"I Want to Legitimize My Hobby" or "Are Videogames Art?"

A long while ago, back in 2005 actually, Roger Ebert was quoted as saying

"[I] consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature...Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control...
I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic."

I know what you are thinking "You can't be digging stuff up from almost 4 years ago." and I'm not, the debate still continues today.

About 3 years ago author Clive Barker spoke on the issue, siding with the game industry in his response to Ebert. Barker finished working on his first game, Undying [EA/Aspyr], in 2001 and made Jericho [Codemasters] in 2007. Barker's responded to Ebert were posted on GameIndustry.biz. Ebert responded on his own site in a remarkably short sighted way. Even though these two haven't really spoken on the issue for a while now the debate continues amongst gamers, who are also kinda split on the issue.

Mr. Ebert has a very strange view of games: "They tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in "Myst," and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports."

Even though his comments are valid on the surface, they don't really hold up that well under scrutiny. It also appears that Mr. Ebert is a little outdated in his information as he references series that were very old or far on the periphery of gamer consciousness as to not represent the majority of gamers.

I am a huge fan of the Myst games, and I would not label them as art by themselves. when combined with the book series behind the games (which most people never even knew existed), I would classify the franchise as a whole art. Some might argue that this might lead to backing up his argument, that to make games art they have to be coupled with another medium. In instead think this shows how far gaming has come. The medium is finally starting to mature and is nearing being of artistic value, as nobody would call old Atari 2600 games art in almost any sense of the word. The Myst Mr. Ebert talks about is over a decade old, and the last couple iterations of the franchise did bring more of a narrative and universe together for people to experience.

Mr. Ebert's main problem seems to stem from the fact that games are controllable by the viewer and therefore can never be considered great art. They can be artistic, but can never be held up to the same level as a movie or a book. That just seems like closed-mindedness if something can be artistic and yet not be art. Everything is essentially controlled by the viewer in some way. When you watch a movie, when you read a book, or try to discern the meaning of a painting you always change the creators idea, you impart your own experiences, knowledge, and perspective on the piece. The emotions are not always going to be those intended, and the viewer is an active participant in their understanding and enjoyment of the piece.

A videogame is a logical next step in that ideology. A good videogame, with a good story, and a talented development staff can be just as enjoyable, moving, and life changing as a good movie.

One of Mr. Ebert's Top 10 last decade was Princess Mononoke (1999), by famed director/writer Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki was also the director/writer behind Spirited Away (2001). Both films are among the highest grossing in Japanese history, with Spirited Away still being the top grossing of all time ($228.6m). I consider Princess Mononoke my favorite film of all time. When I saw it, it felt like a change in my world view. It was an awe-inspiring experience and I can still remember walking out of the theater with a very strange feeling that I had just seen something incredible.

My ideas about movies and animation, about history, culture, and mythologies, they all were changed by that movie. You know what else gives me that feeling? The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on the Nintendo Gamecube. It was a game that eschewed typical gaming design in favor of telling a story that was dramatic and emotional and completely amazing.

The Wind Waker did away with a realistic art style (much to the annoyance of graphics whores online who said it looks like a Gameboy Advance game, myself included), but this choice was made for a reason. The game is about a child setting out on a grand adventure, filled with emotional and rich characters, and a vivid and dangerous world. It had it's dry points, and a few problems. For instance the hunt for the triforce is considered to be the worst aspect of the game as it does take some time. Even the best movie though has problems with pacing at some point, whether it be a slow beginning or a few minutes of exposition. The end experience should be what validates something as art. Does the piece as a whole affect you? Does it move you, influence you? Not every movie is art, not every game or book is either, but the best of them all are.

Addendum -- A Hypothetical Example:
A character in a movie is running thru LAX in LA, two big guys pounding after him as he checks his ticket. It's a last minute ticket, he's late for the plane because these guys have been holding him up, chasing him around LA in a car chase as he tried to escape the city. He makes it to the desk and onto the plane right at the last minute. He's safe, and one second later we see him step off the plane in the terminal at JFK in NY.
We've all seen scenes like this in action movies. We've seen them in games too. Does the fact you control where he runs change the scene? Or the tension? What if the player has the choice to fight rather than flee?

