WHY IT'S BETTER FOR GAMING NOT TO BE RECOGNIZED AS ART...FOR NOW

I'm lucky that reading isn't my passion. Unlike gaming--the hobby that dominates roughly a third to half of my life--reading is something I do on occasions when I just HAVE to escape from EVERYTHING. Not to say that I enjoy it much less than I enjoy scoring 59 kills on Dead or Alive 4's Survival Mode (that's my record so far after more than 150 hours); gaming just comes easier for me.

But why does this make me lucky? Because it means the primary critics I go after in the realm of "art" aren't really in the business of jealous tyranny...yet. If I was a novelist or a passionate reader, the elitism, unapologetic snobbery, and sometimes blatant hypocrisy--though at other times it's essentially just surface level hypocrisy--would have killed me before I got out of high school. As it is, my expiration date is set for July 14, 2020, the result of a prolonged heart condition brought on by high blood pressure caused by the not-as-prevalent elitism you can find spewed by critics in gaming magazines! :)

Oh boy. Here he goes talking about elitism and how it's responsible for every catastrophe ever perpetrated in human history. First of all, if you've spent enough time with me, you should be used to me talking about elitism by now, and second, I'm glad to finally hear you acknowledge that elitism has been responsible for everything that has gone wrong with civilization. But I digress. The title of this essay is "Why I Believe Gaming is Art, but Don't Want it Recognized as Art." Not, "Why Elitism is Responsible for Everything that's Ever Gone Wrong in Human History." While the basic premises presented in these opening paragraphs may sum up my stance on the matter, I should probably go deeper into why this is my stance. (But don't worry; we'll come back to elitism at some point in this essay.) :)

In terms of history, video games are essentially the youngest form of entertainment media. Of the primary mediums we have for getting our entertainment, novels have been around for more than a century, TV has been a staple of the American--possibly human--diet for about half a century, music has been around since the dark ages, and movies have been around since...uh...excuse me for a moment............the 1920's. At least, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Video games, on the other hand, have only been around since roughly the 1970's. They are about as recent as most art forms get.

Being so young, it wasn't until recently that anybody was interested in video games as an academic study. In a sense, this is rather unusual, as games (arguably) preceded literature by a substantial margin. After all, it's hard to imagine how humanity might have kept itself sane without games to play. Video games, on the other hand, contain the potential to be more than just games. They can, in many ways, provide the same sorts of messages and detailed imaginary worlds that novels, music, movies, and TV do.

This potential has led to some very fierce debates about what art is, what games have artistic merit, and...well...whether they have any artistic merit at all. Some want video games to move more in the narrative direction to become more artistic. Others want the definition of art rewritten to include video games. By and large, gamers do believe our wonderful hobby has artistic merit and are quick to shoot down anyone who wants to crap on it. (Heck, gamers are quick to destroy anyone who suggests there might be some danger to allowing young children to play games with more adult content, and if you're populating forums, there's a pretty good chance you'll encounter a lot of hostility towards the corporations and developers that cook up what gamers eat.)

As a long-time hardcore gamer, it's only natural that I should weigh in on this issue, but I don't think many gamers will be entirely happy with my conclusion, which is aptly stated in the subtitle of this essay. I do believe that games are art, but I don't want them universally recognized that way. At least not yet. Why such a strange stance? Because of history.

Let's wind the clock back about sixty years to the decade following the end of World War II. In this time period, we are graced with two novelists who will become famous for their contributions to literature: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Both were good friends and both created fantasy worlds. C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, seven books for children that were fairly well received, though today they get flack for having a preachy religious undertone. J.R.R. Tokien wrote a much more famous series of books called The Lord of the Rings, and they were...severely criticized.

The reasons behind the criticism were arguably justified, but the reasons why academics dismissed Tolkien were of the snotty, high culture variety. Essentially, they dismissed Tolkien because he was recognized as a linguist, rather than a traditional author, and, more importantly, his work was popular with ordinary people.

Let me reiterate that: academics dismissed Tolkien's work because people enjoyed it. The high culture critics could have critiqued the writing style, the (arguably) cardboard characters, the plotline, the word choice, the grammar, or hell, even the book's cover, and instead they dismissed his work because it was popular and he wasn't a "licensed author." I'm not sure what world these people come from where it's justifiable to declare a work of art guilty until proven innocent, but personally, I don't want any part of it.

