I hate bloggers. Journalists have a responsibility to do some research into what they're talking about. Bloggers remind me of college students and politics, they feel they need a voice because they're so passionate about issues, but the truth is they are naive and don't understand a fraction of the issue at hand.
This fine young blogger was nice enough to provide an issue. Well where's the solution? Didn't his English teacher ever teach him you need to prove your thesis. "Why video games have to move beyond simple escapism." Why? Why Mr. Blogger? Why the hell do they have to? Looks to me like they're selling just fine.
Video games are unique medium; they are interactive. I can read a story or watch a book where the innocent girl gets slaughtered, I have no control over it. The story is written, it's just being told for me. Emotions may be evoked, no one will argue that, but I have no control over the outcome. A game is slightly different, I have control over the outcome, or do I? Perhaps if Mr. Blogger wasn't too busy criticizing an independent RPG Maker title for lack of original characters, he would've learned something from it. Video games can make a player feel discomfort, as slaughtering a school did not bring joy to the face of many players, but it also brings up the problem with interactivity: choice. I may assume the role of a child bombing a school, but what is my option if I choose not to blow up the school, or murder an innocent girl begging for her life? To walk away? To throw away the money spent on this title, which is much more expensive than the film or book, and leave it unfinished?
Is there another option? Perhaps. But you can never make a game completely non-linear, because you'll be replicating life, which is far too complex for the medium.
I was fortunate to be in attendance for Jaffe's speech at D.I.C.E. 2006 (where he is in the pic), and there's one thing that he said which stuck out in my mind. I'll save myself the trouble of reviewing the video for an exact quote, but he said something along the line of "Some days I think that it may be possible to change the gaming industry, but other days I wonder if it's any different than the porn industry and the topless revues." As hard as the adult industry may try to add story lines, emotion, and plot to the films and shows, they do horribly. That's not what people want, and that's not why the industry is successful.
This isn't a new theme going around the industry. People have been talking about video games as an art medium for years now. While this article may introduce someone unfamiliar with the idea to the dilemma at hand, this article sucks. He simply regurgitated ideas already circling around the web, but provided no solutions, and no new insight to the issue at hand. Thankfully there's a few more intelligent minds out there writing, such as Ian Bogost, who only a few months back wrote
Why We Need More Boring Games." Isn't that ironic?
Re: Fun isn’t enough: why video games have to move beyond simple escapism
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