"Growing Out" of Video Games

This topic isn't specifically about video games as a narrative art form, but it is certainly related to it.  This is a topic that has come up rather often, both in my life and in the lives of many other gamers I know, and it's one that really has to be dealt with as a cultural misconception.

We live in a culture that regards video games as toys.  In a way, this is actually correct; it would be difficult to refute that the nature of a video game falls, to a large degree, under the definition of a toy.

Source: www.usaopoly.com

Breaking away from the specific consideration of video games for a moment, if one goes to a toy store, there will be a whole section devoted to board games, card games, and other tabletop games of similar nature.  There will probably be another area that, while not as comprehensive as an actual sporting goods store, will have basic supplies for sports, such as balls, bats, racquets, and the like. While some games are certainly valued as more than that (no sports fan, for instance, would regard the Superbowl or the World Cup as a bunch of guys playing with a toy ball), games, as a general principle, are regarded in our culture as toys.  In any case, the two are hardly mutually exclusive.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course.  Play is a very important aspect of the human experience, for personal and psychological reasons as well as social ones, and that is generally reflected in our culture.  But the personal value of toys is generally considered important only in that it provides a break from the stresses of life, something that, while important, has little or no value outside of that function.  Even despite the supposed value of hobbies, if an adult's hobby is playing with or collecting some kind of toy, this is often something of a social mark of shame.  In short, our culture sees little or no value in toys outside of social value and occasional (but certainly not regular) escapism.  Because of this, it is expected that one is to gradually cease playing with toys as they grow older, replacing their former liesure with work and other productive activities.

This is not so with art.  Even when a given medium is viewed solely as entertainment, there is usually more value ascribed to them.  Reading is encouraged from childhood, and no one scoffs at an adult cracking open a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.  The same can be said of movies, though in a bit of a different way; people rarely recognize the same level of artistic value in film as in literature, but it is certainly understood, and watching movies is still a socially acceptable pastime for an adult.  And music, of course, is acceptable for any age to enjoy without accusations of immaturity or irresponsibility.

Source: Wikipedia

Well, depending on the music.

Obviously, this site is dedicated to the idea that video games are an incredible artistic medium, so I'm not going to use this space to make the argument that video games' toy-like nature is irrelevant to their artistic status; that fact is assumed.  I'll save it for a later Counterpoint article, but for now we're simply operating under the assumption that this combination of a toy and an artwork does have value as an artwork.

The question then arises, is it possible for one to "grow out" of video games?  Is the entire medium something that one should lose interest in as they grow up and the responsibilities of adulthood force out such frivolous activities?

There is an extent to which I can see this happening, in certain situations at least.  The fact is that video games are more time-consuming than most other narrative media, and since the medium is hardly renown for its artistic value (however unfortunate that may be), a lot of the game-playing that goes on is strictly recreational.  So it's understandable that someone who is only playing for fun would slowly have video games fade from their life as they choose to focus on different things with both their careers and free time, until the only time they really have to play games is with friends or family.

However, this does not amount to video games being something that an adult must cast off in favor of more meaningful activities, because video games, like every other artistic medium, are not without meaning. Not by a long shot.

Essentially what we have is a cultural double standard based on misinformation as to the nature of video games as a medium; society at large still views video games as toys, and does not acknowledge the artistic value inherent in the medium and strongly present in many of its artworks.  As a result, it's expected that, like other toys, they should simply stop getting so much attention as people grow older.  But this is not how it works, nor how it should work, because that is not what video games are.

In the end, we are talking about an artistic medium here.  Excessive playing should, of course, be looked down upon.  That's just common sense, as it is with any other object, medium, or pastime.  But the very playing of video games, or even a focus on them, is something that should be perfectly acceptable in an adult, because these are not simply toys, but artworks, with the same value, potential, and beauty that term implies.

Just something to keep in mind, and perhaps to encourage fellow gamers; I doubt I'm the only one who's gotten this line before.  Valuing video games does not make us immature children, it simply makes us members of society who enjoy a particular form of artistic media.  And in a few decades, young children will gawk at the fact that we were alive for its inception, and the classic works of the medium will be studied in college courses.

Well, a gamer can dream; but it's far from impossible.