Throughout history, I believe it's apparent that soon after--if not immediately after--a medium of entertainment officially gets recognized as art, the more snotty, high-standard, "holier-than-thou" high culture critics and scholars start to play a much bigger part in the medium's proceedings. I don't know about all of you, but I'm not too thrilled at the prospect of people who "know better than me" deciding what is worthwhile and what isn't, especially if they're going to debase anything that gets popular with us "common, uneducated" folk merely on the basis that it's popular.

There's another concern I have over the recognition of our pasttime as "art": representation. Let's do a little exercise to demonstrate what I mean. If you've got the time, get a blank sheet of paper and write down all the games that you believe qualify as "artistic." Then write down the genre each of those games comes from. When you're done, come back to the essay and continue reading.

Here is an extremely roughshod list of titles that come to mind for me, personally:

Psychonauts Adventure/Platformer

Braid Platform, Puzzle

Portal Puzzle

Zelda (series) Adventure

Okami Adventure

Ico/Shadow of the Colossus Adventure

Metal Gear Solid (series) Action

Final Fantasy (series) Role-Playing Game(s)

Mass Effect (series) Role-Playing Game(s)

Fallout (series) RPG/Shooter(s)

Bioshock (series) RPG/Shooter(s)

Half-Life (series) Shooter(s)

Flower (no real genre)

Now I'm open to anybody adding things to this list, but let's assume for the sake of argument that the list I've provided--or the list you've made yourself--is a rough template of what games get recognized as art. Notice any patterns in the list? First person shooters are extremely underrepresented (of the three presented, only one is a pure shooter; the other two are hybrids of RPG and shooter), platformers are almost non-existent, and by and large, the games recognized as art amount to exclusively Adventure and RPG games. Even if you want to argue that I'm not including a lot of artsy games on the list, I'd like to ask you the reader this question: can you think of an "artsy" fighting game? How about an "artsy" puzzle game? (A traditional puzzle game like Tetris; I'm not counting Portal or Braid here.) Real time strategy titles? Okay, that last one probably does fit the description; I just know so little about the genre. Finally, sports games are nowhere to be seen.

That's roughly half of the genres being ignored by the "artsy" label, wouldn't you say? Do we really want to give greater credence to a handful of genres while completely ignoring other ones that are arguably just as deserving of recognition? To be fair, many of those genres will continue to flourish in years to come, as the fanbase for most of those games isn't showing any signs of disappearing soon--not to mention the ever-growing ESports community that may not have claims to being "artsy" but do have claims to being "sportsy"--but it still strikes me as somewhat demoralizing that fighters--a genre with a strong community and competition circuit--and other types of games are left out of this exclusive club.

It's also important to consider who will be inducting these things into the "Hall of Fame" we call Art. Espen Aarseth--a man with a chip on his shoulder that has argued quite strenuously, and somewhat angrily, in favor of ludological game theories--says that the current rush to recognize games as a more academic field has amounted to a "land rush" similar to those in the early years of our country (the USA). It shows few signs of respecting the land or the people already living comfortably on it, let alone the culture it has developed. Now in my opinion, Espen Aarseth is a militant thinker with some extreme ideas about what constitutes a "game" and what constitutes a "narrative," and some of his claims are borderline insulting to those who disagree with him. (For example, Aarseth has suggested that humanists, out of a desire to be "needed again," have caved into the idea of "narrativism" because it's an idea that much of the academic world embraces. As he puts it, "We don't know much about technology, or biology, but we do know stories and storytelling. So why be critical when we can be important instead?") But one thing I can't entirely fault him for is a sense of outrage at the idea of people from high culture invading the "land of gaming" to turn it into an academic pursuit that disregards what the community is like and what it wants. People who spend all their spare time reading novels or writing sheet music should not be deciding what the definition of "game" is, let alone what constitutes art in the medium.

