Already having announced a new gaming handheld and a smart phone, it now looks like Sony is preparing to release an Android tablet, as well. These three new devices, combined with Nintendo's 3DS, Apple's three mobile game-playing devices, the wide array of Android devices, Windows Phone 7, OnLive, the three current-gen home consoles, and Steam serving both PC and Mac, make the "one console future" that Denis Dyack was evangelizing four years ago look pretty silly.
Of course the current proliferation of platforms won't be able to continue indefinitely, but its existence is still a good thing for now. If any one of Sony's experiments pays off, it will be because stiff competition from Apple, Nintendo and Microsoft drove them to make a device that did things that others didn't. The same can be said of Apple, Nintendo, HTC, and so on. Things may be starting to stagnate a little, with everyone focusing a little too much on keeping up with Apple rather than surpassing them, but for now it's good enough that a thousand flowers are blooming.
That's why I disagree, at least in part, with Chris Kohler's opinion piece on the subject at Wired. He compares the current situation to the mid '90s, when Sega, Philips and 3DO were flooding the market with hardware, creating confusion among consumers that would eventually lead to all three getting out of hardware development entirely. That analogy is good, but not perfect.
For one thing, devices like the 3DO, CD-i, 32X and SegaCD were, themselves, confusing. The former two wanted to be more than just video game consoles, but they failed completely at creating an identity beyond the nebulous concept of "multimedia" devices. Nobody, even the people creating content, knew what the hell multimedia was, which meant they couldn't make a compelling case for why the general public should care about it. The SegaCD and 32X might have made sense on their own, but they didn't as add-ons for the Genesis released in such close proximity to each other.
Sony doesn't have the same problem. People will know at a glance what the NGP, the Xperia Play, and the tablet (if it exists) are, because they've seen them before. Consumers have the concept of "handheld game system," "smartphone" and "tablet". There's no confusion with the hardware. There's a temptation to say that the Android marketplace is where the real confusion will come in, but let's not forget that Android phones are outselling all other smartphones as of 2010.
All this is not to say that Sony is in the clear--R&D costs on these devices must be astronomical, and none of them are going to be cheap (except maybe the Play). But I'm not ready to say just yet that they're a bad thing, or that the general proliferation of devices is a bad thing. I like choice, and like the innovation that comes from competition. There are smart and dumb ways to compete, but it's way too soon to make judgments about which strategy is which at this point.
Showing posts with label Video Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Video Games. Show all posts
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
All Things Considered, I Feel Fine
You've probably already heard about Acitivision's announcement from earlier today--you know, the one that finally killed off the Guitar Hero franchise, at least for the time being. As someone with some pretty fond memories of the series, I feel like I should be more upset than I am.
My first experience with music games was on a trip to Japan in 1999. Beatmania was all the rage there at the time, but in one arcade, I also found what looked like a rarely used Guitar Freaks cabinet. A friend and I, both of us guitarists, tried it out, and found it utterly inscrutable.
Because of that, I had to be pressured into trying Guitar Hero, and in fact missed out on the series until its second installment. When I finally gave in and borrowed a copy of Guitar Hero 2, I was instantly sucked in. It helped that the songs I was playing were (mostly) the real deal, or at least pretty good covers. But beyond that, everything about the game just clicked for me. The best songs in that game even sort of approached something not entirely unlike the feeling of playing a real guitar.
Most of them were just damned fun, though. They continued to be damned fun when Guitar Hero 3 came out the next year. I didn't think much about Guitar Hero one day not being fun until the first time I encountered Rock Band. I remember there being a fair bit of skepticism in the game journalism community, about whether people really wanted a full band's worth of plastic instruments in their living rooms, but the first time I played "Wave of Mutilation" in Rock Band in a crowded Best Buy, I knew my relationship with Guitar Hero was over.
The same held for the vast majority of my friends, and Rock Band parties became our preferred way of interacting for at least a couple of years. Meanwhile, Activision ran Guitar Hero into the ground with way too many iterations, each one more mediocre than the last. As a result, I can't say I feel much of anything at today's announcement. Honestly, it was past due. Even if Activision brings back Guitar Hero at some point (they certainly left the possibility open), I doubt I'll be interested. Sometimes, it's best to let the past be the past.
My first experience with music games was on a trip to Japan in 1999. Beatmania was all the rage there at the time, but in one arcade, I also found what looked like a rarely used Guitar Freaks cabinet. A friend and I, both of us guitarists, tried it out, and found it utterly inscrutable.
Because of that, I had to be pressured into trying Guitar Hero, and in fact missed out on the series until its second installment. When I finally gave in and borrowed a copy of Guitar Hero 2, I was instantly sucked in. It helped that the songs I was playing were (mostly) the real deal, or at least pretty good covers. But beyond that, everything about the game just clicked for me. The best songs in that game even sort of approached something not entirely unlike the feeling of playing a real guitar.
Most of them were just damned fun, though. They continued to be damned fun when Guitar Hero 3 came out the next year. I didn't think much about Guitar Hero one day not being fun until the first time I encountered Rock Band. I remember there being a fair bit of skepticism in the game journalism community, about whether people really wanted a full band's worth of plastic instruments in their living rooms, but the first time I played "Wave of Mutilation" in Rock Band in a crowded Best Buy, I knew my relationship with Guitar Hero was over.
The same held for the vast majority of my friends, and Rock Band parties became our preferred way of interacting for at least a couple of years. Meanwhile, Activision ran Guitar Hero into the ground with way too many iterations, each one more mediocre than the last. As a result, I can't say I feel much of anything at today's announcement. Honestly, it was past due. Even if Activision brings back Guitar Hero at some point (they certainly left the possibility open), I doubt I'll be interested. Sometimes, it's best to let the past be the past.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Shedding Its Light Silently
A few days ago, I wrote about Square Enix's long fall from grace. Tonight, I was reliving happier times for the company, or at least for Square, by finishing the DS remake of Final Fantasy IV.
This is my favorite game in the Final Fantasy series, and is still my sentimental favorite game of all time (though Persona 4 edges it out just slightly as my absolute favorite these days). I first played FFIV when it was released on the SNES as Final Fantasy II, and the impact it made on me as a gamer was immeasurable. For years, I gave up playing anything but RPGs because of it. I had long conversations with friends about the future of gaming, in which I expected games to continue to look more or less like FFIV, but devote the ever-increasing storage capacity of cartridges and, later, CDs, to creating increasingly realistic worlds.
