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Making Statements With Video Games

Posted by Soulskill on from the let's-ask-jack-thompson dept.

You may have heard about the recent controversy at the Leipzig Games Conference over a modification of Space Invaders in which the invaders are slowly demolishing the World Trade Center. The creator intended it as an artistic expression, but has since removed the game, saying, "it was never created to merely provoke controversy for controversy's sake." Kotaku took this occasion to ask whether "statements" can and should be made via video games, and how it affects the ongoing question of whether video games should be considered art. "The entire issue begs comparisons to Danny Ledonne's Super Colombine Massacre RPG!, an unsettling and involved title that tasks players on the most basic level with acting out the 1999 Littleton, Colorado school shooting in the role of killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Ledonne told the Washington Post that his intention with the title was never to glorify the tragedy, but to 'confront their actions and the consequences those actions had.' Like Stanley's Invaders!, Ledonne and his title stopped short of providing a direct interpretation - neither artist has been especially specific about 'what it means,' or in instructing players on how they should interpret their work or what 'message' should be taken away."

1 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. You can troll with them = you can make statements by philspear · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's unfortunate that the examples were all statements of "Lookit me! I'm an insensitive asshole!" But the answer is yes, they can express that.

    The real question is if games can make statements that aren't

    -I want money
    -I want attention
    -I hate (insert group of people here)
    -I'm a jerk

    The answer is yes, but we haven't been able to do it very sophisticated like yet.

    One GOOD exmaple I'm thinking of is the guy who made "the emo game" You can find his works here
    http://www.emogame.com/

    Emo game 1 basically is making fun of emo music. A worthy goal. One of the sequels is an extremely not-subtle condemnation of conservatives, republicans, Bush, Paris hilton, the anti-stem cell movement, and shooting various other fishes in barrels. They're free and sometimes funny. Again, not subtle. Try them. A lot of the message relies on you playing through not very good gaming portions and then coming to a word document with the message inserted. It doesn't flow seamlessly with the game.

    There are also games that are clearly environmental, and they range from bludgeoning you over the head with it to so subtle that you could miss it.

    Bioshock I'm told has some moral questions for you to ponder. As I haven't played it yet I can't comment on that. I suspect though it's largely using movie techniques between game sequences.

    Videogames as statements are clearly in their infancy, so it's to be expected that the examples we have are fairly crude. Props to the emogame guy for being a pioneer of sorts though, and of course for making a statement with his soapbox. But it definitely is possible and with time they'll develop mechanisms to make it actually part of the game as opposed to gaming between statements.