Counterpoint: Games Are About Winning, Art is About Experience

I apologize for the lateness; this is what I get for trying to mess with Blogger's HTML to get pullquotes when I've only a basic familiarity with coding.  I know what I'm doing now, so hopefully in the future I can insert pullquotes without severely delaying the articles.

Back in 2006, deservedly revered film critic Roger Ebert spoke out saying that video games were not, and indeed never could be, art (it's a few questions down).  This claim was followed up twice in the following years, once further stating his argument in 2007 then again in 2010, followed soon after by an interesting assertion that he was still right, but never should have brought it up.  If you were a gamer during these times, you no doubt remember the uproar.

Unfortunately, all the responses to this focused on Ebert himself rather than his arguments.  It seemed there were only two responses: seething hatred for the man who dared to make such ignorant statements about something so clearly out of his experience and understanding, and completely writing him off as an old man ranting against a new art form that isn't his.  While the basis for both of these reactions is valid (his statements obviously came from a perspective with very little actual knowledge of video games, and they did seem an awful lot like what theater critics said about film back in the day), the mistake was to focus so much on Ebert himself.  His arguments, though still incorrect, are have some interesting concepts that can help us further understand not only those who object to this medium's artistic legitimacy, but the present and historical development of interactive art.
Ebert's arguments can help us further understand not only those who object to this medium's artistic legitimacy, but the present and historical development of interactive art.
There were two main arguments that Ebert put forth in his arguments.  Both fall into another broader argument; that is, games cannot be art because the nature of a "game" inherently involves certain elements that art must inherently be without.  The two arguments he specifically focuses on within this are 1) video games cannot be art because the game-like nature involves completely different objectives from art, and 2) video games cannot be art because the player has control of the outcome rather than the author. This Counterpoint article will deal with the first argument, and the second will come later. But I would like to strongly specify, this article is not about Roger Ebert.  He is simply a framing device as the man who popularized two of the very few arguments against games as art that actually have legitimate and worthwhile artistic thought behind them. Let's focus on the arguments and the theory behind them, not the man and his motivations and qualifications.

Let's try to grasp this particular argument first.  The best way to do this would be to take a quote from the article itself, in which Ebert is specifically supplying counter-arguments to various quotes given by Kellee Santiago in a TED talk given at USC.

One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.

This is a decent summation of Ebert's argument on the matter (if you want more detail, read the full article).  Essentially, games are about using skill and coordination to prevail over the competition, whereas stories are not about "winning" or getting to the end, they are about the experience and the effect it has on you as the reader, viewer, or indeed, player.

Not much winning going on here, but if you didn't cry in
The Land Before Time as a child, you had no soul.  

Admittedly, this is a compelling argument.  After all, I've discussed the difficulties of combining gameplay and narrative in a previous article.  It is not easy; the two do in fact, to some extent, contradict each other in their basic nature.  Games are about performance and competition, not an emotional and intellectual experience designed by an artist.  So when one attempts to combine a game with a narrative, does it legitimately create a work of narrative art, or just a game with a story attached?

In general, the argument fails when it considers video games to be a game with a story tacked on.  Though this does often happen with unfortunate results, it is far from an inherent trait of the medium.  This argument seems to be viewing video games as a checkers board with the cover of Casablanca unceremoniously taped onto the back, when in reality the effect we're going for is more like chemical bonding, where the two elements fuse to become a new thing entirely.

This is a hamster with a knife taped to its back. Not how
videogames combine their elements, though it would
make for an awesome game.

Taking specifically from the quoted paragraph, there are two issues here on which the argument fails.  The first is the term "win."  Ebert is referring to the traditional idea that a game is something where the end goal, the entire purpose of the game, is to overcome the challenges it presents.  The completion of this goal is the entire reason the game was played, and the actions along the way have little value to the game outside of the progress they made toward that goal. And of course, if that goal is not accomplished, the actual events of the game are meaningless, as their value exists only in the context of victory.  Art, on the other hand, is about everything, each and every moment of the experience and everything about it that made it what it is. Stories have an ending, sure, but without experiencing the rest of the story in the way it was specifically designed to be experienced, said ending has absolutely no satisfaction, meaning, or impact.

