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When Videogames Publishers Go 'Street'
Thanks to 1UP/OPM for its article discussing what they describe as the 'thugging' of the videogame industry, referencing games such as Def Jam Fight for NY and Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition. The piece suggests: "Whether it was established franchises morphing into more streetwise versions of their former selves or new franchises emerging wearing their hip-hop influences on their sleeves, it was clear that the urban lifestyle is being embraced by developers and publishers alike." Marc Ecko argues "I think the problem is that the games industry is generationally nostalgic", and Steve Allison of Midway charges: "The guys bitching about this new trend are inching up on 35 years old, and they grew up on old-school gameplay. They're a very vocal bunch, but they're just not the market anymore."
I think this is merely a phase, a cultural identification to a phase of adolescence, where young males feel superior as a method of attracting a mate, and when that fails, they turn to video games and possibly crime (as I think it always does fail most teens today who can't skate like Tony, or roll like Puffy).
Video game designers realize there is a pile of money to be made on criminals, too, because one of their favourite hobbies are console games. I'd wager that most criminals dislike computer games, yet I think with Doom 3 around the corner, this may change.
Thuggin: Spending money like an idiot, drinking to an excess, being only turned on by bimbos with no brains, beating eachother senseless with tire irons or whatever, shooting people you hate, getting shot at by people who hate you, eating only at drive thru, drinking alize and crystal, attending strip clubs like they were the new church, membership at the The Player'S Club, Gucci, bling-bling, busta move on da dance flo, Po Po, bein' Po cuz ya spendt it awl (not the same as Po Po), scrappin, etc.
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However, as you're all aware, the videogame industry is now outpacing Hollywood, which means geeks are no longer the main target audience. Games have gone mainstream in a horrible way.
Well, horrible for us at least. Which is what I'm getting at. You see, we may look down on this trend, I know I certainly do, but its not really our place to judge the people who they are now targeting.
Every generation has had their share of kids like this, the fad has just been different. Today its hiphop and thug culture. Doesn't make me like these kids any more, but they are certainly entitled to act this way. They're KIDS for fuck sake. Hopefully they'll grow out of it, otherwise, I'm sure with all the guns in the culture, Darwin will take care of the rest.
Fact is, this is only a phase that the games industry is going through, just like all the other ones they've gone through. Who knows what it will be next, but it really is luck that determines if it is compatible with older generations of gamers.
Don't fret though, once the gaming industry becomes more mature, we will start to see more stratification of companies as they target smaller audiences, and inevitably there will be some who choose to target older, more mature gamers.
And yes, Midway has sold out.
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Honestly, does it really matter? A fun game is a fun game is a fun game and people who pander to one style, neglecting gameplay are always going to make shitty games. I think game developers should have to take a sort of Hippocratic Oath, something along the lines of:
First, make it not suck
Hey, I'm a pathetic Tradewars 2000 addict (text based MMTG, www.eisonline.com). Wotthehell do I care about those fools??
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How does rap music and def jam suddenly equal thug?
Urban maybe, if you want to call it Urban culture go ahead, but thug is definately the wrong word and makes the person who posted the article sound like a closet racist.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
My money goes towards other interests than gaming.
I mean come on... Does anyone really think that all the little "nigga" wannabe's are anything other than mass marketed MTV drones?
If everyone that 'talks the talk" also 'walked the walk', than 2/3 of the population would be in prison, or dead. It's a bunch of huff and puff 99% of the time, and it pisses of parents who grew up with Motley Crue and Poison doing the talking for them, so it's inherently the "in" thing.
The only real problem with it is the number of kids it introduces to the concept of "money is for buying bitches, and guns is for talkin" (there, I paraphrased the entire genre for you! Happy? 8).
So while I understand why game manufacturers are going for this target demographic, I don't know if it's neccesarily something I feel is a good thing.
You have to remember that until this generation of parents decide to start being parents, this is the kinda drek which is raising their kids while they're out trying to relive their childhoods themselves.
Personally, I'd rather role play Leisure Suit Larry type characters than Snoop Dogg anyday. There's just something more fun about playing a smarmy cartoon character, and letting my imagination fill in some of the blanks, than playing a life like copy of a real life black pimp.
One's role-playing, and the other's just envy over an impossibility.
Why is it every 6.5 days there is a new Slashdot article about the trends in gaming? The trends in gaming depend mostly on the individual likes and dislikes. It's much like the 'Linux revolution'; anytime a company with over 25 employees switches to Linux we hear the chanting from the peanut gallery that Bill Gates is doomed and that the entire world has finally faced the light of open source, blah blah blah. In gaming it's much the same. Someone's got a GTA bug up their ass and now it's all they ever see. A whole dozen games have a "ghetto theme" and now we're lead to beleive that in 6 months no one will want to play Doom3, Half Life 2 or the latest Medal of Honor? Please. That's simply nonsense.