To draw a parallel, let me reference an article recently published by UltraDavid, a major player in the pro-fighting game circuit. Titled "Momentum Matters: A Historical Perspective on the FGC and ESports Communities", it gives a long detailed description of the cultural differences between the FGC (Fighting Game Community) and ESports network, explaining why the FGC isn't yet part of the ESports scene and is cautious about joining it. As with Aarseth, there are a couple statements that I question, but UltraDavid's points are mostly clear and accurate. Among them is a reference to past attempts made to incorporate fighting game competition into the ESports communities. In the past, ESports has tried to work with the FGC with the games Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter, Smash Brothers, and Tekken 6. Wanna guess how the FGC felt about that? Unhappy. Why? Because Dead or Alive is a game with a small scene that most fighting game players despise, Virtua Fighter is respected but not so popular in North America, Smash Brothers attracts a very different crowd of players from the majority of players that make up the FGC, and Tekken 6 was already years old and on its way out when ESports picked it up. In the latter two cases, UltraDavid argues, the scenes joined ESports and died shortly after, and even though there were other factors, he can't help but believe it was partially the result of a changing mentality: players got used to higher payouts and less hard work and had to see everything disappear when ESports stopped supporting them. That's what tends to happen when you have people other than the primary crowd of the scenes deciding what to support and ignore, and unless the people running things up in high culture are actually gamers, I don't see why we should let them decide what's worthwhile in our hobby and what's not.

Most gamers want to see video games recognized as art. I don't blame them at all. Yet if the price of being recognized as "artsy" is that we open the door to the kind of elitism that seems to permeate the literary establishment and seems to be in the process of joining--or is already prominent in--the film industry, is it really worth it? If we can continue to view games as just entertainment for entertainment's sake, will we avoid slipping into that grimy cesspool of snobbery? Call me paranoid or cynical or whatever, but for me, the answer is YES.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I've remained a loyal Nintendo fan all these years. Because they don't contribute to that debate at all. For them, gaming is about fun. Period. They don't care if people remember their stuff years from now; they only care that their customers are happy. Some view this as a reason Nintendo sucks; I view it as a reason why they're still relevant. Of course, Nintendo has it problems, not the least of which seems to be a stubborn refusal to play to more mature audiences, a confusing and almost useless attitude towards third-party developers, and a recent turn towards refusing to take almost any risks and instead perpetuate their classic franchises umpteen times. But in spite of all that, most gamers respect what they do, including many people critical of the Wii.

The thing about Nintendo is that I believe they're getting knocked for this. The forums on Gamespot that I frequent--and by the way, if you're looking to lower your blood pressure, that is not somewhere you want to go--are loaded with blatantly partisan ideas about whether the government should be involved with the ESRB, whether SOPA was a good idea (It wasn't, but shouldn't there be someone there to argue for it to keep things from turning into a political rally?), the effects of video games on our behavior, and yes, the ongoing debate about whether games are art. If I were to pinpoint the exact moment when I realized what I truly thought about the "art" debate over games, I'd say it was after reading the comments to an article about Jack Tretton claiming that the DS was a babysitting tool. Here's what someone wrote on the page in response to the story:

"...we want our chosen passtime to be recognized as more then just a child's plaything and Nintendo more then any of the big three has done everything to keep the industry as a whole pigeonholed there. I enjoy a lot of wii games, I enjoy a few ds games. That said I loathe Nintendo's view and portrayal of the industry. The Wii had a big chance to move gaming forward in a big way instead they decided to do everything possible to alienate devs and core gamers alike. I respect Microsoft depite making a shoddy product because they have done a lot to validate gaming as a mature passtime, XBL users be d*****d. Sony has done the same both are at the forefront of the games are art movement yet Nintendo's voice is nowhere to be seen"

When another user--aka ME--pointed out that the Zelda games are a prime candidate for "gaming as art," this was the commentator's response:

"Zelda games do have high artistic merit I agree which is why it's sad Nintendo doesn't speak to that, again Sony and Microsoft are doing more then producing Art they are actively involved in the debate whereas Nintendo has remained silent which was my point in the first place."

Now to be fair, the guy who wrote these comments was not of the same opinion as most commentators on the article. Most actually had nothing but criticism for Tretton's words. But think about what these comments suggest and imply. This individual is knocking a company for not contributing to a debate that--no offense to staunch supporters--is kind of pointless.