Of course things didn't turn out that way. The vision I had of a single player MMORPG that sacrificed graphical advances for story and player freedom is just now starting to be realized in games like Fallout 3, but it's still not much like I imagined it. What I had imagined was a kind of graphical Turing test, in which players could communicate with AI controlled NPCs and have more or less realistic conversations (with more or less realistic consequences). There would be an over-arching story, but the player would have as close to ultimate freedom in exploring it as possible.
Looking back on FFIV now, it's kind of amazing that it inspired that vision in me. The game is, by modern standards, aggressively linear. While it does at least give you access to an airship relatively early on, even that freedom is kind of illusory. Sure, you can fly anywhere in the overworld, but unless you've hit the right story triggers, you won't find much to do.
I suppose my desire for a maximally interactive FFIV came from the fact that (again, at the time) its characters were the most engaging I had encountered in a game, and I wanted more of that. Looking back now, it handles its more dramatic moments pretty ridiculously, but it still has some scenes that have scarcely been touched by subsequent games.
For example, I still love the scene in which Cecil, after having (inadvertently) destroyed Rydia's village and more or less kidnapped her in the aftermath, starts to win her over by turning on his own army to protect her. Rydia doesn't come around immediately, and Cecil doesn't pout when she fails to. He understands her anger and resentment, and gives her room to deal with it.
It's moments like that that have kept FFIV high on my list of favorite games, especially with American games becoming increasingly violent and misogynistic and Japanese games getting so lost in their own tropes that many of them have become self-parody. I think we'll see games that improve on those moments of realistic human interaction in the future, and I look forward to it. But in the meantime, I'd still be willing to play that JRPG Turing test that my friends and I dreamed up all those years ago.
This is my favorite game in the Final Fantasy series, and is still my sentimental favorite game of all time (though Persona 4 edges it out just slightly as my absolute favorite these days). I first played FFIV when it was released on the SNES as Final Fantasy II, and the impact it made on me as a gamer was immeasurable. For years, I gave up playing anything but RPGs because of it. I had long conversations with friends about the future of gaming, in which I expected games to continue to look more or less like FFIV, but devote the ever-increasing storage capacity of cartridges and, later, CDs, to creating increasingly realistic worlds.
Of course things didn't turn out that way. The vision I had of a single player MMORPG that sacrificed graphical advances for story and player freedom is just now starting to be realized in games like Fallout 3, but it's still not much like I imagined it. What I had imagined was a kind of graphical Turing test, in which players could communicate with AI controlled NPCs and have more or less realistic conversations (with more or less realistic consequences). There would be an over-arching story, but the player would have as close to ultimate freedom in exploring it as possible.
Looking back on FFIV now, it's kind of amazing that it inspired that vision in me. The game is, by modern standards, aggressively linear. While it does at least give you access to an airship relatively early on, even that freedom is kind of illusory. Sure, you can fly anywhere in the overworld, but unless you've hit the right story triggers, you won't find much to do.
I suppose my desire for a maximally interactive FFIV came from the fact that (again, at the time) its characters were the most engaging I had encountered in a game, and I wanted more of that. Looking back now, it handles its more dramatic moments pretty ridiculously, but it still has some scenes that have scarcely been touched by subsequent games.
For example, I still love the scene in which Cecil, after having (inadvertently) destroyed Rydia's village and more or less kidnapped her in the aftermath, starts to win her over by turning on his own army to protect her. Rydia doesn't come around immediately, and Cecil doesn't pout when she fails to. He understands her anger and resentment, and gives her room to deal with it.
It's moments like that that have kept FFIV high on my list of favorite games, especially with American games becoming increasingly violent and misogynistic and Japanese games getting so lost in their own tropes that many of them have become self-parody. I think we'll see games that improve on those moments of realistic human interaction in the future, and I look forward to it. But in the meantime, I'd still be willing to play that JRPG Turing test that my friends and I dreamed up all those years ago.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Humorless
“Inception is full of brontosaurean effects, like the city that folds over on top of itself, but the tone is so solemn I felt out of line even cracking a smile.”That quote from David Edelstein’s review of Inception has been with me since I first read it, kicking around in my mind as something I knew I'd have something to say about at some point.
Edelstein's review, despite his protests to the contrary, reads as if he went into the movie looking for reasons not to crack a smile. That aside, though, the above complaint stood out to me as particularly unreasonable. Edelstein makes no effort to support it, which leads me to believe he takes it to be self-evident that artists owe their audiences a smile here and there.
Or rather it would lead me to believe that, if I didn't find it unbelievable. Surely nobody actually believes that all movies ought to have comedic elements. Even those who leap to decry any work which treats its subject matter seriously as "self-serious" (there seems to be no worse sin in contemporary art) are probably inconsistent. Would Schindler's List have benefited from more ironic winks at the audience? If not, why? Surely it's not only that it's a movie about the Holocaust. Surely artists can treat other subjects seriously without being mocked for taking themselves too seriously.
A reasonable argument would be that Inception's subject matter is too fantastical to be treated as seriously as Nolan treats it. But that opens up its own can of worms. Is it ever acceptable to treat fantastical subject matter completely seriously? I see no reason to believe that it's not, though I would agree that it's incredibly difficult. The Twilight movies are an extreme example of why. Their dour-faced teenage vampires and werewolves mope about the perpetually rainy Pacific Northwest as if immortal creatures have nothing more important on their minds than high school romances. Even if you can get caught up in such a story while it plays out, spell out the premise objectively, and it sounds ridiculous.
The reason Edelstein's criticism stuck with me all these months is that it could be directly applicable to a lot of video games. So many games these days take place in worlds so full of grizzled faces and grim architecture that it's nearly impossible not to laugh at them. But that doesn't mean that games should always break up the angst and oppression with some laughs. It just means that they should be more self-aware. In turn, self-awareness in art doesn't entail ironic detachment. It just means having an understanding of where your story fits in the big picture. The story of Killzone is closer to Inglourious Basterds than Saving Private Ryan, but it's up for debate whether its developers understand that. On the other hand, the subject matter of Metal Gear Solid could be handled seriously, even solemnly, but Kojima constantly breaks the mood with stupid and inappropriate humor.
