Pokémon Snap compared to actual photography

Maplestrip · Oct 20, 2014

Hello everyone. I am not a photographer and thus, don’t have the knowledge you guys would expect one to have on such a forum. However, I have a question, and I figured the best way to get an answer is to ask on a forum, also because I would like to get multiple opinions on the matter.

I am interested in videogame design and caught myself thinking about the game mechanics of Pokémon Snap, a 1999 Nintendo 64 videogame centered around photography. At first, I was mainly just admiring how intuitive “good pictures” were and how unclear the actual mechanics that decided what counted as a “good picture” actually were. Then I thought about what those mechanics were and I figured that a few prominent ones were that the subject is well-centered, that it isn’t too close or too far away and that it faces you. A good portion of the game also consists of making Pokémon react to various stimuli (e.g. food) to get them closer to you or making them look prettier, though I presume that falls outside the scope of my question.

Basically: Would Pokémon Snap make people who don’t take many pictures to begin with better at photography in some way? Of course it won’t actually improve people with experience in the field, though does photography in Pokémon Snap feel particularly unnatural (or dumb) to you all?

Lastly, a lot of things that are key to photography, such as anything that has to do with the camera itself other than “it takes pictures,” lighting, motion blurring, they all simply don’t exist in the game. You have to try making pictures of your subject despite being in a moving cart, but the only thing you need to worry about is the subject being off-center or photographed from a weird angle.

I hope some of you have played the game and that my answer won’t be “of course not, it’s a videogame!", haha. I don’t mind if the focus of the game ends up being all wrong, but I am curious whether the game is in any way a fair representation of photography.

snowbear · Oct 20, 2014

There is a whole lot more involved in good photography than composition. I think it would be better to hand someone an old film camera.

Stradawhovious · Oct 20, 2014

Probably not any more than Gran Turismo 6 would make someone a better driver.

sm4him · Oct 20, 2014

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Not at all.

What works well for video does not automatically translate to something that works well as a single photograph.

Maplestrip said:
Lastly, a lot of things that are key to photography, such as anything that has to do with the camera itself other than “it takes pictures,” lighting, motion blurring, they all simply don’t exist in the game. You have to try making pictures of your subject despite being in a moving cart, but the only thing you need to worry about is the subject being off-center or photographed from a weird angle.

This statement alone answers your own question. How can you "learn" about photography by doing something that disregards some of the most important elements of it?

waday · Oct 20, 2014

Stradawhovious said:
Probably not any more than Gran Turismo 6 would make someone a better driver.

+1. I would have said the same thing.

Maplestrip · Oct 20, 2014

Well, thanks anyway. I didn't expect many interesting results, but I felt a question not asked was a question wasted.

If there do happen to be any particular things that the game does "right", I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, I guess there is nothing to add to this

photoguy99 · Oct 20, 2014

Why wouldn't it?

It probably depends on the person, but at least for some people it could get them thinking about timing, composition, and the kinds of things they'd like to see in photos.

The game itself was mainly about simply being a photo of each of the Pokemon, want it? I never played it but it does ring a sorry of a bell.

I think the best that could be hoped for is getting someone into the right head space in a simplified environment with simplified goals. Just picking up a real camera and heading out into the world can be a bit daunting for some people.

It would be interesting to study this. Get some kids who have never held a camera, and a copy of the game.

Overread · Oct 20, 2014

Few thoughts: note I've not played it

1) The game itself essentially works on a perfect automatic mode with the camera. This removes a huge part of real world photography since there is no difficulty nor challenge camera wise from the situation. They don't have to think about what lens - what settings nor about the bonuses and negatives of those choices.

2) Composition is very limited because its based upon very specific conditions. As such there is little artistic freedom, and what there is is scored and focused around the concept of "perfection" being a singular concept.
Sure its got some variety in the action that the animal performs, but again that's still very limited in its creative options (although interestingly this does relate to real world wildlife photography to some degree in the use of lures to get animals into the option).

3) Varying light levels and lighting angles - I suspect (but don't know for sure) that this isn't really a part of the game. Again its parts that allow for choice along with things oyu have to be aware of - eg light angle and light direction and how that is in turn going to affect the exposure.

The game itself isn't trying to teach photography so it makes sense that much of its concepts are more limited in their implementation. I would say that the medium could be used to good effect to teach certain compositional theories since it removes a lot of camera "bloat" in thinking and focuses purely upon colour and shape of the shot.

