I recently read a good article titled, "
How RPGs Lost Their Way". The argument revolved around console RPGs and many of the negative turns they have taken over the years, but it really got me thinking that the issue goes a lot deeper and broader than even this. The situation has gotten very bad, the problems perpetrate not only game-play, but the entire gaming experience that was a common in the days of yore.
I'd like to illustrate this issue using the example of a variation of the
Operant Condition Chamber where a rat is not only rewarded for repetition, but it is trapped in a never-ending maze as well. The problem for the rat is 3-fold: 1. They are physically trapped within a 3 dimensional space with which they have little to no realization of, 2. they are addicted to a reward that revolves around instant gratification and pleasure rather than fundamental enjoyment. 3. they are forced into a cycle of input of repetitive, boring actions.
There was a time when fantasy was an experience of the occult, something that really existed outside the realm of mortal perception and experience. When we pulled out the dice, pencils and manuals, we became a part of another world, we let our imaginations fill in the gaps. Stepping into the shoes of another character was an experience of free-form adventure, if making it up as you went along and solving dangerous puzzles and quests.
To begin with, I have been really bothered lately by the recent artistic style that has been a trend for gaming within the last decade or so. Earlier games were marketed with a vivid display of gritty, dark imagry:
The pen and paper medium eventually made it's way into video games, starting with our computers and then entering the console.
Even the manuals themselves were works of art. Back then, when you bought a video game of this sort, you were not simply buying something you "played", you purchased an experience that took place both on and off the screen.
The graphical art of these games were varied and unique, each having their own flair. Most were dark and mysterious, inviting the player to seek out clues and the knowledge to be successful. Nothing came easy in these games, they required persistence and skill from a player to win. The graphical engines eventually improved, but the worlds were large and open, the limitations were few and the freedom was great.
But then, about this time, something started to happen. It started gradually at first, it was almost unnoticable, but more and more control was taken away from the player. Invisible walls started to spring up, doors were closed, NPCs stopped talking, the options were diminishing. Then, the art started to change: manuals got smaller, boxes shrunk, the characters became younger, parties became smaller, and cartoon caricatures started to creep in.
At first glance, things certainly looked "prettier", but delving deeper one could easily find that the mystery, the challenge and the dark atmosphere was gone. The occult had become a thing of the past. Even some more recent games have retained some of the old elements, which give many reason to continue to be interested, but it is clear that the evolutionary path of RPGs has been winding down a dreary road in the last few years. Now the publishers even miss the point, they are no longer experiences, they are simply pushed as marketing gimmicks as digital 1s and 0s bought cheaply off digitial distribution sites. The games are played for an hour and then deleted from our hard drives while we await the next big "sale".
I remember vividly when I was a kid, playing Dragon Quest 4 as "Taloon" the shopkeeper. I dreamed about a game that would turn the NPC customers into real players that would run in a virtual world, that would be found on something new that others called the "World Wide Web". I dreamed of playing as a lowly guard, hired by the king to lead an army of players through the mountains to descend upon the enemy city. I was giddy with anticipation about the future, when games like this would become a reality, when our role-playing games would finally breach the ultimate wall of interactivity. Ultima Online came close, but the idea was quickly abandoned. Now twenty years later, today in 2010, instead of the dream I had as a child, we get this instead:
Again:
...and again:
I read the blogs. We've been pushed this bland garbage for so long that people actually, truly, honestly believe that this is the only model that works anymore. They say, "I don't like it, but, well that's the only way that companies can make money - by leading the player along with the carrot in front of the nose". The very metaphor that they use to describe this process is ironic.
Ask yourselves, as gamers, if you have not become the proverbial rat in
Skinners lever experiment. I'm not just talking about MMOs, I'm referring to the gaming industry in general, particularly with RPGs. The treat we are given tastes better and better each year, much like a narcotic, but the maze becomes tighter and ever more restrictive. The treat is simply an illusion of reality, of grandeur and potential. We are being sold goods that only satisfy us in the moment, and many of use have become brainwashed to believe that gaming is getting better and better. For the most part, for the last 10 years we have been running in circles, bumping into the same walls where, very rarely, is there drastic innovation outside of independent developers. On a global scale, we still have not even come close to the virtual world RPG of our dreams.
So the cycle continues, the lever looks a bit different, the reward a little tastier, but there is no way out. Like Casino operators, the money-makers know exactly how to keep dragging us along. They tweak the formula each year, making the illusion less and less apparent to make things more and more cost effective. Maximize the profits and diminishing the returns, we are condemned to an endless experiment. They hope and bank on us not noticing, and for the most part, like the caged rat, they are succeeding.
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Topic: RP Gamers: Rats trapped in a maze (Read 12621 times)