However, video games are not all like this anymore; some exist, of course, and hopefully always will, but it simply cannot be denied that the medium has largely moved past the idea of "beating the game" to an emphasis on the experience of the game.  The player must prevail over challenges, yes, but this is not toward the purpose of getting to the end as much as it is to progress through the story.  Beyond that, the fact that many games allow the player to make choices affecting nothing but the story seems to imply goals outside of the completion of the game's challenges.  The game may be about overcoming its challenges, but the motivation for prevailing is not the completion of the game, but to see what happens next in the story and bring said story, not just the challenge, to its eventual conclusion.  So really, to claim that the goal of a video game is to get to the end and win is a severe misunderstanding of what the medium is actually about.

The second way in which the argument fails is in the word "representation."  If you remember, he said that a game without rules would cease to be a game and instead be "a representation of a story," implying that the goal that games must attain but can inherently never reach is to be a representation of a story.  Which is something with which I imagine most artists and scholars would agree is the goal of art, in the field of narrative art at least.

Victory is not the entire end goal of a video game, but more of a prerequisite to experience more of the story.
But then the question arises; why can't a game represent a story?  Even in basic game theory there are ideas about sports such as football and games such as chess having a narrative; the only thing keeping them from being "art" is the fact that the end result is created by competition rather than specific artistic intent.  But unlike those games, video games allow the player to try again until victory is accomplished.  This means that victory is not the entire end goal of a video game, but more of a prerequisite to experience more of the story, or even if story is not a focus, more of the game.  Victory is not an end in and of itself, but rather a goal that must be completed for both game and story to move forward.

On a simpler note, can it really be argued that a video game is not a "representation" of a story if it has a story in it?  Regardless of the game-like aspects of a video game, if it has a story that progresses as the player does, is the game not representing a story?  One could say this is just arguing semantics, but it does get to the core of this argument; if a game and story exist within a single work, designed and created by an artist or team of artists, how can it be said the final product is not a representation of a story and, as a result, a work of narrative art?

In the end, this argument is based on a lack of understanding about how games work, and seems to have been made under the impression that modern video games are just more realistic-looking versions of Galaga.  It simply doesn't hold up to informed scrutiny.  However, that is not to say it has no value.  Even to a small degree in this article, it has driven us to consider the nature of a game and the nature of a narrative, how the two naturally both compliment and contradict each other, and what it really means for a game and a story to be combined into a single work.  Many of the present and future articles on this blog explore just such topics.  This is why it is so important to not shrug off these arguments because of their fallacious nature, but instead to consider them and explore why they are wrong and what they can teach us.

See you next week!  Don't forget to "Like" Binary Narrative on Facebook!

Fun Stuff

Now for a more traditional Wednesday post (I know it's almost Friday; sorry again for this last bit of time): these were meant to just be some random thoughts on games and experiences I've had lately, so here's that.

I was browsing those racks of $5 or less PS2 games at Gamestop and stumbled upon a game I've heard a lot about but never got to play: Killer 7.  I'm kind of excited about this; having not played No More Heroes or its sequel, this will be the first game I play by Suda 51.  Depending on whether it's too weird or delightfully weird for me (my personal preferences tend to vary on that issue), No More Heroes might be bumped up on my priority list a bit.  I've heard plenty about this game and its unique... everything, so I'm very excited to be playing it.  Somewhere in the mix of all the other games I have to play.

With World of Warcraft being free to play until level 20 now, I've decided to give it a go.  I've never been too incredibly interested in the MMO scene, I must admit; as much as I'm sure I would enjoy the genre, I would also be putting a lot of time into it that I could be putting into single-player experiences that have more of the narrative and aesthetic things I appreciate most in games.  But my complete lack of familiarity with the genre is hardly something befitting of one who studies and designs games, so I decided that had to change.  I'm sure I'll have some stuff to say about it on here once I get going on it.

Level Up: Respectability +10

As many of you probably know by now, gaming has won a great victory this week.  On June 27th, this past Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States voted in favor of video games.

In case anyone is not familiar with the case, Brown vs. EMA was an attempt to regulate "violent video games" (yes, it was purposefully vague) with government involvement.  Rather than the voluntary rating system by which the video game industry already keeps M-rated games out of the hands of children (the exact same system by which the film industry voluntarily abides), this law would have made it illegal for anyone under 18 to buy whatever games were deemed offensive, effectively controlling video games not like an artistic form of expression, but in the same way as pornography and cigarettes.