However because of the nature of how it teaches composition its indirect; plus its singular in its viewpoint - what could be a really creative and good shot could be scored low because it isn't following a pre-defined pattern (or it is but the game can't detect it). At which point you hit a limitation both of gaming trying to simulate real life and the complexity of artistic expression and hwo it doesn't just line up on a neat 0-10 scale of good to bad.

Simulation aspects could be improved upon with more input - indeed you could make a very advanced game if you programmed it right; but I've a feeling that using it effectivly would be a big amount of coding to really pull off in any meaningful way

The_Traveler · Oct 20, 2014

The game will 'teach' people to create snaps according to the limited rule set of the game and some of those 'rules' might carry over to taking similar kinds of pictures with a camera.

The critical issue is how complete or incomplete the rule set is.
Since the rule set for good pictures is so ambiguous in real life except for narrow ranges of photo types like head shots, that I imagine the game rule set is quite narrow.

Maplestrip · Oct 22, 2014

Thanks guys, for the honest thoughts and opinions! I was really worried that I'd be mocked for this, but you're all really nice and thoughtful

A game that would feature a more complete experience (though obviously, you can only go so far) might be a really interesting experiment. Simulating actual photography in a virtual environment should definitely be possible to some extend. "rating" pictures using an algorithm seems inherently problematic, though, which should be obvious to all of you

I'm not really sure how useful such a game would be, though, even as a teaching tool.
In the end, it would probably always be less useful than giving someone an actual camera, though you could "add rules" as the game goes on, creating some form of "tutorial".

I find it a fun idea to play with, anyway.

waday · Oct 22, 2014

Maplestrip said:
Thanks guys, for the honest thoughts and opinions! I was really worried that I'd be mocked for this, but you're all really nice and thoughtful

A game that would feature a more complete experience (though obviously, you can only go so far) might be a really interesting experiment. Simulating actual photography in a virtual environment should definitely be possible to some extend. "rating" pictures using an algorithm seems inherently problematic, though, which should be obvious to all of you I'm not really sure how useful such a game would be, though, even as a teaching tool.
In the end, it would probably always be less useful than giving someone an actual camera, though you could "add rules" as the game goes on, creating some form of "tutorial".

I find it a fun idea to play with, anyway.

It's definitely a fun idea to play with.

IMO, a game of photography would only be useful to those without a camera, and then, would probably get dull in about 5 minutes.

I think I understand the concept. But, I'd rather spend $60 on a P&S and combine it with free tutorials online than on a game about photography. Even with a P&S, you'd get out in the real world, learn about composition, lighting, and how to deal with real world issues (like: when do I take the shot?, should I take it from a different angle?, is that guy looking at me?, did that guy not like that I took his picture?, should I run from that guy that's running after me?).

I'm not a developer, but it sounds like a game to judge pictures taken in the game, while using controllers and whatnot, would be extremely complex. Like Lew said, real world can be somewhat ambiguous, and the game would likely have an EXTREMELY narrow rule set. Also, the rule set would be decided by the developers, so it would be pretty subjective on what would be considered a 'good picture' and a 'bad picture'.

Fun idea to play with, but execution might be a little hard.

The_Traveler · Oct 22, 2014

waday said:
I'm not a developer, but it sounds like a game to judge pictures taken in the game, while using controllers and whatnot, would be extremely complex. Like Lew said, real world can be somewhat ambiguous, and the game would likely have an EXTREMELY narrow rule set. Also, the rule set would be decided by the developers, so it would be pretty subjective on what would be considered a 'good picture' and a 'bad picture'.

I think waday is right on the button with this. I can't think of a 'rule' that couldn't be broken or bent in specific circumstances and, even beyond that, specific issues of color, tone, formatting, cropping are intensely individual.

Overread · Oct 22, 2014

Few thoughts/ideas:

1) You can use a singleplayer mode to present core concepts of composition - ergo "teaching" the player in the early part and then challenging them in the latter - all making use of a built in code system to rate photos. You could also do it content based "eg get a photo of X" all the player has to do to score is get the shot itself - they can then have creativity as their own thing to a greater extent.

2) You can use online and could use a kind of social networking setup so that players can judge other peoples shots; sure it will suffer the same problems that any community driven setup will have - however it will also mean that creativity will be a little more free and less reliant upon a complex computer setup to work.

I can see value in it for travel adventures - many people want to, but can't afford to travel so you can do it travel based. You could also do it wildlife based (I think there are 1 or 2 like that already but very small scale niche market and old). Heck there are several series of hunting and fishing games out there already that do well enough.