Comments on: Gameplay is not free speech!

By: Darius Young

Darius Young — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 06:23:02 +0000

A person chooses to play certain games becuse it appeals to them. Whether or not the game influences a person in reality is due entirely to their upbringing. Blaming a hardcore game for some act of violence person commits is crazy. Are you going to blame a person for being a softy for playing casual game downloadc?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Mar 2004 15:12:08 +0000

I just have to say that i see absolutely no reason to ban video games. They are definitely free speech, and I have been happily playing them for about 12 years now. I’m 15. The first games i played included a fair degree of gore and violence, but this has completely failed to influence me negatively in any way, shape, or form, and, as I see it, anybody who actually thinks that you can turn on low gravity mode and jump out a window, or type the cheat for invincibility and go out on rampages is rather stupid an gullible. If they think that violence is a prevalent in real life as it is in video games, then, quite frankly, they are rather daft.

By: ren

ren — Mon, 23 Jun 2003 02:28:21 +0000

Just wanted to comment on Bezzy?s note above ?found out that you cannot patent algorithms: Gameplay is essentially algorithmic?.
This is indeed the case, but does not relate to whether they or games are speech. Algorithms cannot be patented due to the nature of the uniqueness and inventiveness tests applied in patent law. Speech does not have to be either unique or inventive to be speech (in a legal sense) and hence fall under US constitutional protection, indeed speech is quite free to be unoriginal and dull. Ren

By: Monitoring Dalager

Monitoring Dalager — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 12:10:34 +0000

Games in Court
[The Ludologist] or Jesper Juul comments on the fact that the US Court of Appeals has determined video games to be protected speech under the U.S. Constitution. Which is not bad at all. They accept a wide range of game elements but do not mention game...

By: Bezzy

Bezzy — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 13:16:57 +0000

Do Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books count as interactive?
I would say yes – even if there are only a high granularity of choices, they are still choices that affect the journey (if not necessarily the outcome) of the story
What about modern day children?s books with pop-ups, tabs, and fake bunny fur?
Popups and tabs could make the game interactive, but fake fur is just a form of tactile feedback. It wouldn’t affect the journey of the story.

Err. Sorry for my half assed reasoning. Perhaps it would be better to recall Crawford’s appraisal of the game/story dilmma. A game is somewhere between a toy and a story in terms of narrative control. A toy, obviously has no explicit narrative control (only implicit – player defined goals), while a story has as strong a narrative control as possible: it cannot, ofcourse, control your thought & intepretation, big brother style.

Interpretation is one of the few universal human freedoms… and you can tell narratologists are seething about it.

By: Mattie

Mattie — Mon, 09 Jun 2003 17:01:57 +0000

Interpretation (processing the signs that you are presented with) is not the same as interactivity (you get different signs in reaction to your actions), no matter how clever it makes you sound, OK?

Do Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books count as interactive? What about modern day children’s books with pop-ups, tabs, and fake bunny fur?

By: Jason Della Rocca

Jason Della Rocca — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 12:05:59 +0000

Nice interpretation Jesper… Of note, in the complaint/declerations filed yesterday in Washington state, we purposefully included commentary to the effect that gameplay alone is expressive, as well as all the other elements that go into the game (art, story, audio, etc). The main example given is the Omaha Beach mission from Medal of Honor, in that through the gameplay experience, the player is able to sense the desperation, chaos and hopelessness of the invasion. We also try to get across the point that players themselves are expressive by interacting with a game, etc. Sadly, not sure were you can pull down the court files yet…

By: Bezzy

Bezzy — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 10:59:22 +0000

Just one point: after just doing my Professional Issues module at university, I found out that you cannot patent algorithms: Gameplay is essentially algorithmic. So maybe, because of this, is it possible to infer that “algorithms are not free speech”. I seriously doubt that they looked into this factor of games at all. I would guess that they simply overlooked this facet of games.

As a designer using mechanics as emotive content, is it possible ALL I can ever possibly hope to achieve is copying algorithms that appear in real life – war, politics, economics, relationships etc. etc. ?

Or, is it possible that we can still say emotive things with entirely non descriptive algorithms? And if that is true, then would such algorithms be patentable (seeing as how they’d only be useful in the abstract context of our games, and not in real life? Algorithms are, after all, only unpatentable because no-one should be able to hold rights over obvious processes).

Just some thoughts.

My friend JP was going to write exactly what you just did, by the way. You beat him to it!