You know, I’ve been
thinking...
(Warning: real talk
imminent.)
It didn’t pan out, of
course. As he explained to me in an
off-hand conversation, making video games isn’t nearly as fun as playing
them. Programming is tedious and
unfulfilling. Testing and QA are just as
bad, if not worse. Creative vision? Ha!
What’s that? Go back to slaving
in front of a computer, you worthless code monkey! Granted he had (and still has) a habit of
putting the most negative spin possible on things -- he’s the Cynical Avenger
to my Eternal Optimist -- but as I understand it, his words ring true in the
case of the games industry.
Still, I couldn’t help
but admire games, and the industry that crafted them. Hundreds of people coming together in
hundreds of companies -- clans, as it were -- to create hundreds of varied
titles and hundreds of hours of gameplay destined to make mothers dizzy and
resentful…and leave chores undone. I
can’t stress enough how much video games mean to me; they’re stories that
inspire and amaze, and have been doing so for as long as I can remember. And they’ll keep on doing so long after I’m
dead and buried.
At least, that’s what
I’d like to believe. But then I get on
the internet, load up my favorite gaming sites, and I’m repeatedly bombarded
with bad news. Stuff that makes me angry, depressed, confused, and…honestly, just plain tired.
Look, I don’t like
talking about -- or even thinking about -- the politics behind the game
industry. I’m more concerned about the
end product, i.e. the gameplay and story and vision and all that good stuff. I would much rather leave the particulars to
bloggers like Grahf (whose blog you should probably be reading instead of mine)
and let the actual game do all the talking.
But it’s becoming harder and harder for me to divorce the politics with
the game itself -- and if you’ve kept an eye on things recently, you may know
why.
A question for you,
fair reader: given the choice, would you rather spend more money or less
money? Yes, that’s right, exactly --
almost immediately, the answer (in most cases) is “spend less money”; it’s not
just a matter of hunting for good deals or budgeting; in a modern-day climate,
we’re inclined to take money into consideration. So of
course, there are game developers willing to blow as much as two hundred million dollars -- and maybe more -- into putting out one product. That’s an unfathomable amount of money; while
I assume (or at least hope) it’s the exception rather than the norm, I know
there are companies pumping just as much cash into their products and hoping
for the best. Sometimes it works. Other times it’s fifty million dollars for
naught. And still others, we get things
like…
Yeah. That.
Pretty much everybody
who knows about Destructoid is aware of the problems with the industry. The crippling addiction to violence. The homogenization of countless titles. The almost-damning fear of innovation. The idea that single-player games are a relic
of the past, and every game needs multiplayer to even be worthy of a gamer’s time.
Marketing becoming as big a factor as the games themselves…rather
ironic, given how so many other games have been sent to pasture by virtue of
not being marketed in the slightest. An
onslaught of DLC, with one executive actually starting an E3 conference with “A
few years ago, the game you got was the game you bought.” Closures and bankruptcies all across the
board. I could go on, and on, and on about the problems of the industry,
but that’s been done elsewhere and done better.
Like I said, I’d rather
let the games speak for themselves…and they have been for years now. Street
Fighter X Tekken’s release was a debacle; it really shows what’s going on
in the heads of its creators when, instead of getting helpful hints about how
to overcome tough enemies in a single-player mode, Dan pops in to recommend
equipping (and likely buying) gems. Final Fantasy has pretty much imploded
at this point, thanks in no small part to this retroactively-named “Lightning
Saga” and the still-missing Versus 13. People eagerly gave EA and Bioware trouble
for a lackluster ending to Mass Effect 3,
but it’s hardly the only one worth slamming, and at the very least offered good
content prior to its end; the biggest titles are not only struggling to keep
their charm, but regularly straddle a thin line. On one side, there are franchises that have
reached the hallmark, the third installment in the series, and have every
reason to end it there -- and on the other, there’s the financial obligation to
pump out an additional game by virtue of an open-ended (or even confusing)
ending, obfuscated details, or just plain unanswered plot points…and said
franchises are straddling the line with all the grace of a three-legged
elephant.
I would gladly point to
Capcom and Squeenix as prime examples of “losers”, in that they’re sabotaging
some of their biggest properties far more than a game-breaking bug ever
could. But you know what? It’s starting to look like at this stage, everybody’s losing. EA’s losing money. Capcom and Squeenix are losing money. THQ’s gone belly-up, and by the sound of
things Atari’s not in a very good place either.
Hell, even Sony and Nintendo -- Nintendo,
of all companies -- are losing. Now, why
exactly each company is losing money will vary from one to the next, but when
the solution to the problem in the eyes of most developers (and the bigwigs
behind them) is to make sure their game sells five million copies by any means
necessary, you start to run into problems.