See, gaming is supposed to be fun, and Nintendo is good at making fun games. Most gamers, young and mature alike, agree with that sentiment. Nintendo, in general, makes good products that satisfy its consumer base. Yet here a guy is knocking them for not spending resources and time engaging in a debate over whether their products--and the products of others in the industry--have artistic worth. While his intention may have been to persuade me of Nintendo's irrelevance, it actually did the opposite. I realized that spending time and money arguing why your products are worthwhile when they already sell extremely well is like giving a valedictorian speech where you do nothing but talk about why you deserve to be recognized as the valedictorian. It suggests insecurity and isn't all that significant because the evidence speaks for itself. As unintuitive as it sounds, this suggests that by engaging in the debate, we're actually showing a desire for approval from a higher establishment. But why do we need that approval anyway? While Nintendo's silence on the matter suggests they don't care, it also suggests that it's a waste of time to argue over the artistic merit of something that almost anyone can agree has merit already.

If entering the realm of "art" is going to lead to the exclusion of groups of developers, games that aren't "high culture," and other garbage I describe as arbitrary nonsense, then I'm prepared for gaming to continue being recognized as a frivolous pursuit for the next decade, if not the next century. Ebert's comments embody that more than anything else I could provide as an example. In fact, Ebert embodies the whole problem with academia involvement in art more than he probably realizes. In an article elaborating on his repeated comments against video games, Ebert effectively insulted Flower, Braid, and a game I've never heard of called Waco Resurrection. (Apparently it's based on a true story about a stint between a guy named David Koresh and FBI agents.) He made some arguments I find questionable and suggested that our pasttime hasn't even achieved the level of "chicken scratches" artistically. And then, in the last few paragraphs, Roger summed up his argument with the implication that the popularity of these games inherently negated their artistic value, and to go along with it, he implied that the focus on making money by the developers of the games also devalued their artistic merit.

It might not be quite the same situation, but I think that's effectively the exact same thing that the high-minded douchebags in the great universities did to Tolkien fifty years ago, don't you? So in essence, if Ebert had been alive fifty years ago, he'd have condemned Tolkien's work as garbage, too. Therefore, I must ask, why do we need the approval of a man like this? Why do we give a shit if he finds our pasttime worthless? To Ebert's credit, he did follow up his article with one admitting his own ignorance about gaming, acknowledging his inability to provide a clear definition of what "art" really is, and suggesting it was rather foolish for him to bring up the subject at all, but for me, that only moves him out of the "high school bully" kingdom into the realm of "arrogant." The day that I find myself appreciating compliments from an arrogant man is the day I give up gaming altogether and move to a Third World country, and I honestly can't understand why any members of my subculture think any differently. If I have to join the ranks of a movement to get a compliment, I'll just go find some new friends to hang with. The compliments should come before the recruitment, not the other way around.

The bottom line is this: when we start arguing that video games have artistic merit, we're taking ourselves out of our comfort zone--where we're all just gamers having a good time--and putting ourselves in a totally different frame of mind, one that seems to require a change in character to compete with people who have been there for centuries longer and have different ways of doing things. There are so many other things that verify our hobby as legitimate, from markets to ESports to LAN parties to our own internal happiness, that I just can't understand why we also need the approval of Harvard or Brown. Many people go on to lead happy and productive lives without a PhD, and some of our world's greatest heroes are noteworthy because they dropped out and became successful on their own. Right now, video games are the new students trying to get Harvard to accept their applications. Only a few are getting in right now, though that could change very soon as more scholars decide there might be something to this gaming thing after all. However, many of the people we're trying to get on our side are the ones who see most human beings as incapable of true intelligence or comprehension. They are the sort who won't accept us because we're popular, and they probably wouldn't have accepted us even when our hobby was something relegated to loners and nerds.

I don't want my passion adorned with the snobbery of academics. I just want to have fun. The only way I'll swallow that pill is if it's coated with "tolerance and respect." If that's possible, then let's join the academia of the 21st century. If not, then to hell with them. Our pursuit of gaming as a passion is not any different than Peyton Manning's or Tom Brady's passion for football, and while sports aren't really the same as video games, I think it's rather significant that not only are sports not considered to be art, but the people engaged in them don't seem to care. If the academic world wants to ignore us--an ever-growing subculture that is starting to change the world--then it's their loss, not ours.