So maybe the problem isn't that artists won't "allow" audiences to smile. Maybe it's that artists and critics alike need to think more about when smiles are really needed.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The New Retro
Working in a game store gives you a different perspective than you're likely to get just reading about games online (or even getting involved in the discussions with the other people who talk about games online). For example, it's amazing how many people don't realize that the PSP Go can't play UMDs, or who have never connected a console to the internet. The majority of gamers are nothing like those of us who frequent trendy gaming websites and listen to their podcasts.
One trend that has become almost ubiquitous in the store at which I work is frat boys buying N64s and trying to recreate their childhood game collections. To some extent, this was inevitable; back when I first started searching for games on the internet, I was solely concerned with tracking down all the Atari 2600 games I recalled as my first gaming experiences. Lots of people who have fond gaming memories end up trying to recreate them at some point, whether that means digging their old consoles out of their parents' attic, downloading an emulator and scads of ROMs, or buying back as much as possible.
What makes this apparent trend of N64 nostalgia interesting to me is that it looks like the first steps in finally moving beyond the threadbare trend of 8- and 16-bit nostalgia that is especially problematic in indie game circles, where it has been holding developers back from exploring original ideas for at least a decade. Don't get me wrong, I don't really want to see 8-bit nostalgia replaced by 64-bit nostalgia (new ideas are almost always preferable), but it would be a refreshing change of pace. How would this kind of nostalgia look? Would artists try to recreate the N64's muddy, low-rez textures and blocky polygons? Will graphics that were ugly even in their time suddenly become as chic as squat little 8-bit sprites have become?
Also interesting is the fact that this wave of nostalgia seems to be sweeping over the terminally unhip first. The self-aware hipsters who shop at my store still flock to the NES and SNES (and sometimes PS1, but only for games that look 16-bit anyway), leading me to wonder how bad the revisionist history will be in a few years when every indie game looks like Ocarina Of Time.
My prediction: it'll be totally sick, bro.
One trend that has become almost ubiquitous in the store at which I work is frat boys buying N64s and trying to recreate their childhood game collections. To some extent, this was inevitable; back when I first started searching for games on the internet, I was solely concerned with tracking down all the Atari 2600 games I recalled as my first gaming experiences. Lots of people who have fond gaming memories end up trying to recreate them at some point, whether that means digging their old consoles out of their parents' attic, downloading an emulator and scads of ROMs, or buying back as much as possible.
What makes this apparent trend of N64 nostalgia interesting to me is that it looks like the first steps in finally moving beyond the threadbare trend of 8- and 16-bit nostalgia that is especially problematic in indie game circles, where it has been holding developers back from exploring original ideas for at least a decade. Don't get me wrong, I don't really want to see 8-bit nostalgia replaced by 64-bit nostalgia (new ideas are almost always preferable), but it would be a refreshing change of pace. How would this kind of nostalgia look? Would artists try to recreate the N64's muddy, low-rez textures and blocky polygons? Will graphics that were ugly even in their time suddenly become as chic as squat little 8-bit sprites have become?
Also interesting is the fact that this wave of nostalgia seems to be sweeping over the terminally unhip first. The self-aware hipsters who shop at my store still flock to the NES and SNES (and sometimes PS1, but only for games that look 16-bit anyway), leading me to wonder how bad the revisionist history will be in a few years when every indie game looks like Ocarina Of Time.
My prediction: it'll be totally sick, bro.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Is Square Enix Done?
Yesterday Square Enix reported a 76.6% drop in profits from this time last year. In the current fiscal year, the company has had only two million-selling titles, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2, which was released only in Japan, and Kane & Lynch 2, which of course is an Eidos property. It's almost certain that the disastrous and ill-conceived launch of Final Fantasy XIV has a lot to do with the company's steep financial decline. All this should lead longtime JRPG fans to wonder whether the one-time leaders of the genre have lost the magic.
There are some changes that, at least from the outside, appear both essential and easy. Kill Final Fantasy XIV, admit it was a mistake, and move on. Stop milking Kingdom Hearts before it becomes as meaningless as Final Fantasy has become. Re-evaluate whether re-releasing your back catalog on every imaginable platform is actually profitable.
But those are all just stabilizing measures. What Square Enix really needs is something fresh and new that will capture imaginations in the same way that Kingdom Hearts did. But given its current financial peril, it can't just try to make another Kingdom Hearts, i.e. a big-budget epic bolstered by one of the most expensive licenses on the market. Instead, it needs to take a small project and turn it into a hit.
Of course that's not much different from saying they need to make lightning strike with pinpoint accuracy. But there are at least some guidelines they could keep in mind. Look to emerging platforms like iOS and Android. Take a chance on young, untested talent rather than giving a stalwart like Nomura final say in creative matters. Don't put so much faith in well-worn genres, or at least the purest examples of those genres. There are lots of clones out there these days, and people aren't going to buy one more because it has Square Enix's name on it.
As a long-time Final Fantasy fan myself, I want to see Square Enix succeed. But I want to see them do it like the revolutionary company they once were--not the benighted old guys they seem to have become.
There are some changes that, at least from the outside, appear both essential and easy. Kill Final Fantasy XIV, admit it was a mistake, and move on. Stop milking Kingdom Hearts before it becomes as meaningless as Final Fantasy has become. Re-evaluate whether re-releasing your back catalog on every imaginable platform is actually profitable.
But those are all just stabilizing measures. What Square Enix really needs is something fresh and new that will capture imaginations in the same way that Kingdom Hearts did. But given its current financial peril, it can't just try to make another Kingdom Hearts, i.e. a big-budget epic bolstered by one of the most expensive licenses on the market. Instead, it needs to take a small project and turn it into a hit.
Of course that's not much different from saying they need to make lightning strike with pinpoint accuracy. But there are at least some guidelines they could keep in mind. Look to emerging platforms like iOS and Android. Take a chance on young, untested talent rather than giving a stalwart like Nomura final say in creative matters. Don't put so much faith in well-worn genres, or at least the purest examples of those genres. There are lots of clones out there these days, and people aren't going to buy one more because it has Square Enix's name on it.
