Mario and Ms.Pacman art appreciation

A (somewhat) philosophical argument for gaming

In Susan Wolf’s essay “Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of a Good Life” she uses many examples to differentiate what she sees as meaningful pursuits and meaningless pursuits. Among the meaningful pursuits Wolf mentions are: “Relationships with friends and relatives…Aesthetic enterprises (both creative and appreciative), the cultivation of personal virtues, and religious practices.”(p.210) When speaking of useless tasks she mentions “crossword puzzles, sitcoms, or the kind of computer games to which I (Wolf) am fighting off addiction.”(p.210)

            I would agree with Wolf that there are certain ways to spend one’s time that are more meaningful than others, and like Wolf I enjoy playing computer games. However, I do not agree with her classification of computer games, which I take to include all forms of electronic gaming, as entire wastes of time. While the majority of electronic entertainment software that exists is mindless entertainment meant to turn a profit, I believe there exist artistic individuals among the creators who seek to deliver important messages. Wolf herself says “History is full of unappreciated geniuses, of artists, inventors, explorers whose activities at their time were scorned”(212) While videogames have been targets for social criticism almost since their inception, there is increasing attention being paid to critical analysis of electronic games as a legitimate form of media, and potential artistic expression.

            As Alexander Galloway says in his introduction to his book Gaming “Our generation needs to shrug off the contributions of those who view this as all so new and shocking. They came from somewhere else and are still slightly unnerved by digital technology. We were born here and love it.”(Preface xii) The year before I was born, 1986, saw the debut of Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System. I have grown up with video games around me my entire life. I remember the adamant opposition of my parents to them at first, and the guilty-pleasure of going over a friend’s house to play video games in kindergarten. Our parents eventually softened their restrictions and allowed my brother and I access to a Gameboy when I was in second grade. There being both my brother and I and only one Gameboy, we were forced to share. Already games were becoming a medium through which I interacted socially with others, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Wolf mentions relationships with friends and relatives as one of the things classically seen as leading to a meaningful life, and videogames acted as a conduit and shared interest through which I interacted with others.

            One of the fears voiced by critics is that people will come to see videogames as substitutes for real social interaction, citing such examples as players of massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft in China, who immerse themselves in the virtual world so utterly that they exclude the needs of the real world and wither away. I acknowledge that this is a true problem, Wolf herself speaks of games in the matter of an addiction, but that means it is the responsibility of the individual, or the parent to regulate the intake of the media.

The argument against new forms have been around for as long as new mediums have been arising, people used to talk about the danger of reading too many novels and being unable to tall fantasy from reality. A more recent, and applicable example may be the movement in the 50s led by Dr. Fredric Wertham who wrote Seduction of the Innocent and led a “crusade” against comic books. Comic books before Wertham were subject to no regulation whatsoever, and could be as subversive or as grotesque as they wished. Wertham condemned comic books as corrupters of the youth of America and attempted to blame all forms of adolescent delinquency on the young, relatively marginal media. Time and time and again the cry that comic book writers and videogame writers are peddling filth to children has been made. While it is true that some of the less scrupulous creators market violent or sexual media towards children, they often ignore the true extent of the media’s demographic in order to make a dramatic point. “Graphic novels” is now the term used to refer to what is essentially a bound collection of comic books. Art Spiegelman’s Maus is a graphic novel recounting Spiegelman’s Father’s experiences during the holocaust and Spiegelman’s own experience dealing with his aging father. Many consider this to be a literary masterpiece and often cite it to legitimate the “Graphic Novel” as an art form worthy of attention. Spiegelman was by no means the first to explore complex themes, even Superman’s creators; Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster drew from Nietche’s idea of the “übermench” when conceiving their character. While games like the recent Bioshock might not reach the same literary heights as Maus they exhibit the same attention to their artistic heritage in other art forms in attempt to make a statement greater than themselves.

One of my own personal favorite games Metal Gear Solid:Twin Snakes follows the secret government agent Solid Snake and his constant battle against terrorists groups and their attempts to threaten the earth with nuclear terrorism. While the premise may seem like another adolescent-power fantasy, which to a certain extent it is, the attention to detail paid suggests something deeper. The overarching message of the series is an anti-nuclear, pacifist one. This most likely has a strong connection with the creator Hideo Kojima’s Japanese heritage. However, the themes extend all the way to the player’s own interaction with the virtual environment. As Solid Snake, you have the ability to either kill your adversaries, hit them with non-lethal tranquilizer rounds, or avoid conflict whatsoever through clever manipulation of the guards artificial intelligence, such as leaving out a book or tossing an empty ammo magazine. While the detail could be written off as a mere exhibition of technology, you are even confronted by a character at one point in the game, and chastised if you have gone around mercilessly killing characters. The game is clearly meant to spark introspection in the gamer, and yet at the same time it is an extremely entertaining experience throughout.

While games are still relatively young as an art form, the possibilities for intelligent and interactive narratives are truly exciting, and it is heartening to see developers attempting to explore these possibilities and individuals expressing interest in them.

