The Language of Videogames: Part 4 The “Win-State”

Once a player has become fluent in the language of videogames there is one more step to increasing comprehension and understanding. Where other languages and artistic mediums stop at the point of creator/audience engagement, games take it one step further. Videogames are unique for the ability of the player to interact with their experience. The developer crafted it, yet it remains to the player to experience it; differing players with have differing experiences. A film or book is stagnant, it is as it will always be, the way the author or director intended it to be. There is nothing wrong with that, I love me some books, but they lack the interactivity that games have. It is that direct involvement with the game which sets videogames apart from other media. 

But what is the player involvement for? Why give away control of a finely crafted story or world to someone else? What makes games unique is also what makes them so risky from a narrative perceptive. A player could just as easily become absorbed in the story as they could by ignoring it all together, messing around with the environment and such. Developers combat this with what is called the “win-state”. Something that when achieved constitutes a “win” allowing for further progress. 

“Win-states” vary in size and grandeur according to what he game requires of it. Beating the game is a total “win-state” the player has completed the entire game. However, smaller “win-states” exist within the game. Jaime Griesemer, former game designer at Bungie on the Halo franchise and now of Sucker Punch, properly exemplifies a “win-state” in his most famous quote: “In Halo 1, there was maybe 30 seconds of fun that happened over and over and over again, so if you can get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game. Encountering a bunch of guys, melee attacking one of them before they were aware, throwing a grenade into a group of other guys, and then cleaning up the stragglers before they could surround you. And so you can have all the great graphics, and all the different characters, and lots of different weapons with amazing effects, but if you don't nail that 30 seconds, you're not gonna have a great game.” The “Win-state” is that “30 seconds of fun”. The player’s rewarded for playing the game the way the developer intended. ‘Go here, shoot this, avoid this’. When the player does that, they have completed the requirement constituting in a “win-state”, the sense of enjoyment and fun. Play the game the way the developer intended for the player to play it and the player shall be rewarded with fun.

It is this feedback loop that makes games compelling. Involvement of the player to further the total “win-state”, completion of the game, is what most developers count on for impetus throughout their game. The player is never in any danger and more often than not the player character will have infinite revives to continue playing. Any sense of urgency or compulsion to the game is reliant on the “win-state” of the game. Players of online shooters chase the second to second high of a “win-state” achieved via completion, action, victory and defeat. Players of stealth games derive pleasure from the waiting, the stealthily hunting of enemies or the thrill of remaining undetected. These are the small “win-states” the amount to the moment to moment enjoyment of a game. Even horror games follow a “win-state” design. The only difference being that horror games use a sense of fear, isolation and suspense to generate an emotional response. Not all games seek to deliver fun in the same manner. Player enjoyment can be derived from a multitude of sources.

As a whole a videogame presents a challenge to the player. A larger “win-state” waits above the entire game for it to be completed. Recognizing these “win-states” becomes second nature to fluent game players. The language of videogames is one of conflict. Meant to engage and challenge the player. A goal is set, rules are laid out and tools are given, it then falls to the player to complete the game. Surprisingly the larger “win-state” of most games are not as complex as the story told around them tend to be. In the interview God of War: Game Directors Live, David Jaffe says the “win-state” of the original God of War simply to get Pandora’s Box. “A lot of times when we play videogames it may take you a day or a week or a month or longer to finish it … and so you tend to forget a lot of the details. And so it was important that the core through line was very simple… go get the box. Even if you spend six months away from God of War … that was a pretty simple thing to hang your brain on. Okay, I know what this is about.” (Full interview can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QEwdTVhTOE. The specific part mentioned is happens a 52:44 and on for the next few minutes.) As mentioned before the true beauty of a videogame comes from the nuances within the language. “Win-states” may be simple measures of enjoyment looped into a game; however without them all videogames would fall flat. Lacking any sense of motivation or drive would be an irredeemable flaw on the games part. There would be no reason to play it. 

Fluency in the language of videogames is beyond the requirements of fluency in another language. Engagement with the creator is just the beginning of comprehension through the language of videogames. Interactivity is a fundamental part of what makes a videogame a videogame and the language reflects that. Using simple to understand loops of challenge and reward a larger meaning can be built. The nuances of the language present themselves through the use of “win-states” compiling upon each other to create an immersive experience.  Videogames are constructs designed by people to tell stories, share thoughts and create experiences. The language of videogames is how those experiences are built and governed. When a player possesses a fluent understanding of the language, engagement with the developer can be forged along with engagement through the interactive mechanics of the game. “Win-states” are the developer’s way of guiding the player through the experience they have crafted. Without the use of “win-states” a videogame would be just another book or film.   

Merry Christmas. War Is Over.

Or more specifically the Cold War is over. 

