Thinking deeply and critically about anything requires being immersed in it, and as much as most gamers think they are immersed in games, they aren’t. Very few gamers actually take the time to track a games history, or its ancestors, or the path its creators took to get to where the game is today. It is only at that point that you can actually think critically about a game, as now you have all the information necessary to properly dissect and discuss it. Us old geezers (alright… that was a joke… I’m in my mid 20s…) remember the originals as well as the remakes whereas the younger generation never experienced the originals and the older generation probably phased out of gaming by the time the new sequels came out. On the other hand, should Halo be remade in 10 years or so then this current batch of 13 year olds could probably speak quite deeply about its comparisons.

Art needs to be examined for the things it does different from everything that went before. Movie-reviews don’t talk of movies in the term of stageplays or novel-narratives; they take into account things unique to movies as a medium. Editing, photography, special effects, etc. Of course you still have to look at story and characterization and pacing and what-not, but only a review that appreciates games for what is unique to them attempts to treat them with respect.

All this doesn’t mean this reviewer doesn’t have a point. Game stories are shit. Shit beyond reasonable discourse. I’m a hardcore gamer, and have been since I was 6 (I am now 30). I love games. I play games too much. I work in the gaming industry. And I will say, without exception, that there hasn’t been a single game where storytelling wasn’t at least somewhat crappy. The games that are generally mentioned by gamers for their amazing story-telling, the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages? Oh dear god, what utter and complete rubbish. I like to mention Planescape: Torment as an example of a game with a good story, but I haven’t dared revisiting that for a good decade now, scared that it’s only nostalgia that makes me think its story was really really good.

It’s going to take a while for the industry to start breaking away form the AAA testosterone-fueled games that are being created for the past decade and into something more substantial. It’s starting to come together with Independent games and a platform (Steam) to help put it out there. hopefully more exp. devs who burn out and get sick of the AAA industry can bring their talents to something like this.

But like any product, what sells is what is going to keep selling, and unfortunately, those type of games make MASSIVE amounts of money and it’s going to take a consumer shift in tastes (and their dollars) to change that.

As for the games are art discussion. Give the medium more time to mature, maybe another 10 years, I’ll think you’ll start to really see something then.

Those other disciplines help to wrap the interactive design into attractive packages that may or may not allude to artistic greatness, either by homage or in their own right, but the the real material for any meaningful artistic analysis of a video game is the interaction – how it works, how it flows, what the player’s input is, what the risks and what the rewards are and what significance they have.

The fact that 99% of debates on games-as-art completely miss this incredibly fundamental and utterly crucial aspect of *why* games *should* be viewed as art (see: the Ebert furore, pompous dolts like David Cage) only proves how utterly ignorant most people are of what really separates video games from every other artistic medium.

Of course nothing else is to be expected when you give a franchise to the team that brought us “Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball”.

1) Interpretation is hard. It also implies that devs might make a game for artistic value rather than entertainment value. yeah yeah yeah, you can make one for both, but it implies that there could be a market for no fun games that serve a higher purpose than MW2, your favorite time drain.

2) Games are (generally) still developed for idiotic 13-24 males. (like myself) I realize this is changing rapidly, but 13-24 males do not engage in interpretation of much at all. What we currently consider fine art (literature, movies) caters exclusively to small groups of people.

3) Lastly, as an artist and recovering quakehead, yeah, games are really fun, but do not
a) control user experience enough to be really interesting compared to installation art or movies
b) do not generally use story lines that are really interesting, esp. AAA titles.

I realize these are kinda inflammatory statements to the BB crowd, but I think they represent games in GENERAL, not your favorite game, like Bioshock, etc. I think until the games industry grows enough in terms of userbase, (not sales) there will not be a significant enough number of users interested in games as art to make a real market for them. I’m not sure about this, but I think theater and movies were similar at one time; considered crass entertainment.

Other M is a great example of how you can have great gameplay, great graphics, an innovative control mechanism, and an overall extremely enjoyable game to play, marred by a crap story based around a terrible character.

I’m a Metroid addict, I love the previous games, and I think this one brings a ton of great new ideas to the series, but it would really be better without the lame-ass cutscenes and development of Samus into a whiny child. I think it’s lazy of people to want to say “this is a good game” or “this is a bad game.” There are great aspects to it, and terrible ones, and they all deserve mention.

Ask them whether games are art in another context, and I suspect a lot of them will find reasons to say yes.

All that to say, you don’t play video games if you’d rather be reading Tolstoy. As a gamer, suspension of disbelief is paramount, and the story need only be good enough that you don’t return to reality until your mountain dew high (am I dating myself? should I be referencing some stupid energy drink all the kids using these days?) wears off and you have to call it quits for the night.

The idea of Art now seemingly exists in relationship to the ease of production of what was previously considered Art, now being divided into Art, Craft and Design.

Art now seems to be as much about a certain elite’s sanction regarding purpose, ideology and background as about actual talent, skill or whatever.

Which is not to say that I think that there’s a paucity of skill or talent in high art cirles, which is a reactionary, misinformed viewpoint with a focus on provocative abstract stuff like that produced by Damien Hirst.

I would say that a craft becomes Art when it’s produced by people not from or potentially from your own cultural milieu, hence the reverence of “outsiders”.

In two thousand years, somebody will play Space Invaders and marvel at the ancients’ elegant abstraction of something or other. Screw it, I’m sure it’s already happening.

