VGA 2-1 [Sexual Sadism]

Video Games as Art 2-1
Originally Posted: Friday // April 11th, 2008 9:44:24 Central Standard Time

This is probably the most altered post that I’ll have in the series, but that stems mainly from the fact that my distaste for writing ‘lists’ has increased exponentially. That and I’ve gotten the perspective from a few other areas and people that I didn’t have access to before. To open up with, I should clarify some of my own stances, which gave rise to the prior edition of this post.

First and foremost --- I absolutely do not believe in Egalitarianism in most of its contexts.

More accurately, I’ve no faith in people’s ability to reach any instance of their own idealized state of equality. Savagely cynical and conceited yes, but impractical this isn’t. My typical action for dealing with people is pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum for your average grading scale. That means instead of initially giving people the benefit of the doubt, I just assume they’re all shit and let them work their way up my own personal scale of judgment (yes, I judge pretty damn draconically by character). What’s really tragic is not that I rely on it, hell --- it isn’t even that I can rely on it, it’s that I’m at a point in life where I actually find comfort within it (whether that’s more of a reflection on me or the people I associate with is up for debate). That means when sardonicism such as mine flows through culture’s filters, it comes to rest at something such as gaming while appearing with what most wrongly perceive misanthropy to entail by default: unjust and reckless hatred, discriminatory stances such as misogyny, and an addiction to humanity’s more morbid actions. Indeed those are indulgences someone like me often has to temper, but very rarely are they based purely in prejudice.

I certainly don’t support something as idiotic as ‘enforced inequality’, I merely antagonize the common human notion that we should always strive for an idealistic society. On principle, I see that as an idealistic and romantic imbalance, mostly because it sacrifices everything else at the expense of people not stepping on each other’s toes (and I’ve already established how much value I find in the popular notion of ‘happiness’). Since I care very little of what people think of me, I’ve no qualms about inspiring things that most would consider ‘morally questionable’ (bleh, the taste of just typing that stings…).

In short, by temporarily taking away the grey areas (which are more important but irrelevant at the moment), one is left with dualities which require choice. A couple of my picks for example:

I value failure more than success.
I value conflict more than peace.
I value hatred more than love.
I value subjective truth(s) more than an objective truth.
I value a person’s faults more than their virtues.
And meaning outranks happiness in every single case.

Games haven’t quite jumped in this fecal-laced pool yet, but they are dipping their toes in it. Unwittingly capitalizing on touchy notions such as racism, subtle sexisms, and general political correctness, the medium is facing an extremely large paradigm shift. This is a shift so broad, that as a generation --- we probably won’t be able to see wherever the hell it will lead either way (which why most opt for ignoring it).

The first version of this post was composed of a wanton surge of exasperation with how women were depicted in games. Now I’ve moved on (or back, depending on how you look at it), and I’ve decided that the best way to evolve these ideas along would be to address another pertinent matter that the prior version merely implied, prematurity.

I've come to realize that women are totally viable character choices, I even identify with them, to some extent anyway, much the same way as I'm sure girls can do with Kratos or the kid from Bully. Its less about ‘embracing madness’ than a good game making me forget it.
-D. Rodgers, 1UP Blogger

This prematurity stems from an area where I always tend to splinter off from more progressive stances (something else I don’t much believe in by the way). More important than my post are the responses they sometimes tend to generate. The male statements (in addition to my own original post) tended to cite the obvious gender homogeny as the most problematic part of the industry. The female responses tended to separate pride from the equation, offering up patience for awaiting the industry’s inevitable maturation. The transition for more females making games, their depictions within games, and the number playing them has to be an organic emergence. If it’s enforced, there seems to be some common perception that it will serve as a pandering detriment overall. I personally tend to look at them as colors (i.e. the problems society has in general); the separation between them being just as important as the mixtures they can concoct. When the enforced awareness of this becomes aggressive in any form, I tend to recoil --- as it usually ‘limits the colors’ possible. Me being the selfish ass I am --- it basically equates to someone snatching all my crayons away, leaving me with only the three neutral colors. Honestly, introducing more women into the drawing board will not be enough to solve the problems (at best it simply will be the band-aid on a broken arm), but it is a fundamental concept gamers have to accept. The difference between men and woman, if you could only hear the scoff I make at gamers balancing that when society itself fails so miserably with the same task to begin with.