As a long-time Final Fantasy fan myself, I want to see Square Enix succeed. But I want to see them do it like the revolutionary company they once were--not the benighted old guys they seem to have become.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
You're In Business, Jonathan
Jason Schreier has written an interesting little piece for Wired about auteurs in video games. Jonathan Blow provided some quotes, and while I would really like to spend some time discussing whether someone who "thinks almost all games are pretty bad" can qualify as an auteur, something else Blow said dovetails nicely with what I was talking about yesterday.
First of all, here's the relevant excerpt:
Given Blow's past comments about not making games due to "crass profit motives," I think we can guess what he means. THQ is a business, and recently an increasingly nasty one, what with CEO Brian Farrell essentially saying he wants people to pay $100 for complete games. It's understandable that Blow would want to distance himself from that. It would be even if he didn't appear to buy into the notion that making money is antithetical to making art.
Blow can try to convince us that his desire to sell games (which I can only assume he has, since he sells games) is different from THQ's, but nobody should believe him. Both want you to buy their games so they can make money. That Blow's pricing model is more consumer friendly doesn't mean he's in a different business. He isn't, and he won't be until he starts giving his games away, or only selling enough copies to cover his development costs.
You're in the video game business, Jonathan, even if you hate it.
First of all, here's the relevant excerpt:
“For someone like me, who thinks almost all games are pretty bad, and who has very specific ideas about what he wants to make … I can very definitely say that the single-leader model is good,” he said in an e-mail to Wired.com, although he noted that he and THQ are not in the same business.It's that last bit that interests me. Blow "noted" that he, as someone who makes video games and sells them for a profit, is not in the same business as THQ, who make video games and sell them for a profit. Of course "noted" is Schreier's word choice, but it's a strange one. That's a statement that cries out for justification, and Schreier takes it for granted.
Given Blow's past comments about not making games due to "crass profit motives," I think we can guess what he means. THQ is a business, and recently an increasingly nasty one, what with CEO Brian Farrell essentially saying he wants people to pay $100 for complete games. It's understandable that Blow would want to distance himself from that. It would be even if he didn't appear to buy into the notion that making money is antithetical to making art.
Blow can try to convince us that his desire to sell games (which I can only assume he has, since he sells games) is different from THQ's, but nobody should believe him. Both want you to buy their games so they can make money. That Blow's pricing model is more consumer friendly doesn't mean he's in a different business. He isn't, and he won't be until he starts giving his games away, or only selling enough copies to cover his development costs.
You're in the video game business, Jonathan, even if you hate it.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Support and Business
I've strongly disliked everything Twisted Pixel has ever done, but their newest title, Gunstringer, actually sounds somewhat interesting. Far less interesting was IGN's exclusive reveal of the game, which couldn't have been lazier unless it had just been a cut and paste of a press release.
Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera was on Twitter decrying the IGN story earlier this afternoon. Kuchera seemed to be insulted that "sites that helped support" Twisted Pixel's previous games were made to wait on IGN's exclusive content to go live before they could publish their own stories.
Now I don't want to sound like Ben Paddon, but this business of game sites "supporting" indie developers worries me. I'm assuming Twisted Pixel thought the IGN exclusivity deal was in their own best interests as a business, and if they did, then I applaud them for going ahead with it rather than trying to perpetuate the myth that indie developers make games primarily to collect goodwill from press and fans. If you think it's a bad business decision, fine. If you think they should put the feelings of game journalists above promoting their games, you're delusional.
Twisted Pixel, no matter what else they might get out of making games, do it to make money. That's not meant to be a disparaging remark. They don't exist to support gaming blogs. And gaming blogs don't--or at least shouldn't--exist to support developers (even fashionable indie developers), but to report on them. That's the only relationship that's fair to readers.
Sad that it seems to be disappearing.
Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera was on Twitter decrying the IGN story earlier this afternoon. Kuchera seemed to be insulted that "sites that helped support" Twisted Pixel's previous games were made to wait on IGN's exclusive content to go live before they could publish their own stories.
Now I don't want to sound like Ben Paddon, but this business of game sites "supporting" indie developers worries me. I'm assuming Twisted Pixel thought the IGN exclusivity deal was in their own best interests as a business, and if they did, then I applaud them for going ahead with it rather than trying to perpetuate the myth that indie developers make games primarily to collect goodwill from press and fans. If you think it's a bad business decision, fine. If you think they should put the feelings of game journalists above promoting their games, you're delusional.
Twisted Pixel, no matter what else they might get out of making games, do it to make money. That's not meant to be a disparaging remark. They don't exist to support gaming blogs. And gaming blogs don't--or at least shouldn't--exist to support developers (even fashionable indie developers), but to report on them. That's the only relationship that's fair to readers.
Sad that it seems to be disappearing.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Justifying 8-bit Love
I'm really sick of new video games that try to look like NES games, but here's one reason to still love 8-bit games:
Try doing that with a Blu-Ray.
Try doing that with a Blu-Ray.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
The Apophatic Theology of Indie Games
According to apophatic (or negative) theology, God is ineffable, beyond the boundaries of human language. As such, the only meaningful way in which we can speak of God is to say what God is not. While this sort of theology has become a refuge for some modern day Christian thinkers (most notably Karen Armstrong), its roots go at least as far back as the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus. And now Michael Thomsen, in a piece for IGN, has applied it to indie games.
There's a bigger problem, though. The apophatic view of God falls apart if you start not-saying the wrong things. We can all rub our chins and ruminate on the mystery of the ineffable, but we'd look rather silly smoking our pipes and holding forth on God's fundamental ungerbilness or unforkness.
Take another look at that list of things Thomsen says indie games aren't. Does that actually tell us anything meaningful about them? Of course it doesn't. What could it actually mean to say that a video game isn't Nathan Drake? It's a category error, like asking what purple sounds like. I realize that Thomsen was being tongue in cheek, but that doesn't mean we can't glean some insight from his comments. The indie scene, as celebrated in forums like IGF, is just like the God of apophatic theology: an artifical construct, meaningful only to those who have the right set of presuppositions.