But then, when Ebert compared our wonderful pasttime to bowel movements, I was hardly silent on the matter. It's insulting to describe our pasttime in such a manner, and to remain silent on the matter would be to ignore an elitist comment from a man who, arguably, is elitist himself. So it is that we all come to the defense of our wonderful hobby in the face of unfair criticism, and so it is I'm reminded that inevitably--and probably sooner rather than later--gaming will be recognized as an art form. For better or worse, I believe the elitist snobbery associated with high culture will take over part of our beloved hobby, especially where academics are concerned. And the reason is because we have to choose between elitism that says our entire hobby is crap and elitism that says most of it is crap.

Oh well. As the popular economic saying goes, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." One day we'll get to our destination and the world will shower our pasttime with praise. I just hope that destination is in a galaxy far, far away right now, cause when we get there, I don't know if we'll recognize ourselves anymore.

(NOTE: This essay was written in early 2012. This is why some of the claims might seem a bit off. Let it be known that I believe games are a form of art, and if recent trends indicate anything, we might not have to deal with the aforementioned snobbery and arbitrary garbage I was afraid we might have to. However, we're just getting started in that realm, and I'm not about to rest on my laurels yet. Thanks for reading.)

There is never a more important time for a dissenter to step in than when an issue is being shown in a severely one-sided fashion. In a world where many people would like to think things are black and white when they are usually anything but, it is important that someone can avoid going with the flow by reminding everyone that life is never as simple as we think or want it to be. It doesn't matter if the only thing the dissenter has to offer is mere speculation or an unlikely situation or outlandish nonsense; if it's possible to any degree, then barring direct indisputable evidence, it inherently turns something black and white into something gray. In the aftermath of 9/11, for instance, it was--IMO--very important that someone dared to stand up and say controversial things such as, "Maybe we deserved it" or "Maybe it was an inside job" or "Maybe the terrorists had some sort of justification." For the record, I don't believe any of those things, but the reality that pretty much everyone was declaring the terrorists to be unquestionably evil and declaring us to be the victims of the worst terrorist attack ever meant that people were being driven by overbearing emotion that was not considering all the complexities inherent in life, so I stood up and said those things to try and bring people back to reality. I probably earned more than a few enemies as a result, but with the tragedy several years gone and the emotional aftermath gone with it, many people are more willing to see the grays that cover the situation, as they cover all situations.

The topic I want to discuss that I feel is demonstrating the same sort of closed-minded black and white attitude is who gets blamed for a bad game. It is the standard operating procedure of gamers to automatically condemn the developer for laziness, bad design decisions, and any other number of things that demonstrate what a scourge to humanity (Exaggeration) the developers of the game are. It is natural to see why this is our immediate reaction. After all, they DEVELOPED the game. They were in charge. So really, it HAS to be their fault, right? I mean, who else's could it be?

Well, there are actually a number of problems with this automatic response, and I think the reasons for this immediate reaction are ironically of the same variety of laziness that we heap upon the developers. Brace yourself people; we're about to get psychological and philosophical.

