Games as narrative medium

Consider two major themes.

and

Here's my claim: big game-changing ideas are now impossible to get through to you, given the media landscape we're in.

By big ideas I'm referring to game changing ones from the likes of Confucius, Kierkegaard, Kant, Zhuang Zi, Tolstoy, to name a few.

The status quo

If Lao Zi is compelled to compile Tao Te Ching into a book today, his ideas would've gone nowhere. Not because his philosophy isn't sound or yet to stand the test of time, but as another book today it wouldn't be capable of getting the attention in needs to gain traction.

Book as a medium today is not the same with a book in 1850's even if the substance is identical. Writing them now might be differently hard now versus then, but how the market treat books are so commercial corrupted I don't know where to begin.

So if one has a big idea that begs to be disseminated, the other extreme of a medium would be a film. But while a book is a solitary work, a film being a collaborative product makes a high barrier. Even if one does get made, it's rare that a core idea survives the butchering of a film adaptation. Just look at how versions of Dune did it take for them to finally get it right.

A personal site like this however is a zero-barrier medium to publish something. Thing is no one comes to this little corner of the internet. Without distribution, blog like mine is where big ideas come to die.

That leaves social media, the place where everybody is and anything can be said. If you're willing to play the social media game, you can reach absolutely everyone. Surely anything that can be said should be said through social media.

Here's the thing: people don't consume social media like they read a book. Whatever great idea you have to offer, it's merely another pale blue link next to another click bait. People consume streams, your big idea is simply part of that stream you don't control. Ultimately your big ideas are competing with cat pics in an infinite stream; chances of it winning is slim.

No matter the medium, people either cannot focus enough to immerse into anything heavy or there simply isn't enough distribution.

How about games?

There is only one medium I can think of where consuming it requires 100% attention (no checking the phone while watching) and gets mainstream distribution: gaming.

It's simple enough to understand: to win at a game one needs to focus. While the focus is there, big ideas stand a chance at getting through.

On a species-level, attention deficit can only get worse and I see no sign of trend-shift. The dopamine of socmed stream is so sweet I can't imagine any society wise enough to get themselves off of it, cementing the disability to focus.

If an ambitious concept ever hope to gain mindhsare, taking form as a games might be the only hope.

Let's try some concreteness. Suppose I'm Karl Marx in year 2022, communism was never a thing and the closest influence ever since is still Hagel, I would seriously consider writing Communist Manisfesto as a game. It would play in such a way that demonstrate the virtues of common prosperity, the perils of industrial alienation and so forth.

Realistically though, game designing make use of different frameworks; superior writing skill does not translate over. So only with enough motivation to cross mediums can this actually happen.

On the bright side, this can feasibly done by a lone writer. Depending on the scale, the difficulty of making a game might be similar in extent to Tolstoy writing War & Peace.

I don't know enough about the state of art of modern game design processes. But I think it's safe to say it'd be less mature than literature.

I'm less optimistic about AAA titles being willing to be high-concept. Smaller budget indy titles are where these get to happen. Experimentation are more prevalent, people are more forgiving of misfires.

Which is why it's an opportunity.

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