tag:theconversation.com,2011:/columns/brendan-keogh-8315Touch/Screen – The Conversation2014-05-27T04:59:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/271732014-05-27T04:59:43Z2014-05-27T04:59:43ZBig games are often light on themes<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49505/original/npdmqkyf-1401165279.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49505/original/npdmqkyf-1401165279.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49505/original/npdmqkyf-1401165279.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49505/original/npdmqkyf-1401165279.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49505/original/npdmqkyf-1401165279.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49505/original/npdmqkyf-1401165279.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49505/original/npdmqkyf-1401165279.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hitler’s mech as it appears in the original Wolfenstein game.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Id Software</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Recently, I’ve found myself reacting quite strongly against games I haven’t played yet. Occasionally, to games that haven’t even been released yet. I’ve found myself immediately sceptical and hostile when a game’s marketing tells me that it has something to say “about” some serious theme or social commentary.</p>
<p>I’ve found myself immediately assuming that the game is not, in fact, going to say anything interesting about that topic at all. It’s an odd feeling, a pre-emptive hostility that I certainly didn’t used to feel towards games. </p>
<p>Last week, when Ubisoft released the cover art of their upcoming Far Cry 4 — a game we are yet to see any footage of — I echoed the many on Twitter who pointed out how <a href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-05-19-far-cry-4-already-playing-with-fire">the cover is clearly racist</a>. There’s the man that many have perceived as Caucasian sitting on a throne, a cowering Asian man on his knees before him in an amazing literalisation of colonialism. </p>
<p>Some have defended the cover, at least insisting that we wait until we play “the game itself” before we start criticising. But as others still have pointed out, Ubisoft have deliberately released this cover to be consumed as a marketing text in its own right, and considering the series’ previous game’s <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12/04/what-i-loathe-about-far-cry-3/">own poor treatment of colonial and racist undertones</a>, it was inevitable that such criticisms would be made. </p>
<p>Also last week, the new Wolfenstein game came out. When Id created the first Wolfenstein game in the early 90s, they established many of the conventions that still exist today in the first-person shooter genre. Now, like many older IPs, Wolfenstein demands a new, rebooted franchise every few years — just like Superman or Batman. </p>
<p>This time, developers MachineGames decided to take the alternate history route, asking what the 1960s would be like if the Nazi’s won world war two. There is a scene in the game where the player <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/20/5732556/wolfenstein-concentration-camp-video">has to infiltrate a concentration camp</a>. Now, again, I have not played Wolfenstein yet, but when I heard that this scene existed, I immediately balked at the idea of a blockbuster first-person shooter even considering depicting the horrors of a concentration camp.</p>
<p>It was a gut reaction that I’m interested in understanding. Obviously, as a game critic, I think videogames are no less able to tackle difficult or challenging topics than any other medium: if films and literature can say something meaningful about concentration camps, then surely videogames can, too? At the very least, at the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law, its been over a decade since <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/16/5717520/escape-from-woomera-immigration-australia">several Australian developers created Escape From Woomera</a>, highlighting the plight of refugees detained in Australia’s own interment camps, so surely it is possible to present Nazi concentration camps in a meaningful manner?</p>
<p>The obvious answer is “yes”. But why do I not trust Wolfenstein to be that game? It’s not because of a distaste for commercial first-person shooters, a genre that I voluntarily spend a lot of time playing. Maybe it is because it is a franchise that, in its first iteration, had a boss fight against Hitler riding around in a giant, Gatling gun-equipped mech that, when it blew up, showed a slow-motion replay of it blowing up a second time. </p>
<p>Maybe I just have little faith that a game where the main mechanical vocabulary is pulling the right trigger to fire a gun at someone’s head will be able to say something about the horrors of the Holocaust. Just like I wouldn’t expect Burnout, a game about spectacular crashes while street racing, to have something meaningful to say about the horrible consequences of speeding.</p>
<p>Is it that I don’t think blockbuster “triple-a” games are capable of big, mature themes? I am okay with an indie or “arty” games trying to tackle grim topics but if it is a blockbuster titles whose primary goal is to return a profit for its publishers, do I think it is too “tainted” to say much of anything? That seems like a problematic distinction, perpetuating a “high” and “low” brow divide across arty and popular games. Besides, I both enjoy and write about blockbuster games all the time, no less than I do indie games. Heck, <a href="http://stolen-projects.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/killing-is-harmless-a-critical-reading-of-spec-ops-the-line">I wrote an entire book</a> about a triple-a game that was very clearly “about” something. That game, too, was a reinvention of a long-running series. So why the double standard?</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49518/original/k589htwj-1401166427.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49518/original/k589htwj-1401166427.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49518/original/k589htwj-1401166427.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49518/original/k589htwj-1401166427.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49518/original/k589htwj-1401166427.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49518/original/k589htwj-1401166427.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49518/original/k589htwj-1401166427.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The controversial cover for the upcoming game, Far Cry 4.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ubisoft</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>So why this scepticism I feel towards Wolfenstein’s concentration camp, Far Cry 4’s colonial overtones and, also, if I am being completely honest, Watch Dog’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/07/watch-dogs-video-game-internet-security-ubisoft">commentary on surveillance culture</a> (moments after it asks you register for Uplay, no doubt)? I think it’s that I’ve been burned by too many games in the last 18 months that feel front-loaded with “Themes”. That is, blockbuster games that before their release, have made a big deal about being about this or that topic. Except then, when they are actually released, they are just another conventional blockbuster title with just the faintest layer of Themes painted on top.</p>
<p>Bioshock: Infinite is perhaps the best example of such a recent game that I can think of. Before its release, it was deliberately marketed as a game about racism and American nationalism. Except when it came out, it didn’t actually have much to say about it at all. The extent of its engagement with these themes <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3733057.htm">could be boiled down to</a> “Hey, racism exists but maybe everyone is equally bad”. Or Grand Theft Auto V, a game supposedly about “masculinity”, which has <a href="http://overland.org.au/2013/10/talking-loud-and-saying-nothing-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-grand-theft-auto/">even less to say about anything</a> than Bioshock: Infinite. </p>
<p>It’s part of a broader trend among blockbuster games to try to seem “mature” or “serious” by injecting some Themes without actually addressing them on anything more than a surface level. These are games that are “mature” or “serious” in the same way I thought Marilyn Manson was mature and serious when I was fifteen because he swore a lot. They are commenting on these themes to the extent that they are acknowledging that, yes, these are things that exist. That’s it.</p>
<p>And, sadly, I’ve come to realise that this has altered my expectations of any blockbuster game that markets itself as being about any one particular thing. I now expect such themes to be the thinnest veneer that can be waved around in marketing material with no deeper analysis or engagement with them. It’s perhaps why the blockbuster games that I think are most successfully about something (Driver: San Francisco, Binary Domain, Bulletstorm) do so without trying to convince me beforehand that they are about anything in particular. It just emerges as I engage with them over time.</p>
<p>To stress, the problem isn’t that games <em>must</em> be really meaningful to be important. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game “just” being fun to play, even being slightly ridiculous. That is completely fine. But I want games to own that, to be confident about their desire to be “just” fun without an airbrushing of themes on top. Either tackle larger themes, or don’t. I thirst for that confidence of direction.</p>
<p>Of course, presumptions are usually unfair. Tomb Raider, for instance, caught a whole heap of slack for seemingly revolting depictions and suggestions of sexual violence before the game was released, unhelped by the executive produce saying in an interview how they wanted players (presumed to be male), <a href="http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft">to “protect” Lara</a>, not “be” Lara. Yet, when the game came out, it was a largely refreshing game about <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2013/02/tomb-raider-review-multi-platform.html">an empowered young women protagonist standing up for herself</a>. It wasn’t perfect, but it was far less problematic than the pre-release material suggested. This isn’t to say the pre-release criticism was misguided, but that sometimes blockbuster games can surpass that understandable scepticism. </p>
