The end of the world as we know it

Many games let you make choices: good and bad, right and wrong, often measured on a numerical scale. Few let you see the effect of those choices like Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Premised on a future in which nanotechnology has become widespread after a major worldwide economic and communications collapse, the game follows a nano-enhanced supersoldier as he unravels layered conspiracies to discover secrets that could dramatically affect the post-recovery structure of society.

*Spoilers throughout*

Midway through the game, the player discovers the following: the two major factions for which the player has been working are actually branches of the same organization, headed by the Illuminati. Two other factions have arisen, one on either extreme of the nanotechnology issue: the Templars are bio-purists, fighting to eradicate the nano-enhanced, and the Omar are a machine collective infused with nanotech (much like the Borg). On top of it all, an AI system called Helios now inhabits the world's communication network.

Each of these factions espouses a rather well-defined political philosophy, and they take the opportunity to explain it to the player-character via dialogue at key plot points. More importantly, the player gets to take that philosophical advice and act on it; at the end of the game, the player has to decide which faction (if any) gets control over the world's communications systems and, by extension, the structure of the world economic and political systems. Let's look at the options:

1. Illuminati: Control. The world is united politically, the economy is rebuilt, and transparency and information are more pervasive than ever. Somebody--something?--named Ophelia is running the show from behind the scenes. Shades of Big Brother... Big Sister?
   
2. Templars: Purity. Having purged the world of nano-augmented humans, the Templar leadership turns its attention inward, towards ensuring doctrinal conformity. It's a new theology of humanity; a humanism more concerned with preserving humanity as it than exploring the possibilities for its future.
   
3. Omar: Survival. Through extensive experiments, the Omar develop methods of synthesizing the best of biological humanity and technological enhancements into an entirely new form of life. After centuries of war and environmental destruction, the Omar are the last beings standing--a triumph of evolution. They carry this success to the stars.
   
4. Anarchy: Freedom. Nobody wins. But then, nobody loses. Every person regains the power to forge her own destiny. It may not be the most elegant solution, but it's the one that's known to work. Will it be a Lockean heaven or a Hobbesian hell?
   
5. Helios: Ascendance. Humans stay humans... but are simultaneously something more. They are all interlinked, connected through the Helios AI, which integrates and analyzes all the emotions, desires, and needs of humanity to produce a communal paradise. No longer does government rule by laws and generalities; it knows its citizens better than they know themselves.

See the Wikiquotes page for the relevant end-of-game text, including a philosopher's quote related to the principles espoused by each winning party.

I'm most interested in this passage, from a conversation between the main character (Alex Denton) and the human face of the Helios AI, JC Denton (a symbolic name, and the main character from the previous Deus Ex):

JC Denton: The separation of powers -- from Aristotle to Montesquieu -- is designed purely to thwart the ambitions of individuals. How comical, the West's pride in its vast tangle of agencies, jurisdictions, arcane procedures...

Alex D: What's the alternative?

JC Denton: Address the flaws in human nature. Make all beings truly equal in both body and mind. If you start with minds that are lucid, knowledgeable, and emotionally sound, the needs of government change dramatically.

Alex D: How do you control human emotions? Antidepressants? Is that freedom?

JC Denton: Is it freedom when one child is born to poverty, a chance combination of organic materials, while the wealthy child is shaped every day of his life, enhanced genetically, trained, educated, often augmented nanotechnologically?

Finally, Helios/JC is saying, humanity has the power to overcome the precise problems on which previous philosophies were premised. John Rawls would be ecstatic: the only remaining barrier to true equality of opportunity is institutional, and Helios can demolish even that.

This consideration, while key to the game world, resonates with our own. How can we call humans free when chance plays such a determinative role in our lives, when so much of our effort goes into protecting us from ourselves?

After all, this is the primary innovation of humanity, that we no longer have to play with the cards nature dealt. The history of the species is full of invention, of growth, of mastery over those forces that would seek to destroy it. And at every turn, humanity has won. Its only remaining opponent... is itself.

Perhaps we need to invent ourselves a Helios.

