The Other Possible Outcome

There was one thing I thought of while trying to look on the bright side during the months when the supreme court debated the artistic worthiness of video games.  It almost makes me wish I could see what the medium would have been like had censorship prevailed.  Of course it wouldn't be worth it, and you will never, ever catch me saying the Supreme Court made the wrong decision.  The choice they made was absolutely, without question, the only correct one they could have made.  But I do wonder how video game development would have adjusted to a culture that hostile to its most common subject matter: violence.  And I think, if the medium managed to adjust rather than die, perhaps it would not have been all bad.

This is what happens when there's sex and violence
in our movies, kids.  

I liken the avoided video game censorship to the effect McCarthyism had on the film industry in the ate 1940s.  For those unfamiliar with film history, the simple version is that the McCarthy Era involved the blacklisting of many actors, directors, and writers who were suspected to be communists.  Unfortunately, all they really needed to be suspected was to do anything that seemed "Un-American," which included certain very strict moral boundaries.  It was a pretty messed up time, with promising and talented filmmakers losing their careers suddenly when they lost funding and venues.  As a result, movies had to tread carefully.  Mature themes had to be handled without mature content for fear of the blacklist.  Really, it wasn't all that different from the world we imagined were this law to be passed, just with film rather than video games.

The interesting thing about this was that it forced film makers to come up with creative ways to portray things that they couldn't get past the censors.  One of the most notable examples is the use of cigarettes to imply sexual content.  Especially in noir films, two lovers blowing cigarette smoke into each other so the smoke lingers together, or two cigarette butts smoldering in an ash tray, was used as a symbol for sex.  Or consider Hitchcock's Gory Discretion Shots, used before film was allowed to show dismemberment and mutilation.  Though these things are now allowed in film, thus occurring as a result of budget constraints or purposeful filmmaking, they were first developed during a time when more graphic depictions would have fallen under the judgement hammer of censorship.

Even silly games like Castle
Crashers might have problems.

Consider what a similar effect would do for video games. Of course games like Mario and other similarly innocent games would survive this process, but they're generally not what we're talking about when discussing either violence or storytelling.  Gameplay could survive this law, sure, but storytelling as we have developed it within this medium would take a huge hit.  This medium is still almost entirely comprised of stories centered around violence, for various reasons discussed in one of my previous articles.  But what if we couldn't depict that violence anymore?  What if we were forced to do things differently by an unjust                                                                   violation of the first amendment against the medium?

The most obvious effect would likely take place in the horror genre, which has, in the last decade or so, become less "survival horror" and more "gory and occasionally startling action game," much to the ire of many gamers, designers, and critics.  The need to show all the violence would turn into an aversion, and horror games would have to turn to their roots and focus more on psychological horror and playing on the unknown, like classics such as Fatal Frame and Silent Hill 2 or the lesser-known but masterfully terrifying indie game Penumbra.

Sure, this thing is creepy, but what scares you most is
always what you can't see.

But for the industry as a whole, it would mean spreading to genres it has barely touched before. If games cannot explicitly portray violence,  they would have to either portray it implicitly or avoid the subject altogether.  With the vast majority of games, this simply cannot be done.  We would have to start telling stories in different, less violent genres, such as drama and all its sub-genres (romance, courtroom drama, domestic drama, etc.).  This would not be easy, but it is something that must happen eventually, and I think it's fairly clear that progress is slow when it's easy to make money off Shoot Teh Bad Guyz VI: Less Talky Moar Shooty.  But take away the ability to make that, and what are we left with?  No choice but to innovate.

Make sure to thank these guys next
time you play a game.  

So in short, I think it would have been cool to see where the pressure from this law could have taken the industry.  I do not wish the Supreme Court had made a different choice, as the censorship of interactive art (an immensely important and exciting artistic development) could be one of the biggest artistic atrocities in history.  But gaming needs to evolve, and part of me wonders if this could have been the best way to stimulate that evolution.  But thankfully, we can now develop this medium as we like, without threat of censorship.  I hope we'll use it to develop this medium into a truly diverse and effective one.

And no, of course there's no such game as Shoot Teh Bad Guyz VI: Less Talky Moar Shooty. If there was, I would be too busy weeping in the fetal position to be writing this article.

What Can We Do?

This Saturday, I said that the Supreme Court's ruling is our chance to step up and show the world what interactive art is truly capable of.  This is our opportunity to prove its worth and show everyone that the Court made the right choice.  I did not, however, say how.  Unfortunately, that is far too big a topic for any one person to cover, but I'll present some ideas here for any gamers and/or developers that may be reading.