Let's start with the obvious stuff. To develop a game, you need a large sum of money. A VERY large sum of money. That means you either have to borrow some from a private lender or bank, or get a publisher on your side to finance it. Already, you're looking at the head of the studio needing to devote time and energy into something that doesn't directly impact a game's content. Funny thing is, that's just the beginning. How about getting the equipment--computers, development kits, power sources, etc--to literally have what's needed to begin development? Or if you've already acquired the equipment, how about keeping it up to date with the latest software needed to make the experience as good as possible? Already, you're looking at eating through a significant portion of that loan you just got. And at any given time, if the loaner--publisher or private lender--is unhappy with how you're using the money, s/he can demand a refund or start tightening the reins on how you use it. Many of these loaners--some of them ordinary people like you and me--are thinking about how they're going to need that money to turn a profit for themselves or perhaps even put food on their table. They are taking a risk by giving you that money, and if they don't get it back, they're going to be very displeased, and rightfully so. Now you've got aspects that don't even have ANYTHING to do with actual development of a game placing controls on how creative you can be. Meanwhile given the enormous undertaking it is to create a game, you have to make sure your entire staff is properly paid and provided for. If they aren't, you won't have an actual development team for very long. And remember, this is all secondary to the actual creation of anything in the game. For that, you need to have some really good creative ideas that will make your title stand out amongst a sea of other titles, an endeavor that--despite the constant claims by gamers that it shouldn't be that hard--is hardly straightforward or easy. And we haven't even gotten to the programming problems yet. Are most gamers aware that when a game's beta is finished, it can have as many as 50,000 bugs in the code that need to be fixed? And by the way, programming languages can put serious limitations on what you can do with a game. That means you might have to toss some of your creative ideas out the window to keep the game from "breaking," possibly leaving a small shell of the creative depth that you wanted to include. And then you have to play test the thing. Even the best programmed games aren't necessarily going to be user friendly or fun. If your play testers find a serious problem with the game, you could be looking at several hours of debugging to fix the problem or alter the game in ways the user finds more fun. And what happens if NOBODY finds your game fun at all? Well, that's several months of work down the drain, leaving you with the choice of starting from scratch--which will likely displease your financier--or releasing the game anyway--which could result in a LOT of critical backlash of the kind that gets dished out a lot. (See previous paragraphs)

Now I will admit right now that I've never actually developed a game, so maybe I'm getting a lot of this stuff wrong. I HAVE however worked with Java a little bit, and I can assure you it's not easy to program with it. The smallest programs can have tiny bugs that ruin the entirety of your work, and I've spent hours looking at my code searching for an error that is very hard to see amidst a language that is most certainly not grammatical English. One missing character in a program can change the program's entire function. And as for the other stuff I suggested, maybe it's not true, but that's the way things tend to work in other industries, so I find it unlikely that at least some of those things aren't necessary considerations for game developers.

Of course, the best game developers are able to navigate this gigantic minefield rather well, but even THEY probably have days when things misfire. Take Shigeru Miyamoto. He's regarded as a legendary developer for Nintendo, and yet he is also the man that gave us Yoshi's Story and Wii Music. When you have a track record of quality like he does, is it really fair to automatically assume he's gotten lazy just because he fails a couple times? And for that matter, how do we know the "best" developers aren't simply those fortunate enough to be in situations where most of those problems are non-existent? How do we know, for instance, that Nintendo doesn't simply allow Miyamoto to do as he pleases, therefore relieving him of considerations like financing? The answer is that we don't. In fact, from what I can gather, most people don't even have the first CLUE as to the circumstances under which a game gets developed. Yet here we stand blaming the developers for being bad at their jobs any time a product gets released with their studio name on it.

There is, however, a much bigger issue here that nobody--and I mean NOBODY--wants to consider or address: the psychological state of gamers and their attitudes. For instance, let me ask you this: why do we have to blame ANYTHING for the failure of a game at all? Why are we unwilling to accept that sometimes--perhaps even often--bad things happen and there's nothing that can be done about it? Or at least, why do we need to point the finger in one direction instead of bothering to point in several directions at once to acknowledge that so many factors come into play when something goes wrong? My answer, though not necessarily the only or correct one, is what I perceive to be a pervasive human desire to turn everything black and white. There are so many examples of this, I'm not sure where to start.

