see e.g. illustrators, great illustrators, draw powerful, raw sketches... and then ruin them by finishing them. It isn't the nature of the finishing that they choose which ruins it, but the act of finishing itself. They're still capable of the raw stuff.

They have just learned that they prefer to erase it.

[droqen]

"it is because it is someone who i trust that i'm willing to give this the time of day." (-6:00)

[droqen]

Giles' initial definition of pretentious: "trying to make a statement of truth, reaching for higher goals and [is achieving?] while being overly proud of itself despite the failure." (-6:43)

he goes on to suggest a few other underlying/unstated definitions that i don't necessarily agree with; people are concerned with mainly the 'being proud of itself', people fall back on anything 'trying to make a statement of truth' at all, people 'complain about the lack of subtlety in media', people don't like feeling preached to...

re: preaching, he brings up the "Trump is bad" posts and i agree with the anti-preachiness sentiment here, the dynamic of 'let's complain about a thing we don't like and reinforce one another in complaining'

"[7:20-] . . . is it a fucking church? have we all gathered to shake hands and pat ourselves on the back and say, "we have the good beliefs"? [-7:26]"

i'm picking up on Giles' frustration with the inconsistent ways in which people, especially masses of people, express derision at things for trying to 'say' something while seeming to simultaneously enjoy saying different things themselves. i've experienced this from all angles. generally i find this frustration comes from an oversimplified model, wherein a mass of people is collapsed down to an entity whose behaviours ought to make sense. i think the part of The Nature of Fascism about ideology was very illuminating for me, worth reading: here, and also here onward.

anyway, then he brings it back to TEOG

[droqen]

following this discussion of pretention and preachiness, Giles claims that The End of Gameplay doesn't 'hit you over the head' with its message, and  "after beating the game, I wasn't entirely sure what it means to kill gameplay." then he shares his perspective on what he does think it's about:

"I find [TEOG] to be a deconstruction of the ideas and expectations of what the purpose is behind any game mechanic in a game. . . . [that] every decision has to play into this overarching whole, that a level must progress this learning process." [-7:53]

i wonder, what is the difference between "hitting you over the head" with a message, and a message simply being unclear, difficult to decipher or access? i struggle with this very much. i think that my approach has become, over time, to try saying things as straightforwardly as possible, but also preferring to say things as arcanely as possible, leading to finding arcane things to say -- things that i have trouble saying not out of fear of speaking clearly, but out of sheer lack of ability to speak clearly. saying things that i barely understand myself.

ideally, these are also things that others barely understand themselves. in my theory this is the best way to justify poor communication. otherwise it is just a "skill issue."

[droqen]

when Giles says The End of Gameplay is [7:40-8:00 ish] "a deconstruction of the ideas and expectations of what the purpose is behind any game mechanic in a game. The idea that every decision has to play into this overarching whole, that a level must progress this learning process", I relate to this very much and some of my recent bleets are very on-topic here, I'm interested in deconstructing game design which I have associated with gameplay in a perhaps incorrect way. I'm not sure. Game design has been tied so closely to games for so long that it's hard to separate them.

bleet (click and see other bleets for context)

The key parts of your definition are
- making choices ABOUT how players perceive or interact with a game, and
- with the goal of creating a specific experience

There's nothing wrong with this as the definition of a design craft, but presuming this to be the goal of every creator is off, to me.

what Giles says is very much in line with this, so it could be said that TEOG is attempting to deconstruct game design -- maybe 'common game design principles' but whatever the work says i would definitely describe my currently interest as the foundations of game design -- not the strategies which are commonly employed (which will inevitably change over time), but the actual values. what is game design?

[droqen]

[7:55-] "I wanted to know more. So, I went to [droqen's] website for more context."

oh no it begins

[droqen]

"[Based on what droqen is saying about games being judgement machines incapable of love], should all games be without challenge?" [-9:18]

[10:10-] "I'm okay with Soulsborne games rejecting the version of me that doesn't learn its rules. . . . it provides me with . . . a momentary endorphin rush. I've enjoyed learning . . . it is an experience I can't get anywhere else. But there are plenty of people who don't get anything out of it." [-10:38]

i don't argue against the idea that games give a momentary endorphin rush, but is it a stretch to say here that Giles thinks the effort poured into Dark Souls is worth that? i don't think it's enough, enough payment for my time, enough return for my effort. is it enough for his? in exchange for rejection, he hasn't described what he gets other than 'a momentary endorphin rush' ... but does imply the existence of other benefits. 'an experience i can't get anywhere else'. you can definitely get an endorphin rush somewhere else, so i think this is an incomplete description.

