Absence

I apologize to anyone who may be reading for the long period of time in which I have not published an article.  I've had a lot of ideas swimming around in my head, but not the time to really incarnate them into full articles.  I've gotten a few going, though, so this Saturday will mark a new wave that can manage a weekly schedule for at least a while.

The upcoming article is about the expectation to grow out of video games as we grow older.  As you might expect, I don't take too kindly to that notion; come back on Saturday to see why.

DLC and Storytelling

There's been a lot of outrage recently about downloadable content.  People are saying it (or at least certain uses of it) cheats players by charging money for content that should have been available as part of the original game they paid for.  Outside of ridiculous examples such as day 1 DLC, I don't agree with that; I think if the developers want to expand their vision for the game and add more content, players should have no problem dropping ten or fifteen dollars for some extra content in a game they love.  But when it comes to storytelling, there is a troubling trend I have seen as of late: leaving unanswered questions or a vague ending so the DLC can finish it or fill in the blanks.

I just finished Alan Wake, which is an absolutely fantastic game with a compelling narrative and tense atmosphere.  A week or so before I started playing that, I finished Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, which isn't quite as good and really failed as a Castlevania game, but is still a very strong title overall.  The former seems to revel in the loose ends at its conclusion.  The latter resolves everything, then has an epilogue that seems to completely ignore the ending of the story and does not explain what happened to so drastically change the outcome of the story.  In both cases, the answers were in two episodes of downloadable content.

Now when it comes to gameplay, a game is expected to deliver a certain amount of gameplay depending on its genre.  For mainstream action games, it's at least 8-10 hours.  For older JRPGs it's at least 20, and for newer ones it's more like 40+.  Open-ended western RPGs are expected to require at least 40 hours and offer 100+.  The idea that these minimum times dictate how much money the game is worth is severely misguided, as shorter games like Portal display, but the point is that a given game usually offers the expected amount of gameplay and a good progression of power and challenge, assuming it's not just a terrible game; the game itself is complete.  So when it comes to gameplay, DLC is essentially a way to add a few hours to the game and hopefully provide some thrilling new situations.  It's not all that it is really capable of, but outside of simple in-game items or weapons, it's pretty much all it's been used for.

The story works in a very similar way.  It's fine for DLC to expand on the story; provide a side mission with an interesting story like the Assassin's Creed games, add an optional character like in Mass Effect 2, or simply provide a bit more insight into the story's events.  But regardless of what DLC adds to a story, it should always do just that: add.  Never should DLC complete a story, because the story should already be complete within the game itself.  Sure, maybe some details can be added or expanded in DLC, but the story should be perfectly understandable and complete just as the game ships.

Imagine if this was done in any other medium.  Imagine if The Dark Knight Rises told its story over two and a half hours, but ended on a cliffhanger and declared that there were two half-hour DVDs for sale for $5, and buying them would reveal how the story ends.  What would happen then?

This.

It would not be okay.  No one would let that fly.  People would buy it, sure, because it's freaking Batman and they need to know how it ends, but the amount of absolute, seething hatred that would be directed toward everyone involved in the film simply would not be worth it.  People would boycott future projects and, in the long run, revenue would go down exponentially.  So why is this somehow acceptable in the world of video games and online content?

I think the only real reason is that we are dealing with a new medium, both with video games themselves and with the ability to offer content easily over the internet.  We are still learning how to use this new technology within a medium that itself is still relatively new.  It only makes sense that things like release patterns and marketing would undergo a growth period before they can truly be used effectively.  But while this lack of full comprehension of the medium and distributing technology makes it more understandable, it is no excuse.

We're smarter than that.  

Downloadable content has a great purpose; the ability to add content to a game without releasing another full-fledged game is great.  It is capable of releasing small, inexpensive extensions to games that we love, or even release games in short episodes (actual episodic release, not Valve episodic release).  The possibilities are awesome.  But we, as gamers, are used to situations where people try new things, even when they just piss us off.  As games gain more cultural respect and mainstream attention, hopefully the same group that would hate this situation in film will also hate it in video games, and publishers will be required to shape up and respect their customers.