“More specifically, I meant that the majority of developers being male isn't the problem; it's that our culture, especially the media in general, is becoming more adolescent by the day. I don't see female involvement improving things much if the collective worldview of our society remains indulgent, petty, shallow, etc. In plain English, we need some fucking real adults, period, to make games.”
-Star_Royal, 1UP comment

We can take apart common notions for days, but let’s just do one for right now. If we look at what composes the stereotypical female gamer, let’s contemplate some of the things ‘she’ is made of:

1 >> A reaction towards some odd discombobulated icon of sexual desire from males

As bad as it sounds, one has to give acknowledgement towards the existence of girls who simply use games as a vehicle in order to get attention from men. Sometimes this isn’t as bad as it seems, as I’ve seen plenty women transition from this to actually embracing games for themselves. Many others however, still stand on the social decadence that something like XBL fosters even more blatantly now (I’ve also recently seen it rearing its head in MMOs, which correlates to the next piece of the pie). The same women may or may not consciously manipulate their ‘iconic imagery’ associated with their surrounding male players in order to bolster their own egos. We’ve all seen that one attention whore while playing Gears of War; a gal so hung up on potentially being the only female in a game, she gets drunk off that novelty alone. This isn’t even about the sexual imagery plastered all over the place in other games either (coughDeadorAlivecough). I’m willing to accept that there’s a place for that somewhere, but the pipe of variety for games is well --- just that, a pipe. Forgive me for becoming exasperated with 56k breasts.

Also, I don't think you're far off about artists not having all the say. We live in a world of corporate pressure, and it shows no sign of slowing down. I think we both agree on what constitutes as a certain degree of expertise; however, the power of corporate pressure keeps progress at a slow pace. Simply put, we'll continue to see sexually unrealistic and offensive representation of women if it translates into profits.
-M. Spayth, 1UP Blogger

2 >> A tendency to play RPGs more than any other genre.

I accredit this to the fact that women are simply more adept at reading the subtextual and less action-oriented dynamics of any medium. RPGS are the unwitting mascot for games when it comes to plotlines, characters, and somewhat rich narrative worlds (which is sad all in itself). Over the past decade this has changed pretty substantially, but the stereotype itself is still there, which is why this still exists. The standard RPG tones of emotional depth generally just seem to catch their attention more than men, and it values things not easily apparent. This can be seen in many other facets of general life as well, no doubt contributing to the whole ‘irrational female’ image. There’s much less-obvious logic in typical female actions, which tends to confound the stereotypical male who takes things at face-value (funny how life still emulates bad sitcoms).

“If we attempt to artificially force the evolution of women in gaming, it's going to backfire and we’ll wind up with an abundance of ‘Games for Women’ that are just plain bad. I would rather continue to play as a man, or a strong female whose breasts have a life of their own, rather than have to suffer through some painful piece of crap that doesn't contain any of the elements of gaming that I have come to love.”
-Deb, 1UP Blogger

3 >> The inability to touch ‘patented’ masculinity.

The status by which men associate masculine traits to visual and personal attributes is often aided by social inertia. This is to say that ‘our definitions’ are far too fallible to set in stone because while things are still pretty much imbalanced between the sexes, they’re also still relative and change significantly as time drags on. Men don’t hold ‘patents’ on what is sometimes considered to be masculine, not anymore. Hell, the only reason I use even use the word myself is because I know people will complain about how verbose I otherwise tend to get. An example of that is an assertive woman who is automatically pigeon-holed as being masculine. Indeed there should be boundaries and differentiation, but those definitions are only as good as the times they’re applied to. My problem with this is how outdated yonic and phallic representations really are now.