Storytelling Theory: Interaction, Character and Immersion

It is sad to see that in most videogames, the narrative is very much neglected or handled improperly. I can understand that some genres, or particular styles of game do not need much of a narrative, if at all. But for other genres, like shooters for example, story can be a very important, if not necessary, component for the game as a whole. Having a great, immersive, well-designed and structured story can help lift a game from being "average" to something greater and more unique. As the industry continues to refine and reuse gameplay formulas more often than it innovates new types of gameplay, it really comes down to the experience (including the story) that a game delivers to make it really stand out from its peers.

Interact, Don't Just Show & Tell.

Videogames have often relied on cutscenes to tell its story, taking a leaf from its media cousin, film. It's easy to see why. Movies have become the standard for storytelling in the visual medium, ingraining its principals and philosophies into the popular psyche. We tend to inherently think of stories unfolding in a movie-like fashion, making it difficult to think of other ways to tell story. It's unfortunate, since videogames are a very different sort of beast when it comes to storytelling.

There is an adage from the movie business. A very simple mantra that if paid attention to and used, makes a world of difference in the final product (mostly aimed at the screenwriter though). That is "Show, Don't Tell". That is, don't have the characters in the movie simply tell what's going on in the movie. It's boring, cheesy, and, worst of all, doesn't even try to take advantage of the strongest point, if not the point, of film making. Movies are a visual medium, so you should tell your story in the most visual way possible. Don't let people read or listen to your story, let them watch it.

Now, videogames differ from movies in their main strength. While videogames are definitely a visual medium, the visuals should not (are not) the central pillar of what makes a game. Movies are a medium that can achieve so much more with its visuals, CG or live-action, so games shouldn't try to emulate that, coming off as a poor substitute. Instead, the great strength and identifier for videogames is your ability to interact with them. That's what makes a videogame different from a movie or book, you can tangibly effect the world that the game inhabits. In a videogame, you have to go further than just showing and telling, you also have to let gamers interact.

There are various levels in which the interaction can be brought about. There's the simplest implementation, which is being able to control the camera during a cutscene, to having the story develop and unfold completely in-game (a la Half Life). How far the interactivity goes and when to implement them changes from genre to genre, and even with the narrative aim of a game. There is even the matter of how malleable the story itself should be, changing depending on what actions the player takes in the game.

Having such elements of interactivity adds that extra level of immersion and involvement from the player. It can add that extra emotional weight to what might've been an otherwise dispassionately viewed cutscene. A great example of this that comes to mind is the ending in Shadow of Colossus, in particular where Wander is slowly being dragged into a swirling vertex. It could've easily been simply a cutscene, where we watch a struggling Wander trying to escape and reach the altar, but by having control of Wander, and actually controlling how hard he fights to get away pulls in the gamer so much more, and instills a much more powerful meaning to the story. Even though it is impossible to get away from the vertex, no matter what you do, just the fact that you have control of the character adds some ambiguity as to the outcome of situation. Maybe you can get away, maybe there's an alternate ending, maybe everything can be alright, but only to feel heartwrenched as you realize it's futile, that you've condemned Wander in his attempt to save a loved one's life.

Character as a Projection of Self

There is another element of videogames that must be addressed in view of having increased interactivity, the character through which the gamer interacts with the world. As the game draws in the gamer, giving them control and active participation in the unfolding of the story, the in-game character becomes an avatar for the player, a gateway into which they may enter and experience the world. The character really acts as the virtual projection of the player themselves.

In order to facilitate this notion, the in-game character has to be constructed to be a proper receptacle. Most games often try to define their characters, giving them their own voice and emotional reactions. This can work for certain game types or genres, but to really pull the gamer into experience, and feel the emotion of the game, the character has to really be devoid of any explicit or overt emotional responses, so as to not get in the way or force along the gamer's natural response to game events. Obviously, this is much easier and natural to do in an FPS, and much more challenging in a game done in a third-person view, but it can be done, if Shadow of the Colossus can once again service as a suitable example of such.

This approach to storytelling puts videogames in a very unique position. They can really provide a personal and direct experience to the player. Unlike books or movies, where the audience really have to relate to material their seeing, games can relate their material to the gamer. Games can explore the player themselves, questioning their actions, guessing at their motivations. A game has the potential to make gamers realize something about themselves.

Thus, a new blog is born

Hey, my first post. I'm sure that this is a momentous and exciting moment for all zero of my current readers.

So, I guess this moment is akin to launching a brand new boat, and I'm smashing the proverbial wine bottle on the hull. However, it seems that the boat was built by unseen hands, and I'm the only person at the launch, egotistically patting myself on the back for the creation of something that took a little more than a couple minutes to make.

Hopefully this little boat of mine will garner a crew and some passengers that aren't terrified by our complete ineptitude of sailing said boat. I pray it won't be a Titanic of sorts, to be created in a huge flurry of pomp and circumstance only to be brutally smashed by a large chunk of ice before it could even get anywhere.

Anyway, so, I hope to get some friends of mine to help co-author this new and tiny blog so that one day it won't be so new and tiny.

The hard part will be making sure it's actually read by people other than myself, who will undoubtedly make most of the pageviews for a little while as I stare tremulously at my own blog, refreshing endlessly in hopes that a comment will appear, denoting the existence of an actual reader.