Interactive Entertainment

[Jack Spencer Jr]

The recent threads struck me that the advent of both RPGs and computer/video games was a step in the evolution of interactive entertainment. Unlike passive entertainments; like stage, screen, and print; interactive entertainments require participation from the audience. Participation beyond observer and cheerleader.

I don't believe there's much more of a point to be made. It just recently struck me with all of the these are RPGs and these are not sort of thing, perhapse they are all just branches from the same tree.

[talysman]

I think it's a good point, especially since this discussion was inspired by Ron's musing about computer games... of course, he will probably log in monday and tell us that was just a throw-away comment and he didn't mean anything big by it, but still...

the question may be, then: do all sorts of competitive interactive games, regardless of format, fulfill a Gamist's needs? did the rise of interactive computer games prevent a major customer rebellion against the attacks on "munchkinism", "monty haul", and "death trap" play styles in '80s RPG texts?

[Michael S. Miller]

Hey, Jack.

Interactive entertainment is not some new kid on the block. For most of human history, it was the most common form of entertainment, with the passive type mostly reserved for the elite. People didn't so much listen to singers, as they sang--didn't watch plays, they played games! If you look in a copy of Hoyle's Rules of Games, there are almost always multiple variations of rules (and names) for any given game because they evolved more as folklore than as a piece of craftsmanship/artwork/commodity. The whole idea of being entertained by someone else was, for the most part, confined to the elite, who could afford such luxuries. For the commoners, "Entertain thyself" was the rule of the day. Only in the 20th century has mass media put passive entertainment firmly and reliably within the grasp of most of the population (in the industrialized world, that is). Of course, this is not to say that the elite refrained from games.

I guess my point, such that I have one, is that the impulse to entertain oneself--or to be involved in one's own entertainment--is neither new nor marginal. It is a commonality to all cultures. Everyone plays games. Why, then, are we so obsessed about more people playing our kinds of games? Does the very commonality of games, and their strong association with childhood (in U.S. culture, at least) aid in their marginalization?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Interactive entertainment is not some new kid on the block.

Never said it was. Only that in the late 60's early 70's, the category of interactive entertainment suddenly grew two new branches. One born out of technology, a similar development to film, and another melding together several other activities, making something new. These two activities developed in tandem and tended to attract the same people as an audience. That's all.