Because clearly, video games are just
as dangerous as lung cancer.

Obviously, little could possibly be worse for a developing medium than the involvement of a legal censorship movement.  Imagine if the only way to buy Mass Effect or Halo was to go to that creepy backroom some movie places have.  Imagine how most developers would decide that it's not worth the risk to make violent games, or tell stories through games that deal with mature issues, such as Bioshock or L.A. Noire, since they wouldn't be widely sold or advertised.  Imagine if any games deemed too violent by our government were treated by console makers the same way AO games are now; shunned from official publication.  Not a very bright future.

But thankfully, the Court ruled against this law, not only allowing us - gamers, the video game industry, and the first amendment itself - to dodge a huge bullet, but also supplying us with some pretty powerful ammunition.

And our ammunition has always been better than theirs anyway.

No longer must we defend ourselves with rhetoric that will me violently turned against us.  No longer must we suffer the lies and ignorance of entities like Fox News.  No longer must we fear for the censorship of our medium.  Will these things still happen occasionally?  Of course.  But it's always been more difficult when the opposition was intensely convinced they were standing on solid rock; now it's becoming blatantly clear they've built their house on the sand.  And while they may never accept this personally, there is little they can do when the legal precedent is no longer neutral, but dead-set against their attempts to silence interactive art.

"Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium.  And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary” with a new and different communication medium."  So says the syllabus from this case, plainly and for all to see.  Two pretty simple sentences, but they say everything necessary for us to know that this medium, our medium, is safe.

If ever you've doubted the importance of video games being widely accepted as an art form, look to this example.  Had it not been demonstrated to these people, some of the men responsible for how life is conducted in one of the world's most powerful countries, that video games are in fact a viable artistic medium of expression and communication, millions of people would be barred from these incredible interactive experiences, and, according to some analysts, the industry itself may have crumbled entirely, banished into obscurity.  The very existence of this case, what many are rightfully calling the biggest victory video games will ever win, was based around this simple question: Are video games art?

Some claim it's not important.  Games are just fun, that's the whole point.  As long as we can enjoy them, it doesn't matter what other people think.  Some claim "art" is too subjective and elusive a concept to bother trying to classify anything under it.  But these events very strongly beg to differ.  This is a fight for respectability.  This is where we step up and show what video games can truly be; not just enjoyable pastimes, and not harmful addictions, but a medium of expression that is truly deserving of the first amendment protection its very nature clearly warrants.

This is an art form now, fellow gamers.  Not just in identity, but in social status.  Let's show the world that the Court made the right choice.

L.A. Noire and the Narrative/Gameplay Paradigm

I know I just reviewed this game, but it did things that merit some discussion beyond what I could do in a review, so here we go.

L.A. Noire did some very interesting things.  It created a pitch-perfect noir atmosphere to go along with its detailed recreation of 1940s Los Angeles, which is enough to make it worth playing in the first place.  It also made me curious as to when the word "noir" had an "e" on the end of it.  But its greatest accomplishment came by way of its technology for recording the faces of actors.

Nothing against you, Phoenix.  I still
love your games.  

I can imagine the cries of "Graphics whore!" I may get for that statement, but there's more to it than that.  The facial animations of L.A. Noire allowed it to take some of the game-like elements out of the gameplay and replace it with a sort of real activity.  Rather than watching meters or playing a silly minigame, or even cross-referencing Phoenix Wright style, the expressive faces in L.A. Noire allowed the gameplay to work off actual observation.  This required the player to judge the truthfulness of suspects and witnesses based on their visual and verbal cues, something that is much more difficult, complicated, and realistic than comparing notes or pressing the right buttons at the right time.  It allowed the gameplay and story to mesh on a deeper level by removing the game-like elements that normally govern the player's interaction and, to some extent, separate the player from the game world.  It managed to defy the Narrative/Gameplay Paradigm on which I previously wrote.  But it did not do it fully or perfectly.  L.A. Noire did many things right and was groundbreaking on many levels, but what exactly did they do right and what did they do wrong?  What are these breakthroughs truly capable of, and where could they go that this game did not?