Something similar can be said of the vapid women in action flicks. Directors, producers, designers are all responsible for keeping the stereotypes going. They cannot point fingers when they, themselves, contribute to the same circle. I wish there were more women of substance in and around games but we should also demand more men of substance in and around gaming as well. The frat-boy mentality should die and games could mature but the industry knows a good thing when they see it. Sex sells and there's no way around it, the industry listens to money, not logical arguments.
- BigMex, 1UP Blogger

Naturally, I linked the player to the creator and came away that the relative number of girls playing games has to have some correlation to those that contribute to making them. There were a couple of distinct patterns I noticed as well; both stem from the affect that current society has on them as a gender. The first one was how socially irrelevant culture tends to make games as a whole for them specifically; it seems to veer women off at a more targeted rate than men. Though female gamers are large in number, they are and still remain a minority among the population. Simply put, girls aren’t really seen as ‘gamers’ in the basest sense, which is fairly more poignant than it may seem (i.e. if you close your eyes and think ‘gamer’ what gender is the image that pops in your head?). Even today, they remain some illusory rare treasure that males place on distorted pedestals. The way they’re raised and cultivated --- even by today’s feigned liberal and progressive stances, is often more disrupted than that of boys as well. The second part of this is direct proof of the first and that is what happens to any woman, be they a writer or simply an avid player who may attempt to even remotely address gender topics in regards to games. They almost instantly get written off for overreacting or blowing an issue out of proportion. It’s intriguing to me that the majority of ‘aggressive’ women (even those just willing to stand up for themselves individually) remain tragic figures in current times. I can even muster up some semblance inverse empathy here; as I’m constantly pondering the nature of my own magnetism. I can skip around here on my blog pissing on people left and right (with a big fucking smile on my face mind you), but if there were any image of excess estrogen applied to who I was, I’d most likely be seen as just some shrew. Coupled with my own thoughts on people generally being amiable towards your average jerk’s honesty, I’d have to propose an answer to that age-old question:

Whoever: Why the hell do people love assholes so much?
Me: Generally speaking, it’s because they have the ‘The Penis of Truth’.


Regardless of what game developers say, they develop with men and young boys in mind, not females, so a female gamer tends to have the stereotype of being unattractive and ghastly, which means men won't listen to them either way. Well --- actually, I'm wrong, it's usually true for the women who are outspoken; those who are more or less your 'casual' or average gamer tend to assume what's going to transpire if they speak out. It’s steadily changing but you still get a lot of nasty comments or opinions thrown at you, and then you also have online components where guys are afraid to kick a female out or give her constructive criticism (these are things you find in everyday life too).
- Mandy, 1UP Blogger

Phallic honesty is a tad facile but I’ll leave that there for right now and transition towards what’s seen in relationships, as well as variations in sexuality. Gamers tend to almost righteously regurgitate the instance of a game’s mechanics adapting to more sedentary actions (e.g. talking). The logic there brings into us back to that idiotic fun argument, which I’m not really interested in entertaining right now; I’ll just state say that the common dolt who argues ‘games should be fun’ and nothing else is quickly becoming a self-affirming dinosaur. When the paths for actual relationships between people are more widely embraced by gamers, titles will be that much better for it (not to mention that the methods themselves will get a chance to evolve and open up as technology continues to expand). When we reach the arena of same-sex and androgynously toned titles, there isn’t so much of a dingy cultural lens, but a latent and abusively restrained potential. I’d assume this is because such citizens are still being treated as third-class citizens by modern society. In terms of games however, which use so much artistic fuel, I’d say they have a back door in design here. A basic example for that is the potential awareness that’s generated when a female is ‘made masculine’ or vice versa (hell, look at what happened with Jack).

