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Industry Leaders Frustrated With Game Culture
Well known designer Warren Spector let his opinions fly in a keynote at the Montreal Game Summit, reports Edge Online. From the article: "While admitting that the largest part of the criticism stemmed from general ignorance and misunderstanding of videogaming by the 'cultural gate-keepers,' he noted that simply staying the course and waiting for mainstream acceptance to catch up could lead not only to political intervention, but a 'coarsening of our culture,' and 'eventual cultural irrelevance.' Instead, he joined a growing chorus in the development community by strongly advocating the diversification of games to be more inclusive of women, older gamers, and traditionally excluded ethnicities." Next Generation is covering a similar statement by ESA President Doug Lowenstein about his views on the gaming industry's image. Unfortunately, societal parasite Jack Thompson took Spector's remarks to be validation of his viewpoint. GamePolitics has that story.
Jack Thompson would take being hit by lightning bolt while playing outside in a thunderstorm waving around a lightning rod as validation of his viewpoint. And he'd probably blame gamers for any harm that came to him. The man is just crazy. I don't think he even knows what he's doing all of the time. One minute Warren Spector is a bitter enemy, the next, he says something useful to Jack, and he morphs into a respected video game developer. Completely, utterly, fully insane.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
...I'd never heard of Jack Thompson until Zonk stated namechecking him every single day. It's not like you have to give him free publicity every time he opens his mouth.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
If his comments on GamePolitics are to be believed, he wants Spector to go to Alabama to testify for his case against Rockstar/Take-Two/Wal-Mart/Best-Buy/Sony/Common-Se nce. While his critisism of GTA is somewhat damning, it's not the damning that Thompson needs.
As far as Game Culture is concerned, I have to agree with Spector. Too many folks think gaming is all GTA this and Halo that. We need more stuff like Katamari dammit!
Except that's not where the money is, at least at the moment, so bring on cultural irrelevance.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
This is a huge issue for the industry, and it's good to see some notable people bringing attention to it.
We know that games don't cause crime (people cause crime!) and that they can't affect people's mental state more than a movie or book. (As an aside - anyone ever compare the effect of _Catcher In The Rye_ to Doom?)
But what *we* know isn't important - it's the wider public's perception of the gaming industry that really matters here. We see the great variety of fun games because we're close to the industry. The wider public see only the games that make the news, and for so long now the sort of games that make the news are associated with school shootings, suicides and on-screen sex (Hot Coffee - I'm looking at you!)
Does it matter if the general public get the wrong idea? Absolutely! They vote, they vastly outnumber gamers and they can be mobilised by people like Jack Thompson to force games to be banned from sale or to force the government to step in and regulate the industry.
Governments around the world show great desire to be seen to be tough on crime, and many are now pandering to religion in a cynical effort to woo voters. Think for a moment what an industry regulated by them would be. Imagine (for those of you in the US) if Jack Thompson was on the regulatory board.
That's what is at stake.
The perception of video games is awful. The rise in realism, combined with the media's need for a quick image or soundbite means that it's simple to grab a scene that makes just about any game look like a blood-fest. Well, maybe not Pikmin or Golf.
The way to turn this around is both simple and hard.
The simple part is to stop portraying characters as easy stereotypes - muscle-bound heroic men or stick-thin women with cavernous cleavage. The visual element is incredibly important and it's often used to make quick judgements about a game. The average age of gamers is rising, so the industry isn't targeting 13-year-old boys any more - it's men and women nearing their 30s. Get realistic and make games that look good *and* appeal to both men and women. This is just a matter of 3D models - trivial stuff.
The hard part is to promote the more positive aspects of gameplay. It's not all about killing - there's fantasy, escapism, exploration, strategy, problem-solving and so on. There are so many good things in gaming, and it is critical to make the general public see them rather than the continual violence that they're told games are all about.
Perception is reality.
I love it, Nintendo has been saying this for a coupe of years now. That the industry is in trouble if it ONLY keeps making games aimed at the hardcore gamer.
That's how I'd mod his statements. They make no sense whatsoever. Well they do...if you've not really played any of the games in question here. But if you've actually played the games, and think about it for a few minutes..you'd be thinking whaa?
See..what Spector is saying, is that the gameplay of GTA is great...pity about the content however. What Spector SHOULD realize, but doesn't, is that without the content of GTA, the gameplay would either be nosensical, or wouldn't exist in the first place. What Spector is talking about, the greatest part of GTA, is the "sandbox" appeal of it. But in order to remove the content, and really most of the controversy, you remove the sandbox element FIRST.
I would go a step further, and argue that ALL sandbox games fall into the same trap, and if people were really concerned about the content of video games, and not just about suing for money/scoring cheap and easy political and moral points, then we'd be talking about a much broader swath of gaming.
Because is the real controversy about GTA is that you're driving around a city, whacking mobsters and the like? Uhhh. No. The real controversy is that GTA gives you a living city that you can drive around in, and do basically whatever you want in. The gameplay that Spector lauds IS the controversy.
