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Attempting To Create A Gaming Canon
David Thomas writes "There's a newly posted list of games every developer should know over at Costik.com, and a similar recent attempt at The Ludologist - both articles concern the idea of a 'canon' of games. Like a literary canon, the idea is there is a list of classic games anyone serious about games should have played, in the same way any serious lit person will have read through the canon of literary works." Gentlemen, look over the lists, and please start your heckling now.
I'm definitely more impressed by the costik list than the Ludologist list. While you're obviously going to open yourself to a great deal of attack, the level to which they've broken games down by type and genre gives more room for exploration of truly 'canonical' titles that don't have to be compared in direct terms when it comes to their inclusion/exclusion.
The look at non-video games is important here too. Who could possibly call themselves a true gamer if they haven't gamed off-screen? Particularly relevant for game designers when it comes to understanding what makes video gaming different to other forms of gaming.
All in all the more people argue about such lists the better! Surely it will all take us closer to a true canon that can be held up in future as a respected list?
Having just come out of a liberal arts program, I know all too well that there is a great deal of contemporary scholarship bemoaning the fact that there is a canon. Say what you will about it, but post-modern scholarship is quite right when it says that the very existence of a canon restrains us. While it might make indoctrination more efficient, all a canon really is is a set of volumes (of whatever media) that some self-proclaimed experts say are required to appreciate said media. That creates a power structure in at least an abstract sense between the canon-makers and the canon-supplicants. And what do these people really know?
There is only one purpose of a canon. There is an established structure of experts, and they're worried that the "common people" don't appreciate games the way they do, thus trivilizing them. So in order to indoctrinate them with similar value systems (even about video games) they manufacture a canon defining what they claim is "good" in a video game.
Fuck that! Like most social structures, groups of critics judge games with 90% finger-in-the-wind and 10% what they actually let themselves think for themselves. Suuure, Black and White is a reallly great game. Thanks, IGN/GameSpot/your favorite gaming rag. Are these the people who should decide what is "important" or "critical" to play before you can "properly appreciate" games?
What is wrong with exploring for yourself?
I don't want to sound to matrixy, but in the end, it's all about control. Organisations like EA will eat this shit up.
S[0o0]2
Zork
Duke Nukem/Duke 3D
Scroched Earth
Soul Calebure (SP?)
UT
Warcraft II
Bubble Bobble? (Not sure if thats the right name, the game that Snood is based on)
Area 51 and the other game its bundled with often.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
"And lo, the Snickering Dog appeared from behind the Mount, and it was found that the people could not shoot him, and that the only way to appease him was ye to successfully shoot both Ducks..."
... and that's "elitism".
This is just another dick measuring contest. "Oh you haven't played X? You're not a real gamer". Give me a break.
People who go on about literary canons all have one thing in common: they're a bunch of concieted academics all trying to prove they're more important than the next concieted academic because they're a bigger expert than the next guy.
Does anyone really think gaming would benefit from going down the same path?
Play the games you enjoy, and if you're a developer, let your influence flow from your personal favourites, with a healthy dose of inovation.
It's like in music: some artists have been influenced by Dylon, some by the Sex Pistols, some by Nirvana, etc. Different people are going to draw from different sources. Nobody criticises an artist if they can't name the Beatles albums in chronological order, so long as they make good music.
RTFA!
the games ARE subdivided into categories by genre.
I guess I shouldn't expect much under the sports category since if you're a serious gamer you can't play sports games. Only stupid jocks play them. But comeon:
COMPUTER GAMES--Sports
John Madden Football
That's it? Tecmo bowl anyone? RBI Baseball? NHL on Genesis?
-- taking over the world, we are.
Listen, the whole "literary canon" thing was created by a bunch of elitist, tweedy snobs in an attempt to legitimize their superiority. They claim that in order to be a "real" writer of literature, you have to have read a certain number of extremely boring books, and agreed with their snobby, boring interperetation of same. If you have ever suffered through a conversation with one of these people, you know that they basically sit around memorizing their professor's pet literary criticism instead of actually reading and enjoying the books themselves. And, most INTERESTING books are written by people who IGNORE the "canon". Outsiders, in other words, people who aren't involved with literary academia. I find the situation funny: the literary canon crowd write long, boring, self-congradulatory books that only other tweedy types read, while outsiders publish books that are interesting and relevant to the rest of us.
A real gamer doesn't sit around worrying about whether he's played the correct set of games to properly introduce himself to the genre. He's been in the genre since he was a kid. If he's into, say, first person shooters and strategy games, he probably has at least thirty of them in a CD holder somewhere. He understands first person shooters completely. He knows the genre like the back of his hand. He doesn't need some "canon" to help him. Fish already KNOW about water; they don't need swimming lessons.
Having said that, the people who might be interested in this ridiculous "canon" are people who want to be game developers but who DO NOT PLAY GAMES THEMSELVES. They're just like the posers and wannabes that flooded the dot-com boom back in the nineties, people who don't care about the art and who just want to cash in. "Hey, videogames are big now -- let's make some money, how hard could it be?" they say. They think, in some weird freshman lit major way, that "anyone can write about anything as long as they do a little research". So they try for something like this silly canon, thinking that all they have to do to create a great game is study all the games that have made lots of money, and make a new game JUST LIKE THOSE. And, their game tanks in the market because it's just another derivative piece of shit with no new ideas, and every real gamer sees it as such instantly.
I fucking HATE these people. They ruin everything they touch.
If you're not a gamer, don't bother trying to write a game for me. You'll fuck it up, it'll suck, and I'll hate you for it. Look at the wide range of games that suck, and I guarantee that behind every game that sucks is some noob who thought he could just waltz into a cushy game developer position after a weekend of playing DOOM.
I want to play games written by people who genuinely love games themselves, and who have been playing games since they were kids. I don't want to play games written by some corporate stiff who took a bunch of games listed in a "canon" home for the weekend and struggled through a level or two.
You're either a gamer or you're not. And that's all there is to it. It's not something you can fake.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
What about those fun playground games, like:
* Red Rover
* Dodge Ball
* Hide and Seek
* Cowboys and Indians
* Jump rope (great single and multi-player action!)
Not to mention things like Football (both American and the rest of the World), Baseball, Cricket, etc.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
You go with 4 because it was a turning point. The first three were ad-hoc, do what you will games. Ultima 4 introduced the concept of the Avatar, and actually had you do something other than dungeon-crawl and kill everything in sight. It required you to actually role-play the virtuous avatar of Lord British if you wanted to finish the game - cheating the shopkeepers for magic ingredients is a nice way to get ahead early on, but you will need to make up for it later on.
Just because 6 or 7 were towards the end of the list, doesn't mean they were specifically innovative in one way or another - I can't comment on these directly because I haven't played them.
What I would've liked to see was Ultima Underworld, which was a good early take on 3d environments in an RPG.
1. Those who don't know history are bound to repeat it.
2. There is nothing new under the sun.
A canon is useful because you can use it as a basis for comparison. "This is Adventure. This is ET. Try to make a game more like the former and less like the latter"
A canon is also useful because it can bring to light old concepts that worked well that have been forgotten due to the corporate crap you rail on about. A good portion of the upcoming generation of gamers has never even heard of M.U.L.E, for example. By having a list and being able to say "Check this out.." we make sure we don't just lose good ideas permanently.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze