SpaceWar! the granddaddy of computer games, debuted in 1962.
Since then games have evolved, both in the technology they use and in the role they play in the lives of people of all generations. New game sales surpass many other entertainment media and get press coverage to match. Games are as likely to be played on a SmartPhone or through Facebook as on a dedicated game console.
But in 1987, after the first quarter of a century of wild successes and dramatic downturns, the game industry was at a turning point. We were seeing the beginning of the PC-based software explosion just as the third wave of game consoles was re-invigorating the industry after the famed 鈥淐rash of 1983.鈥�
In November 1987 The Computer Museum in Boston held a 鈥淐omputer Games Weekend鈥� to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of SpaceWar! There were demonstrations of an original Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1 playing the game, a Micromouse robot demonstration, a Core Wars tournament, and of course a SpaceWar! birthday party.
There was also a speaker panel on the history and the future of computer games that included several of the leading lights in the field:
In the next 25 years games expanded far beyond what these five legends could have guessed in 1987. Explosions in processing power, graphics capabilities, and networking changed gaming and added levels of realism and characterization that would have astounded them. Their ideas about interactive fiction and multi-player games did come true in today鈥檚 massively multi-player online games like World of Warcraft. While some of the forms of gaming they discussed are largely gone now, like text-based adventures, other forms they hinted at have grown into entire new fields of gaming that generate billions of dollars in sales and entertain millions of users around the world.
We are all aware of the general view of computer games as mindless spinal recreations involving nothing higher than the cerebellum, that little mass of gray matter above your neck that helps you to play the piano, tennis and also to shoot hostile aliens. There are some who understand that there鈥檚 a lot more to some computer games than that. I would say the intellectual content of games bears watching. A key question is: what is going to happen to that intellectual content in general? Will these games become more demanding at the cerebral level than at the cerebellar?
Sometimes to be educational, a computer game gives up recreational content. At the same time, it almost seems that the more recreational a game, the lower a common denominator it demands. Another important theme is the single player versus the multi-player issue. I submit that there are no four people more competent to describe the current place of computer games and their future prospects than the four game designers on this panel.
Tom Snyder Productions鈥� Snooper Troops, one of the most successful educational software series of the 1980s.
In 1962, I was introduced to nerddom. I found a book on computer relay circuitry written by Bell Telephone. And I designed a couple of binary coded decimal computers. I thought I had invented digital electronics. My father told me I ought to send my paper plans to IBM, which I did. I was twelve at the time and I knew it was cute, not important. 91自拍 a month later, when I came home from school, there was at least $10,000 worth of computer equipment on my front lawn with a note from the president of IBM saying 鈥楻emember us when you get older鈥� (joke)
I proceeded to go off the deep end at that point and told my parents that I鈥檇 like to make this computer I designed because I had the parts to do it. So all I did was computers because they were the one think I could control in my life. When I was sixteen I gave them up because I had basically no social skills and found I couldn鈥檛 get along with people. Since then, I鈥檝e had a healthy respect for how uncool computers are for adolescents.
This generation of computer owners doesn鈥檛 feel comfortable about owning their computers. It鈥檚 a bit of a sin. It鈥檚 something we hide in our back rooms. We don鈥檛 let our families in on it 鈥� there are a few inside friends we might tell. 鈥榊eah, I got a computer, but it鈥檚 back in my office.鈥� But you don鈥檛 bring them all back there and say 鈥楬ey, we got this great game, why don鈥檛 we all play it?鈥� You know, it鈥檚 not part of our social acceptability somehow. That鈥檚 one of our problems.
I want to reach some level of success that says that now we鈥檙e communicating with people other than news like ourselves.
At a baseball game you do two things 鈥� talk about what鈥檚 going to happen and go to the bathroom. But it鈥檚 great. There鈥檚 something extremely social about these sports 鈥� it鈥檚 the talking about it.
Intellivision鈥檚 two biggest games were baseball and football. I had the problem of finding someone to play with 鈥� I mean grown men don鈥檛 invite each other over to do trivial things.