Jedi Knights of the realm

Post 4 of 4 in the superhuman augmentation and political philosophy sequence

Technology and biomodification are the two human ability-enhancing methods with which we are familiar. Now it's time to talk about magic.

I suppose I'll get email for calling the Force "magic," but so it is. Throughout Star Wars, the main intrigue concerns the Jedi--the users of the aforementioned magic. I claim that they form what they might consider an aristocracy, even though the galactic government is ostensibly a republic. In practice, it appears that the Jedi (and their "dark" versions, the Sith) can do more or less as they please and can collectively have a major impact on galactic politics, even up to the point of a Sith becoming Emperor and dissolving the Republic.

The distinguishing feature of Aristotle's account of aristocracy, as opposed to oligopoly, is virtue (related to the discussion in the last post). The Jedi come about as close as anybody in literature to a legitimate aristocracy: few possessions, disdaining material pursuits, seemingly acting only in what they perceive to be the best interests of the society. They are able to overcome substantial numbers of ordinary people by themselves, and can subtly insinuate themselves into the minds of even those who would controvert their orders. In short, they are about as effective an aristocracy as one might imagine.

The Star Wars saga (yes, including the increasingly horrific Episodes 1-3) thus serves as an important warning for those who would believe that a sufficiently virtuous aristocracy can stably guide a civilization. After all, as mentioned earlier, if even one goes rogue and is able to rally enough of the public to their cause--however virtuous that cause may seem to the public--the whole society can degenerate into one of Aristotle's corrupt government forms: a tyranny perhaps, as in Star Wars, or a democratic populist government.

Is there any hope for an aristocracy, then? Perhaps. The key flaw of the Jedi was their inability to enforce their separation from the people they governed. By maintaining a double identity as both Senator Palpatine and Darth Sidious, the main antagonist of the movies was able to use his Jedi abilities and position to his advantage while building the ties that would be necessary in a revolution. A stricter separation--particularly a physical and communications separation--may alleviate that problem.

The other issue is that the legitimacy of the Jedi Council was not explicitly recognized, and indeed the existence of a Galactic Senate may have compromised the Jedi's authority. Had the Jedi been in control de jure as well as de facto, it would have been harder to convince the people of the Republic that the separatist leaders had their interests at heart.

After all, it's a tough trick to get a society to accept that about 2 people per million can capably govern, but the US Congress has managed to keep going for a while now.

And that's even without mind control.


Next: New beginnings in Deus Ex

Power to the polity

Post 3 of 4 in the superhuman augmentation and political philosophy sequence

After the material technology of Halo, the biotechnology of BioShock is the second-closest to reality of the three extensions of human ability.

In Rapture, the underwater city of BioShock, technology was initially at about the level of the real-world 1940s. Soon, however, breakthroughs by the many geniuses who had migrated there accelerated their tech beyond that of the present world--though unevenly, with a relative absence of computers and an abundance of biomodifications.

These biomodifications appear to have proliferated much like mobile phones, with wide varieties available at various price points throughout the city. Heck, they eventually were sold in vending machines and could be applied to one's body like changing batteries.

There were dozens of vending machines, selling everything from candy and film to the aforementioned biomodifications--and as the city descended into civil war, guns. The biomods became more violent, too. Not just limited to improving athleticism or granting mild elemental or telekinetic powers, they became weapons in their own right.

And thus, Rapture's defense was democratized, or perhaps its police force was dissolved. In any case, the city lost its monopoly on force, the central principle of all governments. The story of BioShock is thus in some sense a meditation on what would happen if the people truly ruled--if they had the ability to impose the implicit will of the majority by force.

Andrew Ryan's comments on the matter, left in the audio diaries found around the city, parallel Aristotle's remarks in the Politics. Both effectively suggest that democracy, fully implemented by self-interested citizens, leads to the public appropriation of the wealth of the rich by force.

Aristotle sets his analysis of democracy in one of three pairs of governments: those by an individual, those by a group, and those by the multitudes. Each pair has a noble and a corrupt variant, corresponding to the motivations of the rulers. If the rulers are virtuous, if they rule for the city, then the government will be correspondingly virtuous and successful. If they rule for themselves, however, the government will be corrupt and fail.

