Knowledge is Power, but Ignorance is Bliss - Musings from a Gamer

​Written by Scott Murray

I’ve always been fascinated with what I’ll call “behind the scenes.” Whether it’s stagecraft in live theatre, making-of techniques in films, (cinematography, lighting, and sound design, etc.) or creating convincing immersion in video games through artificial intelligence or world-building, I’ve always felt a drive to determine just how my favorite forms of entertainment are made. In some films or video games, depending on my mood and how successfully I’ve been drawn in, I’m always analyzing in the back of my mind just how things are done. Sometimes, as when I watched the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front last month, this exercise is fun and entertaining. I found myself trying to determine the details of their sets since, after all, there was no CGI in 1930. Often I would guess that only the nearest ten feet or so would be actual set, with the rest of what I could see simply a backdrop, painted to give perspective. This was probably a symptom of my theatre experience giving me a bias though, and I was frequently surprised; often something would happen in what I had believed to be a static backdrop, both proving me wrong and leaving me pondering just how big their set actually was. Whether in film or on stage, I find this sort of guessing game to be quite delightful, adding an extra element of fun and awe to the experience. It helps that I am able to shift my focus from moment to moment, becoming either a critical analyst or an acquiescent observer as desired. Unfortunately, in video games, the effect of these revelations is rather more severe.

I live with a computer science grad student and often, whatever we may be playing, we’ll discuss how things are done: weapon stats, environment design, Artificial Intelligence, pathfinding and behavior trees, and other parts of the experience. While these often provide fun insights (even if they’re only guesses) my discovery of them, especially AI behavior, can take me out of the experience. For example: I no longer see NPCs as a people, but think of them as machines: analyzing their pathfinding for patterns or exploitable behaviors. I no longer guide my character (or better yet, myself) through a living world full of thinking, feeling, beings, but become a rat in a lab, pushing the right levers at the right times to achieve the optimal result.
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At its base, of course, this is what all gaming is: input the correct commands in the correct sequence and timing and you achieve whatever constitutes “success.” But a game’s real appeal is in its ability to immerse you; to make you forget that you’re operating levers and instead make you feel like you are truly in another world. Seeing and deciphering the underlying rules and systems which make up that world make it feel less real and reveal its nature as a predictable machine, making you feel less like an actor in the world and more like a person sitting on a couch pushing buttons. For one of the main purposes of a game to be subverted or damaged in such a way can certainly remove all the fun. I find this problem most affecting in horror games, when the strange and terrifying forces which pursue and haunt me become only machines, and the terrifying environment itself becomes only an elaborate carnival ride, its monsters reacting to particular stimuli as I progress down my predetermined path. I know now that the monster that jumps out at me doesn’t appear because it’s been tracking me or because it has stumbled across me, but because the puzzle I just solved, the door I just opened, or the light I just turned on flipped a switch somewhere in the game’s code and made it spawn and begin the hunt. It’s no longer a specter of imminent doom and suffering, but simply a consequence of a machine. It hurts too when pathfinding is at all predictable; when I can see all the if/then conditionals as plain as day, like the monster itself is branded with chunks of its code like warning labels or user guides: If a noise happens go here, if a light is present go here, if the player exceeds a certain speed move towards them.  It removes all the fright. After all, ghosts aren’t so bad once you figure out the trick behind them.

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On the one hand, deciphering the underlying systems satisfies my deep craving for behind the scenes knowledge, so it’s not all bad. Some of my favorite moments are when I’ve figured out just how a developer has managed a particularly impressive behavior or aspect of the game, or even when I was just discussing the scope of a problem and its possible solutions with my roommate. These discoveries are gratifying on an intellectual level, and, to a point, enrich my gaming experience by broadening my understanding. On the other hand, such glimpses into the game’s inner workings may irreparably spoil the experience of playing the game.

It’s sort of like growing up: when I go to Disneyland I know, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I’m not looking at Mickey Mouse, but a man in a Mickey Mouse suit. But that doesn’t stop me from voluntarily buying into the world and suspending my disbelief so that I can enjoy the experience. With video games, however, I have trouble with this voluntary shift of focus. Once the façade is broken I cannot reassemble it; like the Wizard of Oz my game cannot simply pull the curtain and resume the illusion, but must now be laid bare with all its little ingenuities and imperfections visible to the world and plain to see. Perhaps this is simply a problem with my own mind; I have no trouble switching perspective at will where films or theatre are concerned, after all. Or maybe it’s in the nature of the medium: even when I’m enjoying a film as intended I am still an outsider observing the story externally. Whereas when games are working as intended I am inside them, an actor within the world, both given form and constrained by it, and I must remove myself from the experience in order to inspect it the same way I do a film. But removing myself from the experience leaves me bereft as a player: no longer inhabiting my character and losing the immersion which is key to the gaming experience.
           
This all raises a broader question: when is learning and discovery a direct impediment to happiness? And is it worth it? Is it enough to seek knowledge for knowledge sake, however satisfying it might be? Or should there be a practical and immediate benefit in order to make your newfound understanding worth the loss of your blissful ignorance?

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