Most often, what we most often refer to as ‘Art’ involves an artist- or a tight-knit, cohesive group of artists, like a music band- of whose vision, skill and background can be all taken into account when making a value judgement. Even movies, while using the talents of huge teams of technicians and actors, are often driven by the leadership of a director who bears the brunt of the blame if a movie falls short of meeting expectations.

Unless they involve a single creator/leader or are a very small, independant production, games are more a collection of artistic work packaged into a commercial product. A single game can absolutely feature wonderful ART, perhaps masterful concept illustration, or high-quality 3D animation, while at the same time suffer from shoddy writing or lazy storytelling. But these all come from different sources. Is a talented, passionate concept artist at the very bottom of the assembly line less of an artist because his art unfortunately ends up in commercial drivel at the end of the corporate pipeline?

I look at it the same way I look at, say, recent Disney animated movies. I now think of them as ‘products’ as opposed to single works of art because they are no longer under the tight leadership of a creator (Walt Disney) but clearly the result of hundreds of ‘cooks in the kitchen’ making artistic, business and corporate decisions. However, I can’t dismiss that Art is indeed involved: The background painter or 3D modeler at the bottom of the totem pole is still a skillful artist who deserves respect and acclaim for his/her craft and creation and cannot be held responsible for the lackluster outcome.

I’m willing to bet many artists who worked on the Other M game and Samus would have loved a better storyline and a more kick-ass, authentic character to flesh out. But they probably don’t make the big decisions and, unlike popular representation of artists, they have to feed their families and keep their jobs.

When you look at games that have been continued from sequel to sequel? Wow. Just, wow. You have to wonder if they forgot what it was they did the last go around.

The same is true for many movies (Bond, anyone)? On the other hand, it’s not true for all games.

But whatever, this whirligust in a teacup reminds me of a parody of literary critics that came out in the Sixties — The Pooh Perplex, IIRC — in which the focus was on the literary styles of the critics themselves. Pooh came out of it unscathed, but for awhile there, it looked like Freud and Marx were doomed.

OF COURSE Samus Aran’s exploits are Art, just like Roman statuary of the Winged Nike, but leaving out Samus’ previous strokes on the male psyches who beat the game and were astonished at the gender bender conclusion, is a big flaw in any critique.

What difference does it make what drove her to that state? The point is one *can* fall from confidence and purpose no matter how dedicated and grown into a role one is.

“The type of weak female you describe wouldn’t be able to do Samus’s job; that’s the problem.”

As you’ll recall, Buffy wasn’t exactly able to do her job while she was in that state either.

“this game, it seems, asks you to believe she practically changed who she /is/. ”

which is the one valid gripe here – the shoe doesn’t fit, the change doesn’t make sense. but the themes of the character itself aren’t IMO offensive or invalid – the idea of a timid girl with immense power who is still in need of guidance is a great starting point for eventually building and growing a powerful and awesome character. In the context of metroid its a non sequitur, but to dismiss the character in a vacuum as ‘sexist’ or ‘misogynistic’ is outright ridiculous.

When a male protagonist is deeply flawed, (often in ways stereotypical of men, ie a player, a booze hound criminal womanizer incapable of emotional connection) we call him an anti-hero. When a female protagonist is deeply flawed, (often in ways stereotypical of women, ie overly helpless, hysterical, self doubting, air-headed, overly emotional, flaky) we call it sexism and misogyny.

The arts of metallurgy, martial arts, etc.

And consider the Nintendo audience. This is an audience who has never grown up.”

Ah, I see, out of hand dismissal by association?

Also, is it really sexist to depict a female character in a way that accurately reflects the persona of a rather large chunk of females in existence today? Just as many men actually are basement nerds (a demeaning stereotype feminists have no qualms about invoking) many women are actually insecure. Look at Buffy in season 6 – she ought to be stronger and more independent than ever, having been at it for 6 years, and yet she relapses into adolescent self doubt and shacks up with Spike.

I’m not defending the decision to go with a manga little girl-ish character – it’s banal – i’m just saying that not all women are strong, independent, willful and lacking in desire for male approval – so why would we expect all ‘strong’ (read: violent) female characters to embody such qualities? Furthermore, we aren’t the same person from year to year, decade to decade. To expect a character to remain static is the antithesis of quality narrative.

I’m not saying the shoe fits here – it does seem rather inconsistent, and that’s a legitimate gripe, but I tire of hearing the claim of “sexist!” every time someone fails to cater to the ideal of the ‘empowered’ woman. Call a manga little girl-ish character flawed, but don’t call it invalid.

^m^

http://kotaku.com/354717/no-gods-or-kings-objectivism-in-bioshock

The main exacerbating factor here, I think, is Heppe is a woman giving a Feminist capital F critique of a major hardcore gamer favorite. Not gonna fly with a lot of extremely young, undersexed guys who consider games a respite from all those intimidating vaginas out there.

Other M sucks. The story is a big part of it for me. Or maybe I should say the lack of story. Samus was treated just like any other protagonist, with no extra back story to justify her gender. Turning her into a whiny kid with a giant red button daddy complex is beyond stupid. I agreed with the tear down reviews completely.

It’s not about whether or not it’s art. It just didn’t make sense at all in context of the history of the game. It would be like reducing Masterchief down to a teenage guy that has to ask his mom before doing anything.