Dear 'gamers' -- I'm surprised at you. You have been showing up here at Sexy Videogameland to swoon over Catherine trailers; you pile on my Formspring to ask me about my nerdy Metal Gear Solid theories (when you are not asking me creepy questions about my sex life and/or shoe size). If you are really cool, you've tossed a couple bucks the way of Babycastles, because you believe that the work of indie designers should have a home in New York City. To be a part of something special! For the future! For your children! Or because you want a copy of We Love Katamari autographed by Keita Takahashi, whatever.
You don't just enjoy video games; you love them and you live them. Maybe you grew up with them, like I did, as described in my current series at Thought Catalog (now up to Part Two! Part One is here.) But when I told you about how developers tell me some game publishers overuse focus testing to rationalize developing only formula-driven, risk-averse status quo video games, (thus stifling creativity and making innovation scarce) so many of you shrugged breezily and told me, "it's just a business."
It's naive and idealistic to think that games are more than simple consumer products and that there's more potential in the medium than its ability to make tons of money. So lemme be naive and idealistic -- I'm the one that has to get up in front of everyone and yak about it, so you guys can nod along or not.
So, uh... why aren't you all nodding along? Are games just consumer products to you, like soap or something? At Kotaku this month, I examine the schism between our experiential, artistic and emotional fondness for games and the biz-driven "product" identity games have carried since the 1980's when they were sold as novelties beside VCRs and music players. Check it out!
Fun 'insider info'-- while editing my column Stephen Totilo and I took bets on how long it would take someone to post a picture of Soap McTavish. Guess how long it took.
Wii remote soap in the image was found here, along with some other pictures of crazy/awesome video game soap. The new banner was a present from Matthew Carstensen, who has a pretty interesting blog.
Today's good song is the chip-ish and flipping excellent cover of Japandroids' Wet Hair done by Teen Daze. I'm posting it here rather than tucking it away in brackets because it has a game-like sound you guys might like. This looks like a fan-made video done, appropriately, to animations from the Scott Pilgrim video game.
And while I am slamming amazing things into your faces, let me remind you that you pretty much have to get the soundtrack to that game. Duh, Anamanaguchi.
Remember when I did an interview article on them circa 2k9? Think I said they 'might break through'. Think I was 'totally right'.
12 comments:
"because you believe that the work of indie designers should have a home in New York City."
Nah, I believe they should have a home in Montreal. ;p
But seriously, I support that initiative. It's a great way to bring indie games to the street and into a social space. A nice throwback to the long gone era of gamers hanging out together in arcades or in basements to play games and discover new stuff.
On the other hand, it's sad to see gamers scamper off when somebody is trying to have a discussion that is a little more serious/critical/negative about the industry. Are fans of the medium not ready to have that kind of discussion yet? I thought we were now "mature" or something.
I can sometimes be outspoken and by accident I offend a lot of SVGL fans when I say this, but a lot of gamers suck. They are not ready for this discussion and will never be. They just want to pull triggers and yell on the internet because they are mad at life.
I don't think people get into games for the money and if they did then they don't stick. It's long hours, for not all that great pay, and you could be getting better pay doing better hours at some boring tech company. Game Devs do this stuff because it's their passion and it's what they want to be doing. Anyone who says "well it's a business" is being naive and stupid.
Man. I saw the soap article on the front page, but didn't read the author name; I assumed it was just Bashcraft posting a funny picture of cartridge-shaped soap and totally skipped it.
I don't really know what to think. If you sat one of these commenters down and asked them whether they thought games should be designed by focus groups, they would perhaps say no. But if you ask them why games are designed by focus groups they will tell you all about how expensive and risky AAA titles are, and how Activision needs to make their quarterlies look good for the shareholders.
I think places like Kotaku are echo chambers where people say things they don't believe in order to get noticed and build their stature in the community. Or perhaps they simply gain the ability to play both sides of the debate, holding conflicting opinions that need only be made consistent within the confines of individual comment threads. Some are so enamored with the bloodsport of internet debates that they divorce what they say entirely from the context of a belief system. Maybe they don't actually have belief systems.
You might be onto something when you say that this kind of intellectual dishonesty is an attempt to disguise some deep-seated fear or resentment. I was looking through the comments in the "No Female Heroes at Activision" piece again. I mean yes, we all know about the perceived risk associated with female game protagonists, but why would so many people state that idea as if it were a matter of personal conviction? How can it be?
I was actually thinking about your article a few hours ago...
