Joystick Critics, Again
Michael Brendan Dougherty, responding in the negative to my cry for culturally oriented video game criticism, says:
The people who want to read about video games are generally of rude learning and taste. The people who want video game criticism are few (some game programmers, Peter Suderman and three or for people at Ain't it Cool, perhaps?).
He points to a recent video game crassly exploiting the Columbine tragedy as evidence of this, but I don’t buy it. First of all, the fact that a no-budget novelty game is made available on the web is hardly evidence of a serious trend amongst gamers. If the game were given a price, generated high sales and much positive interest amongst the gaming community (press and fans), I might go along. Right now, though, it’s just a single, solitary example of bad taste.
Moreover, I think the comparison to movies is apt here. Film was initially thought to be a lowbrow, populist medium—a lesser, unworthy art. Film going in its early days, as Hollywood Economist fans know, was something people did as a matter of course. Whether or not they knew what was playing, they headed out to the movies each week. These idle viewers weren’t looking for revelation or deeper meaning, they just wanted to be entertained. The elites looked down on films as an art form, but that didn’t matter, and over the course of a couple of generations, film has become much more respected.
Video games haven’t been around as long as film, but they’re poised to be the next major arts and entertainment medium. Already, video game sales outflank Hollywood box office receipts by a significant margin, and more and more famous and influential figures are admitting to playing them.
Or, to take another example, look at sports. Sports, like video games, often bear connotations of thuggishness, aggression, and anti-intellectualism, but there is also thoughtful writing on the subject. And after all, aren't many video games really just virtual sports and puzzles?
And even if you dismiss both the fans and the games themselves, there is still the fact that gaming culture is widespread and going to continue to spread further. Should critics and other cultural surveyors ignore the medium just because some of it tends toward vulgarity, or because some of those involved are “rude?” If that's the logic we're to follow, then I have to ask: What are any of us doing commenting on politics?
posted by Peter @ 5/17/2006 02:53:00 PM
11 Comments:
I think I didn't communicate my post well enough. If the film industry consisted almost enitrely of porn and bad slapstick comedy - there would be no substantial criticism either.
Until the market for video games expands and narrative in video games begins to matter in a way that it currently doesn't video game criticism will not take off. While video game creators are obviously talented and are looking to create incredible experiences - they rarely do a good job of telling a story or even making a statement. Video games do not teach us very much.
Perhaps the Columbine thing is a cheap shot - but no one can deny the type of dialogue they hear while playing Halo 2 on X Box live - it is substantially beneath that at the local indie theatre after a David Mamet film.
The sports writing analogy is interesting. Sports writers have three or four themes to work on heroism, struggle, and sometimes tragicomedy (Red Sox pre-2004). These narratives are embedded into sports in a way that they are not in the experience of playing a video game (though the video game itself often relies on a heavily mediated type of conflict).
"if the film industry consisted almost enitrely of porn and bad slapstick comedy - there would be no substantial criticism either."
Well, I'm not sure I agree, and either way, I don't think it matters, because I don't think the VG industry can be said to be producing the VG equivalent of "porn and bad slapstick." Maybe the best of the VG world doesn't rise to the level of early Scorsese or Antonioni, but it's as good as a lot of the better blockbusters, and that's where I think the comparisons are most apt. Teenage taunts on xbox live may not be much to listen to, but it's no worse--and probably better--than the high school crowd at your local mall multiplex can come up with.
What games are you playing?
I honestly haven't been impressed by a game plotline since I was 14 and playing something called Cyberia on our new IBM desktop.
The only video games I like now are the ones with intense twitchy action usually involving other human players. Halo 2 on XBox live qualifies here.
Peter,
I have to agree with Michael here, and this was kind of the point I was trying to make in the comment to your earlier post.
I'm not suggesting that "deep" videogame criticism isn't interesting or worthwhile, but I do think that the fact that these are first and foremost games plays a big part in why people tend to write about them as, well, games and not as cultural artifacts.
And I really don't think we'd have much high-quality, deep movie criticism directed at a general audience if every movie was like M:I3. After all, there's only so many times a critic can do a cultural reading of how some filmmakers arranged the standard genre tropes this time before it gets boring to read and to write. Film attracts literate, thoughtful critics mainly because there's lots more to write about than just M:I3 and its ilk.
What I find kind of weird about your post is that you seem to be calling for other people to do this kind of writing. But if there really were a market for it, don't you'd think we' already be seeing more of it?
I play video games fairly frequently and though, if pressed, I could write a Cultural Studies-style paper on just about any of the ones I play, there's really not that much there to engage my artsy-cultural-critical side.
Best,
Jon
Oh, yeah - my major point is still that the kind of videogame criticism that gamers are most likely to appreciate is going to focus on gameplay issues, not literary ones. Any artistic/thematic/literary concerns are going to be secondary. (This is why I agree with Ebert when he says that videogames are a different from movies and novels).