1. Support Artistically Excellent Games
We, as consumers, tell the developers what we want by paying for it.  I don't want to spout the "vote with your wallets" line, but there is some truth to it.  To clarify, this doesn't mean you have to cancel your Modern Warfare 3 pre-order and live a life devoid of any game made for more than $100.  The AAA industry is pumping out some amazing games (especially this holiday season), and there is nothing wrong with supporting them.  But also try to support the games that maybe won't be getting as much mainstream attention.  Try to bring them into the spotlight, not only so the industry can make more, but so those outside it can see more than deadly guns and bloody deaths.  Get Beyond Good and Evil HD on XBLA or the PSN.  Pre-order the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD pack coming out later this year (I can say confidently you will never experience a game quite so uniquely beautiful as these two).  Check out some indie games; there are some great ones.  The goal isn't the bankrupt the AAA industry, but to show both it and the culture around us that video games are more than guns and violence.

2. Don't Just Play Games, Study Them
It's fine to just enjoy a work of entertainment art, but it doesn't lend any understanding.  If you go into a new game looking to study it, looking to understand it on a deeper level than simple enjoyment, you will be able to speak more intelligently about it.  When talking to someone who doesn't understand the artistic viability of the medium, it's much better to be able to discuss the philosophical implications of Bioshock or the analogous nature of Final Fantasy X than to just talk about why Castle Crashers is fun to play (nothing against Castle Crashers, I freaking love that colorful bundle of endless fun). Understand not just how gameplay works, but also how it, story, music, aesthetics, and everything else combine into a single, cohesive experience.  It will greatly enhance your understanding of the medium, your ability to discuss it, and your own personal experience with it.

3. Familiarize Yourself with the Mindset of the Non-and-Anti-Gamers
This is why I do my Counterpoint series (I know, there's another one on its way).  While I believe we should focus more on the medium's art and theory than arguing for its validity, that argument is still very important.  There are reasons that people don't understand video games, or refuse to acknowledge their artistic viability.  Whether these reasons come down to ignorance, misunderstanding, or a genuinely complex line of thinking, you should understand what they are.  Why?  Two reasons.  First of all, it allows you to talk intelligently with someone about what makes games artistic.  After I first had my epiphany of, "Holy crap, these things are telling awesome stories," I stumbled over myself to explain to other people how that worked.  Because I had experienced it.  They had not even given it thought.  And it's worth discussing this topic with people that don't agree or understand, for both the benefit of their understanding and your own.  Secondly, we are just developing interactive art theory.  And when something like this is developing, the objections are just as important as the concurrences, because they show us the faults in our thinking and reasoning.  Roger Ebert's argument, for instance, that video games are goal-based rather than experience-driven and thus cannot be art was an interesting one that caused a lot of introspection and study as to what this medium was about artistically.  It was also founded in his obvious lack of experience and interest in the medium, but more on that soon.  Point is, video games are new.  They are different.  They do not fall neatly into our previous definitions of art.  But they most certainly are art; the question is exactly how.  What changes, both about art and games, to make the two mesh as well as they do and can?  Part of the journey toward answering that question, both for us gamers and our cultures, is to understand the objections to the artistic viability of our medium.

4. Change the Focus of the Design Process
Any current or aspiring developers out there, this is for you: stop heralding gameplay as the end-all goal of your games.  Yes, it's important.  Yes, if your gameplay sucks, few people will be willing to stick with your game just for the story.  But the proper response to these facts is not to focus primarily on gameplay, it's to focus on each element of the game as a unifying whole.  Allow me to use theme parks for an analogy, since they provide one of the best examples of this concept.  The goal of a theme park is the rides, obviously.  Most theme parks just make a bunch of roller coasters and other attractions and give them names and basic aesthetics in keeping with the park's overall theme, and as long as the rides are great, people will love them.  But you know why Disneyland stands out?  Because they don't just focus on making good rides and slapping a theme onto them, they make a cohesive whole of the experience.  Experiencing a Six Flags park consists of going on the rides; experiencing Disneyland consists of not only the rides, but the walking from ride to ride, the waiting in line for the rides, even throwing away your soda cup in their trash cans designed based on the theme of the area.  In the same way, you can make a good game by prioritizing the gameplay, going from battle to battle, but you'll never make a truly great game until you can make an experience that melds gameplay, story, character, aesthetics, and all the rest together into a single interactive experience.

These are just a few small things, and I know I'm not the only one to say them, but that doesn't mean they don't need to be said.  This is our chance, the time our culture is putting us in the spotlight next to artists and critics instead of murderers and addicts, and it's vital that we take it to show the world what video games really are, what they really mean, and what we gamers really care about.

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.