Alex de Jong and Marc Schuilenburg
Popular computer games are often seen as banal entertainment. Useless pastime played by pimpled boys who, deprived of social skills, retreat in their bedrooms and disappear behind their computer screens. But now that social institutions like the army, the fire brigade and the hospital are using games to educate their personnel, other perspectives about popular games gain ground.(1) The famous game ‘SimCity’ already caused the American sociologist Paul Starr to say ‘SimCity has probably introduced more people to urban planning than any book ever has’, also an increasing amount of designers and urban planners will start to use games as technological instruments to gain a broader perspective on the effects of their interventions in the physical space.(2)
Nonetheless, facing the spatial problems and challenges of physical space with an instrumental approach to games would be too simple. Games would then be regarded as neutral devices that can be used in any domain. Such an approach would not recognise the positive and negative properties of computer games. It would also deny that technological solutions have to be judged in relation to different changes. Using popular computer games as if they were neutral instruments is a problem that is often neglected in the field of media. We should not forget that technologies and media are always tightly connected with economical, political and cultural changes that have a big influence on our society.
To place computer games in a broader perspective we state, following the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, that games are the ‘doctors of our society’. Then, computer games could determine the meaning and value of current events. They could also show us aspects of our cultures that were not evident before. When we understand what exactly is happening in virtual environments of games, and what other concepts for design are there, we can use those gaming concepts to think about the construction of our physical environment. From this perspective games could offer a starting point to approach the design of the physical space of the city in a different way. When taking this broad perspective to games, the creative process of the design of virtual environments in games like ‘Star Wars galaxies’ introduces a new way to design real buildings, streets and squares.
There are a lot of similarities between creativity and individuality. History shows that for a long time creativity has been closely linked to the gifted ‘lone-wolf’. To be more specific, creativity has been attributed to the genius artist. During the Italian Renaissance the notion grew that exceptionally talented individuals, like painters, sculptors and architects, were capable of creating a new world. Artists were thought to possess geniality because they could see through inner laws of reality by fathoming the laws of central perspective, geometry, anatomy and physiology. Before the Renaissance that ability was accredited to God only, but by the scientific character of the art the ‘reborn artists’ expressed they also possessed divine capacities. They gained these godlike features because they were thought to possess a suprahuman rage by which they raised themselves above the nature of human beings. (Baumeister, 1999)
The notion of the genius as we use it nowadays originates from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant. For him the work of a genius should strive for a maximum of truth or reality. He opposes the idea that a genius must obey an untameable urge to express himself. Authenticity, a notion that Kant relates to reality, is proven by the sensibility of the artist to the smallest detail (‘God is in the details’). From Kant’s point of view a genius has an eye for things that normally would appear to other people as accidental or trivial. For the genius the detail or the seemingly unknown contains the aesthetical essence. His creative abilities are expressed by the unity of his creation that connects these details
For Kant the genius is not a divine creature, but the fruit of a harmonious relationship between the inborn talents of an artistic person: ‘The genius is the talent that gives rule to art. High art, consequently, cannot be born from anything else then from the mind of the genius.’ He connects the genius with the notions of authenticity and originality. Authenticity relates for Kant to the inner necessity that important art should have. It is connected to the feeling of recognition that the spectator senses while watching art. Originality relates to the innovative aspect of the work of a genius. This has nothing to do with a talent for exact imitation. The genius does not copy the image of nature; he gives the beauty of nature personal inspiration or taste.
In the course of the last centuries the idea of the genius has increasingly changed it’s content. Not only are notions like authenticity and originality in this development colliding more and more with the person of the artist himself, his life has also been put in the forefront of our culture. The genius has become an autonomous individual that, without learning or imitating, creates a new world out of nothing. His world of thoughts is so rich in its ideas and imagination that translations of it in literature, paintings and sculptures are seen as unavoidable milestones of Western history. Seeing the genius as the creative foundation of our society fits the tradition of the heroism of individual man, which has found its expression in autobiographies, portrait art and statues.