A movie is static, you have one experience, you can't ever really watch it the first time again, once it's done it's done. You might watch is dozens more times, but it's not going to be as amazing as that first time. A game though, a well done game, can be played many times and each time can feel like a new experience depending on what the player does, what they discover, maybe something they never even saw before.

The reasons the best games should be considered art with the best movies, books, etc. is because it can change. It's a strength, not a detriment.

"I am Neutral-Evil" or "Playing the Bad Guy"

NOTE: I apologize for the long time since my last post, I have been struggling with writer's block as of late. It seemed my muse was out of touch and I had to use the few moments it called my brain collect to work on some other more pressing projects. I will be writing more regularly I think. I've also been trying to find things to write about than graphics and videogame fanboys, let me know what you think of today's post.
The DM


The vast majority of games have you playing some hero. You are saving the world, village, country; rescuing your girlfriend, teacher, parents... How many time have you been able to play evil? I'm not talking Mass Effect 'I'm going to be a jerk with a damn bad attitude' evil, I'm talking killing people for fun and profit as the reason you play a game even when there's the option to be good.

Currently I am playing in a DnD campaign when for the first time I am playing a Neutral Evil character. since I feel the alignments in dnD are fairly open to interpretation I am doing that like so: I am neutral and just don't care about circumstances and such when I am involved and occupied... in those scenarios I am generally thinking about what is most beneficial to my characters or those my character has become friends with. But when Manimarco gets bored (note: I do not say when I get bored, my character is not me, he is fictional (take note LARPers and furries)) he tries to liven things up. so far it has not come down to me killing anything yet. Things haven't been that boring yet. I did however practically give alcohol poisoning to a group of dwarves with something that makes Drow Spider Blood look like a 5% Alcohol/Vol. wine cooler. It made for a fun time and people did almost die.

I should mention where I got the name from for my character. A couple years ago I was playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on my PC, and one of the villains in a side quest is a liche named Manimarco. But Oblivion also changed my view of games forever. In that game there is a quest line called The Dark Brotherhood, which is essentially an assassins guild. I enjoyed the prospect and the quests until I happened to see the result of my actions.

I had killed a man, and his servant was left alive (as I was not paid to kill him, just my target). About a month later in real life I happened to visit the town where that nefarious deed took place only to find the servant in the tavern drinking and crying over the person I had killed.

Maybe it was the voice acting or some other factor about the character, but I actually felt remorse for killing a fictional character. I have found that since that point I have not really been able to play evil in any game unless it is by misinformation on my part. Even Manimarco in DnD isn't necessarily evil, just bored.

I know I have DnD players and videogamers reading this, what are your thoughts on playing the evil guy? Do games really show enough of a result from your actions in this respect as well? I realize Call of Duty and such games where you kill hudreds of minions on a mission is one thing, but if you kill someone in particular, a person with a story and a life in the game... there should be a result of the action.

For instance, in Fallout 3 there is a chance that you can kill person X, who is the father of Person Y. Y is a child. you can talk to Y all you want, even with the dead body of X in the room, and the only thing they will say is "I have learned to take care of myself now that dad is gone." THAT'S IT? A one line thing when you dad lies dead behind you after I just put a bullet thru his brain?

It just doesn't seem like enough, even a timed event, like for the next week in game time the character is distraught, maybe doesn't say anything... but more than that 1 minute after someone dies.

"He Said Wii, LOL" or "A Change Is Needed"

I love videogames, I have two consoles currently and 3 high end PCs, all for games (PCs for artwork too), and I have experience in game development and design. I am really starting to get annoyed by game developers though and the mentality towards the Wii.

Today I read that Todd Howard from Bethesda said he was "not threatened” by the Wii and that “it’s a toy.” He stated that consumers see the Wii as a “kid’s toy” and that the other high end game consoles are “for evil killfests." Public perception on the high end consoles like 360 and PS3 are goign to follow those lines as the most high profile games on the system are killfests, because developers are still chasing that fabled 18-24 male demographic (which in itself is a faulty plan).