Having said as much, though, we indie game skeptics (and there don't seem to be many of us) open ourselves up to the same claim that snarky Christian apologists often make against atheists: "Why spend so much time arguing against something you don't believe exists?" The answer is simple, though. Believing in something that doesn't exist can have negative effects.
Thomsen is right when he says that "in film and music ['indie' is] a wheezing stereotype long since discredited." By aping the same posture as indie rock and indie movies, indie games have inherited the same disease. Most of them pander every bit as blatantly as their mainstream counterparts, just to a different audience.
It's that pandering that's the real problem, and the reason that I'll keep being skeptical about indie games (and movies, and music). Take away the enablers who demand more pretension and forced quirkiness, who desperately want to define themselves negatively against some (equally imaginary) mainstream, and games will get better. What things aren't doesn't matter--what they are is everything.
Like hipsterism, 'indie' is a state of mind better defined in terms of what it isn't. 'Indie' isn't Bobby Kotick, Wii Fit, Gears of War, or Nathan Drake.
I like the idea of describing indie games apophatically. It gets right to the heart of how vapid and puffed-up most of the indie scene is.
Here's the problem with apophatic theology: it only works as long as everyone brings the right presuppositions to the table. In his article "God is the Question," apophatic apologist Mark Vernon writes
Whatever God might be, God is not visible: God's invisible. Whatever God might be, God cannot be defined: God's ineffable. Nothing positive is said. But nonetheless something is said of God.Well, something is said if you've already accepted a certain fundamentally mystical idea of divinity. If you haven't, you might wonder whether speaking of God in this way actually draws a distinction between the divine and the non-existent.
There's a bigger problem, though. The apophatic view of God falls apart if you start not-saying the wrong things. We can all rub our chins and ruminate on the mystery of the ineffable, but we'd look rather silly smoking our pipes and holding forth on God's fundamental ungerbilness or unforkness.
Take another look at that list of things Thomsen says indie games aren't. Does that actually tell us anything meaningful about them? Of course it doesn't. What could it actually mean to say that a video game isn't Nathan Drake? It's a category error, like asking what purple sounds like. I realize that Thomsen was being tongue in cheek, but that doesn't mean we can't glean some insight from his comments. The indie scene, as celebrated in forums like IGF, is just like the God of apophatic theology: an artifical construct, meaningful only to those who have the right set of presuppositions.
Having said as much, though, we indie game skeptics (and there don't seem to be many of us) open ourselves up to the same claim that snarky Christian apologists often make against atheists: "Why spend so much time arguing against something you don't believe exists?" The answer is simple, though. Believing in something that doesn't exist can have negative effects.
Thomsen is right when he says that "in film and music ['indie' is] a wheezing stereotype long since discredited." By aping the same posture as indie rock and indie movies, indie games have inherited the same disease. Most of them pander every bit as blatantly as their mainstream counterparts, just to a different audience.
It's that pandering that's the real problem, and the reason that I'll keep being skeptical about indie games (and movies, and music). Take away the enablers who demand more pretension and forced quirkiness, who desperately want to define themselves negatively against some (equally imaginary) mainstream, and games will get better. What things aren't doesn't matter--what they are is everything.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Good Games Will Save Us
A Twitter friend of mine (and a damn fine writer), Mark Whitney, has written a new piece entitled "Indies Save the Industry." If you know anything about my feelings toward indie games, you know that title makes it impossible for me not to respond.
The thrust of Mark's article is actually pretty inoffensive, even to me: independently developed games have a lot to offer the video game industry. As I said when discussing my favorite games of 2010 a while back, I agree wholeheartedly with this, and the reason I generally have such scorn for indie games is that they so often squander their independence by rehashing ideas that were threadbare twenty years ago.
Mark also states upfront that he's not actually sure that the game industry needs saving, so I won't devote too much time to taking the title apart. It's hyperbole, but I have no problem with using eye-catching headlines to get people to read articles that are far more nuanced than those headlines suggest. I agree with Mark's basic premise, that the video game industry could use a big infusion of creativity.
What I disagree with is Mark uncritically repeating the meme that indie games are, by their very nature, more innovative than anything put out by major publishers. The only example he cites is Narbacular Drop, the game that would become Portal after Valve hired the students who made it. It's a good example of what a small team with a great idea can do when they don't have a marketing department demanding more blood and bigger boobs.
But Narbacular Drop undermines Mark's premise as much as it supports it. Most people who know about the game know about it precisely because the team that made it was absorbed into a corporate entity that gave them the resources to perfect the concepts with which they were experimenting. If anything, Narbacular Drop is an argument that indies should sell out to the company they think is most likely to put the most faith in their best ideas. Yes, the idea was conceived while the developers were independent, but it wasn't fully realized until they got their hands on some dirty corporate money.
The reasoning behind the "indies as creative saviors" meme (when there is any reasoning at all) comes from the notion that creativity is always best when it's unconstrained. But that's a huge oversimplification. Look through any artist's sketchbook, listen to a band's demo tapes, and it quickly becomes clear that refinement and editing are essential to the creative process. Knowing when and how to edit one's own work--which good ideas are good for the project at hand and which are good in a vacuum--is essential. As much as indie fans are loath to admit it, there are people at major publishers who have great insights into this subject.
Of course I would be wrong to pretend that nobody in the indie scene realizes this basic fact. We have to keep in mind that video games cost a lot of money to produce, and even indie developers who really want to polish their ideas often don't have the resources to do so. As Mark points out, there's a reason Blizzard's games are as good as they are: they can take as long as they want to release them. Indies don't have that luxury, but they could get closer to it by partnering with publishers or producers who believe in their ideas--and have access to the coffers of an EA, a THQ, or even an Activision.
Of course I realize that my vision of a world in which well-to-do publishers sink money into worthy small-budget projects for the betterment of everyone is utopian. But it's no less misguided than the assertions of people who have looked into the dregs of Xbox Indie Games or the iTunes and Android marketplaces and still claim that indies are, on the whole, more innovative than anything in the mainstream. Good ideas can come from any size team with any size budget, and indies who partner with major publishers aren't necessarily going to be drained of all creativity. We only hurt ourselves as gamers when we pretend otherwise.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
How To Launch a Console
Today, Nintendo announced the launch line-up for its next handheld console, the 3DS. Like many launch line-ups, its completely underwhelming. I've already pre-ordered a 3DS, and still plan on buying it (I mostly pre-ordered because that's the only way to get a new console in the first year of its existence these days), but it did convince me that Kid Icarus: Uprising is likely the first game I'll buy for the system.