Andrew Ryan saw Rapture as a virtuous democracy, or what Aristotle might have called constitutional government or a polity. In practice, however, Ryan ran Rapture as more of a dictatorship or (in better times) an oligopoly.

As Aristotle predicted, however, the many--if sufficiently strong to overcome the oligopolists--will revolt against the (rich) few, particularly if the many were stars in the outside world and seek to reclaim their glory. Without anybody valuing the preservation of Rapture for its own sake, the dream of Rapture may have been doomed from the start.


Next: Jedi aristocracy

Master Chief: guardian of the Republic

Post 2 of 4 in the superhuman augmentation and political philosophy sequence

Of the three methods described in yesterday's post for achieving that which humans cannot normally do, technology is the most familiar, so we will begin there.

The "super soldier" trope is common in science fiction. After all, it is the logical extension of various real-world trends that we can see accelerating around us every day: improving weaponry, machines to enhance soldiers' speed, chemicals to keep them awake, etc. Far and away, the most popular super soldier series is Halo*.

In the Halo universe, as seen in the games and accompanying canonical novels, there are essentially three groups of people: the Colonial Administration Authority (civilian government), United Nations Space Command (military), and the people of Earth and the colonies, subject to the rule of the first two. The former is effectively never seen, either in the games or in the books, outside of passing mentions, and since any civilian control of the military would likely have been noticeable in the games--the main character routinely interacts with high-level officials in the UNSC without any sign that they take orders from civilians--the military effectively forms the active government of the games.

Regardless of the canon details, the upshot is this: Master Chief, the player-character, is a SPARTAN-II super soldier. Genetically enhanced, with cutting-edge armor and weapons, he stands literally head and shoulders above any normal marine.

He and his fellow SPARTANs, when they were alive or if they continue to be during the events of the games, form the elite defenses of humanity. It is clear from the first game that without them, humanity would have been in serious trouble from the outset. Incidentally, the Covenant (the primary antagonists from the first game and part of the second and third) have a similar military caste structure, with the Elites forming the highest level and Brutes and Grunts below, though this structure is disrupted later.

In Plato's Republic, we hear of a similar three-tiered system of government. The top level consists of the philosopher-king--more generally, the wise executive leadership of the state, executing the function of reason in the just society. This group maps to the Covenant Prophets and either the Colonial Administration Authority or the Admirals of the UNSC, depending on the degree of control civilians exert over the military.

The bottom level reflects the desires or appetites of the body politic; they are the general population for whom temperance and obedience are regarded primary virtues. These are the Brutes and Grunts of the Covenant, and the civilian population or standard marines in the human military.

The key level, responsible for the maintenance of the state, is composed of warriors. These are responsible for the defense of the state and the maintenance of order within it. The player-character is representative of this level on both UNSC (Master Chief) and Covenant (Arbiter) sides. They instantiate the spirit of the state, possessing both the courage to defend it and the altruism to make the requisite sacrifices.

The fundamental paradox of the warrior level is problematic both for Plato and for societies throughout history: the defenders of the state must be strong enough to repel outsiders yet not so strong that they turn totalitarian on their people. Particularly when the warrior class may possess a strong comparative advantage only in strength, not commercial or scientific talents, a strong incentive exists for them to expand their ability to command resources from the population.

Plato considers a variety of methods to inculcate a set of values in the warrior and philosopher-king classes (collectively, the guardians of the state). Most turn on upbringing; selective breeding of the current warrior class produces ever-better soldiers, and a universal education system supplements this process by identifying strong civilians and weak soldiers and moving them to more appropriate roles.

Master Chief is an almost literal personification of these methods. Genetically engineered, he is referred to as John-117, reflecting the severing of his history and ancestry in the same way that children of the warrior class would not know their parents in Plato's system. Trained extensively in the military arts, Master Chief is the perfect soldier, a one-man army.