“Ah, but to completely remove personal affectation and rely on the basis of pure logic, a fallacy since we don't have pure logic, is an argument men have been making for years. This has also stunted men, particularly from expressing themselves and communicating. There is a middle ground to be struck.”
-D. Farr, Author of Vorpal Bunny Ranch

As long as those kinds of people are buying as many games as they are, as frequently as they are, then things won't change. More women are getting into the industry and more women are playing games, but we're still not seeing much of a female perspective in them. This is not to say that games aimed at women should involve ponies and games aimed at men should involve threesomes and bloody violence, but the feminine perspective (strong female leads, the use of love in a story, good writing) just aren't being accepted by gamers right now. And even if a game like that does hit, the ‘hardcore’ base of the industry will just call it ‘gay’ and move back to their ‘mature’ games (which aren't actually mature in any sense of the word).
-C. Winn, 1UP Blogger

In the 80's 99.99% of game players were men sitting on their asses playing on a computer, or going into cigarette smoke-filled arcade to play some Pac-Man. Then the NES budged things a little bit but I would still say that 90% of gamers were still men. It is not until we get into this generation of gaming that I think shit truly opens up. Nintendo caters to all whims now and those men who fell in love with games during 80's became game designers. Imagine the people who are falling in love with games now. I have no doubt that a large percentage of them are female.
- TaureanWilliams, 1UP Blogger



And another thing, I agree with --- a lot of women aren't helping the situation. I certainly haven't done a survey or know numbers, but in my experience, I run into more girls that feed into the bullshit than girls that go against it.
-J. Williams, 1UP Blogger

As everyone else highlighted, I think for the industry to mature, its audience has to first.
-Nel, 1UP Blogger

I was reading through the comments here and saw a few things that got me thinking. All of the female friends I had back in the 80's were also gamers. As we neared our 20's, all of them dropped out of gaming except me. I think a big disconnect was the lack of story/social content in most games as the 80's came to a close. I was asked often what I got out of playing games because they were viewing them as 'pointless'.
-Tristessa, 1UP Blogger

When none of your friends are gamers and you don't have a console, it takes a lot of effort to stay interested in gaming. However, I was one of those weirdos who constantly bought magazines just to ogle screenshots, hung out with guys for the chance to game, and kept right on with the PC. Lots of women just aren't as invested in it. It doesn't help that most guys don't take you seriously, and when you're playing online, you either have nerds hitting on you or going, "lolz, it's a girl." So yeah, lots of obstacles there. In the end, you have to be ready to be seen as "awesome, but crazy" on the guy side, and just plain crazy on the female side. There's not much of a middle group. I suppose I'm just crazy.
-K. Bailey, 1UP Editor

In a lot of ways, this has absolutely nothing to do with games and absolutely everything to do with them at the same time. I eliminated what the prior edition of this post featured, an actual list of female game characters I enjoyed for myself. The point of this post was to regress past the line where the actual discussion of their appearance in games appears as something we’re simply not ready for yet. Numerous artists, programmers, and designers keep falling prey to such basic things, but the onus is on the audience for pushing them down in the first place --- the gamers.

~sLs~

I Want a Calvin & Hobbes Game

Over the weekend I finished off reading through Calvin and Hobbes entirely, a comic strip produced by Bill Watterson from 1985-1995. Initially, I began using it simply to breakup my reading of Peanuts, and was prepared to hate it for being the strip that most often got praise in the circles I tend to orbit. Well I finally succumbed it its charms after Calvin first began yelling for a bat in order to kill a monster. I’m now in agreement with those who constantly relate the two strips and what they did as an art. Schulz was a very tragic figure despite his 'success', and Peanuts above all else reflects that. It represents a very consistent commentary in terms of negativity for people, be it their insecurities, callousness, or vices. Watterson took a more self-righteous approach with his strip however, very outspokenly standing tall for the general comic as an artform. He refused all animation, merchandising, and general ‘exposure’ for Calvin and Hobbes apart from the strip itself. The only thing that’s available to date are the famous forged logos of Calvin urinating on various symbols of culture. Although I understand every bit of what Watterson refused, I still now find myself among saddened fans that feel ‘the hole’ left by his final strip in 1995.