For instance, one of the neat things about the Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (a tactical, turn-based fantasy combat RPG for the Gameboy Advance that I have been playing a lot) is that if one of your characters dies in battle he or she is dead for good. It's harsh and it creates an amazing amount of tension: you can get almost to the end of a 45-minute battle without any casualties and then have someone drop in the last turn.
But the tension really has very little to do with any artistic or literary concerns (i.e. thinking about death, mortality, battle, glory, waste): its all about gameplay - deciding whether I should accept the death and move on (without the special abilities the character provides) or reset the battle and try to do it without the character dying.
Fire Emblem has a lot of hard choices like this one, on both smaller and larger scales: for instance, the only way to earn experience and power up your character is to have them fight bad guys. But having them engage in combat puts their lives at risk. So you have a dilemma: you want to protect your key characters (i.e., characters whose death will result in a "Game Over") by keeping them out of combat. But if they don't fight, they can't power up, meaning that as the game goes on they become relatively weaker and weaker compared to the rest of your party and your enemies, making it more likely that they will die. You need to be very canny about when you decide to put them at risk.
If I were going to write about Fire Emblem, this kind of gameplay analysis would make up the heart of my criticism. I honestly don't think I would bother much with the story (which is like an anime-fied version of A Game of Thrones) or the "cultural studies" aspects of the game (the differences between the male and female characters), simply because compared to the gameplay, they aren't really that interesting/engaging to me.
I do not think of myself as a "real live" writer, and would never be able to review anything on a level worth anyone's time. There a lots of games out there already ripe to be kicked around in the blogosphere for qualities other than gameplay. Another angle to approach this would be to comment on choices made by the game designers.
The prime example in my mind is the latest in a series of games I've loved for several years now: Age of Empires III. The designers made a number of interesting decisions in this new iteration, including using American Indians in the role of the uber wise old culture helping the New World settlers- think Lord of the Rings Elves. It was an interesting departure from the European/ Asian based cultural interaction of the previous 2 AOE titles.
One of you writers lurking around ought to test your mettle on Pedro's idea here. Age of Empires III would be a great candidate for a trial run. I dare ya.
Despite the billons of dollars made on videogames, the market is still something of a niche market. A huge niche market (call it a paradox). It is also young and immature with little incentive to mature. Right now the under 30 male crowd is being given exactly what it wants and is gobbling it up in mammoth proportions. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Typically, the under 30 male demographic is not interested in thoughtful, in-depth critical analysis of their games; (as insightfully pointed out already) they are at best only interested in game play styles and quality. And this should not be surprising. Think of the types of movies that the testosterone charged thumb mashing males spend most of their entertainment dollars on. These are films like MI:3 and whatever happens to be the fastest and most furious bit of celluloid lighting the theater. This genre of film, while being critiqued due to the larger film culture, is in most cases, hardly worth it. Right now this is largely the place video games are – media artifacts hardly worthy of analysis and consumed by users who don’t care about cultural critique.
I claim that as videogames break out into a truly mainstream media, one consumed across nearly all demographics, then one will begin to see artistic critique of the medium. The medium will have the depth of content and consumption that should naturally launch its own analysis of its cultural relevance. The videogame has exploded in revenue and consumers, but it is still in its very immature childhood. Give it time to mature into a respected art.
Quick thought: Would a kick-started critical commentary on videogames help the genre mature more quickly?
Todd
Todd. Yes. I think good commentary that appealed to a wider audience would push games out of their bubble (which I think is larger than you give it credit for). If critics generate interest in other properties of games, current gaming makers and new entrants will be more likely to push the medium into new territory.
I'd love to just start writing this stuff myself, but at 20-50 hours per video game... there's just no way to find time unless I stop reading and watching movies. Which is, well, unlikely to say the least. I suppose I could quit my job...
Peter,
Your point about the length of time is a good one - maybe investing the amount of time into a game that is necessary to complete it almost requires one to sacrifice experiencing other texts - and thereby limiting the perspective one has on the relationship of the game to other things?
Is it necessary to complete a game in order to be able to write about it in a critical way? Perhaps experiencing the entirety of the piece is not as important in playing a video game as it is in watching a film or reading a novel?
I think it'd be a disservice to not play a single player game to its finish, or to not make significant progress in an online, MMP type game. Endings, in my view, are pretty pivotal in figuring out how to look at a work, and with single player games, I think that would hold true.
I can count on 1 hand the number of games I've played in their entirety, but I think I could offer a valid opinion on the quality of hundreds of them.
I don't think you have to complete the average game in order to have a good understanding of what it's about, although that's probably not true with many (Myst, Half Life...).
Maybe that will change some day as well.
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