Ultimately, the Halo universe can be read as an implementation of the warrior-guardian system advocated in the Republic. The "noble, selfless defender" model of the warrior class reaches its apotheosis in Master Chief. He repeatedly throws himself into the breach, risking his life dozens or hundreds of times, all to preserve a civilization whose sentiments toward him walk the line between respect and fear.

In short, the Republic model works, in the story. The narrative of the game and the player's expectations synergistically promote the heroic nature of Master Chief--since the point of the game is to save humanity, we couldn't very well see any other side of MC even if it existed. In the narrative as in the philosophical structure, MC is a hero almost by definition.

The technology required to produce Master Chief is rare, and this rarity is precisely what gives him his power. If all soldiers were at his level, he would hardly be "super." Thus, the technological superhuman, as construed by Halo, might be seen as an appropriate analogy to the warrior-guardians of the Republic.

But this is hardly the only model.


Next: Biotech democratization

*excluding Mario games, since despite his violent antics he remains a plumber

Power from within

If "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," then any sufficiently advanced biology is indistinguishable from technology.

Magic has become something of a defining element in fantasy--a world can be categorized in substantial part by the inclusion or exclusion of magic and, if included, in the physics of magic, odd as that may sound. Is magic unlimited to those who can use it? It is bounded by the will of the user, exhausting her as she casts spells? Or is it connected to individual objects, able to be summoned out of them?

While perhaps seeming esoteric, these categories of magic are critically related to another metric: the distance of the fantasy from reality. If magic can be used to violate the Laws of Thermodynamics, then it truly is magic, unreproducible in the real world.

If, however, magic is constrained by the same general laws as the rest of nature--able to do things normal humans cannot, perhaps, but nevertheless based in some kind of approximation of physics--then it is effectively technology by another name.

Why should we care about these differences? Isn't fantasy just that--designed to ignore the limits of reality?

Perhaps, and perhaps not. If the goal is telling a compelling story, this can certainly be achieved without regard to petty complaints like realism. If the goal is assessing some facet of the human condition, developing a beautiful world in which to set otherwise-common human dramas, or analogizing for the purposes of philosophical introspection, then realism may be valuable.

Consider the related case: science fiction. Is the technology being employed actually magic? Or is it speculative but possible, a mere extension of the present into one of a multitude of futures? Much of biotechnological advancement, as noted in the introduction, at least attempts to fall within the latter group.

Dozens of games, movies, novels, and other media have answered these questions, with varying degrees of success. To the extent that such media reach for realism, we might add a related but frequently unexamined question: how might magic, technology, or biomodification affect the political structure of a society?

Three well-known games offer differing perspectives on this challenge, each corresponding to one possible ideal* government developed by the ancient Greeks.

Beginning tomorrow, I present a three-post sequence to break down these philosophies and the games that encapsulate them.


Next: the Republic of Halo

*Ideal here referring to the relevant philosopher's conception, not reflecting my judgment on them.

Survival of the fittest

BioShock may seek to overtly portray a dystopian vision of the Randian Objectivist world, but Far Cry 2's subtler inducement of truly egoist action is perhaps the stronger case against it.

*Spoilers throughout*

Dumped into an ecologically lush but thoroughly blood-soaked environment from the beginning, the player-character is given little choice but to slaughter to survive. Best I can tell, literally every mission nearly requires at least one death, and some have that as their sole and explicit purpose. Interchangeable, nameless enemies are burnt, blown up, macheted, and sniped--and in most cases, they are killed for the benefit of the player, even if that benefit is as small as a briefcase with a single lonely diamond in it. This behavior is encouraged, even required, to progress in the game.

However, being prepared to unleash carnage for personal gain is not the indictment of egoism about which I wrote at the beginning. More damning is the exact opposite: the lengths to which the player will go to stay alive. With no more than a handful of exceptions in the entire game, every single person is either out to kill the player-character or perfectly willing to do so if the PC stops obeying their every whim. Outside of small designated safe zones, anybody who sees the PC will shoot at him; PCs quickly learn to shun roads when practical so as to avoid the ever-present patrols. Clearing out a guard post gains at most an hour's respite before new guards arrive.