Dan Bunten did one of the few four-people games. There were quite a few two-people computer games out there but Dan really pushed the limit. Four people is better than two 鈥� that鈥檚 a real great party. There鈥檚 a lot of talking, kidding and social context, a lot of self-handicapping. People learn some rules about society when they鈥檙e playing games. You don鈥檛 learn rules about society playing with yourself.
Ozark Software鈥檚 Seven Cities of Gold 鈥� Designed by Dan Bunten.
Go back to what games were about. They鈥檙e about people interacting with each other. They鈥檙e about having fun with your friends. I have to say we鈥檙e having trouble with that one, but I鈥檓 willing to keep punching out in that direction.
We鈥檙e forced 鈥� if we鈥檙e playing a computer game 鈥� to look at a screen, which forces us to look from each other. A lot of the fun in a socially involving game is looking at each other, talking to each other over the game. If the computer gets too good at being the focus of attention, then we鈥檝e lost what we came here for.
What Dan said is true. The fun is not so much in planet the game but in the social interaction of four people playing the game. The fact that they have to sit there staring at the screen is really a drawback. I agree that multi-player games are really important; I鈥檓 not so certain that the technology is there to make them a big market yet, but I鈥檓 hoping that the things that will push it along 鈥� the way 鈥淟otus 1-2-3鈥� did for personal computers 鈥� will come about. At some future date, I think multi-player games will exist and be very good.
I think we鈥檙e working in a pulp medium and we are working for what is in effect a pulp audience.
Balance of Power, designed by Chris Crawford, explores Cold War brinksmanship, allow the player to become either President of the United States or Secretary General of the Communist Party of the USSR.
All other artistic media are fundamentally non-interactive. Basically what you do with every art form is sit on your butt and absorb it. So we play wonderful music and what do you do? Sit back and listen. We paint a beautiful painting and you look at it. We write a great book and you read the book. But what do you actually do in all this? Nothing. You鈥檙e passive. And that鈥檚 a fundamental failure because the human mind is not a passive receptacle. You don鈥檛 just open up the top of the skull and pour stuff in. The human mind works best when it gets to take the butterfly and tear the wings off it and play with it and interact with it. That鈥檚 an absolutely fundamental part of the way our brains work. Yet art has completely failed to recognize that. Why? Well, we didn鈥檛 have the technology to do it鈥� until today. Now we have the technology to deliver an artistic experience
You can move technology forward on a timescale of months or years, but art? Art takes wisdom, and that takes a long time 鈥� decades or centuries.
Artificial personality is an artistic medium or regime dedicated to the capture of human nature through the medium of the algorithm. Now that may strike you as a little sick. Algorithms are cold mathematical equations. Somehow I鈥檓 going to try and express human personality through a cold medium like an algorithm? That may sound sick to you, but let me remind you that stone is cold. Look what somebody did with it when they made a statue called The Pieta. What about cat gut? Let鈥檚 take the insides of a cat, but him open and stretch out his insides. What are we going to do with that? We鈥檙e going to play Beethoven鈥檚 violin concerto.
The technologies of art are cold because they are things. It鈥檚 what the artist does with the technology that breathes life and warmth into it. There鈥檚 nothing intrinsically cold about algorithms. It鈥檚 how much art you bring to them. The fact that so far algorithms have been exclusively in the hands of scientists and programmers is only an indication of how little artistic effort we鈥檝e made so far.
Movies, books, records have common elements: love, sex, greed, sorrow, happiness, plot development, character development, people caring about each other, people getting angry, people killing themselves, people killing because they鈥檙e in love.
We can鈥檛 engage people by making better landing gear. At some level the vast majority of the human race cares about other people more than they care about things. To me, one of the best ways to let them manifest that care in relation to computer games is to make computer games that let people interact with each other and not with emulated, imagined or supposed characters inside a computer, no matter how good they are.