How ironic.
How quaint.
How dumb.
I would argue that any sufficently designed sandbox game comes with some potentially contraversial content. Be it the ability to be a facsist in the Civ games, to have gay relationships in the Sims games, or to create slums in the SimCity games, as a few examples. Spector himself, helped create a game where you can act like a pirate...hardly a socially redeemable activity.
Either be for or against these games. Period. But to try and play both sides, because playing the side you WANT to play limits your creative options in the future..well tough. Because when you're playing censorship, it usually boomerangs back to hit you in the head.
Seriously, all the major consoles have been talking about trying to expand gaming into a broader demographic, but I see at least Nintendo trying (not sure how successful it will be, but trying nonetheless) with their Brain Training and Nintendogs DS games, promise of a cheaper system in the Revolution, and a controller modeled after a TV remote for the express purpose of making non-gamers feel comfortable picking it up.
I understand that life's not fair, just why is it never unfair in my favor?
like them or not, rockstar are one of the companies responsible for pushing the medium of electronic gaming to the 'next level'. basically they have completely re-invented the modern game.
look up reviews of gta 3, vc, san andreas on any site and you will have terms like 'work of art' and 'revolutionary' thrown about from the likes of time magazine to the AIAS. there is a reason for this. their open ended and streaming world design has allowed them to fill a game with more content than most developers can stand to imagine. but it is not only that, and this is where all the cloners miss the point. rockstar invests the time into researching an era to create a vibe like no other. each rockstar classic evokes a strong feeling of connection with the time it is set in, with a sense of attention to detail that many times surpasses even today's major blockbuster movies. the music, economic and political climate, social commentary, characters, environments, plot, voice acting, are always top notch and second to none. rockstar puts in the time to get it right, when most titles are severley lacking in these key areas. gta's witty and sarcastic writing is very tounge in-cheek with tendency towards a more wordly or european viewpoint. they can laugh at us and themselves. can you even imagine r* making the voice of gta the HEEeeeeeeeeYYY BUUuuuDDDYy ANnnnnoucerr DUuuUUuuude from burnout 3? i think not.
yes this costs money, and yes we need to support indie games, however, every time someone's shitty mainstream game fails, they start moaning about supporting indie developers, and how indie games are the future. well guess what? it is a capitalistic world. if you have a good product, the rest sorts itself out. how well did the indie game supporting work for aklaim? yeah, it's called bankruptcy. i didnt see warren snatching up distribution rights for all his beloved indie developers. i am so tired of reading all the trolls about how the industry rockstar owes nothing to the industry aside from creating enjoyable entertainment for their fans, most of whom are adult. this is why rockstar has sold so many copies of gta. it is fun. people like it. ask yourself, when was the last time you got to play basketball, drive a stunt boat, ride a bmx, and fly a plane, jump motorcycles, and drive a monster truck all in the same game? it has been proven time and time againt he market is there for good games, look at how well a game like ninetendogs is doing right now.
warren needs to shut his mouth about rockstar and the rest of the industry and concentrate on making something that is actually fun. sure, thief was alright, but it was too slow. deux ex was good but more or less just another shooter, never seen that before dude! using lethal and or non-lethal means to solve puzzles doesn't mean it is any more open ended then quake or doom, inside it was still on rails. his two good games, crusader and ss were done over 10 years ago, and hey guess what they were. shooters. one 2d isometric, one 3d. since then? backyard wrestling. awesome. it's time to climb down off your soapbox and get back to work (just try not to have another company crater on impact). you don't see mediocre producers like john herzfeld lashing out at quentin tarantino just because his movies, while far, far superior, might be considered 'thuggery simulators'.
warren face facts, you haven't done anything relevant in the last decade, now get back to work you fucking nerd. the rest of the industry will sort itself out.
I find it strange that a visionary like Spector could be so blind to history. Think of somebody like Van Gogh or Picasso, whose works were either ignored or considered ugly and disgusting when they were created, but are considered genius today. The same will be said of GTA, assuming all the CDs don't become scratched.
Yes, sandbox games come with some POTENTIALLY contraversy the issue is HOW you go about presenting this.
Yes in the Civilization games you could rule as a fascist and purposely kill of the entire civilian population of a race/culture/city/nation. The difference between the Civilization games and the GTA series is the fact that YOU CANNOT PROGRESS THROUGH THE GAME as a "good guy". There will be missions where you MUST kill someone, you MUST steal something, where you MUST break the law in someway, shape or form. Yes you can do the vigilante or do the ambulance side-missions, but lets face it, they're basicly nothing more than mini-games. You're not gonna get a tank or access to all the cars just for doing those mission.
Same with the Sim games, you COULD have a gay couple, but the game doesn't jam it down your throat saying 'if you want to progress, you MUST cheat on your husband with another woman.' There is no 'you MUST start a fire while cooking and kill the husband in order to access a bigger piece of land' mission. Contraversial content in those games are artifically created BY THE PLAYERS.