<p>So maybe one day when I play Wolfenstein or Far Cry 4 or Watch Dogs I’ll find myself eating my own words and accepting that they dealt with their respective themes in a mature and intelligent way. It’s entirely possible. But for now, I guess I just feel very sceptical and cynical towards big game releases that present themselves as “about something” when, so often, it turns out to just be a marketing tactic. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Recently, I’ve found myself reacting quite strongly against games I haven’t played yet. Occasionally, to games that haven’t even been released yet. I’ve found myself immediately sceptical and hostile when…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/267392014-05-15T01:51:31Z2014-05-15T01:51:31ZNo country for new games<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48553/original/hn5b9cpb-1400117135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48553/original/hn5b9cpb-1400117135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48553/original/hn5b9cpb-1400117135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48553/original/hn5b9cpb-1400117135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48553/original/hn5b9cpb-1400117135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48553/original/hn5b9cpb-1400117135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48553/original/hn5b9cpb-1400117135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">League of Geeks, whose upcoming game Armello recently ran a successful $300,000 crowdfunding campaign, are one of many Australian game studios to receive government funding in recent years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">http://leagueofgeeks.com/</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As part of the Liberal government’s slash-and-burn budget on Tuesday night was the <a href="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/05/government-pulls-funding-for-aussie-video-games-industry-in-federal-budget/">surprise announcement</a> that the Australian Interactive Games Fund was to be cut, effective immediately. </p>
<p>First announced in 2012, the Games Fund was designed as an accelerator for the Australian games industry, allowing studios to produce new intellectual property that would be retained in Australia. </p>
<p>A$20 million was originally provided by the fund, set up by the previous government, of which only A$10 million had been spent. According to <a href="http://gdaa.com.au/gdaa-bewildered-by-governments-decision-to-axe-game-industry-fund">a press release</a> by the Game Developers’ Association of Australia, the cut was made with zero consultations with the industry. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the news was met with an outcry from both current and prospective Australian developers, not least of all those who were planning on submitting to the fund in the upcoming months. <a href="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/05/government-funding-for-games-pulled-the-australian-games-industry-reacts/">Various</a> <a href="http://www.computerandvideogames.com/463566/australian-games-industry-responds-to-interactive-games-fund-axing/">outlets</a> <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/games/game-developers-cry-foul-as-axe-falls-on-screen-australia-fund-20140515-zrco5.html">reached</a> out to local developers and industry members for comment, all of whom were scathing of the decision. </p>
<p>Yet, the Games Fund was not perfect. While it provided some with amazing opportunities not previously afforded of game developers in Australia, others were concerned it did not provide enough resources for new or emergent developers, focusing instead on supporting those that already had some industry experience — a concern perhaps validated by the appearance of the same interviewees again and again in the above hyperlinked articles. <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/game-on/2013/01/25/funding-success-what-the-industry-thinks-of-the-federal-government%E2%80%99s-20m-games-fund/">A feature written early last year by Dan Golding</a> captures the wide range of responses, hopes, and concerns the Games Fund drew from people. </p>
<p>The dismantling of the Games Fund then, while both infuriating and distressing, is not the most violent blow this budget strikes against the future of games productions in Australia. Rather, it’s the budget’s much broader attack on young and poor people for the sake of a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/13/abbotts-first-budget-uninspiring-and-a-far-cry-from-the-rhetoric-of-crisis?CMP=soc_568">rhetorical “budget emergency”</a> (while putting aside even more money for offshore interment camps and military hardware) that fills me with the most anxiety for the games that will now not just move overseas, but simply never exist.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48556/original/c9p7p62d-1400117806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48556/original/c9p7p62d-1400117806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48556/original/c9p7p62d-1400117806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48556/original/c9p7p62d-1400117806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48556/original/c9p7p62d-1400117806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48556/original/c9p7p62d-1400117806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48556/original/c9p7p62d-1400117806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nyarlu Labs’ Forget-Me-Not.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot by author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like every nation’s games industry, Australia’s has an ingrained problem of homogenisation. In the articles linked above, an overwhelming number of the interviewees are men. This is not surprising, considering that a survey of the local industry as it stood in 2011-12 frighteningly showed that <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/arts/blog/Daniel-Golding/Who-makes-videogames-Australia-gender-130627/default.htm">only 8.7% of those in the industry are women</a> — which, at least, is a higher percentage than Tony Abbott’s front bench. The Games Fund, while an incredible and hard-fought-for opportunity for those already making games in Australia, did little to broaden the scope of <em>who</em> makes games in Australia. </p>
<p>Though, significantly, those who are “in the industry” and those who are simply “making games in Australia” are two very different things. Australia has a rich undercurrent of students, artists, young people, and hobbyists creating and sharing games, often beyond the borders of what is commonly considered “the industry”. </p>
<p>Individual projects such as Brandon Williamson’s niche but critically acclaimed <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/forget-me-not/id419572408?mt=8">Forget Me Not</a> or Alexander Bruce’s incredibly successful <a href="http://www.antichamber-game.com/">Antichamber</a>; student games like <a href="http://www.rabbit-rush.com/">Rabbit Rush</a>; and games being made in the spare time of those with other full-time jobs such as <a href="http://pmpygame.com/">Push Me Pull You</a> point to a much broader ecology of Australian game creators than just those employed by an industry.</p>
<p>It is this broader ecology of game creators that has just begun to emerge in recent years with the proliferation of more accessible means to both produce and distribute games, that this budget most violently attacks. </p>
<p>By making health care, education, and unemployment support unobtainable to vast swathes of the nation’s youth, not only will creating games become unviable for many, it will not even be considered as a possible avenue of creativity. </p>
<p>Even further: creativity will not even be considered a viable avenue for many once those safety nets that any respectable nation owes its citizens are dismantled. Who has time to be creative when your own government is willing to let you starve to death? The culture’s creative output remains the domain of those who can afford to be creative.</p>
<p>Cutting off the Games Fund demonstrates that the Liberal government has no interest in supporting an existing vibrant and maturing creative industry. Attacking the younger and lower classes of the nation by gutting a wide range of social services demonstrates that the Liberal government has no interest in the creative and cultural future of the nation.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p><strong><em>Update</em></strong>: Christian McCrea wrote a series of tweets after I posted this column that I think dig a bit deeper into some of the issues I merely touch on here, so I have compiled them <a href="https://storify.com/BRKeogh/christian-mccrea-s-response-to-my-conversation-col">here</a> if people would like to read them.</p>
<p><strong>Disclosure</strong>: I taught some of the students who worked on Rabbit Rush</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As part of the Liberal government’s slash-and-burn budget on Tuesday night was the surprise announcement that the Australian Interactive Games Fund was to be cut, effective immediately. First announced…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/250062014-03-30T20:27:14Z2014-03-30T20:27:14ZGames evangelists and naysayers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45044/original/pvwwpv46-1396159530.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">nottetris</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45044/original/pvwwpv46-1396159530.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45044/original/pvwwpv46-1396159530.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45044/original/pvwwpv46-1396159530.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45044/original/pvwwpv46-1396159530.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45044/original/pvwwpv46-1396159530.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45044/original/pvwwpv46-1396159530.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45044/original/pvwwpv46-1396159530.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new study suggests Tetris might help prevent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Not Tetris 2</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>(<strong>Correction:</strong> This article initially misquoted the “Play, don’t replay” webpage as saying “this simple trick” when in fact it says “this simple technique”. I apologise for this error.)</em></p>
<p>A few days ago, renowned game designer, author, and speaker Jane McGonigal launched a new project on her website called “<a href="http://janemcgonigal.com/2014/03/27/help-prevent-ptsd/">Play, don’t replay! HELP PREVENT PTSD</a>” <em>(<strong>Update:</strong> McGonigal has updated the wording of the website since this column was posted. The original <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140328050949/http://janemcgonigal.com/2014/03/27/help-prevent-ptsd/">can be found here</a>.</em> ) Its stated goal is to get trauma victims to play a pattern-matching videogame such as Tetris or Candy Crush Saga as soon as possible after the traumatising event to potentially prevent ongoing post-traumatic stress disorder. </p>
<p>The aim of the project is to have as many people as possible know about “this simple technique” so that they can pull it out themselves in case they suffer a traumatic event. Not because it works, mind, but because it <em>might</em> work, and McGonigal wants people to try it themselves and then provide feedback. She has <a href="https://twitter.com/avantgame/status/449577803168497664">asked</a> her 59,000 twitter followers to share and retweet the project multiple times. There is an email address you can provide your results to once you try it out.</p>
<p>On the surface, the project is clearly well-intentioned. Who wouldn’t want to help prevent or ease the suffering of PTSD? However, in the tone of the post, the presentation of the science, and the demands for crowdsourcing test subjects, it is a shockingly irresponsible and unethical project. It is a project through which we can vividly see all the problems with what I’m going to call the “games evangelism industry”. This is an industry of individuals and organisations that has a self-aggrandising need to convince both others and itself that games are <em>good</em> and can <em>fix problems</em> and, to paraphrase the title of McGonigal’s own book, <a href="http://janemcgonigal.com/my-book/">can save the world</a>. </p>
<p>I’m going to look at the problems with this particular project in more detail then return to this idea of a games evangelism industry and why it deserves our scepticism.</p>
