GO3 Conference: Masaya Matsuura
Masaya Matsuura presented his thoughts on music influence on game development. He definitely has some controversial views about music composition and computer game production.
He spoke several times about something he called ‘positive emergence’ and ‘negative emergence’. These two terms describe the different, opposite ends of a grossly simplified spectrum of human emotion. Masaya is very interested in drawing out positive emergence using music, and computer games. He described positive emergence by showing the audience footage of Japanese and African children at play, using dance, chanting and percussion. Masaya then contrasted these experience with the ‘negative emergence’ which he feels is presented in most modern computer games, which rely on violent conflict to motivate the game. Masaya feels that if computer games cannot move past this common motivator, and start providing a positive emergence, the industry will die.
Masaya’s then demonstrated how the Aibo Robotic Pet (for which he was responsible for producing the audio feedback sounds) produced a positive emergence in humans. The Aibo had been on display outside the conference the previous day, attracting conference delegates, and interacting via sound and movement. The delegates were unaware that the Aibo was remembering all their faces as digital photographs, which Masaya was able to extract, and display on the big screen during his presentation.
Every face was smiling. Clearly, the Aibo’s interaction with humans was producing a positive emergence.
The highlight of the presentation was when Masaya started playing music on his keyboard, to which the Aibo was able to whistle (or howl?) along with. Amazing. I’d love to get one of these cute critters, but it appears Sony has halted production.
At the end of the presentation, I was left contemplating the differences in attitude between Western and Japanese society, esp. in regard to entertainment and media. Most of the Japanese presenters at the conference explained how they look for ways to create happiness, and to create a positive experience for game players. The majority of Western games use violent conflict to motivate game play. Personally, I’m a bit tired of seeing that in the news, on the net, in the papers; I don’t need it in my games too. I’d rather play music with an Aibo.