Thoughts on Computer Games and Evolution

[andrewducker]

Said thoughts being brought about by going to see a discussion on that subject because Ken MacLeod was involved (and tisme got me a couple of tickets).

Computer games design is, memetic - the design ideas for each one are clearly memes.  Out of the  whole of the human/computer interaction space they've colonised certain areas, largely grouped themselves into a few species, and propagate based on a fitness function of how much money they make - which is directly proportional to how popular they are.

Of course, their popularity is based on how well they affect people - they tap directly into human emotions and instincts.  Everything from simple reaction testing to provoking fear and stress responses.  Which is, in turn based on human evolution.

So you've got the evolution of computer systems, interfacing with people, their fitness function directly related to the affect they have on our nervous system, itself the result of our own evolution.

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Also, autopope was there, who I seem to perpetually orbit in the same circles as, and seem to actually talk to about once a year - we ended up sitting on opposite sides of the room, and afterwards he was caught up with one group of people, and me with another.  One of these days we'll both be in the pub at the same time without me dashing off somewhere instantly!

Comments

[chuma.livejournal.com]

Computer games are, in their own way, memes.

Er.. no. Otherwise you would have to say the same about anything that is media like books, cds, videos, tv programs...

[andrewducker]

Oh, definitely.

Easier to see it with games though - because they're so limited (in some ways) compared to the others. I'd say it was next most obvious in music, where you clearly get an idea introduced, see it spread, create new genres, affect other ones, mutate in various ways, and either die out or find/create a niche which it can carry on in.

[meico.livejournal.com]

because they're so limited (in some ways) compared to the others.

Limited in what ways? Just curious what you mean here...

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

With respect, no. Games are very obviously designed, not evolved. Not even the most eclectic and madcap designers produce stuff like evolution. Surely you've seen digital stuff produced by actual evolutionary/evolution-mimicing processes - like FPGA designs produced by generic algorithms and all that.

And the processes are quite different too - eg the degree of wholesale innovation in each 'generation' you see in games is impossible in actual evolution. And am unconvinced that there's enough of a feedback signal from one game to the next. (And what precisely counts as reproduction?).

[andrewducker]

I should have said they were memetic, not memes. The ideas in them are clearly memetic. You can clearly draw lines of descent, where ideas enter the games design "conversation", are picked up and carried down the tree to the present day.

While each generation clearly contains innovation, the basic idea behind, say, the FPS, is pretty much unchanged since Wolfenstein 3D came out.

[meico.livejournal.com]

Why so specific to games?

What you say here seems no more true of games than of any type of product in the marketplace. I can see a slight differentiating factor in the attempt of games to directly evoke emotions and instincts, but that is also true of almost any entertainment product (movies and music especially). Any designed product is born of a culture of ideas (memes if you like), ideas which have usually been pre-filtered through the sieve of past successes...

[andrewducker]

Three reasons:
1) I was at a talk on games and evolution.
2) Games are more mass-market than anything outside of movies - and possibly more mass-market than that. This forces the vast majority of them to fit into niches which are known to make money.
3) Games are intrinsically limited. Which, as it's also the thing you questioned further down, I'll go into more depth on :->

Books, plays, etc. are incredibly freeform in their possibilities. Music arguably less so. RPGs are less freeform than books/movies/plays because they have a system through which things are filtered. This system can be overriden by people though, and they can be lightweight, allowing a vast amount of possibilities. Computer games are intrinsically much more system heavy - they are in fact systems themselves. This means that they are limited to the possibilities allowed by that system - far less than the total allowed by the human imagination (future-tech-AI withstanding).

In addition, games seem to be tuned in ways that movies and books aren't - the best bits of the mechanics are pulled out and reused in other games. While this happens a certain amount in books and movies, I'd argue that it happens a lot more in things that are "mechanical" systems in their own right.

And that's why I think the evolution of these "feedback-systems-which-provide-entertainment" fits my description better than books or movies :->

(I'm entirely open to argument of course.)