<p>First, the necessary caveats about the science that McGonigal is working from: I don’t doubt for a moment the integrity of <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004153&representation=PDF">the study</a> (pdf) that McGonigal cites. There is little doubt that playing small games can be useful to distract people from various things. That such a technique might help ease PTSD is a commendable avenue of research. </p>
<p>However, to take one controlled test where forty participants watched a twelve-minute film and present this as definitive proof that this approach should be trialed by <em>everyone</em> in the uncontrolled real world is an unethical way to conduct research. Of course, the writers of the study don’t make such claims. They, of course, note that further research is required and that <em>maybe</em> this technique could be employed by emergency services responding in the early post-trauma period. McGonigal, however, doesn’t share their restraint. She wants <em>everyone</em> doing this right away. She wants a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony_2012#Negative">#Kony2012</a>-esque social media campaign to get <a href="https://twitter.com/avantgame/status/449578683515170816">100,000 people</a> to read her blog post. She <a href="https://twitter.com/avantgame/status/450077496600317952">thinks it</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/avantgame/status/450077976986542080">irresponsible</a> to sit around and wait for definitive results. She even goes so far as to label those that voice valid concerns about the project as “games naysayers” and compares them to <a href="https://twitter.com/avantgame/status/450082114696798208">climate change deniers</a>. </p>
<p>The project is an unethical way to both present findings and to gather research data. Further, it trivialises the realities of PTSD. McGonigal runs with the study’s wording of Tetris as a potential “vaccine”. But you wouldn’t take a potential vaccine for any disease and distribute it to everyone after a single clinical trial. Why should PTSD be treated with any less seriousness? Responding to <a href="http://janemcgonigal.com/2014/03/27/help-prevent-ptsd/#comment-1331">a comment on the post questioning the approach</a>, McGonigal cites her own suffering of flashbacks and nightmares after a traumatic experience to demonstrate her good intentions (intentions which I do not doubt for a moment that she has). Yet, she wants everyone to try this because it <em>might</em> work. She doesn’t stop to think that one test on forty people in a controlled environment is not enough to rule out that sticking Tetris or Candy Crush Saga under the nose of someone who has just had a traumatic experience could potentially be harmful for some people (especially considering Candy Crush Saga is not even mentioned in the study itself!). </p>
<p>Further, and crucially, in her desire to implement this project in the real world, she makes no attempt to compare or contrast this method of battling PTSD with existing methods. It doesn’t matter. The point is that it proves <em>games</em> can be used for <em>good</em>. </p>
<p>In this project we see one of the most vivid examples of the games evangelism industry where it is more important for games to be <em>seen</em> as good than to critically ask what might be good about them and whether something that isn’t games might be better. I don’t use the word “industry” lightly. People like McGonigal and organisations like <a href="http://www.gamesforchange.org/">Games for Change</a>, despite being a non-profit organisation, directly benefit from advancing the notion that games are useful tools for social change. They provide a veneer of respectability for a far broader (and lucrative) “gamification” industry where expertise quickly translates into speaking events, consultancy roles, and book deals. The games evangelists tap into a growing enthusiasm around games and create a need for a particular type of games expert that they themselves are then perfectly positioned to fill. All while the “social change” games they advocate just as often <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/game-on/2012/11/26/the-ambiguous-politics-of-the-first-australian-games-for-change-festival/">merely reinstates the status quo</a> than actually challenge it. </p>
<p>Which isn’t to say games <em>can’t</em> facilitate positive social change. Of course they can! But the priority quickly shifts from actually making games that do this (which have existed for a very long time), to clutching at any argument that might further prove how games are useful and how these people and organisations are necessary. To the games evangelists, games become hammers and all the world starts to look like a nail. </p>
<p>And, of course, you can’t disagree with them. What? Do you want PTSD victims to suffer? Why <em>don’t</em> you want to make the world a safer place? Why are you being so negative about this? Do you <em>hate</em> games and play? What is wrong with you? Games evangelists trade in inspiration; to question their ideas is to questions their inspiration. In McGonigal’s own terms, anyone who dares disagree with the uncritically optimistic outlook of games evangelists is a “Games Naysayer” and any criticism of their projects, like that presented here, is negated. After all, she’s just trying to help.</p>
<p>It is tempting to want to believe games are fundamentally positive things. Especially, of course, if your livelihood is dependent on games in one form or another. The various responses to McGonigal’s post on twitter highlight this thirst to believe that games are <em>good</em>. It’s intoxicating. After decades of the mainstream media and our parents alike telling us that games are <em>bad</em>, developers and players alike want to believe that, after all this time, this hobby that we’ve devoted ourselves to is <em>good</em>. </p>
<p>But just as films can be works of art, Nazi propaganda, or both, games are never ever only one thing. They are no less capable of being “bad” as they are of being “good”. Or, even, they don’t have to be “bad”, but maybe, just maybe, in any given situation <a href="http://mkopas.net/files/talks/UVic2013Talk-WhatAreGamesGoodFor.pdf">there might be something else that is better</a>. That McGonigal’s latest project doesn’t even attempt to compare Tetris to pre-existing methods of treating PTSD reveals that the highest priority is highlighting the significance of games is a much higher priority than actually helping anyone.</p>
<p>Uncritical evangelism is unhelpful, and it only benefits those who are evangelising. “Play, don’t Replay!” is, on the surface, a grassroots online activity to raise awareness. I don’t doubt that this is exactly what McGonigal, with the best of intentions, sees it as. But it is also a means to crowdsource research via the free labour of trauma sufferers while drastically overstating the results of a single study in order to advance a personal agenda. Like any project, it demands scepticism and criticism; its positive intentions don’t exempt it. But dare ask a question about the methods or the science of the project and, no, you are merely a games naysayer.</p>
<p>Almost as a counterweight to the lawmakers and media personalities that use a single clinical trial to prove games are fundamentally evil, the evangelists use a single clinical trial to prove that games are fundamentally benevolent. “Play, don’t Replay!” is just another example of games evangelists twisting a study into a nail to advance their own hammer under the guise of saving the world, and it’s something that people should be cynical about. </p>
<p>If being a games naysayer means thinking critically about the place of games in society and not overreaching the findings of individual studies, I for one will gladly be a games naysayer.</p>
<p><em>(My thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/newsmary">Mary Hamilton</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/dangolding">Dan Golding</a> for providing feedback on a previous draft of this column. My thanks, too, to the various people I’ve had conversations with about this project over the past few days that have helped to shape the arguments I make here. That said, the views shared in this column reflect mine alone.)</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
(Correction: This article initially misquoted the “Play, don’t replay” webpage as saying “this simple trick” when in fact it says “this simple technique”. I apologise for this error.) A few days ago, renowned…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/248742014-03-26T23:32:23Z2014-03-26T23:32:23ZGame cultures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44844/original/sfmq7cj2-1395875791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">photo</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44844/original/sfmq7cj2-1395875791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44844/original/sfmq7cj2-1395875791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44844/original/sfmq7cj2-1395875791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44844/original/sfmq7cj2-1395875791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44844/original/sfmq7cj2-1395875791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44844/original/sfmq7cj2-1395875791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44844/original/sfmq7cj2-1395875791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Lost Level’s organisers hold up the vague ‘plan’ of talks for the afternoon.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to a press release sent out by the <a href="http://www.gdconf.com/">Game Developers Conference</a> (GDC) at the end of last week, over 24,000 people attended the conference this year. One of the most interesting things about GDC is how it distills the entire, global games industry down to about three city blocks of downtown San Francisco. In this concentrated area, every aspect of what we call the games industry is represented (some better than others, of course), and not just the parts we want to admit exist. </p>
<p>There are the independent developers in their hoodies and brightly coloured dresses, and there are the slightly more formally dressed developers from blockbuster studios. There’s the few industry legends wandering the halls, such as John Romero, father of the first-person shooter, playing DOOM deathmatches against anyone who challenges him. These are the “creative” people of the industry, the ones that critics like myself are most interested in. </p>
<p>But they represent just one aspect of the industry. In another wing of the conference hall, people in suits are discussing strategies to monetize free-to-play games. Down on the expo floor, you are just as likely to see a display of the newest pokie machines or advertising-enabling middleware as you are an exciting new game. GDC is where you get to see the games industry in its entirety: warts and all—not just the parts you <em>want</em> to see. </p>
<p>Except, it’s not quite “all” of the industry. Or, at least, if it is the entire “industry”, it is still not a complete picture of everyone who is contributing to this thing we call “videogames”. No, to see that required that attendees took a break from the conference halls after lunch on Thursday of the week-long conference to see what was happening in a nearby park. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44847/original/5qxf77xz-1395876534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44847/original/5qxf77xz-1395876534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44847/original/5qxf77xz-1395876534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44847/original/5qxf77xz-1395876534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44847/original/5qxf77xz-1395876534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44847/original/5qxf77xz-1395876534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44847/original/5qxf77xz-1395876534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Deirdra Kiai jamming with friends at Lost Levels.</span>