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OK I am 34 and it is fair to say I don't buy a lot of games anymore, but then again I never did. I always preferred games that lasted forever, like the original Civilization. When Doom came along that changed things and I enjoyed it because it's much more fun hunting each other.
Here's my point:
Older games LOOK like games. Suspension of disbelief was not necessary or even possible when dealing with flat-shaded 2D characters. I think back then gameplay testing was more important.. because there wasn't anything else to sweat over! There were no cameras, polygons, or anything just simple fun.
A lot of the games I see today are over-engineered.
Look at this way. Animation technology has come a LONG way, but does the anime industry rely exclusively on 3D computer generated images? Nope. Sure, 2D shaders are applied to some 3D objects then blended in with the 2D animation. And most 2D animation is done on a computer now. BUT it still *feels* like what came before it.
I don't really want a computer simulation of the outside world. I'd rather be out, in it.
My father an artist on the newest Sims title for Consoles (The Urbz) and he's definitely hit this. I've been at his office hearing fifty year old white men talking about "Street cred" and it's quite funny. They're so concerned about making sure that it has a legitimate "Street" feel. I put all that in "quotation marks" as that's how all the executives talk about it. It's quite amusing.
Rock sold out in the late 60s, early 70s. Definitely before 1975. Alternative sold out in 1991 I think, or was it earlier? Rap sold out, then sold out again, and has reached the magic "100,000 sellouts" number. Snoop Dog was on an AOL commercial, just when you thought it couldn't sell out any more. Country sold out, but no one bought. Is selling out a bad thing? Yes, but then I never much liked those genres anyway, so maybe it's good after all.
I resent the 35 year old comment, because I'm 21, and the games I grew up on weren't "streetcore" either. What on earth is the guy talking about? I don't know anyone in the 19-35 year old age range that is hip-hop hardcore. That shit resides in the high schools and malls. I like to refer to it as "mallcore," and it's pushed by Viacom affiliates like MTV controlled by rich executives who laugh at the very culture they propagate onto the kiddies, because it makes them money.
Fuck this rap-wannabe bullshit. It's hysterical. This musical fad is as long-lasting as glam was, disco was before it, and doo-wop was before that. The culture has already saturated itself--it's become the joke that glam was in the early 90s. Every rap video has the same oversaturated high-contrast video filters, the same sports jersey-wearing rappers, the same lyrics. It's around so much because it's extremely easy to produce this music. Just click in some drumbeats with your mouse in a tracking program and have someone write rap lyrics in 5 minutes, featuring today's flavor-of-the-month rapper. Bam, new single.
Midway, and any other companies getting into this, are making a huge mistake and will be laughed at in five years. Meanwhile, I'll play something that doesn't date itself so badly, like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 (I still play Doom 1 now and then!).
So here's my own musing and karma risk
Street Culture...
Brings to mind asian-descended mallrats looking for expensive toys to tack on to their hondas. Carlos Santana (not black) making Rob Thomas (also not black) cooler. Playing Loud Ludacris and Eminem. Luda is black, but Eminem? Although at first glance he is a whitey doing "black" music, He certainly has is own sound, also influenced by classic anglo poetic meter (and few black gentlemen bleach their hair).
And then there are other groups that influence street, as well. Orange County Choppers/West Coast Choppers. A bunch of older white people doing what they do well, with a fuck-you if ya don't like it attitude. Very "street". Goths/Punks/Metalers. A token group thrown in any "street" video game, usually portrayed by one character. In real life, a mix of anglo and eastern europan-americans, with a few blacks and asians, which are not usually the sub-cultural leaders. Has led to the plethora of piercings, dyed hair and tattos in street culture. Hispanics. Aside from Santana, has a very real and non-black street credibility. They "own" the lowrider scene, cruising, and such. Not marketed by Hollywood/ video games well yet. Still street.
Yes, there are many blacks developing the "Urban" culture. But they aren't the only ones that loathe suburbia. In fact, people from all ethnicities and walks of life find the droll, smugly racist, overly rightous attitudes of the portly and pasty crackers from small towns and suburb tracts simply disgusting. I'm white. I still like bass, flamboyance and machismo. And no, I don't wish I was black.
Looks good for your age..
Game programmers ain't much better. As someone said this is as real as Vanilla Ice.
