Hot and Cool
Here’s where it gets interesting. Marshall McLuhan originated the terms “hot” and “cool” when referring to media in his groundbreaking 1964 book Understanding Media. Some media, like movies, are “hot”, meaning that they enhance a single sense to the point that the viewer need “fill in” very little information themselves while viewing (other examples, include photographs and (1960s-style) radio). Cool media, on the other hand, provide less supporting information, and require less involvement from the viewer but result in additional stimulation (for example, cartoons and (1960s-style) TV). I’m obviously paraphrasing here, but the interested reader should definitely check out more of McLuhan’s stuff on the web.
"Any hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than a dialogue."
What McLuhan is getting at is that some media require more participation from the viewer than others. Movies are hot because you can sit back in the theater and have the whole experience blasted AT you – you don’t have to fill in any audio-visual gaps. It’s a high-definition experience. Caricature cartoons are cool because the viewer isn’t given all the information they need. They must infer information from the exaggerated features.
I’m now going to steal/adapt the hot/cool definitions and apply them to video games. Doing so leads to some immediate conclusions. Some RPGs are much “cooler” than others – they require the player to participate/investigate more and observe less. For example, UO (with its sandbox play style) is much cooler than, say, WoW or Mass Effect 2 (which is much more “on rails”). MMORPGs are much cooler than single-player console games. And Eve is much “cooler” than WoW. Pacman is “cool” to the point of being almost arctic, while CoDMW2 is so hot your face will melt off.
Games from the First Age are all pretty “cool”. Since then, the average game temperature has become progressively hotter. That’s not to say that all current games are hot – they’re not. But the overall gaming environment has thawed since the era of MUDs. However, the current gaming environment is also gradually getting cooler … by virtue of the cooling nature of the internet, iPhones, browsers, social networking, and online play.
Gamers will play just about anything, but every single one of us has a built-in thermometer. We also have a sweet-spot on our thermometers where we feel the most comfortable. Some people’s thermometers are set hotter than others, some are “wider”. The games that resonate the strongest for you exist squarely in the middle of your sweet spot.
Your RPG sweet spot gets “set” when you play the first game that “resonates” strongly with you, the first one that completely absorbs you and turns you into a “gamer”. The position of your sweet spot is a direct function of the temperature of that beloved game. If you are an older gamer, you are more likely to “be” cooler than a younger gamer. However, that’s not always the case. If your first game was hotter than average, or you came to RPGs relatively late, you could easily be a “hot” old gamer.
Interestingly, a sequel is ALWAYS hotter than its previous incarnation. However, extra systems/features can be added to make it less hot – but never cooler overall. If a game in your sweet spot gets a sequel, and the sequel’s extra hotness moves it out of your sweet spot, you’ll hate it.
Note that I’m not saying that hot games are better than cool games, or vice versa. I’m just giving an explanation into why you like what you like. I’ve tested this out on a bunch of people – it’s a great discussion to have over some beers – and have yet to find any outliers. But there probably are some. Knowing our forums, it’s probably you. I’ll leave it up to you guys to argue whether game X is hot or cool, or where MMO Z exists on the thermometer, or whether it’s all bunk.I also fully expect the following interaction to happen in the forums (bonus: you get to be Woody Allen!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBtXfBdEXEs
Vive La Différence!
