A Philosophical Riddle from a Game Designer
Does a falling tree in a forest make a sound if no one hears it?
Does a game create an experience if no one plays it?
Also posted on my Gamasutra blog.
© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.
Tags: experiences, gamedesign, linkedin, philosophy
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on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Game Design.
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Since sound is defined by vibrations being picked up by an ear and interpreted by the brain, the answer to the first question is no.
By the same token, experience cannot exist without a person (or animal of some kind capable of ‘experiencing’ something), so as a game sits unplayed and no one plays it to experience it, then the answer to the second question is also no.
Ah, but question number two is not possible. A game cannot exist without someone playing it. It’s more a chicken or the egg type question.
1) Of course – sound waves are created regardless of there being an ear present to receive/perceive them.
2) Absolutely yes. A game cannot be made without creators, and those creators had some kind of an experience with the game. Thusly, the fact that a game exists in any form means that someone, somehow had an experience created for them because of it. Being the daughter of artists, I firmly believe that a game can create an experience even if exists solely in the form of a spark of an idea in a developer’s mind.