As for how effective it is. Well the posts comments on how the 35 yr olds are just a small segment. Perhaps. But so are the 25-35 and 35+ segments. So are all the 0-25 who just don't like rap/hip-hop/streetcred. By focussing on one group that seems to be "in" at the moment you risk alienating all the rest. Just ask MTV.
I used to give this example and while it isn't entirely true anymore it still works. Look at the top ten most successfull films of all time and count the number with "classical" music and those with music that was current at the time.
Each generation needs their own kind of music to be able to rebel against those who came before. Nothing new there and nothing to worry about except that possibly one day we are going to run out of new music but then we can just start again. One day youths on the streetcorner will be grooving to beethoven and old folks passing by will say "shame in our day we listened to real music and what are these kids of today wearing, suit? Tie, a HAT? and look at his pants, they are not even down to the knees!".
Anyway I think that any game that attempts streetcred by including the current "hip" music and street talk is as pretend as a hollywood movie doing the same. You know that is just marketing by some 40yr old in a suit and the only ones stupid enough to think that playing these games gives you real street cred are exactly the people the 40yr old wants to reach. Middle-class white boys who want to show they are hard but still live at home with mommy and get daddy to pay their bills.
Funny how kids always think they are rebbelling by doing exactly what all the other kids are doing. Wouldn't it be a real rebbelion for a kid not to rebel? (I am as anti-social as they come and so the herding instinct is extremely low in me. I don't conform. Ever. Not even by not conforming. Doesn't make me better but it does give me some laughs when I see poor little rich kid gangsta's.)
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Eminem? Although at first glance he is a whitey doing "black" music, He certainly has is own sound, also influenced by classic anglo poetic meter (and few black gentlemen bleach their hair).
To look at older hip hop, you will find surprising similarities between Eminem's style and 's style. In 8 Mile they pay a homage to Rakim by pointing out that he was the first successful rapper to use complex rhyme schemes. To this day, no other rapper has been able to match him in the complexity of his or her rhymes. Rakim is an upright muslim, no excessive bling bling, no big booty bitches in his videos and possibly as a result of that no mainstream appeal.
LK
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I don't think that Hip Hop is negative. It never was when we were growing up.
Unless things have changed the description of Gangsta Rap and Thug Life would be "hardcore" rap...not hip hop. Let me differentiate.
Hip hop can be negative, but in that vein it usually is meant to motivate you to get by the tough times. Most of it is just for partying or being silly. This might have changed but real hip hop back in the day would be Slick Rick, Erik B and Rakim; etc. Gangsta Rap would be NWA, Public Enemy; etc. Sometimes it's tough to differentiate between the two...I've listened to rap and hip hop since those guys were popular though, so I'd like to think that I have some idea of what I'm talking about. I'm not saying it's my favorite music, especially with all of the thug crap coming out now.
I feel like Mike Bolton from Office Space even talking about it.
-TLAY
Funny how most of the critics of games with an "urban" feel, are the same ones who step up to defend vidgame violence because "it's just fantasy." Many probably also defended pseudo-street games like NARC, Double Dragon etc. back in the day.
A game set in East L.A. (the next GTA, for example) isn't going to send kids running off the join gangs, any less than a tennis game is going to get them to pick up a racket. We're all Walter Mitty when we play games.
And yes, there may be some appeal to a gang market... But like gangsta rap, the majority of the games will be purchased by middle-class white kids in the suburbs.
I'm a big fan of Rakim, I have all his stuff with Eric B. and I think since.
I didn't know his Muslimness mattered. He rarely mentions it in his songs. If you can't tell, I resent defining a man by his religion.
As to the complexity of his rhymes, his rhymes aren't all that complex any more. If you ask me, Digital Underground completely buried Rakim on the complexity level with their "Sex Packets" album and ensuing EP. I would say that both "Nuttin Nis Funky" and "Freaks of the Industry" great exceed Rakim's work in complexity. Also check out some of Del the Funkee Homosapien's work for work that exceeds Rakim also.
Now, as to cadence and style, Rakim has an incredible style. He is perhaps the best there, superceding the original vanguard for style, LL Cool J.
${1} is ${2}! Youth is being corrupted! We should ${3}
...) ...) ...)
Where:
$1 is in (music, movies, games, websites, theater,
$2 is in (violent, sexual, political, heretical,
$3 is in (ban it, regulate it, age restrict it, burn them at the stake, make him drink hemlock,
Street music? Streets are just roads, right?
For an even better mindfuck, take advantage of the fact that most rap lyrics are in iambic pentameter. Start a backbeat, put it on loop, and see how far you can get through Macbeth (or any other Shakespearian play) before you collapse in hysterics.