In a world with these constant pressures, the player quickly needs to become stronger. Though the player-character was sent into Africa to chase the Jackal, that narrative is nearly lost in the frantic attempt to stay alive and earn better defenses. Any sense of principles or purpose in the mission is lost almost immediately, as the PC is dragged into factional conflicts that have engulfed the region.

Even in just that aspect, Far Cry 2 makes a powerful case that unless institutions already exist to provide protection and ensure the integrity of the capitalist system, anarchy is far from Rand's depiction. When nobody expends any effort to keep you alive unless you are useful to them, life rapidly degenerates into a constant struggle to become valuable as soon as possible. It is certainly difficult to imagine industry or culture arising in an environment where anything is subject to being destroyed at any time.

More shocking than the existential fear produced by this Hobbesian world, however, is a critical twist immediately prior to the end of the game. Throughout the game, the PC acquires "buddies," NPCs who help out with missions and rescue the PC when he is in danger. This seems quite altruistic of them, particularly the so-called "second buddy," who gains little from constantly saving the PCs life. In turn, the PC has the opportunity to sacrifice resources that otherwise would be used to keep the PC alive in order to save the buddy when necessary. Thus, the buddy relationship becomes one piece of humanity in the midst of chaos.

At the end of the game, all the buddies gang up on the player-character, trying to take a case of diamonds the PC was going to use to save refugees' lives (an almost jarringly redemptive bit of good at the end of a trail of blood). In the end, it was all about money.

That is perhaps the ultimate informal critique of Objectivism: it reduces all relationships to convenience. As soon as one's usefulness runs out, the relationship is dissolved. Beyond that, while Randians might suggest that a reputation for honoring deals and promoting relationships is in the long-term best interest of the rational egoist, in a world without institutions, a world full of people whose survival depends on violence, a reputation for anything other than strength is a reputation for weakness.

In a world in which we constantly fight to survive, the long term can be pretty short.


Next: Magic, tech, and biomodification in politics

Below the surface of BioShock

Much digital ink has been spilled over the philosophical and artistic qualities of BioShock, whether in conversation over the art deco stylings, giving advice regarding the gameplay, or in debate over the philosophical underpinnings of the world presented by the game. In the last year, with Ayn Rand's philosophical resurgence among the US political opposition, the question of Rand's work and BioShock has perhaps never been more pertinent: is rational self-interest good?

Clearly, BioShock is intended as a critique of Rand's ideas, in some way--but how? One basic commentary on the game takes Andrew Ryan as the Randian ideal and sees the game's critique as having already taken place by the time of the player-character's arrival in Rapture. Seen this way, the failure of the city and the slow revelation of just how depraved it had become under the collective belief in individualism are intended to suggest to players that any attempt to build a society on such principles must collapse.

Another possibility, suggested by Clint Hocking, is that the game could be immersing us in what it means to be an Objectivist--getting us to act in ways that we would not normally act, and then showing us vividly the consequences thereof, both positive and negative. I recommend highly his above critique of the game, wherein he suggests that the way the game is played conflicts with the message of the story, and I respond to his arguments below.

A third option is that the actions of the NPCs in the game reflect different visions of Objectivist ethics, and we are to see the flaws in the system by their failings. Andrew Ryan acts much like John Galt from Atlas Shrugged: hoisting the world of the business and technological elite on his shoulders and transplanting them to a new, paradisiacal community. The other Objectivist character goes by the name Atlas... enough said.

I roughly support the third interpretation, and I have several thoughts about the matter which I present below.

Spoilers throughout.

1: Though Clint claims that "help[ing] Atlas" and "seek[ing] power" are different and contradictory paths to progress, in the game world, they are not. Randians certainly can engage in trades for mutual benefit, and helping Atlas in exchange for his guidance through the perils of the first few levels and the belief that he will help you escape the underwater world is far from altruistic. Atlas appears to believe the player-character believed he was acting altruistically--he mocks the PC for believing his deception about his wife and child--but there always has been something of a difficulty for rational egoists separating autohedonic altruism from the real thing.