Well, how about we start with Warren Spector? Recently, the man who gave us Deus Ex released a new Wii game called Epic Mickey. It's Disney's attempt to make Mickey Mouse relevant again. The game is about Mickey's journey through a twisted theme park called The Wasteland that was created by a wizard to house Disney's old, forgotten creations. Due to Mickey's careless mischief with a magic brush, it was taken over by a creature called the Phantom Blot, and now Mickey has to set things right. The game has received mixed reviews, and one of the primary complaints being tossed at it relates to the camera control. (SIDE NOTE: I've played the game for well over an hour, and I've found the camera problems to be miniscule.) Spector decided to respond to criticism of his game. He acknowledged that the camera they put together was "imperfect," but also said that he was proud of his camera team and that they did the best they could with what they had to work with. And he said that if reviewers criticize his game because they're misunderstanding what the development team was going for with it, that it's not his place to say they're wrong, but he wished people would stop saying Epic Mickey was a Mario knockoff. While I don't suppose it's my place to say how a rational human being would respond to anything--as that demonstrates arrogance and disregards whether I am actually rational myself--I think the rational human would respond to this with something along the lines of, "Well okay. At least you're willing to admit that the camera wasn't perfect. You'll probably do better next time." Instead, a large number of people have decided that Warren Spector has thin skin and can't handle criticism. They've decided that he's making excuses and dismissing people who don't like what he made, all because he chose to use the word "misunderstood" in a public statement. Of course, IMO anybody who actually reads the text of his statement will know that he's just saying he's proud of what his team did, even if they DID fail at it. And he's openly saying that it's not his place to criticize those who don't like his game. But try telling that to many of the opinionated gamers. They'll just repeat what they already said--that he has thin skin--and continue screaming about how the developers got lazy or dropped the ball or even about how the industry isn't what it used to be. On the comment page for this exact story, I read one commentator who asked, "What is it with developers getting so defensive about their work lately? Why are they so thin-skinned?" (NOTE: Paraphrased) Has this guy actually bothered to count how many developers actually DO defend their work? Or has he decided that because Warren and a few others do it, it is now an industry-pervasive problem? Apparently the latter. Why? Probably for the reason I mentioned: he has to turn the situation black and white to make himself feel comfortable. Another commentator proclaimed, "When a developer claims people misunderstood what they were doing, their argument loses all credibility." Of course, my embodiment of a rational human being could easily find problems with this argument that misunderstood is somehow a curse word. Would it be wrong, for instance, if Bioware defended Mass Effect from a reviewer or player who declared it a bad game for not being nearly as action packed or intense as Halo 3 by saying, "You've obviously misunderstood what we were going for"? Given that Mass Effect is a more slow-paced RPG compared to Halo 3's fast-paced run-and-gun gameplay, that's a VERY justified argument. But apparently not to THIS commentator who needs to make the situation black and white once again to avoid thinking about it any more than he has to. And what about someone who declared Monster Hunter Tri to be a horrible game because it's not fast-paced like Devil May Cry? Is it irrelevant that MHT isn't SUPPOSED to be like Devil May Cry, and that the player is therefore MISUNDERSTANDING the game? Apparently so.

Another good example is the Star Wars films and George Lucas. Anybody remember the attitude people had towards Lucas and his movies back before the prequel trilogy got released? Call me crazy, but I remember people talking about how the movies were extraordinary pieces of work, that every one of them was good and that Lucas did a good job with them. But now, ever since the prequel trilogy has released, everyone has flipped the lid and proclaimed Lucas to be a TERRIBLE filmmaker. That might not be such a big deal if they were still willing to acknowledge the older movies as good because of his involvement, but they don't even give him THAT credit. Instead, since his "fall from glory," the original trilogy is treated as if it only has ONE good film in it--The Empire Strikes Back--and everyone says that it's good because LUCAS DIDN'T DIRECT IT. Are we as people really so shallow-minded as not to see what this attitude represents? It's the attempt of fans to avoid giving him any credit for anything that went right with the franchise all to maintain this "black and white" perspective that prevents them from having to think about the complexities of the issue. It's making Lucas out to be evil and nothing BUT evil, rather than a flawed human being like the rest of us.

