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One way to look at video games is using the MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) model. In this model video games are built from components, described as Mechanics, and include elements like algorithms, rules, computer code, as well as art and sound assets. These components are configured in such a way as to create complex active/interactive systems described as Dynamics. When the player plays the game, interacting with the systems constructed using the game components, they have an Aesthetics experience. In this sense Aesthetics refers to what happens in a players mind when they interact with the game.
| Mechanics | Game as a collection of components | Describes the particular components of the game, at the level of data representation and algorithms |
| Dynamics | Game as a dynamic system | Describes the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each other’s outputs over time |
| Aesthetics | Game as player experience | Describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when they interact with the game system |
The MDA model can be applied to other complex products such as a motor vehicle. In this case the Mechanics lens describes the components and their configuration, such as the engine, electrics, internal fittings and body of the car. The Dynamics lens sees those components as active systems, so when the engine is started and the gears are engaged the car begins to move. The Aesthetic lens is seen from the subjective viewpoint of the driver who is not concerned with the details of the Mechanics and Dynamics of the car, but is instead focussed upon the exhilaration and joy of driving a luxury sports car around a race track. This is the same for the player of a game who is engaged through their own subjective experience and is not concerned about the complexity of the systems and individual components.
In this way the MDA model gives us the three lenses through which to view a video game: Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. Mechanics tells us how the game is constructed and is the lens that is essential for the software engineers, artists and level designers who are creating and assembling the components of the game. Dynamics tells us how these components work together as a collection of systems, and Aesthetics tells us about the player’s subjective experience of the game.
These lenses provide us with a link between the logical, binary world of the computer and the ethereal, aesthetic world of the players’ subjective experience of the game. The act of programming is very black and white, allowing no shades of grey. Every event, every action, every decision must be set down in code at the time of development. Also there are no computer algorithms for evoking human emotions, creating specific mental states, or evoking a deep sense of meaning. So how is it that the inflexible, binary world of computer code creates an aesthetic experience for a player?
Although MDA does not answer this question in detail it does highlight the challenge in linking the complex mechanics of video games to the ephemeral world of human experience. This highlights one of the core problems in video game design and perhaps provides us with a signpost to future work that needs to be done in furthering the discipline of video game design.
