This past week, I have been regularly playing two games; Uncharted 2 on the PlayStation 3 and Canabalt on the iPhone.
They couldn’t be more different.
Uncharted 2 has a movie-grade script and complex game mechanics. It offers the most photo-realistic graphics achieved on a console, excellent voice acting and 12 hours of unique gameplay. It cost twenty million dollars to make and retails for £39.99.
Canabalt has me running on rooftops by tapping on the screen; the game mechanics couldn’t be simpler. The graphics are similar to what we had on the NES back in the 80s. Storyline? The game doesn’t even hint at why I’m running on rooftops or what I’m running from. I don’t know how much it cost to make but I think it’s a safe assumption that comparing its budget to Uncharted 2 would be tomfoolery. You can buy it on the App Store for £1.79.
Yet we call them both video games.
I’m not a scientist. I don’t know much about neuroscience. I’m going to make some claims here that may well be entirely wrong. Keep your copy of Bad Science handy.
When it comes to the nitty gritty of synapses firing, I don’t think there is much difference in my brain activity, say, when I’m listening to the song on MySpace the 16 year old kid recorded in his bedroom and the high budget production wonder that is ‘The Blueprint 3’.
But I’m confident my brain is wired differently when I’m playing Uncharted 2 and when playing Canabalt. In fact, I’d go as far as suggesting my brain activity during Uncharted would be more similar to watching the latest summer blockbuster in the cinema. And the repetitive skill display required for Canabalt may show similar brain activity to playing keepie uppie with a ball.
No other form of media is as diverse as the video game. No other umbrella title spans everything under the sun from the free flash game on the web to drumming on a plastic drum set in front of a TV. And that’s what makes it so difficult to make sense of video games; there is no level field; what you picture in your head when I say ‘video games’ is probably completely different to what I picture in my head.
Is it time we looked at breaking down ‘video games’? Can we have a model where we categorise by experience rather than genre, platform and labels like hardcore - what does that even mean? - or casual?
Video games are here to stay. And they are evolving everyday. It’s a multi-billion dollar business that’s in our living room, the classroom, the workplace, our pockets and our browsers. It’s more important than ever we look at new ways of communicating the video game - the product, the vision and the execution - better.
In the name of science, I’d like to test the pseudo-scientific claims above to have them refuted or maybe even proved right. If you are or know of a neuroscientist with access to an fMRI scanner and an EEG and are willing to help me run these, please get in touch: utkucan[at]gmail[dot]com.
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