First of all, let me preface this discussion by saying I am not suggesting that all games should avoid game-like elements, or even that games must do so to tell a story well.  I've seen many people say that the "games as art" movement wants to see all games become abstract, boring experiences full of meaning but entirely void of entertainment or challenge.  However, I think I've made it clear that I consider many different games, from Shadow of the Colossus to Halo, to be great works of art; the concepts I discuss in this article aren't blanket suggestions to be applied to video games as a whole, but interesting possibilities for the future of what the medium will be able to do.  In this particular case, L.A. Noire offers a new way to eliminate black-and-white gameplay elements and instead present an experience that, while perhaps is not a "game" by traditional definition, it more of an interactive storytelling experience.

The interrogation process in L.A. Noire is, in its basic form, almost entirely devoid of "gamification," if you will excuse the use of the term in this context.  The idea of actually watching and listening for signs of lying or hesitance is exactly how real interrogations go, not an objective-based, formulaic system by which the player solves some sort of puzzle. This was fantastic, as it eliminated the certainty that most games depend on.  The player could not have a simple logical process of elimination or success at a simple challenge, they had to read the character's voice and face and trust their judgement.  Most people I know, myself included, took a while to get used to it.  It is far more abstract and less concrete than most gameplay processes; it was based on the player's judgement, not on quickness, not on coordination, not even fully on observation.  And if you don't get all the information out of the witness, you move on with the clues you have and hope you haven't missed anything too important.  If the investigations and interrogations go poorly, it is even possible to arrest the wrong person.  This process lacks certainty, lacks the sense of absolute victory that we gamers are used to; but so does the real-life process L.A. Noire emulates.

The amount of emotion the human face can convey is
astounding, and L.A. Noire emulates it well enough to
base its main gameplay feature around it.  

At least it would be like this, if not for a simple but important gameplay element; the chime that tells you whether you have chosen the best reaction.

In the interrogations in L.A. Noire, the player immediately knows whether they "won" or "lost," which unfortunately goes a long way toward invalidating the advancements the game makes.  The player should, as the in-story detective does, feel like they've done their best, like they have uncovered all the clues to the best of their ability and gotten as much information through questioning as they could.  The player should blame the suspect, not themselves, if they got no good information, because as far as the detective knows he did his absolute best.  If the police chief gets angry at them for putting the wrong person away, the player should be surprised and frustrated at their failure rather than simply saying, "Yeah, I did really screw up those last few interviews..."  The uncertainty that should mark each answer, each reaction, each question, is negated by the absolute knowledge of the player's success or failure.

The crazy thing is that the game's story is structured in such a way that this can feasibly be done with little extra effort (the only thing that may have to go would be achievements based on correct questions, but even that would only be for difficulty reasons).  Who gets arrested usually either doesn't matter in the long run or happens because they run or something, proving their own guilt enough to warrant the arrest.  In a few particular cases, the story dictates that the convicted person is innocent anyway, regardless of who it is.  It's not like the designers would have had to code in tons of different endings or events based on the player's success or failure; the player is led to an arrest regardless.  This would not negate the role of statistics; the game could give the player their information and statistics at the end of each case, so the player knows how well they did afterwards and how to do things differently if they play it again.

This is not to say I don't understand why they did what they did.  Absolute knowledge of our objectives, victories, and losses is something we, as gamers, are used to.  We were already far out of our element with these interrogations, and this made it a little easier for us, made the interrogations less frustrating (at least in the way gamers traditionally define frustration).  Unfortunately, this positive effect came at the cost of immersion.  Not that L.A. Noire wasn't immersive (I think a game that faithfully recreated 1940s Los Angeles is immersive by default, to some extent), but it could have become much more so if not for the constant reminder that this is a game, and we just totally bombed that question.  We, as gamers, must be willing and excited to get out of our comfort zones and abandon the security of traditional game design in order for video games to move forward in artistic viability and cultural impact.

This is the main thing I meant in my review when I said I hoped for a sequel that refined and expanded the revolutionary gameplay elements L.A. Noire introduced.  I would like to see this potential franchise develop these concepts into more of a storytelling experience than a traditional game; not because it makes for a bad game, but because the impact could be exponentially increased if the security of formulaic gameplay were further removed from the story and investigations.

I'd be incredibly surprised if everyone agreed with me on this, so feel free to post your arguments, agreements, or random observations, and make sure to Like Binary Narrative on Facebook if you don't hate my ideas!