2: When it is revealed that helping Atlas was as little a choice for the in-game character as it is for the player, BioShock is asking whether we can accurately psychoanalyze ourselves. How Objective can we really be about our own reasons for acting? We can say that we want something because it intrinsically makes us happy or reflects some proper moral code--but differentiating that feeling from a socially-imposed set of values is difficult if not impossible. Similarly, it is complicated to try to step back from Randian philosophy and ask: am I following this philosophy because I, after a process of reflection and balancing of arguments, believe it to be correct, or am I enthusiastic about this moral system because it fits my preexisting preferences or has other material benefits not provided by other systems?

3: BioShock eloquently points out a fundamental dissonance within egoist theory: what happens when the principles of egoism conflict with its goals? Andrew Ryan is presented as a Randian hero at the beginning of the story, yet he allows himself to be killed to make a point. Fontaine, on the other hand, scrapes life together until the very last--using his rational faculties to manipulate other, weaker, more noble people into doing his bidding by subverting the principles that Andrew Ryan upholds. Ultimately, Fontaine outlasts Ryan and has him killed. Randian egoism as portrayed by Fontaine is rather more cutthroat than that of Ryan--and perhaps that is the only consistent way to live as a Randian.

Ultimately, as the third comment suggests, I see the deepest critique of Rand in the interaction of the two nemeses. To truly immerse a player in Objectivism, I recommend one of Clint's games: Far Cry 2. In that game, more than in BioShock, the player repeatedly is asked to make shockingly egoistic decisions to stay alive, resulting in many, many deaths. All of the apparent altruism in the game, while perhaps making the player feel warm and fuzzy, is ultimately done out of desperation for medicine--until the final act of sacrifice, which the player can opt out of. See the next post for more.

In any case, BioShock constantly rewards the player verbally for acting as non-Objectivist as possible: killing those who would otherwise kill the PC, but saving as many people as possible. At the end of the game, the PC does not deal the final strike--others (that he has saved by his actions) do so for him. I take the game to have set up a strong polarity between the player and the Ryan/Fontaine side, with the player's opposition to becoming like them constantly reinforced both through the approval of Tenenbaum and the thanks of the Little Sisters and through the shocking fate that strikes anyone cruel or self-interested in the game.

Only by helping others, the game seems to say, can we help ourselves.


Next: Inducing moral nihilism in Far Cry 2

Supernarratives and superheroes

I described in my other blog how cultures use supernarrative structures to define hero archetypes, and so lay out a pattern for such myths to follow.

Video games, as reflections of the same supernarratives as other art forms, are subject to the same patterns. In particular, the two central heroic supernarratives (called "monomyths") are:

• Classical: a hero leaves his community, conquers some challenge, and returns to the community to lead it with his newfound strength
• American/Christian: a hero sacrificially intervenes to save a community from an evil and then leaves it

For classical myths, see Odysseus or Jason; for American myths, see Batman or Gladiator. My other post contains several familiar examples of those types.

In any case, these monomyths are instantiated in narrative video games as well. Consider the following (very brief) lists:

• Classical: Gears of War, Fable 1 and 2, Mass Effect, Oblivion
  
• American: Bioshock, Deus Ex, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Far Cry 2

Some games are rather more gray. Should we consider Master Chief in the Halo trilogy classical, because he leaves his civilization to fight an enemy far away and return triumphant, or American, because he is not really a part of the civilization he is fighting to save and in some sense sacrifices himself in the process? Is the player in Morrowind part of the American myth because she is a foreigner arriving to save the island from evil, or classical because she is adopted into the culture and otherwise follows the path of the classical hero (including finding a guide and magical artifacts for the quest)?

Either way, the two monomythological structures imply differing philosophical interactions with the player. American-type stories add narrative distance to the game: as the player-character is separated in some way from the community to be saved, so can we, as the players, enter the game with no previous knowledge of its world. We are playing the game so that we can save the community, with no intention of living there long-term.

