Two ideas on emergent gameplay

I’ve been considering the problems that face researchers looking into video games and how games are studied as a form of media. The issue of emergent game play stands out for me and a point of interest that would introduce difficulty in studying gameplay. I see it as likely a contentious issue for two reasons that I can immediately see.

The first issue actually goes together with the problem proposed of researchers not actively playing the game during their research. This kind of passive research may be best if one were only studying the audience, but if the focus was the content and manner of playing the game, it would in my opinion be necessary to participate in the game, to accurately gauge these elements.

I suggest this solely for the reason that many of the elements of gameplay in contemporary games are the result of personal investment in the game being played, by the player and not simply a mechanical input of directions to move an avatar or vehicle to solve a puzzle or win a conquest. Many games of the role-playing (RPG) or first-person-shooter (FPS) genre have increasingly laid decisions at the feet of gamers that allow them to make moral or practical choices in the game that radically effect the gameplay. As such there is a degree of personal investment in these decisions and no two experiences can entirely be the same given many nested fractal trees of choice. As a result, the entire experience of playing an adventure based on your own choices is very hard if not impossible to understand without first-hand knowledge. How the player structures their choices may actually result in a combination of decisions not considered by the developers, I've seen this called a "Bethesda Bug" occasionally, named after the gaming company Bethesda Softworks, developer of a few lines of RPG games that frequently suffer from bugs that prevent you from completing the game due to combinations or order of which you complete parts of the game.


As for emergent gameplay itself, as demonstrated in the game Lineage and described in Constance Steinkuehler’s essay, there are elements of game play that have developed in MMORPG games that despite being within the mechanics of the game, go against the intentions of the designers and can lead to negative experiences for players and occasionally forces the community encompassing the game to self-regulate within those same constraints. Whilst abuse of game mechanics are frowned upon in verses gaming (RPG, FPS, Racing) some elements of gameplay that operate entirely as the developer intended find themselves at the mercy of gamer community consensus. Examples of these are ‘nade spam’ and ‘n00b tubing’, the former being the constant throwing of grenades and the latter being the use of a grenade launcher. Whilst these behaviors are not only permitted by the game but are actually the main selling point, many players and operators of servers will create rules stating that these actions are not permitted. So maybe these can be seen as emergent non-play?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that both games and their players are unpredictable and can operate counter to their designer’s desire and counter to what the model of game play that was envisaged. These two elements of game play and game design can make the study of games and gaming that much more interesting.

If anyone is interested in what happens if the creator of an MMORPG decides to enter their own game and give a speech check out this link.