GTA breaks the traditional rules by making it IMPOSSIBLE to be 'the good guy'. Unless you SERIOUSLY twist the context, its impossible to justify any missions that goes on within the game as legal.
that the guns in GTA carried non-generic ammo. I mean, honestly, I cant take that guy serious after the catastrophe that was Deus Ex:Invisible War.
Personally I think part of the problem is the mass hysteria that the media cause. If person X plays Y game that involves shooting and then goes on a shooting spree, the media blame the game and not the parents who should have taught person X to know better.
I've watched all sorts of violent and pornographic scenes in films and you don't see me re-enacting any of that. My parents taught me better then that. I used to play Sonic the Hedgehog on Mega Drive (Genesis to you Americans) and Game Gear. Imagine if someone tried to steal jewels from a jeweller's. Bet ya the press would blame the game. "It encourages the free pickings of valuable gems" (reference to the Chaos Emeralds that you have to collect to get the good ending)
There have been many times when dealing with people that I wished I could kiss my own butt goodbye
Game developer suggests producing product to cater to customers rather than producing customers to cater to product.
Which part of "business" don't these guys understand?
May the Maths Be with you!
Naturally, Jack fails to understand that Take-Two Interactive isn't just "GTA" this and "Manhunt" that. Think about it for a second...if Take-Two were really to go under (which apparently seems to be Jack's ulterior motive), not only would there be no more Grand Theft Auto, but we'd also lose games like Civilization, Pirates, and a bunch of great sim sports titles from the 2K Sports label. As much as he wants the non-gaming public to think otherwise, Take-Two does publish games that aren't over-the-top violent.
ZING!
Although to be fair, wasn't he out of the loop and/or not really in charge? IIRC, it was someone by the name of Harvey Smith who douched up DEIW.
That should be Ctrl-S(return).
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
What? Two major gaming events in Montreal in the same weekend? That's not fair!!!
So Festival Arcadia was the smoke and mirrors to keep us kids out of an interesting conference, right?
Sure, I got to trash to Nullsleep and the Minibosses for a while, got to see the Frag Dolls up close (they're cuter in person that in pictures, if you can imagine), got my GBA signed by the 8-bit people.. Nullsleep, Bubblyfish, Bit Shifter and david Kristian.. Saw an interview with the voice of the Princess in POP:Sands of time, and also got a set of nintendo fuzzy dice.
Warren Spector.. Hideki Konno.. Damn. That would have completed my already amazing weekend.
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
So the sketch of a comparison I'm seeing is that "Catcher" would be among the big novels of the breaking wave of paperbacks from the 1950s -- a new pop phenomenon that scared people. It's had a long history of censorship over controversial content, which the people objecting to it say will "promote" various immoral activities. Doom, similarly, was in the breaking wave of a new form of popular entertainment, and is said to "promote" violence.
I can see a couple of pretty obvious distinctions.
One is that, while the pulp paperbacks of Catcher's day could be described as a publishing phenomenon, they wouldn't rate discussion as an entirely new medium with a fundamentally different ability to immerse the poor, easily misled (and condescended to) public. The FPS depended on a completely new technology; certain people fear new technologies instinctively.
Another is that Doom and the FPS genre consists mostly of flat-out action that's nearly always devoid of any real moral content or discussion. You kill 1,000 Zombies to get to a switch, not to decide whether to turn Jim in to the folks of Hannibal; most games don't involve particularly moral choices as part of their canned levels. Catcher in the Rye, on the other hand, was objected to (and these are some censors' own words) for:
I love that phrasing: "things." For my money, people who'd ban Catcher in the Rye are afraid of even confronting moral choices; they think the book's out of bounds in dealing with them as nakedly as it does. The stereotyped FPS, on the other hand, is an example of the culture those very same people deserve: morally empty trash entertainment that (so they say) desensitizes us to violence. Hey, they don't want us to exercise our consciences, so let's work our trigger fingers.
One of them is morally empty, the other's too full of moral argument. Be interesting to compare the groups that want to ban Doom, Catcher, and pRon... curious overlaps there.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
In "The Sufering" any time you were around an NPC voices in your head (comes as whispers over the soundtrack) tell you to kill them and give reasons why you should do it. I havent gone back through yet but supposedly how you deal with them (I left them alive) affects the game down the road.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Despite citing the source, it was not hyperlinked. You can find Edge Online at: http://www.edge-online.co.uk/
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Unfortunately, with the abstraction of the Civ-illians into numbers representing population or little animated characters, it's hard to know what someone like me would do in real life. Were I the ruler of a Civilization, would I have the moral fortitude to not slaughter resisting populations? Or would I take the easy road to domination? I guess the world is lucky I'm so lazy.
As the player of a game, I can adopt a separate set of morals for the simulated universe and what I do there is not necessarily indicitave of what I would do in the real 'verse. (Aside from GTA - I do drive worse IRL after playing GTA, but I almost never carjack)
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
I wish people paid money for games that had an idea like that, instead of just for dynamic lighting effects and frame rates and so on...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.