Classical stories, on the other hand, integrate the player-character into a context of the story, and typically allow for a richer set of interactions with NPCs. Note that hypernarrative games are closely related to the classical monomyth; it is easier to ignore the main quest, for instance, when the character begins already integrated into the in-game community.

Throughout discussions of individual games on this blog, I will refer to these myth structures as an integral part of understanding the games' supernarrative content.


Next: Below the surface of BioShock

The hierarchy of narratives

In the last post, I described "the game philosophy triangle" as a space in which we can define any game by reference to three basic components: entertainment, narrative, and hypernarrative. The first two are shared with many other media--Saturday Night Live, caricatures, and stand-up comedy are nearly entirely entertainment, while crime dramas, theater, symphonies, and most movies are narratives.

However, I believe games are the primary (if not the only major) instantiation of the third factor: hypernarratives. The prefix "hyper-" was not chosen arbitrarily; games have a parallel to the standard hierarchy of prefixes, as follows:

• Subnarratives: the various micromotives and the resulting decisions that drive individual scenes of a work
• Narratives: the story of the work, taken as a whole
• Supernarratives: the ideas that underlie and intersect the narrative, refining the context in which the narrative's message is set; the semiotic and conceptual framework within which a narrator is telling the story
  
• Hypernarratives: the framework, built separately from the narrative by the person to whom the story is being told, that fundamentally changes the nature of the narrative

In other words, hypernarratives : narratives :: hypercubes : cubes. They are the result of adding another dimension to the existing ones, orthogonal to all.

For instance, Ben from SLRC implemented a hypernarrative experiment in Far Cry 2 (h/t Clint Hocking), exploring the how the narrative is altered by literally changing the rules of the game.

Open-world games, in particular, are conducive to building hypernarratives. The quintessential example of such games is The Elder Scrolls series, especially the most recent two, wherein the so-called "main quest" can be completely ignored and dozens or hundreds of hours of play derived from entirely ancillary quests.

A final note: hypernarratives are not merely designed to make the game harder (c.f. the Nethack challenges). They are designed to add meaning, to enrich the narrative of the game with a narrative of one's own.


Next: Supernarratives and superheroes

The game philosophy triangle

A central challenge in establishing a philosophical foundation for game criticism is the delineation of a metric for their "art-worthiness." The vast majority of games are, after all, produced to be sold, and in some sense those games all contain components which are fun for purchasing's sake (unless the game is a movie tie-in, then the fun is often left out for cost reasons).

However, even a cursory analysis suggests that some games contain a richer contribution to the humanities than others. On the one end of the spectrum, we may place fully entertainment-centric games such as Bejeweled; on the other, the closest thing to a consensus is probably BioShock.

The nature of the continuum between the two (and, one hopes, extending a substantial distance beyond BioShock) makes a clear division between game types difficult or impossible. Yet the problems with this foundation run deeper: there is another axis, orthogonal to the first, that describes the level of narrative and structural control the designers exert over the players. The two titles mentioned above exemplify high levels of control; a game like Oblivion may serve as the mental signpost for the other end of that axis.

Thus, games may truly be categorized according to their position on a triangle defined by those points, and the idealized vertices of the triangle may be summarized thus:

• Entertainment: games that reference no external concepts, being abstract exercises in following a certain set of rules for the purpose of winning
• Narrative: games that tell a coherent story, guiding the player down a linear path from introduction to conclusion
• Hypernarrative: games that tell no unique story but instead instantiate a world inside of which the player can tell her own stories

Few games approach these ideals. A game without entertainment is hardly a game. Games without any narrative are typically multiplayer-only; without some form of "main quest," the lines become blurry between games and pure virtual worlds (like Second Life). Many (maybe most) games have very limited or nonexistent hypernarrative features, which is perhaps why external critics of the concept of games-as-art tend to see games as limited to the entertainment-narrative continuum.

This blog exists not to evaluate games' values along the entertainment axis but instead to analyze the intersection of the narrative and hypernarrative elements in games--and hopefully, by doing so, to develop a consistent foundation and vocabulary for the philosophical and literary analysis of games.


