[-empyre-] play versus gameplay

[Andy Polaine <a.polaine@unsw.edu.au>]

Helen, you're right of course when you say "it is the 'play to win' 
that impassions people in their game play and drives game play", but 
here is where two areas diverge, I believe, into play and gameplay. 
Gameplay is crucial, and that drive to win is clearly understood by 
most videogame developers. Play is (or can be) non-competitive and 
something intrinsically enjoyable as an activity.

I can't help feeling that a successful art game still needs to have an 
interactive hook in some way, especially if it is going work within and 
utilise that genre. But I think that this can be playfulness rather 
than competition and this, often, is what separates the art game from 
commercial competitive game (not exclusively though). Playing (in the 
playful sense as opposed to competitive) is often a reflective 
activity, which is probably why it works so well as a pedagogical tool, 
so it lends itself to delivering a little more meaning.

I have another thought to throw to the list. A criticism of a great 
deal of interactive/installation art is that there is often far too 
much focus on the enabling technology than the ideas or interaction. It 
is easy (or has been at least) to wow curators and audiences with some 
fancy tech. When you see these pieces a few years down the track they 
really age terribly, whereas those that rely on a good idea are still 
engaging. I'm wondering if utilising videogame engines helps relieve 
this tension because they are now such a common cultural form? So the 
excitement comes not from seeing a full-motion realtime 3D world, but 
the subversion of a genre.

Cheers,

A

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Andy Polaine
Senior Lecturer, Interactive Media
School of Media Arts
College of Fine Arts (COFA)
The University of New South Wales
Cnr Oxford Street and Greens Road
Paddington
Sydney, NSW 2010
Australia
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