What is referred to as the Cold War today was actually a period of time from 1945 to 1991 that encompassed much of the world’s major political events including but not limited to several “hot wars” in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. If that last sentence sounded too textbook-y, then this next one won’t. In the simplest terms possible the Cold War was nearly 50 years in which the world was under threat of nuclear war between the United States of American and the Soviet Union because they wanted to see who had a bigger penis.  (By penis I mean nuclear stock pile) 

Both countries were vying for power hoping to be the predominant world super power. The launch of Sputnik, the moon landing, three wars, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the Chernobyl disaster  and the Cuban Missile Crisis were all part of the over arcing struggle between the two countries. The development of modern day political allies and other relations can be attributed directly to both the NATO Treaty and the Warsaw Pact. In short all of what is taken for granted today has roots directly in the Cold War. That stands true for today’s videogames.  Nearly all modern war games, whether they be RTS or FPS, place Russians as enemies. But the thing all those games (and the people who develop and publish them) seem to forget is that the Cold War is over. Has been for over 2 decades.   

Then why are Russians always the enemy?

To be perfectly frank this gaming trope bothers the hell out of me. I was born in 1995, after the Cold War had already ended. During my formative years there was no major American adversary. No threat from an opposing country. America was just another country in the relatively peaceful world. Of course that didn’t last very long. One of my earliest memories is of 9/11. I was in kindergarten. I did not really comprehend what was going on then but I do recall clearly that the people responsible for it were not from one specific country. War was declared on a group and an idea they held. America still had no opposing countries. 

So maybe my view of the world is different than someone who spent their formative years in the Cold War. Those people who learned to fear and hate the Russians. And at the time they had good reason to. The ever looming threat of nuclear war had scared their parents and most likely their grandparents as well. Russian antagonism was just another part of normal American life. And then the Cold War ends when these children are already grown. The mindset has already been planted and that underlying fear cannot be erased.  

Now I am in no way saying that the elder generation is racist against all Russians. Quite the contrary. People themselves have the ability to change. Society as a whole does was well, but it often lacks any sense of urgency in that change. Why else did it take nearly a hundred years from the 13^th Amendment to the Civil Rights movement? Russia is still a societal touch stone of antagonism.  An acceptable enemy in a world where the lines between enemy and ally draw ever blurrier. 

Or to make this even clearer: It has been 21 years since the Cold War ended. The average age of a game designer is 31 according to the International Game Developers Association. That is ten years of societal fear ground into the creativity behind some of today’s biggest selling franchisees.   

And there is no franchise that sells more than Call of Duty. In its ten year history there have been nine games released in the main franchise. Two thirds of those games (or six of the nine) involve fighting and killing Russians. The Modern Warfare series has them as the main antagonists and the Black Ops series has them as predominant enemies in the first game. Black Ops II which has been marketed to take place in the future and promises a compelling new antagonist in Raul Menendez cannot help but to place some of its levels as flash backs to the 1980s in the Afghanistan conflict. Who were the enemies then and there? That’s right; Russians. 

I, personally, am strongly opposed to this type of preconceived notion that all Russians are the enemy. It unjustly stereotypes 141,930,000 people (the current population of the Russian Federation) as vile murderous war-mongers. Thousands of American gamers view Russians through their gun sights every day. It leaves a negative impact of an entire nation of people in the minds of gamers today: Gamers that were not born during the Cold War. Yet through the proliferation of war videogames where Russians are the enemy, the same societal fear from the Cold War lives on. And that is, by any definition, wrong.

But then what can be done to fix it?

My suggestion is to simply have other groups or nations as the enemies.  Although they take a lot of criticism for being trite and predictable, sci-fi shooters present a good alternative to killing Russians; killing aliens. In a sci-fi shooter like Halo or Killzone, the enemies are completely fictitious. That gives the games writers a chance to create new and interesting antagonists. Ones that are compelling and truly evil. Without the safety net of supposed Russian evilness, writers must actually come up with interesting villains. They cannot use the crutch of “He’s Russian so he must be the enemy” when designing their game. 

Or the game has to be a gritty realistic shooter taking place in today’s volatile political climate use another nation. Homefront, for all its flaws, had an interesting premise and enemy in the North Koreans. It presented a frighteningly possible futuristic situation in which North Korea had launched a nuclear attack on America followed by a full scale invasion. By not falling back upon the ingrained fear of Russians, Homefront presented an enemy that was not only possible but truly scary.

Finally if the game must have enemies that have Eastern European accents and a predisposition for saying the word “comrade” then make them from Belarus, not Russia. As the world stands today the Russian Federation is only a threat to the United States economically. Belarus on the other hand is formerly Soviet Republic that upon getting its freedom has been working ever steadily to go back. The government of Belarus is a “republic in name, although in fact a dictatorship”. That quote is directly from the CIA World FactBook.  Under the harsh rule of Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus has committed human rights violations and been called “the last true remaining dictatorship in the heart of Europe”. If that is not basis for a modern war game, I don’t know what is. 

Russians have been inappropriately labeled the enemies for far too long now. It is time that that stopped. There are enough current other viable threats to America that can be used in the next Call of Duty. But please leave the Russians alone, the Cold War is over.