Why Game Programming?

Recently I was having a beer with a co-worker of mine named Bradley and he asked how long I had been in the games industry. I answered that I had been in the industry for three years and then explained how I had gotten into it.


Several years ago I was working for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in the Solar and Stellar X-Ray Group. In order to further my career in physics research I needed to pursue a graduate degree, and I was in the process of applying to physics graduate schools. Although I would have been capable of having a successful career as a research scientist, I had doubts about whether or not I would enjoy doing it.

Bradley pressed me as to why, and I explained that, while I firmly believe in the scientific method and the value of science to humanity, I did not get the feeling that I was discovering anything new. I had the distinct impression that the senior scientists thought that they already knew the answers to the questions they were asking and that they just needed to sufficiently show it. Bradley was rightly confused. He stated that what I described sounded like the scientific method - the scientists had a hypothesis and that they were trying to prove it.

This was an excellent point, and one that I did not address sufficiently at the time. What I meant was that the scientists seemed to assume that certain behaviors which had been observed in the Sun could be sufficiently explained by physical rules that were already known. They may have been correct, and the answers could potentially be useful to humanity. However, what I wanted to do personally was to discover fundamentally new laws of the universe, and I was not convinced that the course I was on would allow me to do that.

I was certainly considering shifting from Solar Physics to Cosmology or to something like Nuclear Physics, but I was not positive that those would ultimately appeal to me, either. For starters, there are precious few people who make a living being a Cosmologist. There's only one Stephen Hawking. Moreover, I was not keen on working on some huge experiment such as a particle accelerator where I was a single cog in a machine of hundreds of people and it would take years to complete. That reasoning is somewhat ironic considering the fact that Dark Void, my only completed game project at this point, easily topped a hundred people and a few years of development when all was said and done.

In order to complete the picture, I'd like to draw from the book I'm currently reading: Flow, by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The book explores what the author calls "optimal experience", or "flow". A person experiences the state of flow when all of his attention is completely focused on a single activity. Typically, the activity has clear goals, rules, and feedback; the participant has a sense of control and a chance of completing it; there are no distractions; and one's sense of time distorts. Athletes might know this state as "being in the zone". The author claims that these experiences are enjoyable because they allows us to grow and become more complex persons. There is a slight self-help vibe, as the book suggests that one can find happiness by finding flow. I'm definitely buying into the theory.


I mention Flow because it helps explain why I did not enjoy research science as much as I would have liked. There were few opportunities for flow experiences. There were certainly clear goals and rules, but the feedback was not timely and it was easy to get distracted. I honestly spent too much time waiting and twiddling my thumbs.

In contrast, I frequently experience flow when programming. Game programming provides ample opportunity to challenge my problem-solving skills, and I can readily find a zone when tackling a programming task. There's a huge sense of control because the computer does exactly what I tell it to do. I am creating a tiny universe all to itself, and instead of discovering the rules I'm making them up. Feedback is also clear and immediate - all I have to do is compile and run the game!

I also experience flow while playing video games. Anyone who has ever seen The Nutcracker ballet and thought that "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" was "the Tetris song"; stayed up until 4 a.m. for "just one more match" in Street Fighter II; or killed monsters for hours on end in an MMORPG can attest to this.

Naturally, combining programming with video games was a big win. I know first-hand that by making a video game I am creating something that will enable other people experience enjoyment, and that is no small thing.

Who Cares About Narrative Meaning in Games?

A few months ago my friend Hyperion pointed me to an article in Slate magazine by Farhad Manjoo, whom he described as "one of the best popular-tech writers out there". The article, Are Video Games a Massive Waste of Time?, discusses the book Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell, and how its theme jives with Manjoo's personal feelings of guilt and embarrassment when he plays video games. He asks

How can I explain and defend—both to myself and to others—my affection for and continued investment of time in a form of entertainment that ultimately seems empty and ephemeral?

As someone whose career centers on creating video games, this question resonated with me. In the distant past I frequently felt the same guilt and embarrassment. I certainly had my doubts when I decided to attend DigiPen Institute of Technology instead of a physics graduate school, and it wasn't easy explaining my decision to others. However, after several years of study and work I have grown far more confident in my decision. So much so, in fact, that I emphatically do not share Manjoo's pessimism when it comes to finding lasting meaning in games.

In the article the comparison is drawn between narcotics and video games, suggesting that they are both addicting and can lead to destructive behavior. While valid points, these kinds of comparisons are only peripherally important. People usually say those kinds of things to spark reaction. Pretty much anything can be addictive—books, movies, sex, food, etc.—we just have to be careful how we spend our time.

The really important questions deal with the sentence

When he looks at video games from a critical distance, Bissell is concerned mainly with their lack of narrative meaning.

To that I say, Who cares about narrative meaning in games! That's not to say meaning is not important, but games inherently are not narratives. A narrative is when the audience is told what happens. In games, however, the audience gets to control what happens, and that is a monumental difference. Games have a state, rules, and inputs. They have inputs from the author which have narrative elements—for example, cut-scenes, symbols, and text. However, it is the rules and the player input that lead to a different "story". That is what differentiates games from other art forms. The purpose of the narrative portions is not to convey deep meaning, but to communicate the state of the game to the player. This enables the player to make informed decisions. The player ultimately derives lasting meaning from how his decisions affect the game state.

Thus, I think Manjoo is missing the point when he wants to know why the character in the game is doing what he is doing. He should be asking why he—Farhad Manjoo—is doing what he is doing. Manjoo says that Bissell's account of his experiences make him feel sad, but personally I feel sorry for Manjoo when he says

I can't recall a single moment in which Red Dead Redemption (nor any other game) has moved me, emotionally and lastingly, in the way I've been moved by the best music, movies, and TV shows.

Manjoo is approaching games with the wrong mindset and as a result he is playing the wrong games. Certainly some games, such as Super Mario Galaxy, are just for the pure fun, but others can provide the meaning he's looking for. Instead of playing Grand Theft Auto, he should be playing Heavy Rain or Sim City and asking questions like "Why am I willing to drink poison?" or "Why do I choose to expand the airport instead of building new railroads?" The answers would say something about his values.

To his credit Manjoo seems aware that something is amiss, asking

is the video game, as a form, simply incompatible with traditional concepts of narrative, and must game designers instead find other ways to invest their creations with lasting meaning?

I think I've already given my answer to this question, but in case I wasn't clear: YES!

Finally, I should point out that games can—and should—get a lot from traditional narratives. Right now most games revolve around spatial puzzles and physics, which developers know how to implement pretty well. I think we'll start to see the kind of things many people would describe as "artistic" when game developers start thinking about how to simulate character's personalities, or start making it so that the player can really talk to game characters. They could learn a lot from books and movies about what makes an interesting and believable character, and start trying to simulate that, instead of bullets and explosions.