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</figure>
<p>See, GDC might have had 24,000 attendees, but it draws even more people into its orbit who don’t actually attend the conference: people who want to be around to hang out with attendees but aren’t going to spend the $2000 required to actually attend the conference. These are the independent creators and students and critics who spend the days hanging out in the park or around the conference hall just to see their friends that, for one week, are all in the same city. Sometimes they might borrow a friend’s pass to see one panel or check out the expo hall. For the most part, though, they just hang out. </p>
<p>Except, that is, on Thursday afternoon. For the second year in a row, the Thursday afternoon of GDC has seen this crowd of people in the park grow into the <a href="http://lostlevels.net">Lost Levels “unconference”</a>. Organised by a group of young indie developers (including Melbourne’s own <a href="https://twitter.com/leehsl">Harry Lee</a> who co-directed the Freeplay Independent Games festival last year), Lost Levels is entirely free, open to everyone, and gives anyone the chance to spend five minutes giving a talk about anything they want. </p>
<p>Often these talks will be about games in some way, but no talk gets rejected from Lost Levels and people can submit anything they want. No shortage of students tried to cram their grand theories about Games And Poetry into a five minute talk. Critic and developer Liz Ryerson recited her powerful <a href="http://ellaguro.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/fuck-mario.html">FUCK MARIO</a>. Developer of IGF finalist <a href="http://www.dominiquepamplemousse.com/">Dominique Pamplemousse</a>, Deirdra Kiai just <a href="http://instagram.com/p/lx49BzGtHB/">jammed out for a while</a>. And, stealing the show, Naomi Clark’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iif8mFVB8jU">performative piece with Ric Chivo</a> was perhaps the most visible depiction of the tensions between what was happening in the park and what was happening across the road in the conference centre. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44845/original/gzzw5nh9-1395875827.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44845/original/gzzw5nh9-1395875827.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44845/original/gzzw5nh9-1395875827.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44845/original/gzzw5nh9-1395875827.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44845/original/gzzw5nh9-1395875827.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44845/original/gzzw5nh9-1395875827.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44845/original/gzzw5nh9-1395875827.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Game designer Michael Brough holding forth during Lost Levels.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s no sound systems or printed itineraries or stages. Just three vague areas where people are going to start yelling about whatever they are yelling about after the last person ends. It’s practically impossible to actually plan what talks you want to see; you just have to wander up to a mob and hope you are seeing something decent (and that the person presenting is loud enough for you to hear them!). </p>
<p>The whole ordeal is a chaotic whirlwind. It makes some attendees grumpy—especially those who have wandered across from the GDC halls to see what everyone on twitter is going on about. It seems unprofessional and unorganised. Except, that’s kind of the whole point of it. In some ways, the individual talks of Lost Levels don’t matter (even if it is very important that it provides a space for such talks). </p>
<p>Rather, the point is just the sheer energy of it all. All these young, bright minds running around in the park in the sunshine. All the bemused and confused suits who were sitting in the park for lunch who aren’t quite sure what is happening. </p>
<p>I don’t want to make cliche claims about Lost Levels being “cooler” than GDC or anything like that. But it <em>is</em> exciting that it exists. It is exciting that videogames have matured to a degree that they have a counter culture that is increasingly impossible to ignore. It is exciting that I can think of as many games that I loved from the past year that came out of that park than out of the nearby conference centre. </p>
<p>Videogames are a lot of things, and Lost Levels represents that just as well as the expo floors and lecture theatres of GDC. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
According to a press release sent out by the Game Developers Conference (GDC) at the end of last week, over 24,000 people attended the conference this year. One of the most interesting things about GDC…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/245202014-03-19T06:04:35Z2014-03-19T06:04:35ZGames criticism as its own thing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44292/original/7j9s8sny-1395208762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CriticalProximity</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44292/original/7j9s8sny-1395208762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44292/original/7j9s8sny-1395208762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44292/original/7j9s8sny-1395208762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44292/original/7j9s8sny-1395208762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44292/original/7j9s8sny-1395208762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44292/original/7j9s8sny-1395208762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44292/original/7j9s8sny-1395208762.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Critical Proximity games criticism conference in San Francisco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leo Burke</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am currently in San Francisco to attend the annual <a href="gdconf.com">Game Developers Conference</a> (GDC). It’s the biggest event in the games industry, depending on what measuring stick you use. E3 in Los Angeles is the capital consumer trade-show where new games are shown to the press and the public. </p>
<p>The various Penny Arcade Expos are where a particular “gamer” community comes together to play games. But GDC is where tens of thousands of the industry’s developers and publishers mingle and discuss craft and share knowledge (and countless entrepreneurs try to sell middleware). Indie developers in hoodies rub shoulders with social media monetization experts in suits. </p>
<p>It’s a Mecca, of sorts, as everyone in the industry comes to San Francisco for the week because, simply, everyone comes to San Francisco for the week. It’s not rare to stumble upon someone in town for GDC who does not even have a pass for the conference. They are here to network and see their friends and attend the parties and other events held during the week. </p>
<p>Where the industry is, the press is. E3 is where journalists will see the new games, but GDC is where we get direct and intimate access to a range of developers without a PR handler lurking in the background. There is no shortage of press here – a reasonable number of whom are reporting simply to get access to the press pass over the expensive all access pass; writing a few articles seems like a better deal than forking out $2000 for an all-access pass.</p>
<p>So GDC is as important for many writers as it is for the developers it was initially for. Yet, the writers – the journalists and the critics – often feel like outsiders. There are no panels for our craft. We’re just kind of here, on the sideline, observing these developers. It’s something that has bothered me in recent years. As much as I enjoy GDC, I want to talk about our own craft, too. </p>
<p>This year, my wishes were answered. Not by GDC, but by a new conference, <a href="http://critical-proximity.com/">Critical Proximity</a>, largely the brainchild of critic <a href="http://zoyastreet.com/">Zoya Street</a>, appeared the Sunday before GDC to talk specifically about the craft of games criticism. In hindsight, it was the obvious solution that was just waiting for someone to actually do it: instead of waiting for GDC to accept talks on games criticism, we should have our own conference for our own craft.</p>
<p>And it was excellent. People spoke about craft, about community, about curation, about how to actually make money from your writing. There were discussions of the importance of writing in conversation with other critics by Zoya Street; discussions of “community” and the social activism aspect of criticism by Samantha Allen. </p>
<p>Zolani Stewart and Kris Ligman confronted the related issues of a normative canon and curation respectively. Academics discussed the issues with academic criticism; mainstream journalists discussed the challenges of writing criticism for mainstream audiences. A whole range of experiences and perspectives proved, above all else, that “criticism” is a broad term that covers a vast swathe of writers and intents, and that that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.</p>
<p>It was a wonderful celebration of writing-about-games as not just the peripheral thing that happens “around” the industry and culture of games, but an industry and culture in its own right, with its own people and crafts and concerns. It was great to have a day that focused on us and what we do, before a week of being at the margins, just quietly observing. </p>
<p>The entire conference was streamed live <a href="http://critical-proximity.com/">on the website</a>, and every presentation should be available for everyone to watch. Slides, too, are available to download from the site for most talks. If you are interested in the craft of writing about games, I definitely recommend a look. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
I am currently in San Francisco to attend the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC). It’s the biggest event in the games industry, depending on what measuring stick you use. E3 in Los Angeles is the…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/233992014-02-18T23:18:33Z2014-02-18T23:18:33ZGames by humans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bioshock</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Irrational Games/2K Games</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41867/original/kfw9crw7-1392764840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bioshock.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Irrational Games/2K Games</span></span>
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<p>While in Berlin a couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure to be able to casually hang out with some of the developers from Yager, the studio responsible for Spec Ops: The Line. In 2012, I wrote <a href="http://stolen-projects.myshopify.com/products/killing-is-harmless-a-critical-reading-of-spec-ops-the-line">a book about Spec Ops: The Line</a>, and it was a revealing experience to be able to hang out with the people who made that game. </p>
