How do games create meaning?
This is the question that is at the core of some the most prevalent, heated, and often exhausting debates in the game development community. Arguments over the place of storytelling in games, or whether or not games can be considered ‘art’. I believe that the search for an answer partly fuels the popularity of games from Metal Gear Solid to Passage and is the primary cause of what Eric Zimmerman calls our “cinema-envy”.
Now, no one is questioning that games can be meaningful. There are plenty of games that produce highly emotional states, in both players and spectators. It’s also commonsense that all games foster certain types of behavior, from Football’s reliance on the division of labor to Starcraft‘s multi-tasking.
In this case though, the question is less about psychology and more about semiotics. We’re very familiar with how words and pictures create meaning, how they signify a thing. If I show you a picture of an orange or the word ‘orange’, a signifier, depending on your level of literacy you’ll be able to figure out what I’m trying to communicate, the signified fruit.
However, is there a way a game can signify something without the aid of pictures or words?