We may think that if we get a great new resolution or great sound shifts, we鈥檙e going to suddenly have people saying 鈥楬ey, this is just like TV.鈥� Well, so what? TV鈥檚 already here 鈥� we don鈥檛 need something like TV.
Interactive fiction is one of the hottest concepts of the 鈥�80s. It鈥檚 also one of the most problematic entertainment forms of the 鈥�80s. That isn鈥檛 to say we shouldn鈥檛 develop it. Most entertainment software is missing some incredibly important element that entertainment is all about, some kind of identification and caring about the character.
The single thing I identify as our biggest failure is not putting any characters into our games. That won鈥檛 solve our problems, but we haven鈥檛 even reached square one until we have characters. Imagine movies without characters in them. Imagine literature with no characters. There with no actors. Take the movie 鈥淪tar Wars,鈥� and take out Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, R2D2, C3PO, Obi Wan Kenobi, and what do you have lift? 鈥楧a daa da da da daa daaa, zap zap boom. Ok, Roll the credits鈥︹�� that鈥檚 what you鈥檝e got 鈥� nothing.
We really don鈥檛 have any characters in our computer games. The characters we do have are fake. The best character I鈥檝e seen in any computer game is Floyd, the robot from 鈥楶lanetfall.鈥� Floyd is a cute guy who does funny things and then dies. But you see, if you walk up to Floyd and says 鈥楩loyd, I hate your stinking guts,鈥� well, then Floyd is still a cute guy who does funny things and then dies. Because you see, Floyd isn鈥檛 real. He鈥檚 a fake. He doesn鈥檛 have any personality. He doesn鈥檛 feel anything. He doesn鈥檛 even know you exist. He is a Potemkin Village. And he鈥檚 the best we鈥檝e got. In all of computer gamed, we don鈥檛 have a single character as rich, as subtle, as complex as Gilligan from 鈥淕illigan鈥檚 Island.鈥� We have yet to climb up to the level of television. It will be an artistic milestone when we get a game as good as the 鈥淎-Team鈥� or 鈥淒ukes of Hazzard.鈥� So, we鈥檙e in a terrible situation right now.
I say characters are what we care about. When we watched 鈥淪tar Wars,鈥� we didn鈥檛 care about the spaceship or about the zapping and all of that; what we cared about was the people. We need to put people into our games.
Zork was initially designed for the PDP-10, then split into three games and sold as three separate games by Infocom.
I really want to see games where I sit down and say, 鈥楩loyd, let鈥檚 not play hucka bucks beanstalk. Let鈥檚 read Tolstoy,鈥� and Floyd says 鈥極oh, I love Tolstoy,鈥� and you go off into this completely different story. In 鈥淧acman鈥� if you had wanted to learn to coexist with the ghosts, wouldn鈥檛 it have been wonderful if the author had had that in mind and handled it?
That begins to shade into interactive fiction where we always like to say that you are in control of the story. Now we all know that that鈥檚 really a lie because you really aren鈥檛. But wouldn鈥檛 it be wonderful if you were?
I think that if a story is really important, it can鈥檛 have a bunch of different endings. If somebody鈥檚 that excited about this particular story, it鈥檚 got one ending.
鈥榃hat ifs鈥� are interesting but they鈥檙e not the same thing as a compelling story, well told, that involves you and brings you in.
In the real world you get one run through. One of the things about reading books and seeing movies is that it鈥檚 like getting another run through in that world. You see somebody else鈥檚 run through and maybe it helps you do yours a little better. If you could do many, many runs in the same interesting world, it might help you even more.
Character development is the key issue that鈥檚 really holding us back. It鈥檚 difficult to find an author who wants to write 9 million contingencies; most of them have a vision as Shakespeare did 鈥� that there鈥檚 a character who鈥檚 going to learn something, who鈥檚 going to grow because of a sequence of events. Those are the kinds of authors who have existed for the past 2500 years, since Homer鈥檚 time. They have a personal investment in themselves as artists creating an experience we鈥檙e going to have. They don鈥檛 give a damn about what my notion is about the order in which their story ought to take place.