<p>As it was just a casual, off-the-record chat over beers, I am not going to regurgitate any of the conversations here. Suffice to say, to me, as someone outside of development, they were absolutely fascinating. It was eye-opening to hear about the utterly mundane reasons parts of the game turned out the way they turned out. Things that myself and other players had projected layers of meaning onto existed, largely, because of technical hiccups or urgent deadlines. </p>
<p>The people I was talking to were, predominately, the grunts of the studio. Not the lead designers or producers or creative directors, but the ones making the game in the most literal sense: creating the models and typing the code and applying the textures. They were, predominately, exactly the kind of people that a game journalist or player such as myself rarely, if ever, is able to communicate with. </p>
<p>If a games journalist is interviewing a developer about a game, they typically only have access to the lead developers, the ones in charge. Usually, the journalist’s access to these developers is through the publisher that is bankrolling the game. The dozens or hundreds of men and women actually making the game are hidden from the public behind the doubly thick wall of their employers and their publishers. We can’t speak to them and, more often than not, their employment contract means they can’t speak to us. </p>
<p>It’s not something I had ever really appreciated before, and hearing these fascinatingly mundane stories about making games in a AAA studio was eye-opening. Nothing scandalous or corrupt or horrendous – just … mundane and everyday events leading to particular creative decision. It got me thinking about how we – players, critics, journalists – really struggle to appreciate that these games are created not just by the one or two people we see in a dozen pre-release interviews and profiles, but by dozens if not hundreds of people, each with some small say in what the final creative work will look like. </p>
<p>We <em>know</em> this is the case; we tweet about how long the credits are, but we don’t really appreciate it. Instead, we talk about how Ken Levine made Bioshock Infinite or Todd Howard made Skyrim and that is that. </p>
<p>It’s not a problem unique to videogames. In any creative form, as we instinctively try to picture the creator behind the artwork, and it’s much easier as an audience to boil the author down to a single person: the director, the lead singer, the conductor. But this obscures the realities of how that work was produced and why it is the way it is. </p>
<p>Often, when we play a game and lament about an obviously terrible design decision in one stage and ask nobody in particular “Urgh, why would they design it like that?” the answer isn’t that the creators were idiots, but something much more mundane such as: two level designers worked on different floors of the studio, or a post-it note fell off a monitor. </p>
<p>That doesn’t excuse a poor design decisions, of course, but I think it is worth understanding and appreciating the very real and often straightforward reasons why something is the way it is: because this thing was made by a large team of dispersed and imperfect humans under actual, boring constraints.</p>
<p>Earlier this morning, this tendency to boil the entire creative output of a large studio down to a single individual was starkly clear in <a href="http://irrationalgames.com/">a press release</a> about the closure of Irrational Games. Irrational, responsible for the Bioshock series, is headed by one of mainstream gaming’s better known auteur figures, Ken Levine. </p>
<p>The press release, written by Levine, explains how the studio is closing down so that he can take a much smaller group of 15 employees to work on smaller games. The rest of the studio’s employees will lose their jobs.</p>
<p>It’s a very weird press release. Studio closures and downsizings are not rare in the <a href="binmag.com/2013/11/video-game-industry/">videogame industry</a>, but the idea that the studio would be shut, with almost everyone losing their job, because the creative lead feels like doing something new, is incredibly strange. Taken at face value, it implies that the many other people who created Irrational’s games are irrelevant to the studio’s creative output: just grunts that can be replaced when Levine gets bored of them, like sacrificing the servants when the master passes away. </p>
<p>Taken at face value, it’s an almost shockingly arrogant megalomania, one that <a href="http://dropouthangoutspaceout.tumblr.com/post/77084982926/ken-levine-isnt-looking-for-a-job">ironically plays into the exact labour and capital conditions the studio’s games attempted to critique</a>. </p>
<p>But it’s a press release, so of course there is more to it than face value. My suspicion would be that publishers 2K are closing down Irrational for far more typical financial reasons; but in an effort to hold onto the valuable source that is Levine’s auteur-ness for future products, allowed him to write this heartfelt letter about what <em>he</em> would like to do next. </p>
<p>The other employees are, again, hidden from sight. A couple of paragraphs are spent benevolently discussing how they will be assisted in finding new jobs (conveniently with no mention of the fact that such new jobs will inevitably require life-altering relocation to studios in other cities for many employees), but the main thrust of the release is “What Will Levine Do Next?”, relying on the crux that its audience has long personified Irrational’s creative output in Levine alone. </p>
<p>By taking advantage of the need to personify the creative output of the studio and promising new and exciting projects from the supposed auteur, the labour conditions that lead to many others losing their jobs is successfully downplayed.</p>
<p>And it is successful. Many games news outlets reporting on the closure are taking the press release at face value, mentioning the job losses briefly as sidenotes before moving on to an exciting anticipation of <a href="http://kotaku.com/ken-levines-new-game-could-be-really-exciting-1525231766">What Levine Will Do Next</a>. </p>
<p>I don’t think it is necessarily the job of journalists to fight for the industry’s employees. That’s what unions are for – or would be if the games industry wasn’t so embarrassingly lacking in unions. Indeed, there’s a very valid case to be made that games journalists and developers are already too chummy with a lack of critical distance between the two fields. </p>
<p>But there is a responsibility to read between the lines of press releases to find the “actual” story. But it’s not simply a case of lazy journalism, either. Even if we tried to get the story from former employees, they would not be able to speak to us: either because of contracts they’ve signed or, much more simply, because they still want to find a new job in the industry. And so, they remain invisible to us.</p>
<p>The ease with which 2K and Levine are able to spin a studio’s closure and the loss of over a hundred jobs to one of an auteur’s exciting new venture reveals just how poorly we – journalists, players, critics – appreciate the full breadth of people whose labour creates these works. </p>
<p>But theirs are the only voices we will hear on the matter, and so the myth of the great creative auteur continues. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
While in Berlin a couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure to be able to casually hang out with some of the developers from Yager, the studio responsible for Spec Ops: The Line. In 2012, I wrote a…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224352014-01-25T20:21:27Z2014-01-25T20:21:27ZThe spectacle of play<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39875/original/s79wx6fy-1390680936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">image</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
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<span class="caption">Kozilek plays a DJ set at the most recent Wild Rumpus party in London in front of a projection of Vlambeer’s Luftrausers.</span>
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<p>This month I am trekking around Europe with my partner, and I had the good fortune to be in London on the night of the fifth <a href="http://thewildrumpus.co.uk/">Wild Rumpus</a> event. In a gallery space in central London on a Saturday night, a crowd that wouldn’t look out of place at a trendy indie nightclub came together to play a range of both obscure and well-known (ish) independent games projected onto the walls (and, in one case, the floor). </p>
<p>All the games are multiplayer, requiring at least two players. Some are competitive; others are cooperative. Many use traditional controllers, but others have bizarre custom inputs that create spectacles out of their players’ bodies for the other attendees. Here, playing Lucky Frame’s Roflpillar, two players are rolling around on the floor in sleeping bags, looking up at monitors on the insides of a model house. There, playing a modified version of Keita Takahashi’s Alphabet running on a series of dancemats, players are juggling drinks as they stretch their legs to press down this letter and that letter at the same time. </p>
<p>Around every game is a mass of people—increasingly tightly packed as the night goes on—cheering and heckling and laughing and swearing. Later in the night, once everyone has had a few drinks, the DJs play something louder and an ad-hoc dancefloor opens up in the gaps between the crowds. The composer for many of Vlambeer’s games, Kozilek, pumps out an ear-melting playlist in front of a projection of Luftrausers, a game he composed the music for being played on a computer somewhere else in the room. There’s something magical about a person’s game being splashed over his body as he entertains a live crowd.</p>
<p>Wild Rumpus is a lively, vibrant, and very much public side of videogames that is a far shot from the loner nerd hunched over a computer in a dark room that many people still think of when they think of videogames. It’s part of a much broader renaissance of local multiplayer games converging with new forms of public play that has been taking off over the past five years or so. Encompassing other events and places, such as <a href="http://www.babycastles.com/">Babycastles</a> in New York and, more recently, <a href="http://hovergarden.org/">Hovergarden</a> in Melbourne, this renaissance is driven primarily by independent developers and collectives.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39873/original/pqb267gk-1390680894.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39873/original/pqb267gk-1390680894.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39873/original/pqb267gk-1390680894.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39873/original/pqb267gk-1390680894.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39873/original/pqb267gk-1390680894.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39873/original/pqb267gk-1390680894.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39873/original/pqb267gk-1390680894.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Mega Alphabet being played with dancemats by attendees at Wild Rumpus.</span>
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<p>It signals a move away from the dominant trajectories of multiplayer videogames these past decades that move away from the actual space of play and into the online space. As fast internet connections became more reliable and ubiquitous, videogames stepped away from the ‘split screen’ multiplayer modes of the 90s with its many restrictions (not least of all one computer having to process two players’ viewpoints at once) to online multiplayer, where each player has their own machine and their own screen. </p>
