Let’s talk about the importance of metaphor — and not just in a game, but in its interface as well.
So Sony introduces the PS3 controller, and its gyroscopics, at E3 2006, during their big press conference. To demonstrate the potential of their “new” technology, Warhawk 3 — an action title and flight simulator — is demonstrated. The player up on stage gives the audience a taste of the future by using the entire controller to fly the plane around. Any tilt of the device in his hands yields the same tilt in the aircraft on screen. According to those who saw this first-hand, the control seemed rather tight, and the demonstration was an impressive example of the capabilities of this technology.
So, what’s the problem here?
Video games have struggled with realism for years, not just in the graphics department, but in terms of interface as well. A single controller to play hundreds of different kinds of games makes it difficult to customize the interface — and the direct interaction of the user — with every particular experience. A title like Guitar Hero tackles the issue by introducing a separate controller, specifically tailored to the demands of the software.
With the Wii, meanwhile, Nintendo is attempting to reinvent the wheel entirely by giving the controller less of a presence, and having it retreat into the background as the user’s own motions take precedent. With the Wii, you’ll fish like you expect to fish, swing a bat to swing a bat, and when you want to play tennis, you’ll know how to do that, too.
Our current generation of standard peripherals, however, struggle with intuitive, logical interface. There’s very little the standard Xbox/Gamecube/PS2 controller can do that feels true to its original form. In fact, I can think of only one thing that the analog sticks of our modern devices represent well, and that is flying a plane.
Hell, think about it. Our whole concept of “joystick” descends from the tastelessly nicknamed device pilots use to control the pitch and yaw of their machines. There is no place our everyday videogame controller is more at home than flying an aircraft.
So why did Sony go and muck up the metaphor? Why is it that, of all the possible ways to demo the controller’s “new” features, Sony chose to show the controller doing the one thing that controllers already knew how to do?
The result of this is obvious: every time we watch this dude in action, we can’t help but laugh. The method of control looks incredibly awkward, especially when we can see the dual analog sticks just sitting there on the face of the controller, waiting to be used. It’s like trying to fish by stabbing your rod in the water.
Most importantly, it doesn’t look fun. Because it doesn’t look like you’re playing a game about flying a plane — it looks like you’re playing a game about playing a game about flying a plane. Perhaps contrary to their original intention, Sony has crashed the metaphor, and moved the player one more step away from immersion. At least the graphics are good, right?
1 reply on “Crashing the Metaphor”
” Because it doesn’t look like you’re playing a game about flying a plane — it looks like you’re playing a game about playing a game about flying a plane.”
I agree with you on everything else, but there I think you give Sony too much credit. Over-doing it doesn’t necessarily equal over-thinking it. Somehow I don’t believe this could really be intentionally meta.
Also, remember that the controls on a real plane are also just a form of metaphor. Who’s to say, by abandoning the pilot’s set up, Sony isn’t simply going back to a more intuitive, pre-flight-controls idea of what it would be like to steer a plane… or more literally, to fly. For some of us not raised with RC cars, flying with analog sticks has never been intuitive.