In the practice of architecture the model of the genius plays an important role. Gifted individuals have become the centre of attention for their contemporaries in the course of the twentieth century. A growing number of architectonical geniuses is globally building their masterpieces, organising oeuvre exhibitions and publishing monographs. Who doesn’t know the Guggenheim Museum of Frank Gehry in Bilbao or the Reichstag of Sir Norman Foster? Developments in the field of computer gaming show that next to the model of the gifted genius another model of creativity could be recognised. In this model the remarkable talent of the individual is shifted to the interactive collaboration of a group of individuals. We call this model the ‘scenius’. The scenius combines the dynamics of the notion of a scene with the denial of the autonomy and ‘authenticity and originality’ of the genius. The term has been used for the first time by the British musician/producer Brian Eno in a letter to the former member of the synth-pop duo Eurythmics, Dave Steward. According to Eno important changes occur only when big groups of people collaborate. The scenius stands for Eno for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius. (Eno, 1996)
Scenius is a contraction of the words ‘scene’ and ‘genius’. A scene is a social-scientific notion that stands for a network of members that share certain forms of self-management by communicating and collaborating. Every scene has a central theme to which the activities of her members relate. A theme can be a style of music, a certain sport, a political idea, an aesthetical or even a sexual preference. A scene is different than any other comparable social structures like gangs, clans or syndicates. Scenes have a horizontal character. They create a minimum of obligations and they do not apply sanctions to their members. Not being structured around the idea of exclusion a scene is not selective. Sex, race or descent is not used to exclude anybody from a scene. For a scene it is important that her members consider themselves as part of the group.
To introduce the scenius as a new model of creativity it is important to see it at work. In the game industry the model of the genius has been exchanged in a relatively short time for the power of a group of individuals that is closely collaborating. The game ‘Manic Miner’ (1983) is still a wonderful example of a game that is designed by the isolated ‘lone-wolf’. The seventeen year old Mathew Smith designed all twenty levels on his ZX spectrum, one of the first home computers. In the silence of his bedroom he invented, designed and programmed all levels Miner Willy has to walk through. The technical limitations of the ZE Spectrum, that had a processor of 3,5 MHz with a memory of 48 Kb RAM and 16 Kb ROM, was an advantage. Because of these limitations the gifted Smith was capable of designing the game all by himself.
Within a few years this way of producing computer games had been superseded. From the beginning of the 1990’s computer and videogames have become the work of expansive design teams, whose members are specialised in specific parts of the game. For a large part the increased calculating power of the computers and consoles, with which the games are played, is responsible for this more complex production method. It is also impossible for a gifted individual, retired in his bedroom, to deliver the amount of work that is involved in producing a ‘state of the art’ computer game. Even when the next Mathew Smith would invest several years in the development of a new game, the market changes so fast that the game will be outdated before it is released. Finally, the production costs of a game are currently so high that one person cannot afford it by himself. At this moment the production of a successful game is between 3 to 5 million euros. Because of the possibilities of the latest game consoles the game-industry expects that this figure will triple in the coming years.(3)
The replacement of the solitary designer by a team of specialists does not mean that only the production method has changed. Strictly seen, a group of authors can also play the role of a genius. The transition of the design of a game by one gifted person to a collective of individuals is only the first, but a necessary step. The second development, that supersedes the model of the genius, is the relationship that the designers of digital games maintain with the fans and users of the games. The realisation of ‘Star Wars Galaxies: An Empires Divided’ (2001) shows how a digital game has been co-designed by these fans and users. To bring the knowledge and man-hours into action the creators of this game have devised specific methods.
‘Star Wars Galaxies’ is a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG). MMORPG’s have arisen from the Multi-User Dungeons (MUD’s) that students of American universities played online in the mid 1970’s. The MUD’s were remarkable because when participating the players always returned to a shared environment, that in the beginning years was mainly textual. In the course of time the textual MUD’s transformed into extensive graphical environments. Through Internet thousands of gamers disappeared in these virtual worlds that do not cease to exist when the players stop gaming.
To promote ‘Star Wars Galaxies’ to a broad audience, the company LucasArts launched together with the multinational Sony, an Internet site on which the game was announced. The designers did not only use the site to promote the game, they also used it as an instrument to give gamers a role in the production of the game. Before the game would become available on the market, users were asked for input and comments on the design of the game. That unique role worked in two ways. On one hand players were able to participate in the design of the environments of the virtual worlds in which they would spend hours, days and sometimes even months, when the game eventually would be released. On the other hand designers could use the free knowledge and man-hours, that active gamers would supply, when they were building the game. By playing, debugging, running test-versions and commenting pre-releases the future players not only supplied free production, they also were actively involved in the design of their favourite game.
In this process the Internet site functioned as a virtual platform that gave the designers the chance to keep in touch with the community of fans. The platform functioned as a connecting element between several parties that had an interest in the game. No longer were the gamers passive users nor the producers unapproachable star designers. The role of the designers had changed into someone who starts an initiative. According to Raph Koster, confirmed gamer and developer of ‘Star Wars Galaxies’, designers of world games are first and foremost creators of communities: ‘Online game design is really a social system design.’
