Did someone make up “Twenty Questions” or did it just evolve over time from communal play? If it did, then it is not the best model for authoring a process in the sense of a single-author — though it certainly fits the parameters of what you are describing.

What this section is trying to argue against is the idea that “Games are all about graphics.” As people commenting on the next paragraph have pointed out, given the recent successes of systems like the Wii and games like Guitar Hero, there just aren’t many people around arguing that games are all about graphics anymore. (Even if, as Greg C points out, much of the production effort still is focused on graphics.)

I need to re-cast this section, making the discussion of process intensity more nuanced and focusing on how processes are key to defining gameplay — rather than something in a tug-of-war with graphics. The book is much more about the possibilities of new forms of gameplay and new fictional experiences, some of which are actually enabled by advances in graphics (as when I talk, in a later chapter, about the Improv project that was underway when I was at NYU).

I can imagine making a change like that, if an example of this sort survives the re-factoring of this section that seems necessary. But I may just start the section over from scratch.

This is partly a question of style and means, and partly one of the limits of the technology. Absent any technical constraints, some tasks are still best facilitated by simplifying and abstracting (the London Underground map); thus some games would logically feel more successful with such a design (like many age-old table games, e.g., go). Others might be most successful when they most closely approached the sci-fi grail of a completely immersive alternative reality whose texture was not distinguishable from everyday reality. (Paintball in a blasted Sarajevo with bombs falling). Each involves design choices.

Given technical constraints, behavioral and experiential processing may not both be optimizable. In that case, the second type of game I mention may yield a less satisfying user experience than the simpler game, because the shortcomings intrude more into the psychology of play.

My point is simply that the relationship of the game’s created experience (for which “graphics” is a crude proxy) to the available behavior novelty and complexity seems much more complicated than the binary you draw; while companies may be luddite about how they want to apportion development effort, I’d expect e-games twenty years from now to offer enormously greater sophistication and variety in *both* behavioral and experiential processing.

I’m still waiting for Huxley’s wonderful pun-machine the scent-organ, which manipulates emotion via sequences of odors. What concerts, what games, we could play.

You also imply here that improved graphics quality in e-games is a trivial component of the user experience, compared to process complexity, prior to stating and supporting that argument in graf 13ff.

So I should revise the chapter’s text. Perhaps with clearer markers at the borders between ideas — or maybe by not flying over this territory at such speed. I guess my inclination is to try the markers approach first, because I don’t want this to turn into a chapter about process intensity. Or, as you say, it might even be better to choose a quote from Greg’s treatment that doesn’t introduce his shift in the concept, or I could not quote him at all in the main text. Then I’d be juggling fewer concepts in this short section (and I could still talk about Greg’s approach in a footnote).

Perhaps Costikyan’s intention was to say that the two are linked, but I don’t think that’s a given. eg. discussion below on The Sims having had plenty of art asset production itself.

I’m echoing what’s been said below a little, but I wanted to drop a comment further up here since this is where it started to seem a bit confused to me. Any chance there’s a quote from Costikyan’s article that doesn’t bring relative production time into the discussion? I know it was central to what he was saying, but it doesn’t seem to fit into your main point.

I definitely think that the second point is a strong one, and you’ve clarified it well. The emergent complexity is what drove the game, but it would be very hard for people to have properly visualised the challenge (I can see Wright now: “So you’re trying to drink an espresso to get awake, while trying to eat cereal and you’ll need to take the trash out before you go to work. Trust me, it’ll be fun!”)

The simple point is that the original version of The Sims intentionally used simple graphics, and comparatively low-end graphical processing, rather than latest high-end lighting and so on … but this did not stand in the way of its success.

The more complex point (which is also more important to my argument) is that the original version of The Sims used an innovative model of character behavior that creates an emergent complexity. This was seen as risky by the industry (which tends to re-skin proven models, that also are generally simpler models). But this innovative behavioral model, and its emergent complexity, seems to have been key to its success.

Of course, the problem I have making these points may be, rather than the fact that they are intertwined, the fact that they follow Crawford and Costikyan talking about huge amounts of data. It’s definitely the case that The Sims has a huge asset library. But it combines these assets with behavioral processing that is both comparatively intense and comparatively innovative, when stacked up against other contemporary games.

So, this leads me to two questions. First, do you buy the clarified points above? Second, if so, any ideas how to make them clearer in the main text? (For example, should I consider a footnote, should I revise this paragraph, should I restructure this whole section?)

The paragraph also seems that it might be trying to make the point that it is that the low-end graphics appealed to the “wider audience”, which is something I would agree with. Obviously there was no danger of The Sims skirting around the Uncanny Valley, but it was simple enough to allow players to project their own ideas and personalities onto the Sims. By purposefully avoiding geek stereotypes of orcs/elves/heaving breasts/space marines, a wider audience was definitely enticed. However, this doesn’t reach the paragraph’s eventual conclusion of innovating behavioural systems being as valid a path to a hit game as using flashier graphics on standard mechanics.

I think this is like calling Murnau’s Sunrise an early movie and then calling 2001 an early movie in the same breath. I don’t think it’s useful to lump 13 years worth gaming in one “early” category. I think another example of an early game in this statement, which is essentially an aside, would be less jarring for the reader.