I was wondering if videogames are really a "money-business", I was wondering if all those super-hits we've had actually gave a REALLY wrong idea of what videogames are and can be. You know, in the movie and music industries everyone wants to get the big bucks but everyone knows that that is just a tiny possibility. While in videogames it seems that only the game developers know that and everyone else (with the consumers bless) thinks of it as a magical place for the greatest-ultra-cash-cow ever created.
Maybe we just expect something impossible from games. They invest millions of dollars expecting to get back billions of dollars... but, do we really need to invest millions of dollars?? Didn't we make a top-tier industry where a single games HAS to be sold at $60? But isn't it obvious that we can't maintain it?
Just wondering.... just wondering...
I spent quite some time reading the comments from both your blogpost about female leads, and the gamasutra post(IIRC). It's rather disheartening to see really. For many, in light of projected revenues, the lack of well-done female characters seem like a non-issue. I wonder when I read these comment threads where all the female posters are. Aside from you, and a few others, there seems to be a very biased perspective since most posters are commenting from a male perspective.
I guess that would be an interesting thing to look into on the side. Why don't women engage in flame wars ;)
"Some are so enamored with the bloodsport of internet debates that they divorce what they say entirely from the context of a belief system."
That actually makes me wonder, is the problem gamers in general or people on the internet that happen to be gamers? It doesn't really make a difference at the end, but maybe the sad truth is that the internet isn't really a great place to have smart discussions? :\
I did a video response to that article, it's nothing significant but I totally agree with you that protagonists in games don't represent the diversity of the audience.
http://kensukevic.blogspot.com/2010/08/homogenous-protagonists.html
"Are games just consumer products to you, like soap or something?"
The games that you're evaluating? Yes. Let's not forget that possibly the most widely distributed graphic artist (as in painting) of our day is Thomas Kincaid, whose most original contribution to the medium was, essentially, glitter. Faulting Activision and EA and other major publishers for making business-driven business decisions with their properties, I think, ultimately misses the point and tries to cast the biggest segment of the industry as something that it is not.
Most of the experimental independent movies that get produced don't get produced with a multi-million dollar budget. The fact that they continue to get made is a testament to the breadth of film's base of appeal. Most of the video games that get most of the attention in most of the world are the equivalent of big-budget summer action films.
The sad fact of the matter is that independent games are a much tougher sale than independent films, not in the least because video game design, unlike film, still maps the competency of a potential product almost directly to the amount of money you can put into it. Paint, musical equipment, clay, and video equipment are, compared to the tools that you need to use and master to make a game that's even playable (never mind entertaining or engaging) ridiculously cheap.
It's tempting to fault the audience for video games for being unwilling to adventure substantially outside of its established and comfortable home, but I think that, too, is misguided. Does it represent a fault of character that Dudebro Steve doesn't particularly like to watch independent films about gay cowboys eating pudding? Maybe, but that's a pretty shaky subjective claim. The audience for games and the group of people who produce games are necessarily limited by the expenses of the medium and the subject matter that can generate the best return on investment. You won't - and probably shouldn't - see a lot of adventuring outside those boundaries until games get a LOT cheaper to produce and easier to consume.
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Finally managed to grab a few minutes to read that article. I love it, love the argument involved and always, in my heart, will believe that videogames are something more than just a product.
BUT (and that's a large but, like a backing dancer in a Sir Mix-a-lot video) I am constantly aware that games MUST be a saleable product. The history of the British games development industry reads like a warning inscribed over an Egyptian tomb entrance. If you don't make a profit, you die.
In an ideal word, this would just mean that if you make good games people will buy them, you'll rake in the profits and make more good games. Devs who don't, die out. Survival of the fittest! But we all know it doesn't work like that.
So, although I will always attempt to make games that are fantastic, I am also constantly aware that you need to survive as a company in order to get these games to see the light of day. Maybe some day, when I have the luxury or riches and fame, or I have the time and inclination to start an indie side-project, making the best game possible can be my one and only target.
Dynamix co-founder, Damon Slye did an interview with GameSetWatch recently and he set out his objectives for his new studio:
#1 Have a great place to work
#2 Stay in business (otherwise #1 goes away)
#3 Build great games
#4 Make a lot of money in games
Tim Schafer got in the press a while back with "We were trying to sell out with every game we made since the first one!"
So, no, I don't believe games are just a product but, like movies, they currently need to have some sort of profit-goal attached in development or, well, no game!
Fantastic, I had no idea the videogame soundtrack was available. Went to buy it on amazon immediately.
BTW, totally agree about a lot of gamers suck. All one must do is look at comments on a gamasutra article.
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