That got me thinking, though--have any consoles had less interesting launch line-up? Have any been wildly better? Before I answer that, go take a look at the 3DS launch line-up. Done? Do any of those titles drive you wild with desire? Didn't think so.
The truth is, though, very few of the most influential consoles in history had great launches. In fact, the most successful launches tend to be the lest impressive quantitatively. Systems that launch with over 10 games tend to offer very little of note (e.g. nearly every post-Dreamcast console), though there are some exceptions (the U.S. launch of the NES, which included Excitebike and Super Mario Bros., and the Colecovision, whose 12 launch games were all perfectly geared to showing off the machine's technical superiority).
Launches with few games can be great successes, if enough care is taken. This is something Nintendo used to recognize, as the SNES and N64 both had strong, if vanishingly slim, debut line-ups. Even the Turbo-Grafx 16's launch was half-great, featuring Monster Lair (yes!) and Fighting Street (no!). But of course low quantity doesn't guarantee success, as the Atari Lynx, Sega Master System and Virtual Boy (among others) readily attest.
All we can glean from this is that there's no perfect formula for a launch. Ideally, the games will play to a system's strengths, as the SNES and, to a far lesser extent, Sega CD launches did. Having good games isn't necessarily enough--the games need to show why the new console is superior to anything else on the market (which is why Sony purportedly tried to minimize the number of 2D games released early in the Playstation's life). A long list of titles may look good in press releases, but odds are most of them will be forgettable, so it's probably better to focus on putting out a few highly polished games rather than loads of half-assery that will be populating bargain bins within six months.
Unfortunately, the latter is what I see when I look at the 3DS line-up. Nintendo's first-party games tend to hold their value, though I have my doubts about Steeldiver, given Nintendo's history with submarine games. Super Street Fighter IV will probably be the biggest hit, but personally I hate fighting games on handhelds, so I have no interest. And as for Resident Evil: The Mercenaries--when has plucking a bonus mode out of a full game and selling it as a standalone product ever worked out well?
Time may prove me wrong, but I don't expect to get much use out of my 3DS in the first few months. Still, when Christmas rolls around and good games finally start trickling out, I'll be glad not to fall victim to another of Nintendo's notorious, demand-increasing hardware shortages.
That got me thinking, though--have any consoles had less interesting launch line-up? Have any been wildly better? Before I answer that, go take a look at the 3DS launch line-up. Done? Do any of those titles drive you wild with desire? Didn't think so.
The truth is, though, very few of the most influential consoles in history had great launches. In fact, the most successful launches tend to be the lest impressive quantitatively. Systems that launch with over 10 games tend to offer very little of note (e.g. nearly every post-Dreamcast console), though there are some exceptions (the U.S. launch of the NES, which included Excitebike and Super Mario Bros., and the Colecovision, whose 12 launch games were all perfectly geared to showing off the machine's technical superiority).
Launches with few games can be great successes, if enough care is taken. This is something Nintendo used to recognize, as the SNES and N64 both had strong, if vanishingly slim, debut line-ups. Even the Turbo-Grafx 16's launch was half-great, featuring Monster Lair (yes!) and Fighting Street (no!). But of course low quantity doesn't guarantee success, as the Atari Lynx, Sega Master System and Virtual Boy (among others) readily attest.
All we can glean from this is that there's no perfect formula for a launch. Ideally, the games will play to a system's strengths, as the SNES and, to a far lesser extent, Sega CD launches did. Having good games isn't necessarily enough--the games need to show why the new console is superior to anything else on the market (which is why Sony purportedly tried to minimize the number of 2D games released early in the Playstation's life). A long list of titles may look good in press releases, but odds are most of them will be forgettable, so it's probably better to focus on putting out a few highly polished games rather than loads of half-assery that will be populating bargain bins within six months.
Unfortunately, the latter is what I see when I look at the 3DS line-up. Nintendo's first-party games tend to hold their value, though I have my doubts about Steeldiver, given Nintendo's history with submarine games. Super Street Fighter IV will probably be the biggest hit, but personally I hate fighting games on handhelds, so I have no interest. And as for Resident Evil: The Mercenaries--when has plucking a bonus mode out of a full game and selling it as a standalone product ever worked out well?
Time may prove me wrong, but I don't expect to get much use out of my 3DS in the first few months. Still, when Christmas rolls around and good games finally start trickling out, I'll be glad not to fall victim to another of Nintendo's notorious, demand-increasing hardware shortages.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Why Not Just Good Games?
Look, I already hate what I'm about to do, but the contrarian in me prevents me from just letting it go. Especially when I was just being contrary about indie games yesterday.
Shortly after I made that post, Joystiq's Justin McElroy, who is a good writer and as far as I can tell a really nice guy with whom I have no problems whatsoever (outside of this disagreement) tweeted:
But why should we spend that time highlighting indie games and not, say, good games? Why should indie games be privileged? This is just a different permutation of the double standard I wrote about yesterday, and I don't expect to see any justifications forthcoming from McElroy or anyone else.
So I guess I'm contradicting myself, because really this is a comment on game journalism. Don't be crusaders for indie games when you're uniquely in a position to champion good games regardless of their publishing and distribution deals.
Shortly after I made that post, Joystiq's Justin McElroy, who is a good writer and as far as I can tell a really nice guy with whom I have no problems whatsoever (outside of this disagreement) tweeted:
If all the time spent analyzing "Game Journalism" had been spent highlighting indie devs, the world would be a better place.The sentiment is fine: the navel gazing about game writing has gotten pretty out of control. I'm sure we can all agree that it could be better in a lot of ways, but posting 1500 word screeds on the topic seems a bit much at this point.
But why should we spend that time highlighting indie games and not, say, good games? Why should indie games be privileged? This is just a different permutation of the double standard I wrote about yesterday, and I don't expect to see any justifications forthcoming from McElroy or anyone else.
