Friedman and Costikyan on Interactivity

A incongruent aspect of the writings in Greg Costikyan’s I Have No Words and I Must Design and Ted Friedman’s The Play Paradigm is the varying ideas of what constitutes player interactivity. At the end of Costikyan’s section about interactive entertainment, Costikyan flatly states that “interactive entertainment means games” almost immediately after putting down the search for non-game interactive entertainment as “wrong-headed”. This is different than Friedman’s definition of interactivity, as he believes any form of art can involve play, which implies interactivity on the part of the player.

There is an important distinction to be made here: Friedman is analyzing the definition of “play” while Costikyan is analyzing the boundaries of what constitutes a game. However, if you were to read both in succession, there are clearly two separate ideologies being applied. With Friedman, any form of media can viewed under the context of play, which involves interactivity. Friedman states “even solitary activities such as watching film or television allow us to dive into imaginary worlds where we can try out different subject positions and social realities”. Costikyan’s section on “Interactive Entertainment” tries to make the distinction between allowing a person to play a game as opposed to simply giving a person information/entertainment to consume. Costikyan’s examples include CD-Rom educational games or storybook games that essentially function as point-and-click slideshows. In Costikyan’s view, there is no struggle or decision-making (elements he attributes to games) to these forms of entertainment, therefore its interface and structure makes it not “interactive entertainment”. Friedman would disagree, as he states “all forms of media engagement are inherently interactive, and that meaning is only produced through the imaginative participation of the viewer”.

Personally, I think Costikyan’s own taste in games seems to cloud what interactive entertainment can be. Costikyan’s definition of games involves “struggle” and then attributes “interactive entertainment” to games. He goes on to say “…perhaps we can have “interactive entertainment” without a goal? Again in principle you can; you can have a pointless entertainment product, an interactive thing that has no goal, no reason to interact with it, no objective, no meaning. This is, er, pointless.” The person partaking in that entertainment can place meaning on any art form. Although this article was written in 2002, Costikyan’s argument reminds of the more recent backlash against games like Gone Home, as their intentionally limited interactivity is often denounced. However, I think the player’s own interpretation and intellectual/emotional response to a game can constitute a form of interactivity.