The World Is Going MAD!
Revisiting the MDA Framework in Light of the Politics of Selection and Admission
The MDA framework was first proposed in 2004 in an attempt to formalize game design and game research by breaking down a game, regardless of its type and genre, into three separate but casually linked components: Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics. According to its proposers, mechanics are “the various actions, behaviors and control mechanisms afforded to the player,” dynamics refers to “the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player inputs,” and aesthetics are “the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player” (Hunicke et al., “MDA”).
From the perspective of a game designer, the mechanics generate dynamics, which in turn give rise to particular aesthetic experiences. This set of causal relations pose a challenge to the designer, who is only able to determine the mechanics, as the consumption of her game remains largely unpredictable at the time of its creation. As a result of the unpredictability of dynamics and aesthetics, namely, what might occur during gameplay and how these events might emotionally influence the player, it is almost impossible for a designer to guarantee the appeal of her game to the player. This might not seem like a big deal when a game is regarded solely as an individual artifact, just as the MDA framework does; however, it could be problematic when a game is considered part of the world of video games, which has witnessed a rapid increase in the number and diversity of games since the MDA framework was introduced 15 years ago.
For one thing, the expansion and diversification of the world of games necessitate the development of strategies for making a game more likely to be selected before it could be played. For another, the world of games as a whole is faced with even more fierce competitions with other media. In order to stand out in a huge crowd of games, films, and television programs, many of today’s video games are subverting the MDA framework and replacing it with the MAD alternative, where aesthetic experiences are created even before the start of gameplay. Especially considering the increasing number of pay-to-play games, it is now as important for a designer to attract the player to download her game as to satisfy them during gameplay. In response to the politics of selection, many video games take trailers as a main approach to the replacement of M-D-A by M-A-D.
One of such examples is Death Stranding (2019), an action game developed by Kojima Productions that was just released earlier this year. In spite of its recent publication, the game’s first trailer was revealed by its chief designer, Hideo Kojima, at the PlayStation Press Conference in 2016, three years before its official release, where he introduced his latest project as what would “be recognizable as an action game to players familiar with the genre” (Rad, “E3 2016”). The categorization of Death Stranding as “an action game” informed the player of its fundamental mechanics, and the trailer had exposed the player to the game’s aesthetics much earlier than they were able to interact with it, especially considering the lack of significant differences between the 2016 trailer and the actual cutscenes seen in the final product that was released over three years later. If we think of the trailer as part of the overall game artifact, Death Stranding makes use of the MAD framework to manipulate the player’s consumption of the game.
The gameplay of Death Stranding gives the player as much a cinematic feel as its trailers do. Just as the game designer himself admits, “Just like the human body is 70% water, I’m 70% film” (Kojima, “My Favorite Films”), a major part of Death Stranding, which employs such cinematographic techniques as close-up and perspective shot, is imbued with a cinematic quality. The game even includes a number of film celebrities, such as Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, and Guillermo del Toro, as part of its cast. Not only are their names emblazoned across the screen multiple times during gameplay, but they starred in several trailers far predating the game release in order to announce their participation in Death Stranding. In addition to fulfilling its audiovisual ambition, the game achieves narrative complexity with the frequent involvement of cutscenes that work collectively as a bridge between game playing and film watching, which are traditionally regarded as two separate experiences. However, owing to the similar aesthetic experiences conveyed to the player through trailers and the actual game, game playing is assimilated to film watching under the MAD framework.
Within in the MAD framework, a game creates aesthetic experiences not necessarily through dynamics, which are based on the player’s interaction with it. The absence of interaction, which is one of the main characteristics that establish games as a distinctive medium, causes a game to resemble a film. As is often the case in video game criticism, the comparison to a film is celebrated as a positive quality as if “cinematicity” were the highest standard for aesthetic experiences expected of a game. This assumed standard is most likely to be adhered to when game critics attempt to make the world of video games as a whole be included in art and academia just as how early film scholars made “moving pictures […] be included in the group of objects that the cultural elite terms aesthetic” (Staiger 5). In view of their strategies, which were based on the common idea that “films could reinforce appropriate social behavior” (Staiger 5), video games adhere to standards set by the world of cinema in order to be recognized as socially valuable artifacts. In other words, the film industry provides the world of games with a template that determines how it would be received in art, academia, and society at large. One of the consequences of being conscious of this template, which requires that a set of “correct” aesthetic, social, and even political messages be delivered, is that video games start placing constraints on the player’s agency. Take Red Death Redemption (2010) for example, no matter how good a shot the player is, she could never save the hero of the game from being killed in the end.
For video games, to place constraints on the player’s agency, which is what makes a game a game, is a self-mutilating behavior disguised as a way of strengthening aesthetic experiences. It should be noted that any aesthetic experience, as defined by the MDA framework, is the product of dynamics. It is interaction that gives video games the uniqueness which distinguishes the aesthetic experiences conveyed by games from those by other media. Therefore, the replacement of M-D-A by M-A-D is ultimately a redefinition of “A,” which no longer refers to the aesthetic experiences exclusive to video games as a distinctive medium; instead, it should now be categorized as what Sergei Eisenstein calls an “attraction,” namely, “any aggressive moment […] mathematically calculated to produce specific emotional shocks in the spectator” (Eisenstein 34). A simple look at a frame in the launch trailer of Death Stranding and the iconic final shot of The Great Train Robbery (1903), where the pistol is being pointed at the audience to create an “attraction,” would tell.
Not only does this redefinition reveal the blurring boundaries between games and films, but it describes how the world of video games is being alienated by the politics of selection and admission. Especially in cases where the trailer gives the player an expectation that the actual game is unable to fulfill, the “D” in the MAD framework might also be understood as “disillusion.” If the transition from Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) to Mechanics-Aesthetics-Dynamics (MAD) would ultimately lead to Mechanics-Attraction-Disillusion, then the world of video games is literally going MAD.
Works Cited
Eisenstein, Sergei. “The Montage of Attractions [1923].” Writings, 1922–34, edited by Richard Taylor, British Film Institute, 1988, pp. 33–38.
Hunicke, Robin et al. “MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research.” 2004. PDF file.
Kojima, Hideo. “My Favorite Films.” http://junkerhq.net/favoritefilms.htm. Accessed Dec. 6, 2019.
Rad, Chloi. “E3 2016: More Cryptic Death Stranding Details from Kojima,” IGN, https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/15/e3-2016-more-cryptic-death-stranding-details-from-kojima. Accessed Dec. 8, 2019.
Staiger, Janet. “The Politics of Film Canons.” Cinema Journal 24, no. 5 (Spring): 4–23, 1985.