<p>This opened up all kinds of new potential in games, with titles like Counter Strike, Second Life, and World of Warcraft coming into their own with large, online communities. But, at the same time, something was lost. While online play was great, it became increasingly difficult to find a game to play with your friends when they came around. So, in more recent years, developers have started to wonder what unique pleasures of local multiplayer were lost in this move to online. Perhaps local was not just a restraint but a pleasure in its own right. </p>
<p>Indeed, there is something special about playing games with people present in the same actual space as you, both held in tandem to the same screen. The spectacles of close shaves and magnificent manoeuvres are all the more spectacular when you have someone to banter with, to have a reason to shout “Did you see that?!”. It allows games to not just be something you play but something you watch: a spectator sport. Others are often present, waiting their turn to play but also providing a keen audience with no real stake in either side winning but simply in, for lack of a better term, wanting to see something cool happen.</p>
<p>The newer wave of indie multiplayer games are fully aware of this, and they are often superbly designed to allow a vast range of cool things to occur with great frequency. They are tactical and exciting to play, of course, but also fascinating to watch. Bennett Foddy’s Pole Riders, for instance, is an easy-to-play but difficult-to-master game where two players use poles to push a ball on a string towards a goal. Controls are simple but unwieldy, and players often find their characters doing all sorts of things they never intended. Like many of Foddy’s games, there is a slapstick element as the game never quite seems fully under the players’ control. Messhof’s acclaimed and recently released Nidhogg, meanwhile, has two fencers face off in a hallucinogenic and distorted world of yellows and oranges. Its finite moveset of high, mid, and low attacks can be exploited and combined in a nearly inexhaustible number of combinations. </p>
<p>Other recent local multiplayer games forego the centrality of the screen, focusing on the spectacle of players doing amusing things with their bodies for the entertainment of onlookers. Douglas Wilson is at the head of these kinds of games, with creations like MegaGIRP—a modification of Foddy’s rock-climbing GIRP that has players contorted over a series of dance mats in some bizarre version of Twister. His more popular game Johann Sebastian Joust, meanwhile, removes the screen entirely to have players face each other, trying to force them to move their Move controller too fast in a kind of slow-motion kung fu battle. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39875/original/s79wx6fy-1390680936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39875/original/s79wx6fy-1390680936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39875/original/s79wx6fy-1390680936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39875/original/s79wx6fy-1390680936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39875/original/s79wx6fy-1390680936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39875/original/s79wx6fy-1390680936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39875/original/s79wx6fy-1390680936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Roflpillar at Wild Rumpus.</span>
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<p>All of these games, and the many others from the past years that I haven’t mentioned, understand that local multiplayer games are as much about the competition between their players as the spectacle of their performance—both for the players themselves and any onlookers. Events like Wild Rumpus, then, latch onto this and play up the latter, moving these games from the lounge room into a very public space purposely built for viewing spectacles. These games come into their own projected onto a wall in front of a crowd cheering and hollering not because they have stakes in a winner, but because they are simply enjoying the pleasure of watching people play.</p>
<p>To reiterate, events like Wild Rumpus are not a new trend, but one that has been coming into its own over recent time. Still, even after several years of attending such events, I still leave them with a renewed excitement and enthusiasm for videogames, play, and the spectacles they each provide. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This month I am trekking around Europe with my partner, and I had the good fortune to be in London on the night of the fifth Wild Rumpus event. In a gallery space in central London on a Saturday night…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217862014-01-07T00:27:16Z2014-01-07T00:27:16ZPatrons of Game Criticism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38549/original/4f59cxqn-1389054284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">patreon logo</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
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<p>The enthusiasm around crowdfunding has long since peaked. From game studio Double Fine’s explosive <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/double-fine-adventure">$3 million success</a> with Double Fine Adventure to Rob Thomas’s <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project">$5 million for for a Veronica Mars movie</a> to the more recent success of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/loved-by-the-crowd-but-will-the-new-climate-council-be-truly-independent-18541">Climate Council</a>, we are well and truly past the point where it is acceptable to be blindly optimistic about the possibilities of crowdfunding. Indeed, people have already highlighted that crowdfunding the Climate Council just <a href="http://junkee.com/the-problem-with-a-crowd-funded-climate-council/20781">gave the Coalition the perfect excuse to not spend any government money on climate change</a>. Someone else will pay for it.</p>
<p>A newer iteration of crowdfunding currently turning heads in game criticism circles is <a href="http://www.patreon.com/">Patreon</a>, and it’s confronting much of the same enthusiasm (and the same scepticism) of broader crowdfunding models. While websites like Kickstarter ask funders to invest in the production of a project with the usual promise of a copy of that project once it is completed, Patreon instead works as a patronage. Patrons are not investers in a project but patrons of an artist, pledging to pay a certain amount of money for each work that artist creates. </p>
<p>The significant difference is that the works that Patreon artists are creating are, more often than not, released as free content on the internet, either as written articles or Youtube videos or webcomics or some other form. Patrons, then, are not paying to access content, but to support a creator in the act of creating. </p>
<p>With all the caveats that come with crowdfunding (some of which I’ll get to in a moment), this is a potentially important intervention in how creating content for the internet functions. The main challenge faced by many creators of online content is that the vast majority of web users expect to access content for free: that’s just how the internet has always worked. Paywalls only ever feel obtrusive and rude. ‘Donate’ buttons are rarely successful. The most successful publishers of web content make their money from one of two areas: either advertising, or selling non-web merchandise alongside their content, and precious little of this money actually trickles down to the creators themselves. The vast majority of creators of web content, simply, don’t make any money.</p>
<p>This is certainly true for online writers, as the <a href="http://byronbache.com/?p=233">recent fiasco around The Daily Review showed</a>, and it is definitely true for videogame critics. While there is no shortage of successful videogame outlets, those that have money are primarily interested in straightforward industry news and previews of upcoming games, with a few also budgeting for longform features focusing on the industry and developers. Indeed, if they weren’t interested in these things they probably wouldn’t have any money. There are precious few websites that have a budget for critical essays and analysis beyond consumer reviews.</p>
<p>Instead, the best videogame criticism for the past decade has happened on personal blogs and love-driven websites, written by those few that have enough spare time away from whatever job pays their rent to write for love alone. For my part, it was a weekend barista job for two years followed by the incredible privilege of a PhD scholarship that has allowed me to write videogame criticism. </p>
<p>It’s something that I suspect many readers of game criticism don’t fully appreciate. They see a writer appearing on various websites, they see the writer’s thousands and thousands of Twitter followers—<em>surely</em> they are doing well for themselves. Chances are, they are not.</p>
<p>Patreon, then, offers a potential solution for some (certainly not all) of the excellent videogame critics out there who, despite having readerships of thousands, struggle to make enough money to live. It gives those critics the confidence and security to write those more daring pieces that would have previously been considered a poor use of time and energy. </p>
<p>As someone who deeply cares about the craft of game criticism, I feel obliged to help support those critics whose content I have been reading for free for years now. <a href="http://www.patreon.com/mattiebrice">Mattie Brice</a>, <a href="http://www.patreon.com/ellaguro">Liz Ryerson</a>, <a href="http://www.patreon.com/forestambassador">merritt kopas</a>, <a href="http://www.patreon.com/LanaPolansky">Lana Polansky</a>, <a href="http://www.patreon.com/mammonmachine">Aevee Bee</a>, <a href="http://www.patreon.com/carachan">Cara Ellison</a>, and <a href="http://www.patreon.com/ckunzelman">Cameron Kunzelman</a> are the ones I am a patron of. These critics are also among, I think, some of the most important and interesting videogame critics currently writing, and it is exciting to think that they can finally, at least in part, be supported by the significant contributions they make. Brice has also constructed <a href="http://www.mattiebrice.com/support-games-criticism/">a list of several others using the service</a>. </p>
<p>There are issues, of course. The most obvious is the inevitable saturation. As more people succeed through Patreon, better known people will turn to it and obscure the smaller creators, just as with Kickstarter. Another issue is that, just as with the Climate Council, Patreon arguably sends the message to mainstream game writing outlets that they don’t need to spend money on game criticism. Though, I am hopeful it will do the reverse and show them there is a readership for critical writing. </p>
<p>Further, it is a young service, only launching in May last year, and is far from perfectly designed. The biggest flaw, from a patron’s perspective, is the lack of any clear overview of the creators you support. Being able to set a monthly cap of your outgoing money is commendable, so you don’t have to worry about one creator making ten things a day and sapping your bank account dry. But as you begin to support more artists, the inability to see a quick overview of just how much money is potentially leaving your account each month is a little unnerving. I have spoken to people at Patreon, however, and they’ve mentioned they are looking at ways to implement this. </p>