By using ‘message boards’ on the Internet contact was made with gamers. This ‘message board’ was the starting point for all activities of the game. The close relationship with gamers, that the initiators strived for, presumed an active attitude with the gamers. In the case of ‘Star War Galaxies’ the initiators introduced a ‘development cycle’ that was divided in four phases: ‘in concept’, ‘in development’, ‘in test’, and ‘in live’. In the first phase a new environment, object or character was being introduced. In the second phase the elements were being put in the working environment of the game and the consequences of the implementations were researched. In the third phase the elements were tested in the game. By using special forums gamers could make suggestions for improvements in any phase of the cycle. The last step was putting the new elements that were adjusted to all remarks and critiques in the actual game. The role of the initiator was not limited to make design proposals. Their task was also to keep the game alive with the big group of users. They organised events in the environments of the game. During these events gamers could gather at a certain spot in the game-environment to win points, money, health or find secret objects.
The model of the scenius is also developed by the rise of MOD’s. In the field of computer gaming this abbreviation of the word modification stands for an adjustment of an original existing game with new mappings for environments, sounds and levels. What is kept is the software that runs these environments: the engine. The most published modifications of existing computer games are in the action genre of computer games. In those action games the player is moving in the perspective of the first person through a 3-dimensional space where characters and objects can be shot from behind the barrel of a gun. These games are called First Person Shooter-games (FPS-games). One of the first MOD’s in the action genre arises when the company Id Software publishes the game ‘Doom’ (1993). ‘Doom’ is the sequel of the game ‘Wolfenstein’(1992) in which the player is confronted with a labyrinth that is filled with SS-soldiers, mean dogs and Adolf Hitler.
Id Software distributed ‘Doom’ by a method they called ‘shareware’. Players had the possibility to download a part of the game through the Internet. The other levels of ‘Doom’ could be ordered by normal mail after payment. Id Software opted for this alternative way of distribution because they did not have a contract with a regular distributor that could place the game in the shelves of the stores. Before the game critics noticed the game, ‘Doom’ was already a big hit. John Romero, one of the makers of the game, states: ‘We put out a press release in January of 1993 saying what our next game Doom was going to have in it. From January to December, all of 1993, the entire Internet thing was really growing and we had newsgroups about Doom already before the game was out.’ (Kent, 2001) ‘Doom’ had an open software structure which stored sounds and images in separate folders that were freely accessible. On top of that the graphical elements of the game could be changed relatively easy. Unintended ‘Doom’ caused an avalanche of modified games that started to circulate on the Internet. What was meant as a clever marketing method caused an endless amount of different versions of the same game title to be created.
Because of the success of the MOD’s, in 1995 the independent publisher D!Zone released a CD with 900 of the best modified versions of ‘Doom’. Quickly after, more CD’s were appearing with the same formula. Other games like ‘Unreal’ also proved to be popular starting material for modifications. From the futuristic ‘Unreal’, the game ‘Red Orchestra’ was created. In this game players are taken to the Russian front during the Second World War. The science fiction scenes and plasma-guns of ‘Unreal’ are replaced by realistic images of bombed Russian cities and regions. St-Petersburg, Feodosia, Sevastopol and Kaukasus are rebuilt meticulously and players are able to re-enact historical battles with guns from the Second World War.
In 1998 the entertainment software company Valve released the game ‘Half Life’ (1998). Soon after its release a group of students created a modification that became a big hit on the Internet. This version with the title ‘TeamFortress’ (1998) had been downloaded more than three million times. Reasons enough for the company Valve to buy the game from the students and put it out on the market as a new game. By now the company had developed a broadband distribution program to inform her clients on a daily basis on the latest versions of games. The players pay a fee that gives them access to parts of the Internet site where they can download the latest updates of games. The site also offers an opportunity for enthusiastic MOD-makers to sell and buy modifications they have made themselves. In this way Valve allows products on her official site that are modifications by third parties of products they developed. From a classic production point a view this may sound strange but the advantages of allowing other parties to change Valves intellectual properties is more than evident. By offering this platform on the Internet a trading of information and knowledge is started, which has as side effect the prolonging the lifetime of the original game. The more people who use it for new games, the longer it will sell in the store.
Although the number of communities that group around game titles is limited and the complexity of games is increased, which causes individual gamers to have a hard time building new MOD’s, it cannot be denied that the described developments in the production of games show a remarkable fact. They show a way of design and production that is radically different from the model of the genius that we have seen before. The way the games are being created puts in question the well known notions of autonomy, originality and authenticity. Creativity remains the ability to create, but what is being created has changed. No longer should ‘the new’ stand for something that was never imagined before or a unique object. An existing game is being experienced in different ways by modifications with improved techniques and ideas. In that process designers have become initiators that start initiatives and gamers have become de-buggers, scripters, map and levels builders and promoters.