Try to turn your
product into something it’s not, and you get Resident Evil 6. Try to pump
out a game and assume it’ll be a revelation just because of its name, and you
get Final Fantasy 13-2. Try to
start fresh by gutting the essence of your beloved franchise and taking the
piss out of fans, and you get DmC. Try to kick up your feet and coast on blank
checks and a less-than-discerning audience, and you get Halo 4. And those are just
the failures I’ve experienced in the past year (and not even a full list); I
would personally like to know what was going through EA’s heads when they
sanctioned the release of Medal of Honor:
Warfighter…and right before the release of a new Call of Duty. That’s like
thinking you’ll steal all of the ice cream man’s customers because you’re
selling your patented Hairballs on a Stick.
Look, I know I’m
sounding particularly negative during this post, but I want to stress that
there’s still -- and always will be, I bet -- hope for video games. I’ve seen proof of that myself, both in the
past year and years prior. Devil Survivor 2? Great.
Ratchet and Clank? Great.
Xenoblade Chronicles? Great.
We’ve seen wild and crazy releases like Lollipop Chainsaw, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Tekken Tag 2, Skyrim, Far Cry 3, the
Mass Effect series in general, Saints Row 3, Bioshock, Telltale Games’ The
Walking Dead, Valkyria Chronicles, the Dead
Rising series in general, damn near every title released by Platinum Games,
and more. As time passes, games and
their creators are destined to evolve.
New technology breeds new abilities.
New abilities breed new possibilities.
And in the end, I think that’s what I want most out of games. Out of fiction in general. Out of me, and what I can do as a would-be
writing hero. I want the canvas to be
tapped thoroughly and effectively; I want to see those possibilities being
realized and taken advantage of by an enlightened group -- be it a single penman
or a cadre of programmers and designers.
And therein stands the
problem. Video games, by and large, are
becoming more limited. And those limits
are what could potentially lead to an irrevocable failure.
It’s easy to blame
everything on a handful of companies and a handful of games; whether you like
the franchise or not, you have to admit Call
of Duty takes a LOT of abuse. Some
of that is deserved abuse, in the sense that its successes narrow down what
games should be, rather than what they can be.
Its billion-dollar earnings have left other companies wanting; it’s left
developers and publishers alike pining for, and then boasting about, record
sales the moment the numbers are all tallied up. It’s a scapegoat, but it’s stigmatic,
symptomatic, and maybe worst of all, a standard.
Maybe it’s just human
nature to look scornfully upon those in power.
The gamers may be the one dictating who gets wealth and who gets power,
but ultimately what are we, the lifeblood of the industry, but peasants to be
controlled and commanded by kings growing fat and sluggish? In the end, who’s to blame for Call of Duty teaching the industry what
gamers want? Who’s the real villain in
the grand scheme of things -- those that make the games? Or those that buy in droves? What is a gamer if not an enabler, telling
developers to aim for well-treaded ground and let “par” be a substitute for
“excellence”?
And what does
“excellence” mean for a game these days?
What is the standard, if not review scores and professional
testimonials? Am I supposed to believe Halo 4 is a heart-moving adventure when
its leading man has as much personality as a dented Hummer? Am I supposed to believe DmC is supposed to take storytelling in games to the next level
when its most infamous cutscene has our “hero” throwing swears at an enemy
straight out of an episode of Futurama with
none of the self-awareness and wit? Am I
supposed to believe that being a badass, one-man-army killing machine in every
other game today is supposed to be me? A
hero, or even someone worth having a conversation with?
I know games take a lot
of effort to go from an idea to a disk in the hands of gamers. Just setting up a crappy thirty-second clip
in Windows Movie Maker is a hassle for me, and I’m just one guy with a laptop. So I’m not about to devalue the efforts of developers
and the people within them -- primarily because I know that they’re real people
with real jobs on the line, and at this stage in gaming history you aren’t allowed to put out any
bombs. So no, I’m not going to say
“Everyone working on [insert miserable
game X here] needs to be fired!”
What I AM going to say
is that too many people have fallen into a rut.
The mark has been missed so badly that it’s as if several companies have
inadvertently kneecapped Mark Wahlberg and Mark Henry simultaneously. This isn’t a matter of replacing those of the
old paradigm with those who uphold something new (although that would certainly
help); it’s a matter of those in power realizing that this shit needs to stop.
They can have their business.
They can have their personnel.