<p>So Patreon isn’t a perfect solution. Indeed, the notion of ‘solutions’ is a flawed one to begin with. It is one potential avenue among others that will allow those critics that have a large following but few financial avenues to make something from their work. It will work for some, and it won’t work for others. Namely, it will work for those writers who have large amounts of social capital that has not previously translated into financial stability. </p>
<p>But for me, currently at one of the precious few times in my life where I feel temporarily financially stable thanks to my academic work, it is important to me that I support those creators whose creations I enjoy. I think it is important to challenge the mindset that everything should be free, as that cheapens the very real labour of many writers and creators. But I also think it is important to keep things accessible for those that cannot afford to pay for everything. Patreon, for now, is a promising balanace. Those that can afford to support creators can, and those that can’t afford to can still access their content.</p>
<p>If a game critic you enjoy reading has a Patreon page and you are financially able to, I encourage you to support them. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The enthusiasm around crowdfunding has long since peaked. From game studio Double Fine’s explosive $3 million success with Double Fine Adventure to Rob Thomas’s $5 million for for a Veronica Mars movie…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212032013-12-05T21:41:52Z2013-12-05T21:41:52ZThis is not your world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37052/original/rbz6j764-1386279401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">blank</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37052/original/rbz6j764-1386279401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37052/original/rbz6j764-1386279401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37052/original/rbz6j764-1386279401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37052/original/rbz6j764-1386279401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37052/original/rbz6j764-1386279401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37052/original/rbz6j764-1386279401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37052/original/rbz6j764-1386279401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tearaway (MediaMolecule)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>[This article was first published this week on the game culture website <a href="http://www.unwinnable.com/2013/12/05/not-your-world/#.UqDyqmQW31h">Unwinnable</a>, but I thought it might also be of interest for the Conversation crowd.]</em></p>
<p><strong>I.</strong>
I’ve been reading a lot of critic Susan Sontag’s early essays of late. I’ve been motivated by a desire to have my own approach to criticism influenced more by that of other critics, and I’ve been influenced heavily in the way Sontag takes a work of art at face value. Explicit in her essays from the late ’60s, “Against Interpretation” and “On Style,” and implicit in the rest of her writing, is this refusal to separate an artwork’s “form” from its “content.” That is, she refuses to separate an artwork into what it “is” (a canvas, brushstrokes, colours, frame), and what it is “about” (love, happiness, sadness, passion, war, whatever). She makes a point of not talking about artworks like they are “containers” full of some meaning. Instead, she works to <em>flatten</em> art: what an artwork “means” and what it “is” are not different things; an artwork is not a glass container to be filled with “content.” She forwards a way of talking about works of art as they are, talking about how the “content” of a work of art isn’t beyond its formal elements, but emerges <em>from</em> those formal elements.</p>
<p>It is up to the player to build the fourth wall, to create that separation of the virtual world from the actual world, […] to feel immersed.</p>
<p>Of course, she goes into a lot more detail than that, but that is the gist of it. It has had me thinking these past months about the parallels between form/content and how game critics and players often talk about “immersion, ” how we wish to have an immediate experience of the “content” of a videogame’s virtual world while we don’t want to have to think about its formal elements (controllers, discs, wires, batteries, USB ports, television screens). “Immersion” has already been extensively critiqued as a term (most fruitfully by Richard Lemarchand in <a href="http://gdcvault.com/play/1015464/Attention-Not-Immersion-Making-Your">a GDC 2012 presentation</a> and in Ben Abraham’s <a href="http://iam.benabraham.net/2012/04/attention-and-immersion/">response</a>, both arguing for a discussion of “attention” instead of “immersion”). Just like “form” and “content,” we could not feel immersion without those physical, formal elements we try not to think about. Without a controller in our lap or a television screen before us or, perhaps, an Oculus Rift strapped to our face, we could not <em>pretend</em> we are immersed (and make no mistake, to be immersed is to pretend, to <em>make believe</em>). Virtual worlds only exist in the coming together of very non-virtual elements of videogame play.</p>
<p>This has led to a renewed interest in me of those videogames that acknowledge that videogame play is always a clash of form and content, of actual and virtual elements. It has renewed my interest, for instance, in the Metal Gear Solid games and their regular breaking of the fourth wall. The way a character, without a hint of irony, will tell the player/Solid Snake to press the “action button” if they want to climb a ladder. The way Otacon will marvel about Blu-ray technology in Metal Gear Solid 4 that allows the entire game to fit on a single disc. The way the players’ tandem to the virtual world – the controller in their hands – is both their greatest weakness and their greatest strength against Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid.</p>
<p>Hideo Kojima is not just adding occasional, novel, fourth-wall breaking moments just for the heck of it. Rather, he is unashamedly making videogames that do not pretend they are not videogames. Videogames that do not separate “form” and “content” but that are quite aware how entangled the two are on such a mundane level. Solid Snake doesn’t blink when he is told to press the action button – this is a videogame; of <em>course</em> that is how he climbs a ladder.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37049/original/f5z6xnky-1386278758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37049/original/f5z6xnky-1386278758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37049/original/f5z6xnky-1386278758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37049/original/f5z6xnky-1386278758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37049/original/f5z6xnky-1386278758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37049/original/f5z6xnky-1386278758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37049/original/f5z6xnky-1386278758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Metal Gear Solid 4 regularly comments on its videogame nature.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Metal Gear Solid 4 (Konami)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So the game critic, if they are to understand what a videogame is doing, needs to understand this clashing of the actual world with the virtual. The best critics already do this, of course, effortlessly combining the buttons they are pressing with the actions of the character in the same sentence. The lure of immersion, however, constantly tempts us to talk about virtual worlds as <em>purely</em> virtual worlds, detached from the “real” world rather than a dependent part of that real world. As players, we <em>want</em> to feel immersion. We want to make virtual worlds make sense independent of the actual world.</p>
<p>An example drawing upon a piece of writing that has disappeared from the Internet (<a href="http://archive.is/fMD7F">well, mostly</a>): Tim Rogers’ essay on Earthbound. There is an anecdote some way into this essay where Rogers discusses a dilapidated house missing the rear wall. Rogers doesn’t discuss this house as a house with three walls, but as a house with two walls: the third wall has collapsed, and the <em>fourth wall</em> has been removed so the player can see into the house. This is a common trope in JRPGs and 2D games generally, but we never really think about it: entire walls are removed so the player can get a clear view. In those screens, that wall simply does not exist. We, as players, <em>imagine it into existence</em>. It is up to the player to build the fourth wall, to create that separation of the virtual world from the actual world, to separate the game’s content from the form, to feel immersed.</p>
<p>To put it another way: virtual worlds are myths. Kieron Gillen says as much in <a href="http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/assorted-essays/the-new-games-journalism/">his manifesto for New Games Journalism</a> when he notes that we are writing about places that simply do not exist.</p>
<p>———</p>
<p><strong>II.</strong>
This week, I began playing Media Molecule’s new game Tearaway on the PlayStation Vita, and I am convinced this game was made just for me. It is a game that directly confronts the fact that its virtual world is a myth, and that our interactions with it are always across the divide of worlds.</p>
<p>One of the first things the narrators say to the player in Tearaway is, “This is not your world.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37050/original/ykqnrm2j-1386278854.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37050/original/ykqnrm2j-1386278854.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37050/original/ykqnrm2j-1386278854.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37050/original/ykqnrm2j-1386278854.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37050/original/ykqnrm2j-1386278854.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37050/original/ykqnrm2j-1386278854.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37050/original/ykqnrm2j-1386278854.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sticking ‘your’ fingers into the world in Tearaway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tearaway (MediaMolecule)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s a bold way to start a game. While almost any other game tries to help the player imagine the virtual world as sealed off, as a world they are entirely embodied and present in, Tearaway explicitly wants the player to know that the world on the screen is not their world. The narrators continue to tell the player that this is a “world of stories” as they bring things to existence with their words. This is a temporal world that exists solely for the sake of having a story and a game to move through.</p>
<p>Once it is made clear that the virtual world is not “your world,” the presence of your actual world in relation to the virtual world on the screen is made clear. The rear camera of the PlayStation Vita shows the actual world around you on the screen, before a hole rips open and spreads, turning the screen into a viewpoint on the virtual world (as all screens are, really). Moments later, through the Vita’s rear touchscreen, you are poking your fingers <em>into</em> the virtual world to move objects around. Paper tears open as virtual depictions of your fingers jut out into the virtual world; in the small gaps around the fingers, you can see glimmers of the actual world beyond the tears. Your fingers become your agents in the virtual world: the way you are able to affect things in this virtual world that is not your own with an actual body (as fingers do in all games, really).</p>
