Q&A: Eric Zimmerman
Interviewed by Russ Spencer
Eric Zimmerman has a lot to live up to. He was one of Interview
magazine's "30 To Watch" in 1999 and one of International Design
magazine's ID 40 (top 40 influential designers) in 2000. So it's no surprise that
this independent game designer's latest effort is attracting a lot of
attention. Titled SiSSYFiGHT 2000, it just launched on Word.com. But the beta
version already has received hate mail and earned Zimmerman a browbeating on
NPR. Why? It involves groups of schoolgirls who scratch, tease, and tattle on each
other in an attempt to reduce each others’ "self-esteem points."
Chancy stuff for a guy who directs RE:PLAY, a conference
on game design and game culture, enjoys an adjunct professorship at
NewMedia: When did you start making games?
Eric Zimmerman: My whole life I have enjoyed making games, from when I was very young. When I was in elementary school, as a class project, I made a game called the "Digestive Game" about particles floating through the digestive tract. I made a game for my mom called "Oh Mother" about Mother’s Day. I used to make elaborate games for kids in my neighborhood to play, either physical games or tactical games for plastic army men.
What happened to the person who won in the Digestive Game?
Actually, the first one to turn into shit wins. You go through the whole digestive tract and even though you shed a lot of your nutrients along the way, the first one out the bottom of the large intestine and through the anus wins the game. I'm not sure what kind of message that sent, but I wasn't concerned with messages back then.
So you're pretty happy with your choice of career, then?
My opinion about the state of the game industry is two-sided. Games represent the most exiting aspect of digital culture. Online user communities of tens of thousands of people, experiments in interactive narratives, complex systems, artificial life and intelligence, 3D rendering and graphics, innovative hardware user interfaces, questions of immersion and
representation--nowhere are these question being explored like they are in the realm of games. On the other hand, as someone who is working at the margins of the game industry, I want to advocate for change and innovation.
Such as?
I am looking for an alternative production model to the typical Hollywood-style game. In other words: Where is the independent film industry of the game industry? Where are the small record labels and DJ club culture of the game industry? Those are things that interest me very much because I think the future of the industry as a whole is endangered by economic factors--the huge publishing companies, the skyrocketing costs to develop a game. There is a danger that the game industry is becoming all center and no margin.
How would you like to see gaming change?
More experimentation and risk-taking. The state of digital gaming now is that there are a handful of recognizable genres. You have first-person shooter games, role-playing and adventure games, driving games, team sports games, puzzle game. There really aren't that many more genres. There isn't that much experimentation going on in the industry. I would like to see the styles of games open up, and the kinds of stories told in games open up beyond the pulp sci-fi and fantasy universe. I would also like to see more cultural sophistication in games like we see in other art and pop cultural media of the 20th century, where cultural media are used to comment on themselves and comment on culture at large.
And how does Sissy Fight 2000 fit into that?
What's so exciting about Sissy Fight is that if you look at the state of online games, you basically get two kinds: “classic games” like poker or monopoly, or online game shows. But we wanted to create somethingnew. And Sissy Fight 2000, while it is a really fun game to play, has got a very distinctive look and feel, and it certainly has unique content. We tried to invent a new play pattern and a new style of gameplay. And we have a lot of plans for expansion of the Sissy Fight community.
How do you respond to the objections that it's too violent?
Well, I was on NPR this weekend and one of the questions was, how could you possibly publish a game with that message? And we've had email messages. They are saying that it is appalling, that we are contributing to the culture of violence around video games. And my response is that Sissy Fight 2000 is so clearly ironic, and so clearly a parody, that just because it is a game about children, it doesn't mean it's a game for children. It's really designed for adults.
And they perhaps misunderstand the whole purpose of play?
A lot of the debate about video games and violence in our culture stems from the idea that play should be something that is good for you, that the purpose of children's play is to educate them and make them better citizens, when in fact there is a whole range of different reasons that kids might play, or that adults might play. For example, exercising the imagination, playing out transgressive fantasies in a safe space, subverting dominant cultures and ideologies - all very healthy psychic processes. What Sissy Fight does is playfully create a kind of transgressive state, and offers a kind of play that is clearly humorous and sarcastic.
Next: What makes a good game designer?
What are the qualities of a good game designer?
You have to understand how tweaking one game variable will affect how difficult or easy it makes a particular aspect of a game. At the same time, you have to really craft a whole psychological, emotional, and aesthetic experience, and you have to understand desire and pleasure and how to pace rewards and punishments throughout the game. You have to understand how the technology works, understand how psychology and desire work, and how the game will be perceived by culture at large and operate on a social scale. It puts game designers at the intersection of a whole bunch of incredibly delicious critical thinking challenges. You really have to design an experience and put yourself in someone else's feet in the mind of a player.
And love play?
You have to love play so much that even when play becomes work, you enjoy it. Playing the same game for one or two years over and over again--unless you really like playing, you might find that taxing. If you make a game and it's not fun, then there is a design problem. <<