But you know what? All of this doesn't even get to the real heart of the true problem with the psychological states and attitudes of gamers, and that's this: we have a role to play too. No matter how many times we may want to deny it, the fact remains that there is a disconnect between our brain and what is happening on the TV. Playing video games is not like shooting heroin where our bodies are automatically going to react to the drug in a specific scientific fashion. The experience we have has just as much to do with how our own individual brains react as it has to do with whether the game is of quality. If we've had such a godawful day that we're considering suicide, can we really hold it against Bioshock if we don't have fun playing it? If we are feeling an overbearing sense of joy because our fiancee just agreed to marry us, can we really expect Superman 64 to completely destroy that happiness with it's horrible controls, graphics, and design? And if either of those emotional states are prominent in us, how can we say that we are judging a game legitimately? And how can we know for sure if it's the game, and not our mood or overall state of mind, that is the deciding factor in whether we have fun with something? IMO we can't say either. And that's why this whole game we play of "blame the developers for everything" is actually just as much a game of avoiding our own responsibilities as the users as it is a game of allegedly "holding the developers accountable for their mistakes." If we gamers aren't willing to give the necessary time and energy to get absorbed in a world--and in my opinion that time varies from 2 to 5 hours, though it's mostly subjective--then all the time and energy a DEVELOPER puts into drawing us in won't do any good. Expecting developers to put together an experience that will somehow overcome all severe emotional states and make us forget about the real world around us is demanding--IMO at least--far too much from developers. To be honest, I can't REMEMBER the last time I encountered a game like that, even amongst those games that are labeled "Greatest of All Time." And something else that gamers don't seem to want to acknowledge is the possibility that working through those boring parts or toughing it out while we remove those negative thoughts from our heads can have a huge payoff.

Dead Space was a game that I figured would easily be the best game of the year after I watched how it played in the E3 2008 demos. I was so in love with that game that I actually started making my Christmas list several months before the holiday season even started, all to accomodate how awesome I was sure that game was going to be. But after it arrived and I popped it in, I found myself disappointed. In retrospect, there were two reasons for this: 1] a severe personal problem that hadn't been resolved yet and 2] it didn't play the way I was expecting it to. If I had been what seems to be the average gamer today, I'd have quit playing after an hour at most and written it off as a boring game, but experience has taught me that writing a game off that quickly is a big mistake. Truth be told, I had to wait almost five chapters into the game before I started to have what I would call unquestionable, uninterrupted, full-blown fun. But once I did, you know what I found on the other side? The best survival horror experience I'd ever had. When I played through it a second time, those first five chapters were no longer boring. The cynical gamer would probably respond to this story by proclaiming that I actually WASN'T having fun but simply convinced myself that I was, an argument that--like many from critics and cynical gamers--is impossible to prove. The average gamer of today might find my experience very peculiar. "How is that possible?" they may ask. And I would respond by saying, "I had to play my part in drawing myself into the world before I could start to have fun. I had to let go of my preconceived expectations of what I wanted the game to be so I could start appreciating it for what it WAS." Unless you're someone who is convinced that people like me who have these experiences are crazy--and to be fair, there are plenty of people who see me that way--how can you say that the same thing wouldn't happen to YOU?

Now some of you reading this might be saying, "Are you trying to tell me what I should be playing and what I should be enjoying? Are you trying to tell me how to spend my disposable income?" No I'm not. If you find a game boring, then don't play it. Play whatever you like, however much you like, at whatever price you want. That's one of the beautiful things about free markets: they provide us with choices. That has never been what I take issue with (though there are some times when I feel like players ARE focusing on aspects of games that aren't very relevant to somehow dismiss everything they do right). What I take issue with--what I CONTINUE to take issue with--is the automatic blame game that happens when a player doesn't enjoy something. There's nothing wrong with thinking that Dante's Inferno sucks and as a result not buying it or playing it. But IMO there IS something wrong with trying to blame your view of the game solely on the actions of the developer. As I've already demonstrated in this overlong blog entry, there are far too many factors--many beyond the control of developers--that can play a part in the fun we garner from entertainment

I personally suggest we make a resolution for 2011 that we will stop playing the blame game. I suggest we resolve to state our opinions of games loud and clear, but acknowledge our ignorance of the process under which they are developed. That we resolve to say what we think went wrong in the development of a game, but qualify it with "I think" instead of stating it factually. And above all, that if we DO decide to play the blame game, we stop pointing our fingers in one direction and start making ourselves and others a little accountable for what has gone wrong when we don't have as much fun as we want to. If I'm fortunate, some of you reading this will take my suggestion seriously. If the past is any indication, my suggestion will fall on many deaf ears. But that's the price of going against the norm, and all it takes is a few attentive ears to spread my thoughts around. And it only takes a few dozen people to start a revolution

Happy New Year everybody. :)