So I guess I'm contradicting myself, because really this is a comment on game journalism. Don't be crusaders for indie games when you're uniquely in a position to champion good games regardless of their publishing and distribution deals.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
We Hate It Until We Love It
If you've played any indie games in the past couple of years, you've probably noticed that a lot of the people who make them really like Japanese games from the mid-to-late '80s. In particular, Capcom's Mega-Man franchise has launched a thousand indie games. Which is to say, lots of indie devs have shamelessly copied it.
I don't have a problem with that, per se. Copying, even shamelessly, can have great results. I didn't think so back when I was in eighth grade reading and rereading The Catcher In the Rye, and buying into Holden Caulfield's message that everyone who isn't aggressively living for him- or herself every moment of every day is a phony, but it was (maybe ironically) going to college and being an art major that changed my mind. I learned that copying is a part of artistic growth. Very few people can find their own style without first imitating the styles of their heroes.
But you don't even always have to find your own style. Look at Kurt Heasley, whose band, Lilys, have made a career out of reconstructing genres, from shoegaze to garage rock. Heasley said of the band's first album, In the Presence of Nothing, that he wrote it because he wanted to see if he could have made My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything. Turns out he could have, and on subsequent albums he proved that he could have made a lot of other famous records, as well. Lilys have never done anything I would consider remotely original, but they operate within established conventions so perfectly that you'd have to be a real ass not to at least appreciate their skill.
Now Capcom, after years of getting ripped off by small indie developers, has shamelessly ripped off Twisted Pixel's 'Splosion Man with their new iOS game MaXplosion. And indie fanboys are outraged. How dare Capcom copy a poor, defenseless indie developer! Why aren't they being more original? What they should be asking, though, is why they didn't mind when 'Splosion Man stole jokes from Portal and The Family Guy, or why calling the upcoming sequel Ms. 'Splosion Man is so much more brilliant now than when Namco did it with Ms. Pac-Man in the '80s.
Now I'm not a Twisted Pixel fan, but it's not because they're unoriginal--it's because they don't do anything interesting with what they steal. Like Chris Farley's desperate celebrity interviews on Saturday Night Live, they're just repeating anecdotes about more interesting games, TV shows, etc. and saying "Remember when that happened? That was awesome!"
Of course when the shoe is on the other foot, and a major publisher is doing to Twisted Pixel what they've done to other major publishers, the fanboys are out for blood. This ridiculous double standard is the major reason I can't maintain interest in indie games. In practice, indie fanboys realize that there are no wholly original ideas, as evidenced by their championing things like Ms. 'Splosion Man and Braid's call-backs to Super Mario Bros. But they loudly and obnoxiously chastise "mainstream" games for not being more original, as if anyone with a budget is incapable of the ironic references they so cherish in low budget games.
This is the same double standard on which all of hipster culture is built, and it's why I find that culture so depressing. Rather than just appreciating what they appreciate, every new fad has to be "jumped in," as it were, being loathed until it suddenly turns some arbitrary corner and becomes beloved. Look at the "three wolf moon" t-shirt phenomenon, in which an ugly t-shirt for sale on Amazon went from being an object of universal derision to being TOTALLY AWESOME almost overnight. It's the same with the current rash of indie mascot platformers, from 'Splosion Man to Super Meat Boy. Games like Kid Chameleon and Awesome Possum were hated for so long that they've turned the corner and become beloved again, and we've forgotten all the good reasons they were hated in the first place.
These shifts tend to happen more quickly today, though. It will probably only be a week before MaXplosion is a beloved "cult classic," and having it on your iPad will score you serious indie cred.
Addendum: Just after posting this, I looked at Joystiq, where I saw that an indie studio I love, Zombie Cow, decided to cancel its upcoming game Revenge of the Balloon-Headed Mexican, saying:
I don't have a problem with that, per se. Copying, even shamelessly, can have great results. I didn't think so back when I was in eighth grade reading and rereading The Catcher In the Rye, and buying into Holden Caulfield's message that everyone who isn't aggressively living for him- or herself every moment of every day is a phony, but it was (maybe ironically) going to college and being an art major that changed my mind. I learned that copying is a part of artistic growth. Very few people can find their own style without first imitating the styles of their heroes.
But you don't even always have to find your own style. Look at Kurt Heasley, whose band, Lilys, have made a career out of reconstructing genres, from shoegaze to garage rock. Heasley said of the band's first album, In the Presence of Nothing, that he wrote it because he wanted to see if he could have made My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything. Turns out he could have, and on subsequent albums he proved that he could have made a lot of other famous records, as well. Lilys have never done anything I would consider remotely original, but they operate within established conventions so perfectly that you'd have to be a real ass not to at least appreciate their skill.
Now Capcom, after years of getting ripped off by small indie developers, has shamelessly ripped off Twisted Pixel's 'Splosion Man with their new iOS game MaXplosion. And indie fanboys are outraged. How dare Capcom copy a poor, defenseless indie developer! Why aren't they being more original? What they should be asking, though, is why they didn't mind when 'Splosion Man stole jokes from Portal and The Family Guy, or why calling the upcoming sequel Ms. 'Splosion Man is so much more brilliant now than when Namco did it with Ms. Pac-Man in the '80s.
Now I'm not a Twisted Pixel fan, but it's not because they're unoriginal--it's because they don't do anything interesting with what they steal. Like Chris Farley's desperate celebrity interviews on Saturday Night Live, they're just repeating anecdotes about more interesting games, TV shows, etc. and saying "Remember when that happened? That was awesome!"
Of course when the shoe is on the other foot, and a major publisher is doing to Twisted Pixel what they've done to other major publishers, the fanboys are out for blood. This ridiculous double standard is the major reason I can't maintain interest in indie games. In practice, indie fanboys realize that there are no wholly original ideas, as evidenced by their championing things like Ms. 'Splosion Man and Braid's call-backs to Super Mario Bros. But they loudly and obnoxiously chastise "mainstream" games for not being more original, as if anyone with a budget is incapable of the ironic references they so cherish in low budget games.
