Video Game Rules and Why We Break Them

Why do video game rules get broken so much? In real-life games like basketball or soccer, the rules are there so that the players can compete against each other using a set of standards. No one in competitive play thinks of breaking the rules, and if a group wants to break these rules, it is usually agreed that these rules can be broken by everyone, rather than one player. The consequence for breaking these rules consistently is being prohibited from playing the game. No one wants to play basketball with someone who refuses to dribble unless everyone agrees not to dribble. So it is established that people don’t usually break the rules in real-life games. So why is it that players want to break the rules in video games?

One of the universal “rules” of a modern video game is the invisible wall. This rule states that if a player attempts to go past a certain boundary he will be prevented from crossing that boundary, through various methods. Mainstream games criticism always bemoans the inclusion of these walls, and even my own immersion is broken when I run into one of these rules. So why do we as players feel compelled to try and break this rule?

There are invisible walls in Super Mario Bros. These walls are to the very left and to the very right of the screen (there is no invisible wall for the top). Why do I never feel compelled to test whether the barriers of the level are intact? The answer is because the game does not give me any reason to think I can, want, or need to. In fact, this answer can be abstracted to answer the question of why I don’t feel the need to break ANY rules in Mario. However, Super Mario Bros. is a rather old example and its rules are mostly derived from the technology of the time. Levels can only go so far before the coder runs out of space, etc etc. So we will take another example instead – Portal.

Portal says I can’t break the invisible wall rule. It makes this clear by creating spaces that I can’t use the portal gun on. It also has a robot voice telling me not to break the rules. If I try to break these rules, I will die, according to the robot and also according to the fact that I actually die if I don’t do what I am told to. Portal oppresses me and squashes any chance I have of getting out. All I have to break invisible walls with is a portal gun. What could I possibly do with that?

A lot, apparently. What makes Portal such an interesting example for this analysis is the fact that the game actually DOES encourage you to break the invisible wall rule. The game sets this up by not allowing you to break any rules and confining you in a space with a toolset that does not allow you to accomplish much more than the challenge set out for you, but giving you a context that is rather worrisome in its implications. You are a rat in a maze, being looked on by researchers as you try to find the cheese at the end. By oppressing you at the beginning, Portal actively encourages players to rebel, and then gives the player an opportunity to do so at the tail end of the game.

Grand Theft Auto IV wants players to rebel too. However, it goes about this in a different and ultimately less effective way, and this is by allowing the players to do whatever they please. The ability to shoot cops and steal cars is encouraged and even required in some parts. The game tells players that this is "bad" by having the police interfere whenever the player does a "wrong" thing, but these deeds are required to progress. Grand Theft Auto tells the player that he can break all of the rules he wants to, so the players acts on his impulses and attempts to do so. When the player comes to a rule he can't break, however, (such as entering an uncoded building or trying to leave the invisible boundary), his immersion is broken and he is thrown unceremoniously back into the realm of the game. Because the developers of Grand Theft Auto want me to break the rules by creating a game that tells me I can, they ultimately set themselves up for having the player's immersion broken when he finds that he can't do something the game's context tells him he can.

This leads back to why players break (or try to break) rules of code and context, but more importantly, it determines whether it is acceptable to allow the player to break these rules. The players break the rules because they are compelled to through the game's context (or because of some fatal desire to find programming oversights, in which case the player should please step out of the basement and go play a sport). The acceptability of this rule breaking is determined by whether it is the developer's intent to allow the player to do such things. If it is, as in Valve's Portal, then it is acceptable to do so. If it isn't, as in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto, then immersion is broken.