I know I've said little here that hasn't been said before, but while this trend has existed in gameplay, it's unsettling to me to see it begin in the area of storytelling.  Let's hope this doesn't become a common occurrence.

If you agree, like Binary Narrative on Facebook, and I'll see you next week.

Final Fantasy I: An Exercise in Character/Player Connection

I've written before about the idea that, in order for a game to tell its story well, it must do so in the most interactive way possible.  I don't agree with that.  If you want to know why, feel free to read the article.  Essentially, outside of the extreme danger of the idea that a medium must take advantage of its uniqueness in order to be good, there is an inherent connection between the player and their characters in a game that takes place regardless of any special interactive tricks or even story.  And the best example I've seen so far is the first Final Fantasy.

Yes, this Final Fantasy.

Yes, the one that started it all.  I doubt all that many of you have played it, since most of the franchise's attention these days seems to come from how great/overrated VII was or how amazing/boring XIII was (seriously, each game is so polarizing), but it really is an interesting game.  For one, as a big fan of the franchise, it's interesting to see the relatively simple roots of the series; the gameplay is basic, the story is about as simple as it could be while still moving forward regularly, and the four main characters don't have a single line of dialogue.  Yes, not a single line.

The reason for this is because the game lets you choose which classes you have and what they are all named.  You could have a party made of four black mages if you wanted, and name them Harry Potter, Gandalf, Luke Skywalker, and Twilight Sparkle to live out your magic crossover fanfiction fantasies.  That would be stupid and you would die a lot, but you could do it.  Point is, by allowing the player to choose the characters like this, Square gave up the ability to ascribe particular personalities to them, and as a result the characters themselves are simply a vessel for the player's interaction with the game world rather than the fully-realized and complex characters of later Final Fantasy games.

But you know what interested me most about Final Fantasy?  I loved the characters anyway. Those four warriors of light endeared themselves to me in a way that no other game has; perhaps not as intensely as the more fleshed-out characters of other games, but still in a way that none of those characters have.

Especially this one. Freaking Cait Sith.

I didn't care about their personal struggles, because they didn't have any.  I didn't relate to any of them, because there was nothing to relate to.  And to be honest, the story and world were far too cliche at this point for me to really care about them.  I know this game is responsible for most of those cliches, but the elves live in the city of Elfheim?  Really?  The overall narrative and world of the game was the only thing it had going for it outside of the basic gameplay, and thankfully it kept moving at a good pace and was interesting enough to be engaging, but it was still very simple and was obviously little more than a base on which RPGs have been building for decades since.  Really, the story, world, and characters did very little for me in terms of connecting me to a developed and interesting narrative.

And yet I cared about the characters.  Why?  Simply because they were mine.  These were four warriors that I had chosen and named, that I had essentially created.  I chose their identities, and I led them into battle.  My characters succeeded based on my direction and skill, and they failed when I did.  They grew and leveled up, becoming more and more powerful because I led them to.  When they were upgraded to their more powerful forms by Bahamut, my heart lept, and whenever they were killed in battle, it sank.  In other games I cared when the story put the characters in peril, but in this one I cared about my own actions and its effects on my characters in the context of basic gameplay.  It is far from my favorite Final Fantasy game, but to this day it is still the only one in which I level-ground all my characters up to level 99, because I simply cared to see them succeed.

And this guy?  Hardcore
in the higher levels.

So... where did that come from?  How could I care more about these blank slates on a battle-to-battle basis than the characters that captured my imagination in VII, tugged at my heartstrings in X, and enraptured me in VI?  In the absence of actual characters, the bond between me and those four warriors was solidified by my interaction with them.

You can get quite attached to your
family in Fable II, and this man sure
punches you in the gut for it.