This is the same double standard on which all of hipster culture is built, and it's why I find that culture so depressing. Rather than just appreciating what they appreciate, every new fad has to be "jumped in," as it were, being loathed until it suddenly turns some arbitrary corner and becomes beloved. Look at the "three wolf moon" t-shirt phenomenon, in which an ugly t-shirt for sale on Amazon went from being an object of universal derision to being TOTALLY AWESOME almost overnight. It's the same with the current rash of indie mascot platformers, from 'Splosion Man to Super Meat Boy. Games like Kid Chameleon and Awesome Possum were hated for so long that they've turned the corner and become beloved again, and we've forgotten all the good reasons they were hated in the first place.
These shifts tend to happen more quickly today, though. It will probably only be a week before MaXplosion is a beloved "cult classic," and having it on your iPad will score you serious indie cred.
Addendum: Just after posting this, I looked at Joystiq, where I saw that an indie studio I love, Zombie Cow, decided to cancel its upcoming game Revenge of the Balloon-Headed Mexican, saying:
Writing Revenge of the Balloon-Headed Mexican, it felt like we were going over old, worn ground. Again and again. We've done all this. We've seen it all before. There’s nothing fresh or new and exciting about it...If only more indies were so honest with themselves, we'd all be better off.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Can't Write, Playing Mass Effect
I've tried to play Mass Effect several times since it first came out in 2007. I rented it when it was first released, and didn't really get into it. About a year ago I bought it again, played it for a while then abandoned it when I got to the end-game and didn't feel like I had seen enough of what it had to offer. It was starting to seem like a game I was never going to finish.
Last week, I picked the game up again, inspired by all the praise Mass Effect 2 received during various gaming sites' Game of the Year deliberations. Now I'm completely hooked. I finished my abandoned game, and immediately started over (I did keep my Shepherd, though, having experienced the "My Shepherd is the Real Shepherd" phenomenon). I got so wrapped up in my second playthrough today that I actually forgot about blogging until just a few minutes ago.
In an effort to make something useful out of this post though, my extremely late blooming affection for Mass Effect makes me wonder why publishers continue to declare a game's success or failure within the first week of its release. With the exception of Nintendo, how many publishers even give their games a chance to have a long tail? Is it really impossible for a video game to ever be a Boondock Saints-style late-blooming success, plucking sequels from the jaws of obscurity?
I have no answers to these questions, and...look, Shepherd's waiting. Maybe I'll have time to think more about this after the universe is safe.
Last week, I picked the game up again, inspired by all the praise Mass Effect 2 received during various gaming sites' Game of the Year deliberations. Now I'm completely hooked. I finished my abandoned game, and immediately started over (I did keep my Shepherd, though, having experienced the "My Shepherd is the Real Shepherd" phenomenon). I got so wrapped up in my second playthrough today that I actually forgot about blogging until just a few minutes ago.
In an effort to make something useful out of this post though, my extremely late blooming affection for Mass Effect makes me wonder why publishers continue to declare a game's success or failure within the first week of its release. With the exception of Nintendo, how many publishers even give their games a chance to have a long tail? Is it really impossible for a video game to ever be a Boondock Saints-style late-blooming success, plucking sequels from the jaws of obscurity?
I have no answers to these questions, and...look, Shepherd's waiting. Maybe I'll have time to think more about this after the universe is safe.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Video Games and the Tea Party
It's vanishingly rare for video games to be discussed in the media without at least one anti-game crank being given a microphone and allowed to rant about the evils of violent games. Those who don't play games are all too often perfectly comfortable to assert a simple cause and effect relationship between games and real-world acts of violence.
Now that congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, one of those "targeted" in Palin's gun sight ad has been shot for real, can we finally admit that the Tea Party has ushered in a culture of violence, in which opposition politicians are not just ideological enemies, but targets for assassination?
That same media has been bending over backwards for a year and a half now to tell us that the Tea Party movement bears no responsibility whatsoever for any of the acts of violence done in its name. When Joe Stack flew an airplane into an office building, leaving behind an anti-tax screed perfectly in line with the Tea Party platform, we were told that it was laughable to suggest that his Tea Party affiliation played a role in his actions. When Sarah Palin released an ad with gun sights superimposed over swing districts, those who showed concern about the implication were dismissed as cranks. When one of Tea Party candidate Rand Paul's advisors stomped on the head of a woman representing MoveOn.org outside a rally, we were told that it was the act of one person, and not representative of the party as a whole.
Now that congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, one of those "targeted" in Palin's gun sight ad has been shot for real, can we finally admit that the Tea Party has ushered in a culture of violence, in which opposition politicians are not just ideological enemies, but targets for assassination?
Consider the wording of the above ad for a Jesse Kelly campaign event, in which supporters are encouraged to "Get on Target for Victory" [sic], and which closes with a line that would become a call for Giffords's assassination with strategic use of the word "by" and the suffix "-ing". If it's not a stretch to say that Grand Theft Auto has directly caused some players to commit crimes in the real world, surely it's also not a stretch to say that a campaign event at which real people are encouraged to fire real automatic weapons played some role in a real assassination attempt.
Of course nobody will say this, nor should they. Human behavior is incredibly complicated, and suggesting that one-to-one causal relationships, such as committing a crime because you played a video game in which crimes are committed or shooting a congresswoman because a candidate used rhetoric that blurred the lines between voting someone out of office and killing them, is ignorant at best. But even I, as staunch a defender of games as I am, think that consuming nothing but violent games could foster an environment in which the impulse to look for non-violent solutions to problems is weakened.
That's why the Tea Party scares me. Its leaders have risen to prominence by stoking the anger of their constituents. Yes, they have argued for a set of political ideas, but they've also encouraged the imagery of violent revolution, such as in Palin's ad, or her tweet reading "don't retreat, reload", or Sharon Angle's suggestion that Tea Party supporters might need to pursue "Second Amendment remedies" if their candidates fail to be elected. If violent games foster a culture of violence, it is ludicrous to go on saying that the Tea Party doesn't.
Sadly, I don't expect this to happen, no matter what we learn about the political ideas of the thug who shot Gabrielle Giffords. The media, in an attempt to preserve its weird notion of "balance" will say that Tea Party candidates can't be held responsible for the actions of deranged individuals, and the more nuanced issue of the group's wink-nudge encouragement of politically motivated violence will be swept under the rug again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