They can have their franchises and their plans to extend them for as
long as possible. But what they need to
do is focus on what’s important. Cut
down the chaff. Stop pining after
mystical audiences. Make creative,
innovative video games with a vision in mind -- stop trying to be like Hollywood, because you’re just going to
crash and burn.
But I guess that’s a
lesson the industry will learn too late.
Comments on posts and forums have been rumbling about a second video
game crash, one that’ll bring ruin to the industry and completely shut down
this little hobby. There’s an argument
to be had that it’s on the way…but others would argue that we’re already in the middle of it.
Studio after studio has closed down; development costs are skyrocketing,
and the only way to make back that money is by going with big damn triple-A
trappings; gamers are getting manhandled and pressured into buying more on top
of sixty-dollar releases, and despite that still end up getting treated like
unruly sheep in need of a smacking. Cynicism
and mistrust have bred throughout every rung of the industry. We call them greedy; they call us entitled. We treat them like tyrants; they treat us
like pirates. We treat them like
enemies; they treat us like enemies. And
amidst all of this, everyone ends up losing something precious -- be it their
company, their games’ quality, their creative vision, their loyalty, their
faith, or even their ability to be amazed and have fun.
In the end, what can we
do? Are we supposed to tolerate this,
and limit ourselves to a handful of titles?
Are we just supposed to take whatever comes our way, and accept “par” as
the new “excellence”? Are we supposed to
whine and moan and complain, hoping dearly that our preferences will reach the
ears of our lords -- lords who have no reason to listen with their nightly
showers of dollar bills?
I know what I’m going
to do.
The best part of any
creative medium isn’t its ability to give us awe-inspiring heroes and loathsome
villains. Those are certainly good
qualities to have, but not what I’d consider the best part. The same goes for unpredictable narratives
that’ll leave your jaw on the floor with one well-placed plot twist, or themes
running throughout that will make you question your worldview for years to
come. The same goes for emotional
torque, a well-defined framework of one’s fictional universe, a balance between
tonal and literary elements, and yes, even the spirit of a work. The “best part” even goes beyond just having
good technique -- it’s everyone’s intent to tell a good story, and definitely something
that one should aspire towards, of course…but it’s still not the best part.
The best part, in my
eyes, is the potential. It’s the fact
that, if you make a trip to the bookstore to get a new story, you have hundreds
of choices in the space of a child’s arm span, let alone the length of a whole
shelf, and let alone an entire section’s worth.
There might be similarities, and there’s no guarantee that the quality
will be absolutely fantastic, but you have options. You have a wide array of selections. You have just what each writer has:
possibilities to pursue and enjoy. Creative
mediums are empty canvases, and each work offers its own artistic flourish and
tribute. In the end, that might be what’s
most important. That might be why video
games may still have a ways to go before they become accepted as a truly
legitimate medium -- because the moment you start to limit yourself is the
moment you start to fail.
Don’t get me wrong,
though. I’m almost certain that the
writing world and the particulars therein are full of issues and complications
-- the sort of things that would immediately shatter my rosy view of the
medium. But the divide between the two
is more notable than it’s ever been before.
Let me put it this way: all it takes for me to write a chapter of I Hraet You is a laptop, a bit of time,
a full stomach (preferably, and with a cup of water nearby afterwards), a mind
that’s willing to dream up new scenarios, and some fingers ready to type. That’s it.
Write it, post it, and I’m all done.
Conversely, it takes teams of hundreds, millions of dollars, thousands
of man-hours (in working conditions that can vary from acceptable to damn near
indentured service), an onslaught of marketing, testing on focus groups, and the
shadowy hands of executives and investors to get games from a concept to a
consumer. Now, it’s pretty obvious just
which one of these approaches is going to be more successful in the long run --
though again, studio closures are a constant nowadays -- but by now you
understand what I’m getting at.
The stakes are too damn
high with video games. Too many people
to please. Too many obligations that
need to be fulfilled. And of course, too
much money on the line, putting pressure on everything and everyone
involved. I don’t have a good solution
to the industry’s woes, both current and upcoming -- and if I did, I’m fairly
sure someone would have thought it up already.
All I can do is grab the games I like, and avoid the games that I don’t. Even if I’m just one non-buyer or non-player,
I know that at the very least I’m staying true to myself. I know that there’ll be games that’ll
continue to entertain and excite me, and make me hopeful for the future…just as
there will be utter disappointments and disasters running parallel.
Know this, industry --
the industry, the gamers, and even you readers of this little rant. If games aren’t going to explore the endless
possibilities available, then I will.
Because in many ways, that’s why I’m out to become a writing hero.
So. Let’s see how Metal Gear Rising turns out.