This is one of the base unique things about video games; there is an inherent connection between player and protagonist.  It is the only medium in which one can use the word "I" to refer to the main character of a story.  I remember when I was playing Red Dead Redemption, my girlfriend had not yet played many games (which has been fixed since then, to wondrous results), and she got confused because I said something about how my family was in danger until I did what was required of me.  Now after playing Fable II, she understands; the main character of a video game is your character.  Their identity is defined as much by yours as it is by theirs.  And in the case of a game like the first Final Fantasy, the lack of proper character development just increases the extent to which this is true since almost the only defining element of their identity is yours.  The same concept has been used to large extents with the idea of the Silent Protagonist, but more on that later.

The thing to take from this is that, if games like the first Final Fantasy have anything to say about the storytelling power of video games, it's that interactivity doesn't have to be utilized in full to be effective.  The very existence of interactivity in the context of a story connects the player to the characters in a way non-interactive mediums never could.  As much as it is necessary and encouraged for this medium to find new and exciting ways to use this incredible storytelling tool, we must keep in mind that the very presence of it is enough to tell stories in ways we've never even dreamed.

If you like Binary Narrative, Like it on Facebook!  See you next week!

Roger Ebert

This last Counterpoint (and the next one, whenever that gets posted) was, again, not about Roger Ebert.  It was about the arguments that he put forth and popularized, as I think the responses to his remarks are too often either raging at him or ignoring him entirely, neither of which gives any real thought to why his comments were incorrect.  However, I figured I'd briefly comment on Ebert himself throughout that process and how I felt about it.

I admit when he first made these comments I was very angry.  I wasn't one of the idiots telling him to die in a fire and making death threats; those people just make gamers look bad.  But I was definitely very upset.  I was upset that someone so respected was making these comments.  I was upset that he admitted his lack of experience with games, yet still asserted strongly that they not only were not, but were entirely incapable of ever being art.  But what upset me the most was the "high and mighty" tone with which he did it and the intense hypocrisy that resulted.

To illustrate a bit of the tone with which he presented his arguments, here's a quote from the end of his textual face-off with Clive Barker, entitled "Games vs. Art," in case the "video games can never ever be art" message wasn't clear enough:

I mentioned that a Campbell's soup could be art. I was imprecise. Actually, it is Andy Warhol's painting of the label that is art. Would Warhol have considered Clive Barker's video game "Undying" as art? Certainly. He would have kept it in its shrink-wrapped box, placed it inside a Plexiglas display case, mounted it on a pedestal, and labeled it "Video Game."

 Yes, Roger Ebert, an expert in film with little to no experience with video games, just said that the only artistic value video games have is as an artifact on display, while comparing the actual artistic content of a game to canned soup.  The amount of pompous arrogance in that paragraph is off the friggin' charts.

So you can understand why the initial reaction by so many gamers was hate and rage, often to the point of immense fandumb.  But the most infuriating aspect of it, for me at least, was this man was doing exactly what had been done to his own beloved medium during its rise to artistic legitimacy.  Just do a bit of reading into early adaptation theory, especially regarding Shakespeare if you want to find it really fast, and you'll see a lot of early critics explaining why a filmic representation of something can never be as good as the theatrical production.  Because, obviously, the theater is home to the best literary works created by man, whereas film is simpleton's entertainment.  If you said that in a room of art students nowdays you'd be immediately beaten to a... well, at least debated into exhaustion.  But then, when film was just developing, it was very common for the entire medium to be devalued because it was too new to fit within the definitions of "art" that had prevailed up until then.  And here Ebert was doing the exact same thing.  Talk about a former slave becoming the captain of a slave ship.

However, that is no excuse for treating him so poorly or hating him for what he said.  He rightfully earned a lot of respect as a movie critic in the days of his classic television show, though I admit I haven't retained much of that respect over the years.  I am not going to cry about how awful he is, because he is not.  But it did disappoint me that someone could be such a strong and influential figure in an artistic medium, then turn around and give a new medium the same treatment his was still getting only a few decades ago.  However, similarly disappointing was that most people's reactions seemed to be hating him or writing off his arguments as the ramblings of an ignorant fool.  Ebert is not an evil moron, and his arguments are not worthless.  They're misinformed and arrogant, but hardly worthless, and I think it's important that we not make the same mistake with Ebert as we have with his arguments.