[droqen]

[10:59-] "I'm okay with being molded by Soulsborne into someone who it will allow to engage with it. I trust . . ."

ah, the trust returns here! okay, i understand how we're connecting some of these dots.

". . . I trust [these difficult games] to have something underneath that friction, but I think that this idea of killing gameplay has more meaning to a developer than to a player or writer like myself."

ah, something. something, something. but something what? and, i suppose, is the cost justified? i want Giles to connect these dots for me.

- Dark Souls rejects the version of the player that hasn't learned its rules.
- Giles trusts Dark Souls to have something underneath that [rejection].
- Giles receives "a momentary endorphin rush."
- Giles has "an experience [he] can't get anywhere else."

My question: is the rejection necessary? What makes it necessary? The specific construction, "something underneath that friction [of rejection]," very roughly implies that the underneath-thing is not the friction itself. So what is it??? And why does it need to be underneath anything, let alone the friction and rejection of gameplay?

[droqen]

[11:40-] ". . . a game's design decisions are just parroting past ideas from so long back without really exploring what it says and why it says it." [-11:49]

connect to my earl;ier thoughts on design, game design. gameplay as an extension of game design - copying and recreating gameplay without understanding, what underlies this dynamic?

[droqen]

Giles still loves gameplay but believes questioning it is important.

[games] "have been building on top of a foundation of previous design decisions without concern for what they say themselves or why they say that." [-12:52]

[12:52-] "[In contrast to what droqen writes,] . . . I don't consider questioning as a form of judgement or a lack of love or judgement incompatible with love. . . . a means of trying to reach some greater truth by comparing notes. . . . your reality is different from mine. Have we done the same math to get here? I do not understand and would like to." [-13:16]

trying to follow but getting a little lost here. i wonder, how important is mere questioning to me? but i relate to what Giles says. i want to compare notes, too. i guess this is what the questions are for.

[droqen]

[13:50-] "in The End of Gameplay, the game killing the player is not doing so to tell the player you've done something wrong; failing a jump is not a critique of the player. It's a statement about developers. . . . the places where it is even possible [to die are so rare that it's clear] that the player is meant to use it to learn . . . why we use negative reinforcement in games." [-14:21]

i'm too much an anti-design freak to agree with this statement as written; i wouldn't say that i intended to deliver this lesson to someone who plays. and i might also say that the game killing the player actually is explicitly about saying you've done something wrong, but it's doing so knowingly, it's drawing attention to it, it's guilt.

[droqen]

let's talk about da money.

[18:38-] "The $20 price tag . . is a bold decision. . . . I've paid more money for worse food. . . . I've paid for a speeding ticket, and I didn't like that at all." [-19:00]

[19:25-] "I think this is a game for developers. . . I think this is a game for critics. . . I think this is a game for people who like poetry. . . I think this is a game for people who spent even 10 seconds looking at it with interest. I think this is a game for people who like vulnerability more than being cool. I think this is a game for people who have been told they like something pretentious more than once in their life." [-20:00]

there are bits about Giles personally in here! an ex-game developer, a poet, a critic, someone who has put up walls. [18:39-] "I agree with [the bold twenty dollar price tag]. Maybe it's because I'm someone who tries to push people away who won't actively engage with my art. Maybe it's because of some sunk cost fallacy that makes me say I've paid 20 bucks, so I have to believe it was good." [-18:48]

noting here that a lot of what Giles is saying is quite personal, is connecting, is not necessarily a logically or rationally justified statement. he's not saying his agreement comes from reason, but from relation. sometimes i think this way and other times i don't! it's an interesting push & pull but in an external concrete work such as this video i can see that specific perspective shining.

[droqen]

A Letter to a Developer