It seems clear to me that by the time my children are adults, video gaming will be a medium whose importance and cultural ubiquity are at least as great as that of film or television. Whether it will be an artistic medium of equivalent importance is less clear.Not particularly profound, maybe, but one that isn't immediately obvious either given the dialogue of, say, Final Fantasy X. On the other hand, I don't see any reason why video games shouldn't follow the same historical journey out of the crass wilderness of the market niche as did its predecessors. The novel, once solely a precursor to Valium used by middle-class housewives is now only primarily a supplement to Valium used by middle-class housewives. Film, once seen as technological novelty used to terrify and excite the uneducated masses is now...
How about comic books? Comic books were once only marketed for boys who either couldn't read or couldn't date. Now, they have them in museums!
The point is, if video-games are considered low-art now (or sub-art, or aren't even allowed the suffix), it's only a matter of time before they become respectable. Whether that trend begins as a result of a legitimate increase in artistic value across the board (and no, I can't quantify that, but fuck you, everyone knows what I mean), or as a result of its mere permeation (crass or not) into more and more mainstream areas of the public discourse, I don't know. I don't know how the process occurred for the other genres listed above, though Lanchester hints at something:
One of the problems is that the new consoles are difficult and expensive to create games for: no one can create a game for the PS3 or Xbox 360 without access to significant amounts of capital. The next generation of consoles is a long way away, and this will likely be even more the case by the time they’ve grown up. As the tools of filmmaking have got cheaper, those for game making have got more expensive; this might mean that the game industry never gets to move on from the need to create blockbuster equivalents. Already the industry suffers from an excessive proliferation of sequels – always a sign that the moneymen are in charge. Games do a good job of competing with blockbusters, but it would be a pity if that was the summit of their artistic development.In sum, videogames are generally formulaic, poorly written, cliche ridden and (generally) artistically repetitive if visually appealing because that seems to work from a commercial stand point. The target audience is surely not the largest possible audience; it is the audience that is currently buying videogames. If someone suddenly decides to make "My Dinner with Andre" the videogame, I'm sure a certain segment of the market would go wild. Unfortunately, that segment of the market thinks Zelda is a constipation medication; meanwhile, the traditional gamers thinks the game is totally gay. Obviously its a bit easier to break from your target audience in marketing a comic book then when you have a few million dollars invested in a new project, but I don't doubt that the process will eventually occur. If already isn't.
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"One of the problems is that the new consoles are difficult and expensive to create games for: no one can create a game for the PS3 or Xbox 360 without access to significant amounts of capital."
ReplyDeleteTrue. However, a modern blockbuster costs 185 million dollars (The Dark Knight, credit Wikipedia.) Conversely, A non-Hollywood film that a) was very good and b) is critically acclaimed, costs 3 300 000 dollars (Let the Right One In, ask Adam about it.) Granted that isn't exactly a trifling sum, but indie filmmakers can make movies without a rich Hollywood Jew working in the background.
Similarly, Grand Theft Auto IV apparently cost about 100 million dollars to make (credit ign.com). A good (or so I've heard), critically acclaimed, and succesful game can cost as little as 10 000 dollars (World of Goo, credit The Industry Standard.)
Not to mention mods; more players bought Warcraft III last year in order to play DotA than to play the actual game, and Counterstrike is just a mod of Half-Life.
The reason video games aren't considered "art" yet is that video games need to let you do something fun, and things that are fun are usually not art. Like you said, My Dinner with Andre would not make a good video game and not only because movie adaptations always suck.
The way I see it, there are two ways to make a game that makes you think. The first is to be Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, or Tim Schafer, and be able to walk into a studio CEO office and say that you are going to make a game where Pac-Man is an alcoholic and abuses Ms. Pac-Man to the point that Ms. Pac-Man creates a fantasy world in her mind, and she not only slowly bloses touch with reality but her fantasy world in fact begins to manifest itself subtlely in the real world, and they are going to give you millions of dollars to do so (or, alternatively, http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/05/27/), like when John Boorman made Zardoz.
The other one is to make a game for free that no one will play.
Or maybe you could just make a movie and every five minutes or so make the viewer play rock paper scissors in order to continue. Or put in a quarter.
I agree that computer games need to be fun, but I still feel that there's some middle ground between "My Dinner with Andre" 3D and "Shaq Fu." Good writing doesn't necessarily imply long winded conversations about art. Take the movie "Unforgiven." I don't know why you should take that, it's just the first movie of the sort that comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't seen it, its an action movie with a lot of shooting and bar fighting and half-naked prostitutes. It also happens to be a grade-A fucking movie. Good writing. Good acting. Good plot. All around a solid film and, I would argue, easily adaptable into a solid video game.
There are video games with good plots, just the Japanese don't make them.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenmue
ReplyDeleteBoom. Awesome fucking game, super-experimental (they planned to make 10 or so sequels), and I haven't heard anything about it since. So sad.
"Initially released in Japan at the end of 1999, Shenmue is regarded by many critics and fans alike to be one of the Dreamcast's finest titles. This is largely due to the game's status as a highly original and groundbreaking technical achievement. It is often credited as one of the first video games to employ such lavish, and typically film-like production values. It received an Excellence Prize for Interactive Art at the 2000 Japan Media Arts Festival.[4]"