Growing up, player choice was never much of a consideration
for me. My earliest games were RPGs (specifically, Japanese RPGs) and PC shooters.
RPGs of course are specifically known for the choices they offer, and my first game, Pokémon
Red, technically had a lot of choices in it. At the start of the game you choose
your first Pokémon. Shortly after you decide which Pokémon (plural) you want to
use in your team. And as the game gets wholly underway you can eventually
choose the order in which you go after certain badges. Each gameplay experience
is deeply personal, unique to each player and the time it is played. I wager
that this renewable experience is why every colored Pokémon game is nearly
identical, though I can't really talk as the player choice component of it still never managed to grip me as something genuine. Despite their high emphasis on uniqueness and the player
authored narrative, the plot of these games never actually changes.
In every Pokémon game you find a professor, talk to him,
leave on a quest to earn 8 badges, confront & defeat a team of organized
Pokémon themed criminals, challenge a team of 4 elite Pokémon trainers, and
square off against your rival as well as the Pokémon League champion (occasionally,
they are the same person). The order of these story beats might change a bit,
but the events themselves always occur, regardless of player input. As such, it
raises the question are any of the choices you make in Pokémon consequential?
Or more broadly, do any of the choices we make in games matter?
Speaking from a macro perspective, they really don't. Every videogame contains a crafted experience. Someone (or more likely, a team of "someones") considered and programmed every choice you make; they all possess limited, pre-determined outcomes that lead to highly specific conclusions. If you believe in predetermination or ever wanted to experiment in a world in which it certainly exists, then video games have got you covered! Alas, a fatalistic mindset rarely permeates the minds of gamers (or if it does, they are awfully reserved about it) as games like Pokémon and Skyrim are obscenely popular with adults and youths alike. Clearly something else has to be drawing people to these games, right?
Or maybe not. Maybe the illusion of choice never bothers anyone at all; maybe it never comes to the fore, never haunts players' every action with the existentialist terror that maybe they aren't important and don't really matter. Perhaps the illusion of having an impact, of making a difference is enough for people. Little touches like a throwaway line about your character's hair color or opinions on your past deeds might make every bit of difference to some people. Again, I couldn't personally speak from experience, it's just the sentiment that is often shouted on forums and such.
As you might have gleaned from some of my older work, I find Skyrim to be an incredibly boring and unsatisfactory experience. Though the mechanics are...functional and the game has plenty of choices (some of which even come with tangible consequences!), none of the NPCs seem to care. And it's the same in MMORPGs (muhmorpuhga's for the uninitiated). You could be the baddest motherfucker on the planet, have a cape made of crystalline lightning and a ten-foot fire breathing parakeet for a mount and still be told by Joe Shmoe to go help Susie get her cat out of a tree. As far as self-aggrandizing power fantasies go, it doesn't get much more disillusioning than menial labor. But people still enjoy these games.
The simple question I suppose is "what makes a choice consequential." In life I think the answer is generally pretty obvious: If a choice affects something else and is irreversible (or at least without paying), then it has a consequence. Simple. In a video game however, that's a bit of a grey area. More often than not, you can simply reload a save and make a different choice whenever one presents itself, so the latter part is right out. And, at least in Role-playing games, most choices only affect one character's combat performance or move an arbitrary set of numbers up or down a few levels. So, by the standard definition, no most choices don't matter.
However, philosophically, the first choice you make is technically the first experience you have. Regardless of what you do after you make that first decision your subsequent choices will forever be colored by your knowledge of that first decision. So in a sense the first decision does have consequence even if it isn't in the game space. I guess...look, what I'm getting at is that despite every choice being a facsimile, for someone who has never played the game before, who doesn't foresee themselves going through it a second time, those choices are real. They may not be particularly effective or grand, but every decision counts. Although based on that logic people shouldn't have bitched at the Mass Effect 3 ending for not giving them any options and -- you know what, this isn't worth thinking about. People are irrational.
As you might have gleaned from some of my older work, I find Skyrim to be an incredibly boring and unsatisfactory experience. Though the mechanics are...functional and the game has plenty of choices (some of which even come with tangible consequences!), none of the NPCs seem to care. And it's the same in MMORPGs (muhmorpuhga's for the uninitiated). You could be the baddest motherfucker on the planet, have a cape made of crystalline lightning and a ten-foot fire breathing parakeet for a mount and still be told by Joe Shmoe to go help Susie get her cat out of a tree. As far as self-aggrandizing power fantasies go, it doesn't get much more disillusioning than menial labor. But people still enjoy these games.
The simple question I suppose is "what makes a choice consequential." In life I think the answer is generally pretty obvious: If a choice affects something else and is irreversible (or at least without paying), then it has a consequence. Simple. In a video game however, that's a bit of a grey area. More often than not, you can simply reload a save and make a different choice whenever one presents itself, so the latter part is right out. And, at least in Role-playing games, most choices only affect one character's combat performance or move an arbitrary set of numbers up or down a few levels. So, by the standard definition, no most choices don't matter.
However, philosophically, the first choice you make is technically the first experience you have. Regardless of what you do after you make that first decision your subsequent choices will forever be colored by your knowledge of that first decision. So in a sense the first decision does have consequence even if it isn't in the game space. I guess...look, what I'm getting at is that despite every choice being a facsimile, for someone who has never played the game before, who doesn't foresee themselves going through it a second time, those choices are real. They may not be particularly effective or grand, but every decision counts. Although based on that logic people shouldn't have bitched at the Mass Effect 3 ending for not giving them any options and -- you know what, this isn't worth thinking about. People are irrational.
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