<p>Tearaway comments explicitly on the interrelatedness of actual and virtual worlds that immersion tends to obscure, and it does so in the most delightful and effortless ways. In some ways, it plays like a release title for a new platform, like a game that primarily exists to demonstrate what a piece of hardware can do. Indeed, it is the exemplary PlayStation Vita title, so much so that already I have trouble imagining one without the existence of the other. It brings together the device’s cameras, touchscreens and buttons to maintain a focus on the blurry, electric place two worlds overlap. It takes the language of Augmented Reality and flips it: less interested in showing virtual objects in the real world than in showing real objects in the virtual world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37051/original/thr56jz3-1386278942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37051/original/thr56jz3-1386278942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37051/original/thr56jz3-1386278942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37051/original/thr56jz3-1386278942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37051/original/thr56jz3-1386278942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37051/original/thr56jz3-1386278942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37051/original/thr56jz3-1386278942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The player watches down on Tearaway from within a hole in the sun.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tearaway (MediaMolecule)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Media Molecule have always made games with a very ‘tactile’ aesthetic.<em>LittleBigPlanet</em>, with its sponges and wooden blocks and knitted avatars was less about the wonders of a fantastical virtual worlds and more about the spectacle of these <em>things</em> working together in a certain way. It was the spectacle of, “How did they make this world?” Like opening up an elaborate pop-up book and marvelling at the craft of it. With its beautiful and charming papercraft aesthetic, Tearaway continues this tradition, and it fits perfectly the game’s broader concern with flattening form and content. Like Kojima’s, Media Molecule’s games do not pretend they are not videogames. They are elaborate stage shows, put on for the player’s sake, as that player literally looks down on the story from his god-like position in the sun.</p>
<p>Which is not to simply say that Tearaway is a videogame “about videogames” or anything so reductive. But it is a videogame clearly made by people who know exactly how videogames work: how players engage with them through form and content to have a pleasurable engagement. It is a videogame that does not only understand this, but which distills it, distills everything down to this pure pleasure of engaging with a videogame, of being able to touch a world that is not your own, of poking your fingers into the middle of a myth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
[This article was first published this week on the game culture website Unwinnable, but I thought it might also be of interest for the Conversation crowd.] I. I’ve been reading a lot of critic Susan Sontag’s…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206452013-11-22T02:19:43Z2013-11-22T02:19:43ZGenerational differences<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35863/original/gjjggbcq-1385086718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Original Xbox</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35863/original/gjjggbcq-1385086718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35863/original/gjjggbcq-1385086718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35863/original/gjjggbcq-1385086718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35863/original/gjjggbcq-1385086718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35863/original/gjjggbcq-1385086718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35863/original/gjjggbcq-1385086718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/35863/original/gjjggbcq-1385086718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original Xbox (not to be mistaken with the Xbox One)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, Microsoft <a href="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/11/eb-games-calls-the-xbox-one-the-biggest-launch-in-australian-gaming-history/">launches their new console, the Xbox One,</a> around the world, starting with <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/xbox-one-goes-on-sale-20131122-2xzad.html">an absurdly spectacular light show in Sydney Harbour</a>. Meanwhile, Sony’s new console, the Playstation 4, arrived last week in America, and touches down in Australia in a week.</p>
<p>Console generations have always served as the main markers on the timeline of videogame history. They traditionally mark monumental shifts in how videogames are imagined and designed.</p>
<p>On this occasion, however, in addition to the usual hype that marks a new console generation, there is an undercurrent of apathy. It’s as though things just aren’t nearly as exciting this time.</p>
<p>First, let’s talk about this idea of “generations”.</p>
<h2>Is new always better?</h2>
<p>The very word suggests a sense of moving forward, of leaving the past behind and aiming towards <em>something</em> somewhere ahead of us.</p>
<p>Videogames have always been intimately tied to technological advancement. For decades, we’ve believed that a “better” videogame is afforded by “better” technology (more polygons, more processing power, better AI and so on).</p>
<p>The videogame industry has cultivated this belief to create a perpetual upgrade culture, where every five or so years, enthusiasm is stoked with new consoles that, finally, will be able to achieve what the last generation couldn’t.</p>
<p>Few videogame players my age could forget, for instance, that first time seeing Mario run around a 3D world in Super Mario 64, after the flat 2D worlds of the Super Nintendo. The future is exciting.</p>
<p>This generation is no different, with the notable exception of being one of the longest generations ever, coming it at eight years between the Xbox 360’s release and the Xbox One.</p>
<p>When the Playstation 4 was announced, game designer David Cage made the incredible <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/02/sony-reveals-the-first-official-details-of-the-playstation-4/">announcement</a> that “getting the player emotionally involved is the holy grail of all game creators… with the Playstation 4, games have now finally reached that stage.” <em>Finally</em>!</p>
<p>Cage (and through him, Sony) is trying to convince an audience that they have never before felt emotionally involved in a videogame because technology has held them back. We have never been at war with Eurasia. </p>
<p>Console generations must, at the same time, erase history even as they build on it. We see this in the very names of the new consoles.</p>
<p>The Xbox One is the third Xbox console, but that “One” makes a claim to a new era: everything before now was prehistoric, but <em>now</em> we will have <em>real</em> games.</p>
<p>Playstation, meanwhile, have not forgotten how to count. Playstation 4 is indeed the fourth Playstation console. Here, instead of a refusal of history, we get the sense that history was leading us to this point where, finally, we have the power to produce good games.</p>
<p>Either way, whether history is silenced or invoked, each new console generation sells itself as being the end of history. Finally, we have arrived.</p>
<p>But this generation feels different. This isn’t the leap from Super Mario Bros. to Mario 64. This isn’t even the leap from Halo 2 to Halo 3. Many of the most highly anticipated games for the new consoles were already out on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 several weeks ago with slightly lower texture resolutions. The new games, meanwhile, don’t look that much more impressive than the games we’ve seen the past eight years on this generation. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/190ula/why_you_percieve_less_difference_between/</span></span>
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<p>Two reasons for this: one, the diminishing return of adding more polygons (see image).</p>
<p>Two, in the eight years of this generation, we’ve seen entirely new strands of videogames emerge that have thrown spanners into the mainstream industry’s rhetoric of better-technology-equals-better-games.</p>
<p>The rise of indie games, casual games, and mobile games have all demonstrated that great game design isn’t necessarily connected to technological advancement. Vlabeer’s Super Crate Box, Rovio’s Angry Birds, Halfbrick’s Fruit Ninja: all great and successful games that have released since the last time we got new consoles.</p>
<p>The notion that better technology will lead us to better games feels more like a marketing stunt now than it ever has before.</p>
<h2>Incremental change</h2>
<p>Of course, one only has to look at Apple to know that an upgrade being incremental isn’t going to stop people getting excited about it. But, at the same time, there’s an air of cynicism this time as the videogame generation finds itself having to write Year Zero at the end of one of the longer generations ever.</p>
<p>As Leigh Alexander asks at website Gamasutra: <a href="http://gamasutra.com/view/news/205224/The_new_gens_most_important_question_Who_cares.php">Who cares</a>?</p>
<p>Ultimately, the notion of console generations, of giant leaps forward once every five years, seems unsustainable going into the future. Jumps in technology are just not that exciting when videogames are continuing to do incredibly exciting things with the technology they’ve already had for decades. They’re also not that exciting when you’ve had the same console for eight years already and you are quite comfortable where you are.</p>
<p>Instead, what I think we’re going to start seeing more of are incremental upgrades like Apple does with iPhones, or like Nintendo has long done with their portable devices. The myth of upgrade culture isn’t going to go away, it’s just going to accelerate to a pace where audiences won’t be allowed to get comfortable. Instead of giant leaps every five years, we’ll be taking small steps every other one.</p>
<p>And, of course, these “generations” apply to an increasingly niche fraction of videogames. Mobile, casual, social, PC, and indie games largely exist outside of console generations.</p>
<p>Further, for many videogame players, the huge <a href="http://www.mattiebrice.com/end-the-video-supremacy-of-games/">price tag</a> that comes with a next-gen console renders them not even worth considering. The same people are getting excited about a new generation, but those same people are much less representative of who plays videogames than they used to be.</p>
<p>What was once a huge moment for all videogames is now just a not-quite-so-huge moment for one part of a much more heterogeneous medium. Generations just aren’t what they used to be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Today, Microsoft launches their new console, the Xbox One, around the world, starting with an absurdly spectacular light show in Sydney Harbour. Meanwhile, Sony’s new console, the Playstation 4, arrived…Brendan Keogh, PhD Candidate, Game Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.