I liked Fallout 3, I though it was a good game with a shit ending. I still play Elder Scrolls IV from Bethesda, I love Mass Effect from BioWar, I am a huge fan of the Call of Duty games from Infinity Ward and Treyarc... but I still think the industry is missing the point.

Many publishers and deveopers are trying to be the best looking game on the block, chasing realism and all that (I've already ranted on that topic I know), so when the Wii was announced to be about twice the power of the Gamecube (falling somewhere between the Xbox and the 360) they wrote it off as a failure. When the Wii-mote was shown people claimed Nintendo was doomed. well that was about 3 years ago now, we all know what happened, some places still have the Wii sold out.

The industry was caught with their pants down. Most publishers had no AAA teams for the Wii, using their lesser known and sometimes not so talented teams to make ports and games for the Wii, usually with disaterous results.

The Wii version was a lazy port, but even as a port it should have looked better than the Gamecube game.

The Wii has become the home of the lowest of the low, with the majority of games getting around 4.0 out of 10 in reviews. The problem is these games sell to people who don't know any better. The average soccer mom doesn't read reviews before buying a game, they don't lurk on forums or go to gamerankings.com. They buy it based on the idea and the cover.

Nintendos little box that could has become a dumping ground of the industry, with such quick cash ins as Chicken Shoot, a game that started life as a free flash game and got an average review score of 26%. Or Crus'n, a franchise with some pedegree as it was a staple for racing fans on the Nintendo 64. Midway lived up to that pedigree by releasing a game with graphics that could almost be mistaken for the N64 games.

Is it sad I prefer the N64 graphics, they look better in some ways!

Recently numerous game developers have closed down or been forced to merge. Free Radical Design was closed and then bought by Crytek (still unconfirmed though). Factor 5 is in a dire situation supposedly. Ensemble Studios was shut down right after Halo Wars was completed. Other companies are cutting people left and right, EA posted record revenues and record losses in 2008. Now, the economy does have something to do with this obviously, but there were problems before everything went belly up. Developers spend million upon millions of dollars on developing a game, and publishers spend millions advertising them. The industry has reached a saturation point and is on the verge of collapse, unless drastic action is taken.

Well, almost the whole industry. Nintendo alone accounted for over 70% of growth in the industry last year... the Wii is still sold out, and people are still buying games. EA recently said they are shifting their focus to Wii, and I applaud them. If more developers took the console seriously (as it should be) we would solve a lot of problems. Companies can still do very pretty and nice looking games on the console.

The problem a lot of them have is the Wii-mote is a hurdle for developers to get over as much as the 16 button 2 joystick controllers are for non-gamers. Well, for developers who want to make more old-school games the Wii supports Gamecube controllers (which Nintendo should put BACK into production), as well as the Classic Controller.

In the end the wii is a double edged sword for developers, it's not the most graphically powerful console, and it is also the best selling. Games that are well done, and well advertised will do well on the system. But they can't expect it to crack the top 10 and make all their sales. The best selling Wii games sell over time, not in a one month time period. Wii Play stays on the Top 5 consistently, Boom Blox from EA sold low every month, but it's consistently sold to the point it has garnered a sequel now.

Here is what developers need to do:
-for CASUAL games-
a) do something other than cram 20 random minigames on the disc to cash in, there are hundreds of these games already.
b) make it something playable in short bursts and/or long bursts, make it addictive and fun.
c) above all else make it good artistically (not necessarily graphically, low poly doesn't mean ugly) and control wise

-for CORE games-
a) ADVERTISE!
b) try to take advantage of the system's strengths and learn your weaknesses (ie. the gamecube and wii do not use normal shaders, they use a proprietary technology called TEV (TExture enViroment))
c) dont' be afraid to require GCN controllers, most CORE gamers have them
d) don't go for the realism and graphics of the 360 and Ps3, you won't get them and the game will look worse for it.