You (Chris Crawford) continue to say that what鈥檚 important to a good story is characters; I continue to say what鈥檚 important to a good story is character development. If you just have free-floating characters, it could be interesting, it could be junk. I鈥檓 not interested in that.
Even if Floyd is the best character in the world, it wouldn鈥檛 advance the story. The characters in popular fiction aren鈥檛 that complicated. What鈥檚 important is empathy.
I understand the problem of building characters into a computer, and I sympathize with it. In fact, I would bow out of that problem and say 鈥極K, we don鈥檛 want characters in a computer. We want environments, worlds where I can be the character, the guy who runs out and does the neat things.
I don鈥檛 want to be sexist, but I think it鈥檚 an interesting statistic that more than 50% of all purchase and rental decisions are made by women. Do you think for software it鈥檚 anywhere near 50%? But I don鈥檛 think we ought to bring women into this just to make the market bigger. We鈥檙e not going to be happening if we just add another 50% of the population. I鈥檓 talking about woman having the same kind of synergy that exists around books and records, where pop culture explodes and grows.
My mother will learn to use any machine if it has those elements of personal emotional identification that are so important to her. The things that are important to mom are stories. She loves to program her VCR because there is content in thee that makes a difference to her.
I think our industry has to stop and rephrase some things. There鈥檚 a kind of looking down our noses, putting down the general public who refuses to 鈥榠nteract.鈥� Let鈥檚 blame the forms of interactivity rather than our willingness to do interactivity.
If you create a character inside a computer, then you hav e to be able to interact with him. The primary way human beings interact with each other is through language. You鈥檝e got to talk to this person. How are you going to do that? There鈥檚 an easy answer most people think of: use English. Talk to them in a regular language. Good luck. I can tell you right now you鈥檙e not going to be able to talk to anybody in a computer in this century. A lot of people grossly underestimate the problems of getting natural language working on a computer. The first is vocabulary, the second is syntax and the third, context; context is the killer. Vocabulary is a trivial problem. You can just take the words, stuff them in memory, no big deal. There are only 600,000 words in the English language 鈥� a few megabytes of storage. Trivial. You can say almost anything you want to say with the 5000 most commonly used words in the English language. Again, no big problem. A few years or decades of programming , but that鈥檚 a solvable problem. You just start writing in the codes for all the weird rules in the English language. It鈥檒l take a lot of time, but it鈥檚 manageable.
The killer is context. You see, language does not exist in isolation from reality. It mirrors reality. A word is not just something that sits in a dictionary or a look-up table in RAM. A word means something. And if you鈥檙e going to understand it鈥檚 meaning, then you鈥檙e going to have to understand the universe to which it refers. Let me give an example of just how hairy this can get. Consider the following sentence: 鈥楥omputer, do not forward John Doe鈥檚 personnel file to Mary Smith because I saw him sneaking out of her house this morning at 6 am.鈥� Now think about the amount of knowledge you have to have about the world and human behavior to understand what that sentence means. Then think about putting it inside a computer. That鈥檚 the killer. If you鈥檙e going to put English inside a computer, you鈥檙e going to have to put the whole universe in there too. That will take a little while.
How can we do English? That鈥檚 a good question. We need to figure out how to expand that part of the universe which we simulate. The fallacy is that we have to do everything. There are 600,000 words in English, but even [MIT linguist] Noam Chomsky doesn鈥檛 know what the grammar of English is. The meanings and the context are incredible, but only if you want to do everything.
But the key is: let鈥檚 do a bit. A little box somewhere. Let鈥檚 do that box really well. Then, let鈥檚 define the boundaries of that box unambiguously so that the person who鈥檚 interacting knows where the boundaries are and doesn鈥檛 get surprised because he can鈥檛 wander off into a completely different geography from the one he thinks he鈥檚 in. Let鈥檚 just build that box a little bigger every time, get those boxes linked up right, and then we can do as much of the universe as is necessary to make good stories.