The scenius is a dynamic joint venture in which the relationship between the producers and the consumers has gotten another meaning than in the Fordian production process. The producers do not create a finished product but give a first incentive to a communal process that leads to a multiplicity of products. As a function of problems that can be solved in a different manner, the scenius proves its value. But nothing is as difficult as transforming models one to one to other domains or social institutions. To put the model of the scenius to work in different practices it is necessary to recognise three groups that form the scenius: initiators, fans and users. The initiators take the lead by starting a process to which other parties, all over the world, feel attracted. The fans are characterized by their high engagement in the process and their relative isolation to other initiatives. The users form the group that places the products of the scenius in a broader context and links it to other developments.
The initiators start a creative process that is continued by fans and users. Specific and technical knowledge is translated into comprehensible packages by the initiators in order to engage a maximum amount of people in the design decisions. The first goal is not a concrete object but the sharing and applying of knowledge, information and sociality. By communication and collaboration the product will continuously change. The initiators take up the modified product and transform it further. They are the apostles of their own product. The more people up to date with the product, the higher the chance that the product will become better. In this way every movement in this spiral stands for a new invention that leads to more communal knowledge and information.
The fans are in the middle of the vortex. Fans have long been approached in a negative way. They were thought to be brainless consumers or social misfits that devote their lives to useless knowledge. Fans were supposed to place inappropriate importance on devalued cultural material. Unable to separate fantasy from reality they are considered infantile and intellectually immature. (Jenkins, 1992) Following the conclusions of media theorist Henry Jenkins, the scenius uses the interpretive potential of fans as something positive and productive. Fans gather through Internet platforms, conventions and fan-meetings to develop the scenial product further. They stand out because of their specific interests. In collaboration they create a communal language and ways of social intercourse that is different from any other group. For fans the participation in affective networks is an activity that takes up most of their time. The scenius is more than just entertainment. It is a way of life in which they can distinguish themselves from others. Fans spend more time creating knowledge and information, which helps the creation of the product, and being more knowledgeable of the product they are able to recognise more nuances and internal references. At the moment fans start to behave as part of a group and their knowledge is taken up in the production process, they can be considered part of the scenius.
In the third place we recognise the users. The more users there are, the more important fans will be. The users situate the product in the world next to all the other products with groups of users. Not only do they relate the products to different developments outside its direct practice, they also relate it to other users and their products. Unlike fans, that have a tendency to close themselves off from other fields of knowledge, users are continuously making variations and combinations with more practices. In a lot of ways the users can therefore be seen as the most democratic aspect of the scenius.
The interaction in the tri-unity of initiators, fans and users is the driving force behind the scenius. Innovation is always taking place in the communal of the scenius. This is also how we understand the philosophers Hardt and Negri: ‘We have to rid ourselves of the notion that innovation relies on the genius of an individual. We produce and innovate together only in networks. If there is an act of genius, it is the genius of the multitude.’ (Hardt and Negri, 2004) The communication between the three groups causes for an acceleration in the cooperation and a blurring of the boundaries of each group. Every user can become a fan. And fans in their turn can start to act as an initiator. Initiators are neither limited to their role. Often they are the most enthusiastic fans or users. The three groups influence each other continuously the moment the scenius becomes active. From this perspective, the question rises how this model of collaboration and communication is used in other fields. For instance, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles. It is now a standard source of reference for millions of people. Not only it is far bigger than rivals such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, also it is almost as accurate on scientific topics as the Britannica. In regard to the practice of architecture, we limit ourselves indicating four points to introduce the potential of the scenius.
