Whose Imagination matters?

Imagination is the most important part of entertainment. In fact, imagination is also the most important part of many other things. An entrepreneur could not exist without imagination. Neither could lovers.

But while we know imagination is very important, WHO’S imagination is important?

In the cult of the ‘Game God’, it is the belief that the star game developer (i.e. the Game God) is the one whose imagination is very important. The cultists worship at the feet of the ‘Game God’ as if he were a fountain of imagination spraying all over the place wonderful worlds.

Interestingly, these cultists are almost always very young and also are wannabe artists. They have not made it big. They see the relationship of a game franchise to the game developer as a relationship between a fiefdom and a fiefdom lord. What power! What glory! Who doesn’t want to become a god? This is perhaps a reason so many young people hurl themselves at ‘creative’ professions. After all, their youths were spent in much time of imagination. They only wish to harness that imagination for all.

But along this journey, we must ask, “What if this is all wrong?” What if the imagination of the writer/artist/developer doesn’t matter a hill of beans? What if the only thing that matters is the imagination of the audience?

It would be absurd to say that a merchant’s success is dependent on him feeling good. Rather, it is the client feeling good that causes the merchant to become successful.

When people go to the movie theater, whose imagination matters? Is it the director’s imagination? Or is it the audience’s imagination? The audience is selfish and only care about themselves being “mentally and emotionally” stimulated. The audience has that right because the audience is paying the money. The director does not have that right. If a director is selfish and makes movies revolve around his imagination, the audience will not see his show. If the audience is not properly stimulated, no money comes in.

The purpose of the artist is to stimulate the audience. The artist is not to stimulate himself. This is the difference between the good artist and the bad one. The one who makes money versus the one who does not.

The entire purpose behind the writer’s rule of ‘show and not tell’ is stimulate the audience. When the writer is ‘telling’, clearly he is in a stimulated sense of imagination. But the words just crawl in big blocks and do not mean anything to the reader. The entire purpose of ‘showing’ is to stimulate the reader. Instead of saying, “This is the world. Blah this. Blah that,” it is better to say how the world smells, what sights there are in the world the character is seeing, is it warm or cold?, and things of this nature.

Malstrom tells the editor to lock the room. The editor does so.

Now, I want to mention Shakespeare…

The readers scramble for an exit but found their way locked. In despair, they sigh and brace themselves for the worst…

Shakespeare is the greatest of writers in the English language and perhaps all languages. There are vast industries and countless universities and academies working around the clock trying to figure out why. But the answer is ridiculously simple: Shakespeare worshiped the imagination. Aside from children, it is the only thing he saw that could survive his death. He ridiculed all other professions because their work would not surpass death (except the grave digger of course).

Renaissance writers of that period approached their craft in almost an engineering context as in: “What is the best way to excite the imagination?” Let me ask the lovely audience what they think.

“Sex!” someone calls out in the crowd. Everyone bursts with laughter.

This is very true. Nature has infused our brains to explode in fireworks with this subject. It is a reason why Shakespeare’s works are so bawdy. It isn’t because Shakespeare himself was necessarily a worm. It is because it correctly excites the imagination. It is why you see so many movies and TV shows just randomly throw in a sex scene or sexual tension.

“War!” giggles another.

Yes, the mind does excite itself when seeing armies going at one another or hearing about armies going at one another. Shakespeare somehow made war a major part of his plays.

I know I’ve shown this clip before but I will continue to do so. It is the very first few lines of King Henry V where the Prologue is speaking to the audience. What the Prologue is doing is asking forgiveness from the audience that the subject matter (the war) cannot be accurately shown by the stage. So the Prologue is asking the audience to work their imaginations harder.

All the metaphors and colorful tricks of the word are deliberately chosen, like an archer aiming his arrow, to strike at your “imaginary forces”.

There are so many things that strike at a person’s “imaginary forces”. Mythology always kindles people’s imaginary forces and, of course, is another reason why they are constantly referenced and peppered in Shakespeare.

There are books during the early renaissance that actually go in detail about how to excite the ‘imaginary forces’. I have seen no such modern equivalents. It is perhaps science is unable to pin down the ‘imaginary forces’ so no one bothers writing books on the subject. The centuries old works are fascinating. They suggest things that excite the imagination you’d never believe such as bodily functions (which would explain why children are so interested in talking about ‘pooping’ and ‘farting’ and all).

The point in all this is not to talk about Shakespeare or about old books. The point is that the role of the entertainer is to excite the audience’s imagination. The entertainer does not entertain his own imagination. Oh no! He entertains his audience’s imagination! The audience wants to be seduced and will pay good money for the privilege of being so.

Consider the actor. The actor will play the role of dashing romancer to a demi-devil villain to a heroic character. These are all illusions, of course. The actor is almost always a man-child with above-average looks. But what makes the actor is stimulating the audience, making the audience see someone else instead of the man-child with above-average looks.

It is incorrect to assign a game’s success (or failure) as a referendum on the game developer’s “imaginary forces”. For example, Sakamoto’s Other M falling flat isn’t really a referendum of Sakamoto’s “imaginary forces”. Whether his “imaginary forces” were good or bad would not improve the state of the game. What matters is whether or not the game is a vehicle to stimulate people’s imagination. When someone succeeds at this, the person could have ‘high’ “imaginary forces” or ‘low’ “imaginary forces”. It is irrelevant. Stimulating the imagination is extremely different than having an imagination. It is the difference of the seducer and the seduced.

The mission of escapist video games should be to excite the player’s imagination. Just because a cutscene can be made doesn’t mean it should be made.

How can a video game excite the imagination? This is a very interesting question. In fact, it is a billion dollar question. If you can successfully answer it, you will likely generate a billion dollars!

But note how game discussions never even touch this question. Instead, the question always revolves around gameplay (which is like novelists squawking about their word style [which they, alas, frequently do]). or it revolves around how to use advances in technology to make a more realistic world. Oooh! Those textures!

I want you to see something real fast. Look at the stage set for Shakespeare’s era of plays when the play was the medium of the masses. And then look at the modern play set. The stage is very blank for Shakespeare’s era. In modern times, the play set is heavily designed with ‘realism’ of the walls, doors, paintings, and all. One era was the rise of plays. The other era was the fall of plays. As more and more ‘realism’ became the practice, the less and less the play became focused on toggling the “imaginary forces”.

So how do games target the “imaginary forces” of man? Let this be the ‘Big Picture’ of escapist gaming. Let even topics of gameplay kneel to it!