Next: defining hypernarratives

Agent-based modeling and the art of games

For roughly the past century, economics has been dominated by the mathematical modeling of rational human behavior. In particular, the main economics journals are composed nearly entirely of derivations of various equations thought to represent the behavior of individuals (sometimes aggregated into groups), or the use of statistical methods known as econometrics to test whether the dynamics of those models may have some basis in reality.

Such theories have a beautiful simplicity: they are relatively easy to understand, have clearer meanings than their natural language translations, and allow future work to build upon comparatively well-determined foundations. Their limitations, while sometimes overlooked, are similarly well-known: they simplify the diversity of psychologies into relatively few categories based on limited criteria, assume fairly skilled rational thinkers, and have difficulty allowing for the evolution of the underlying rules of a system over time. While particular models have been able to relax one or more of these constraints (Gary Becker’s 1962 paper on markets with randomly acting participants is a classic example), the difficulty of expanding on theories that do so limits their ability to affect the field.

However, as technology has expanded the computational power available to economists, a new form of social modeling has grown in popularity. Known as “agent-based modeling,” it focuses not on solving individual equations to understand the dynamics of a system but rather on setting up a framework in which simple artificial intelligences act and interact and exploring the dynamics of that system directly. This difference is often subtle—after all, agent-based models can simulate classical equation-based systems—but in certain situations, they allow exploration of chaotic social systems that cannot be easily described by a system of equations.

The key property of agent-based models (and computer-based models more generally) is that the structure of the world is a variable. Because algorithms can be branched and looped, an experimenter can alter the fundamental structure of the world on a whim—and the very rules of the game, the equations governing the evolution of the system, can be changed from within, in response to internal stimuli.

Non-interactive art—essentially the only kind available until the last few decades—works like the systems of equations set up by (neo-)classical economists. The artist or author produces the piece, and it is transmitted directly to its recipients, message intact. On the one hand, the integrity of the piece is maintained; the artist is able to imprint it with her intent, even if that intent is to be variously interpretable. On the other, the piece is static: one cannot examine the world of the art from another angle, another lens, without constructing an essentially different work. The effect of this property is limited to a degree in performance art, due to the interpretation of the work by the performers, but books, recorded music, movies, paintings, drawings, and sculptures all possess it.

How are we to see other landscapes during the Starry Night? Had Jocasta not committed suicide, might we infer a different moral from Oedipus Rex? If Rosebud were a pet, would the tragedy of Citizen Kane feel different?

Interactive art—of which I submit video games are an important example—has a fundamentally different nature, in line with that of agent-based models. Rather than presenting a piece that has intrinsically interesting dynamics, developers of agent-based models and interactive art are concerned with establishing a set of rules the outcome of which is at least partially unknown to the artist.

Indeed, while the degree of unknown-ness can range from the relatively linear play of the Mario games or rail shooters to the expansive freedom of the Elder Scrolls series, the core of game design comes down to this: knowing what not to control. With perfect control, the game world is not a game; with perfect freedom, the game world is not a world.

As computational power has increased, so have games moved towards massive, open, minimally rule-guided worlds. Never mind multiple paths to complete a mission; recent games such as Oblivion and Fable allow the player to choose which missions to accept, and even whether to accept any missions at all. An art enthusiast brings her own experiences to the table when considering the import of American Gothic, but a player of the type of games I will describe in future posts as “hypernarrative” is able not just to filter the meaning of the art through a personal lens but in fact to alter the content—and thus transcend the limitations of the artist’s perspective.

Interactive art is not “superior” to non-interactive art. When the details of the content are essential to the message, non-interactive art will be able to more faithfully convey it. The Sistine Chapel is effective in part because of the perspective and limitations of its artist. Nevertheless, interactive art holds a great deal of promise for accelerating the production, integration, and distribution of philosophic meaning in society, by engaging participants in a constant cycle of self-definition through choices made in dynamic systems.

By seeing games as participatory art, we democratize meaning.


Next: a taxonomy of games according to their philosophical characteristics.