Hopefully this industry is starting to change, I don't want it to crash again and kill off all the companies just because they are too stubborn to change their ways as the market does.

"I Dream In Color" or "I am Sick of Realism Screwing Up My Games"

"What role does realism play in videogames I ask myself. Is this image more interesting? Sometimes.. however, what if a "detailed" hand with 5 fingers is catching a bottle but the fingers pass right through it? Is this still realistic? Rather than to show each meticulous and tiny detail of a finger, it is more important to make the end action look more credible by working on the movement and functionality of the arms and the hand in relation to the object."
~Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development

This is a rant, just typing without thinking
Chasing reality is unavoidable for game developers, being the most realistic and on the bleeding edge of technology gets you a lot of clout. There a constant battle amongst middleware developers to see who can push the most polygons and most realistic lighting, who can best replicate what we see out our windows. Despite all these bells and whistles and new graphical techniques, realism is something that cannot be achieved now or the future. Until displays are fully 3d and graphics capabilities can render every hair and pore on a human head there is no way. Even then, the sheer cost of such a development will be so enormous as to make it not worth while.

Every generation you will see developers or gamers touting a game as being most realistic, and often times that is the games only saving grace, with few exceptions. Virtual Realism fades, it is a novelty that wears thin far too quickly. This does not mean it's a bad game underneath, but more often than not it is a passable or decent game with so much emphasis put on the graphical technology the rest of the game suffers.

The other problem is we all know what reality looks like, we know a human face looks like, we know how sun illuminates skin, and how the eyes move and look, but that is near impossible to replicate in a game. As a result the game might look good, but it isn't going to look real, and the further behind the bleeding edge the game becomes, the older it gets, the less it will look great and might end up looking absolutely horrible.

One of the realistic games a couple generations ago was Goldeneye 007 on the N64, and yet I doubt anyone would say it looks good today, it just plays well for it's time. Super Mario 64 on the other hand is still bearable to look at, you can play it and not be annoyed at the graphics. It is not realistic and therefore ages much better.

Call of Duty some years later also tried to achieve realism, as did Metal Sear Solid 2 and yet something like Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or Timesplitters 2 ages much better and still can look good today.

Jump forward to today and other realistic games like Fallout 3 have come out trying to achieve realism. Fallout 3 has many problems, the most apparent being people don't move correctly. The faces have emotion, but their body usually don't match up (especially in dialogue when someone is screaming but their body is posed devoid of emotion). Not chasing realism and such detail might have given a little more time to fix other issues with the game.

Fallout 3 has a glaringly horrible ending that leaves you feeling cheated, even if the rest of the game was great. You just feel like the story was just getting started when you got to the end, pacing is a major problem here. If they went with an art style other than realistic we might have had an actually fleshed out storyline, rather than having to pay money for expansion packs to tell said story. I know, that's a bit of a leap, but you have to wonder how many games will benefit from realistic graphics when compared to a game that is enjoyable for years visually and gameplay wise.

If it was reality, I would be able to go over that pile of rubble rather than have it be the edge of the level (no levels in reality). If it was reality, I'd be allowed to make radically different changes to the game world with my actions. If it was reality I wouldn't be tied to your linear story.

There is nothing wrong with good graphics, but a good art style can go a lot further and age much better than realism. It's weird, but realism is as much a cliche as bald space marines and gansters now. As for my first suggested title for this post "I Dream In Color" this is a shot to game developers and artists who feel that reality is drab and comes in 3 colors, brown, grey, and blue, all desaturated to some degree.

I am frankly sick that all the top selling games involve bald space marines, gangsters, zombies, and anything that doesn't involve guns, sports, or cars is too kiddy to be taken seriously. It seems strange but core gamers need to grow up to enjoy all games, and it just isn't happening enough.

Hopefully with this economic downturn developers will stop spending million upon millions on chasing realism and making gritty crime and war dramas and focus on making something fun to play. That is what gaming was about right? After all, if I wanted reality, I would be outside.

And so ends my rant, I feel better.