Well, it’s been two months and change, and I’m back from a break for a bit. I successfully lobbied for a package from the Mothership and am now onto other things. So far, non-game related. But all’s good and all’s well.

I’ve been playing LotRO (ya, finally), and having a healthy time on Elendimir. The whole back and forth on canon and player’s expectations — both pro and contra Tolkien — that’s happened with that game has been interesting. Reminds me of the first few months of SWG; although honestly, it seems more sedate. But it’s made me rethink or learn more about the genre of fantasy.

To start with, one of the few things that caught my eye in the last while was this provocative gem on Gamasutra Rethinking the MMO. I’m not going to review it, because Moorguard has a better reply. Long article short, MMO’s are themselves too long and too boring, and essentially, reinforce Western values of consumption and individualness. Problem is, however, so do Monopoly and Chess. And while I’ve never seen a pawn pwn a rook wholesale, I wonder if the something that is bugging the author is really the dominance of the fantasy genre in MMO’s.

As others have argued, it seems that fantasy is the only vehicle for a game. Or more accurately, fantasy creates the best conditions for a successful MMO. However, there’s a lot of dev going on and people are spending a lot of money to try and capture any portion of the market. And they are looking at different franchises to propel their projects. It’s pretty much the Adventure game and the RTS craze we saw in the 80′s and 90′s (cf. a famous post by Dan Cook). Players are sounding off with their credit cards enough that they are pushing investment into non-fantasy themed projects, and the novel webby and sandbox-creation games. The only thing that strikes me is this justification for fantasy.

A friend of mine has written a book that’s popular with academics these days on the whole history of fantasy literature (Quests and Kingdoms by K.V. Johansen). I always knew there’s a common set of motifs and themes in things like myths and folktales that have been catalogued, but I didn’t know the progression that’s happened in contemporary literature. Naturally, it made me think about games. How fantasy has been relied on and how designers keep rehashing it.

Not your average wandering monster, this.

This idea that there is only one sure framework or formula to a title is really a self-crippling move. The history of video gaming shows that it ain’t a safe bet . And in fact, I think there’s broader media that shows it as well.

For instance, how do we think about the fantasy idea of “magic”? Magic has more to do with fireballs and clouds and lights, because that is how we expect them to be shown first in illustrations and then on the screen. Early fantasy descriptions of magic were always about polymorphing people into creatures, or charming/hypnotising people, or using small tricks to mislead etc. Merlin AFAIK in Parsifal never threw a fireball. In fact, the first time I ever knew of a wizard throwing fire was Tim in the Holy Grail. And Gandalf certainly didn’t (behold, LotRO controversies over canon).

J.W.WATERHOUSE “Circe lnvidiosa” 1892

Another example. The early science fiction serials never had beams of light or glowing effects because they weren’t possible with the video/film technology at the time. And of course, radio was the dominant media for most serials. Today, however, everyone expects every weapon to be a “laser” of some kind, because we are used to Star Wars and early attempts at CGI. In fact, we won’t accept Science Fiction without lasers or good CG because they don’t match what we now expect SF to be. People who are in combat in a dramatized SF story better have a version of the ole six shooter that shoots rays of light, because otherwise the audience won’t accept it.

Bounty Armor T4 set, circa 1940′s (courtesy Coady’s Commandos)

I think MMO developers are depending too much on the same metaphors of fantasy, and since a metaphor is fundamentally a model for how we conceptualize an object, they are reproducing the same kinds of games with the same kinds of tropes for the same kinds of effects. That’s not a new insight for MMO bloggers or players. But I think what’s worth emphasizing is that relying on one kind of fantasy and deliberately reusing the same tropes within it (e.g. elves, wizards who cast fireballs) wholesale, game companies are very badly limiting the lifetime value of their offerings. The main argument for one kind of a genre is popularity and acceptance. I don’t think that’s going to last, until we see new kinds of ideas of fantasy (e.g. Mirrormask and Pan’s Labyrinth) being offered. The reason being is that if games are really about players creating their own narratives, then very obviously everyone has the same biography. And while that doesn’t really bother a lot of games companies, the other obvious problem of every game being as good a substitute for the other on some level ought to give them pause. If they are banking on subscriptions for several years. Cirque de Soleil jester, i.e. the whole Blue Ocean Strategy thing. Nuff said.