(On the off chance that you're looking for it, the expanded edition of my print column from the Games Issue is
here.)
Playing for keeps, and other lessons from games
As much as games represent the cutting edge of technology, they've also been around for a while. For example, the game of marbles dates back to
ancient Egypt. Thanks to a German inventor's new glassblowing tools for creating little glass balls, the game began spreading wide in the 19th century, then mass-produced by (you guessed it) Americans in the early 20th century.
This is the small version of a photo found
here, but it's enough to give you an idea how beautiful the marbles themselves can be: tiny works of art. (These are from West Africa.)
(I'll be honest - I was only of middling skill at the game. I collected marbles because I thought they were
pretty.)
One version of the
game marbles involves rolling a small glass ball, flicked by thumb from a curled forefinger, at other balls in a circle on the ground. Knock another player's ball outside the circle, and you get to keep it.
Normally, the winner returns the marbles to their original owners afterward, but in a high-stakes variation, playing "for all the marbles," the "winner takes all." No wonder that "lost your marbles" is synonymous with insanity. Imagine a neighbor coming over to play Madden Football or Guitar Hero, and if they win, getting to go home with your console and all your games. If I lost all that simply because I lost a single game, I'd go insane too.
Fast forward, so to speak, to computer-based games in the 70s. Computer graphics were still rare, so games were text-based. Many of them were quest-themed. Using only words, you had to talk, fight, or bribe your way out of trouble as you moved from one level to the next, toward the ultimate prize.
(While there's no way to be certain, I truly believe that the phrase "the next level" comes from games. What happens when you overcome each obstacle? You get to...where? That's right. The next level.)
Since nobody could possibly know all the hazards of the game the first time through, it was impossible to succeed in these games without trying again and again, (hopefully) learning from your mistakes along the way.
You might eventually learn that it was worth buying a pencil rather than a sword on level 1, because the giant on level 2 was deaf. You could never defeat him with a sword, but if you used the pencil to write a note asking for help, the giant would fight the battle on level 3 on your behalf, bringing you safely to level four.
Here are the morals of the stories as applied to our business: every undertaking is for keeps, and you'll make many mistakes before you figure out what's really important. Sound fun? Let's play!
Just as with mainstream film and video production, there's every scale of game development, from indies with a handful of people, to casts and crews that rival the grandest Hollywood epics. Projects begin with storyboards and pitches, make their way through long stretches of creativity tempered by client interference (and, often, cluelessness). Adding to the degree of creative difficulty, there might be hundreds or thousands of potential stories to manage, each unfolding in a series of fast twitches, often among multiple players.
Even if yours is much smaller scale production, down to single stories told in 30 seconds or less, you'll see that, like you, the people in this issue are definitely playing for all the marbles, and that, even on the deepest-cutting edge, many of their experiences apply directly to yours.
And to keep from losing all of YOUR marbles, we encourage you to do what these folks do: use your keyboard to ask the giant COW for help getting to the next level.
