Most art is static. Even though I may get something new out of a movie when I watch it the second or third time, the movie itself hasn’t changed, only my experience of it. The same goes for songs, literature, TV series, and, up until recently, videogames.
Videogames have always had some replay value that differs from other forms of art: Ignored side-missions can be attempted in a second go, for example, or the main character’s attributes can be altered to change the gameplay. But these are ultimately small differences. Playing a RPG as a rogue instead of a wizard means different spells, but the mechanics of the game remain exactly the same, and most likely the storyline isn’t heavily altered either. Even games like BioShock, which allow players to choose to become “good” or “evil,” don’t change profoundly as a result of that choice. The only major difference between the two trajectories is a cut-scene at the end.
But even games that allow for replay with different characters or choices have essentially been a set of variations of a particular story. The game itself doesn’t really change when you play it again. It just provides you with another opportunity to play within particular parameters. Open world games are a perfect example of this: Yes, you have a certain amount of freedom to choose your actions, but the choices are about when or how you do something, not how the game itself functions. (There are, of course, counterexamples. Strategy games can vary hugely based on a few choices at the beginning. That being said, you still point and click to create units, buildings, etc. The “strategy” of the game changes, but not the game mechanics.)
In that sense, most games are static as well, because whatever change they do offer from one playthrough to the next is from a rigid set of options. Those options never change, even if my choice as a player does. But that paradigm of how games work is already starting to crumble.
I first noticed this when picking up Whale Trail after a six-month hiatus. The game is a pretty simple iOS app: You pilot a whale that flies through the sky, picking up rainbow dots for fuel and dodging evil clouds. When originally released, all you could do to control the main character was tap the screen to make it move.
But when playing Whale Trail after two major updates to the software, I found that the apparatus of the game had shifted. Ustwo, the game’s designers, had added a series of power-ups, various different unlockable characters, and a series of challenge levels. Instead of merely relying on my abilities to pilot the whale, I now had to think strategically about which power-ups to use, and when. The levels themselves are now much harder than when the game was first released, because players are expected to use the power-ups to get through them. It’s not just that the game has gotten harder; I actually have to play it differently. Before I could continually be in the moment, simply tapping the screen with my thumb. Now the game takes two hands and a fair amount of forethought into using the power-ups. The Whale Trail I originally downloaded and loved is gone, with a similar, but structurally different game now in its place.
These frequent game tweaks are standard for many mobile games. Most iOS or Android apps alter themselves somehow within a year of their release, sometimes in minor ways, sometimes drastically. We’re already seeing a shift in how games are developed, and our consumption of them. Instead of playing one game on my phone for a few weeks, getting sick of it and never bothering with it again, my games now continually change, keeping me engaged through reinvention.
There are non-mobile games that have this same chimerical quality: MMOs. World of Warcraft is probably the best example of this. Much of how WoW’s is played has remained the same for its eight-year lifespan, but someone starting off now will have a very different experience than someone who started playing in 2004. The game has evolved, but we’ve been able to keep playing throughout the evolution. Blizzard has been a trailblazer at this with its various expansion packs, but my experience with Whale Trail shows that the continual expansion of games will probably turn into the norm.
Even before Atari founder Nolan Bushnell declared the end of consoles last year, there’s been a lot of conjecture about how long gaming boxes will be around. The great migration to mobile apps and browser games these past few years seems to suggest that conjecture is not entirely baseless. We’ll have a better sense by next year when Microsoft releases its new console and the sales of the Wii U have been tabulated, but I’m not sure this emerging paradigm of gaming sounds the death-knell for consoles, especially considering what Nintendo’s trying to do with the Wii U.
We’ve already started to see a big push for smaller, downloadable games hosted on consoles. These smaller games and apps have the ability to evolve in a way that major titles currently don’t. But who’s to say that big-scale games won’t start working under this new paradigm? I wonder if the major releasing of sequels will disappear, replaced by massive yearly updates and expansion packs. We’re starting to see that with more and more DLC that expands a game’s story or adds new skills, but nothing as of yet that dramatically changes the gameplay of various titles. But, given where we are now, that time does not look too far off. Again, I’m dubious that this implies the end of consoles. But, thinking on a larger scale, we’re already at a point where games resemble growing entities instead of static pieces of art.
Noah Cruickshank is a freelance writer living in Chicago. His work regularly appears in The A.V Club. You can follow him on Twitter @noahcruickshank