First of all designers should start alliances with other parties. Clients, project developers, architects, advisors and urban planners could form a group that is dedicated to the role of initiator. There are already some examples governmental and private parties collaborating in order to exchange information and knowledge. Often this takes place in big structural projects with the aim to limit the financial risks to a minimum. What is neglected in this kind of cooperation is to mobilise the knowledge and man-hours of the fans and users. Related to the design of the physical environment we will call these groups: critical followers and active counter forces. The involvement of more parties in the design of physical environments has only partly to do with democratising the process. More important is that by mobilising more people a broadly accepted design can be created. After that, with the aid of new communication and information technologies, it can take a place in physical space. A designer that is part of a scenius is consequently part of a distributed process in which he is accommodating, processing, upgrading and opening knowledge and information of his critical followers and active counter forces. He keeps the vortex running and improves the connections between all parties.(4)
Secondly, the knowledge of the initiators is not restricted to an artistic or autonomous process. Instead it is connected to the dynamical process of mobilisation and sustainability of knowledge and cooperation. It is tempting to state that such processes do not need an underlying structure. But the scenius is not a domain of free forces. The initiators need to design a comprehensive, sober and selective system of supervision to guide the dynamical process in the right way. The ‘development cycle’ of ‘Star Wars Galaxies’ is good example of such a system. Another instrument could be protocols. Protocols have a long history in institutions that are deeply rooted in our society, like the army, the diplomacy and the public health service. We can define them as rules of conduct within a system of agreements. In the scenius the collaborating parties will always stretch the content of the protocols. This way a local jurisprudence, that will maintain the progress and sustainability of the collaboration, will be installed.(5)
Thirdly, to establish high quality in the vortex of the scenius a positive kind of ‘elitarism’ is needed. In an attempt to give residents more right of say, the Antillean architect Carel Weeber has introduced the notion of ‘Wild Living’ in the Netherlands. (Weeber, 1998) Weeber proposes to take the control of the visual quality of our own physical environment out of the hands of the state and to give residents a bigger voice in the design of their direct living space. In order not to destroy the physical environment with bad taste or a lack of variety, according to Weeber an extensive catalogue from which people can put the house of their dreams together would be necessary. Unfortunately this way the freedom of the house owners is still in the hand of designers. It also puts the design outside quality criteria that could be determined and maintained by the collaboration of the initiators, the critical followers and the active counter forces. The scenius proves that specific goals that parties should strive for can be formulated. The difference in quality and reward stimulates competition through which knowledge and skills can develop faster in the right circumstances. This does not mean that the parts in the catalogue should first be designed and then be sold, but that the process, in which a state of the art and innovative catalogue can develop, should be the focus of design.
Finally, the scenius can only lead to innovation if closed fields of knowledge can be opened. For the exchange of knowledge it is necessary not to guard existing works and ideas by publishing rights, copyrights and patents. Knowledge should be opened for interpretation. Only then knowledge, which before was increasingly locked by mechanisms of specialisation and privatisation, can become communal. One of its consequences would be that the effects of the current practice of competitions, with all its restrictive structures, could be doubted. With a competition a relative small group formulates a program, level of ambition and budget for building a theatre, museum, residential area or even a city centre. Another or even the same group of people judges the designs of the participants and chooses the design that is allowed to realise its proposal. For instance, in 2003 the international architectural competition to design the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza in Egypt was announced. The open design competition attracted 1557 designs from 83 countries. The jury only choose Heneghan Peng Architects’ design for realisation. This practice excludes collaboration and development. All parties involved are asked to think about the same object but after the winner is chosen the knowledge and ideas of other competitors is never involved in the design process.
The design of virtual environments in computer games like ‘Star Wars Galaxies’ takes place in a unique fashion. We call this collaboration of initiators, fans and users the scenius. The interaction between these three parties is the driving force behind the scenius. The scenius offers various starting points to approach the design of real buildings, streets and squares in a similar manner as the design of virtual gaming environments. Not only does it lead to another role for the architect, also the role for other parties such as project developers and urban planners changes. It is up to the initiators (clients, government, technical advisors, etc.) in close relation to the critical followers and the active counter forces to start a communication through which a communal design process can evolve. Information, communication and collaboration are the norms for the production of the scenius. The network is the dominant form of its organisation. Only then the communal, and not the artistic genius, forms the basis for innovation and organisation of our physical environment.
(1) The influence of computer games on the Army has been worked out in the article: M. Schuilenburg en A. de Jong, ‘De militarisering van de openbare ruimte. Over de invloed van videogames op onze werkelijkheid’, in: Justitiële verkenningen, nr. 4, Den Haag, Boom Juridische uitgevers, 2005
(2) ‘Sim Civics’, The Boston Globe, 7 August 2005, www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/08/07/sim_civics/, Visiting date: 3 December 2005
(3) D. Becker, ‘Game publishers sweat console change’, http://news.com.com/Game+publishers+sweat+console+change/2100-1043_3-5377871.html, Visiting date: 3 December 2005
(4) The American researcher Mark Granovetter discovered that more than half of the people in the United States find a job through somebody they know. More than 80% of these people hardly know the person that introduced them. Granovetter concludes that it is not about persons you know well, but it is all about persons you hardly know. He calls this the power of weak links. Only weak links introduce new knowledge into a network.
(5) How this could function is shown by the international trading place eBay. eBay has discovered that there will be no trust in the trading system on the Internet if there are no public starting points or rules. That is why the company introduced a value system that rates both the seller as the buyer. The rating represents a certain status that can be earned by following the rules.
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