"Bill Watterson draws wonderful bedside tables. I admire that. He also draws great water splashes and living room couches and chairs and lamps and yawns and screams, and all the things that make a comic strip fun to look at. I like the little arms on Calvin and his shoes that look like dinner rolls. Drawing in a comic strip is infinitely more important than we may think, for our medium must compete with other entertainment, and if a cartoonist does nothing more than illustrate a joke, he or she is going to lose. Calvin and Hobbes however, contain hilarious pictures that cannot be duplicated in other mediums. In short, it’s fun to look at and that is what made Bills work such an admirable success."
-Charles M. Schulz

Where the game comes in to play lies all in theory as usual. I honestly don’t know if it could even be done (as I’m assuming Watterson grew even more cynical and reclusive with age), but I refuse to just ignore the potential the character could have within a game. As I stated above, the strip shares a lot with Peanuts (and Watterson has definitely acknowledged Schultz as one of his largest influences), but it’s far from being a mere derivative of it. Instead, I’d call it an edgier and far more potent blast of what made Peanuts so significant to begin with. Calvin himself for example, is an amalgamation of every character within Peanuts with one exception, Charlie Brown. Hobbes was more of a rational extension of Calvin, but ran in the same beat as him. This is to say a callous and self-absorbed six-year old boy who has no friends (unless you count Susie, who he tormented as much as he could), runs out of the classroom at his own whims, and philosophically undermines his own perception of the world at every turn he can.

"The wonder of "Peanuts" is that it worked on so many levels simultaneously. Children could enjoy the silly drawings and the delightful fantasy of Snoopy, while adults could see the bleak undercurrent of cruelty, loneliness and failure, or the perpetual theme of unrequited love, or the strip's stark visual beauty."
-Bill Watterson





Particularly most speaking of the strip was how sardonic it was, often making very poignant strikes against various cruxes of culture, be it art, philosophy, or just basic human nature. Generally speaking, the best strips did this anyway at some point or another, but both Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes stood out in this regard prominently. With the rise of more stylized 2D indie-games, I don’t think it’s a leap to contemplate the possibilities of a side-scrolling C&H game. In fact, I’d even go as far to say that it’s the ideal (if not only) way to ever see Calvin animated. Watterson refused all merchandising of strip due to it infringing upon its spirit. I think there’s now a little tug room with the state of how games are made now. We’re now finally (albeit slowly) moving into the phase of a game’s maturation where writers have more leeway in titles, animation is becoming more prominent, and the overall drive to JUST make money is slowly antagonizing itself (all of which foster the spirit of the strip).

There’s also the various tools of Calvin’s imaginative subconscious which could make some lovely mechanical wrappings without becoming mere gimmicks. Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man, and tools like the Transmogrifier all have endless applications of game usage in this context.

A few example rules I proposed to myself:

Some of the various 'rules' cannot be broken. The strip is built on the premise that the reader can either accept Calvin’s perspective on life, or the reality of everybody else around him. Those rules must be obeyed at all times (i.e. anytime another ‘real’ character is onscreen, Hobbes cannot be anthropomorphized).

No voicing, the use of text bubbles would be far more gracious in a game like this, and it would help play with the animation and visual design as well.

The animation itself would have to be phenomenal. The strips were all drawn in the style that basically communicated movement in every panel. Anything that ever comes along to animate it would have to top even that. It would have to naturally pick up that beat of movement and expression.

Absolutely no narrative, or at the very least small arcs that can flow in and out of one another. Having some quirky plotline that superficially meshes with the game's cultural status wouldn't be enough and it would be insulting. Having the game designed to be infused into the strips own world however, would be clever as hell. Not just because of the possibilities, but because of the respect it pays to the strip as an art itself.

How Hobbes and Calvin are utilized would have to be delicately handled. This is assuming there’s even room to make Hobbes controllable. Personally, I can see him working more in the context of the newer age characters that have far more memorable use as 'actual characters' alongside the player (i.e. Alyx Vance). With the way Hobbes constantly makes dry statements on Calvin’s often-impulsive craziness (e.g. the famous sleigh rides), it may be better to simply let him follow the little guy around while conversing with him.

Of course this game will never be made, it's far too dangerous of a risk. It also has too many hoops to jump over (e.g. I can't imagine Watterson being so generous to even allow it a consideration) and I'd be one of the fans to actively boycott it if it even began looking remotely insulting towards the strip. I just thought it would be fun to lay the idea out, as usual.

~sLs~

Snoot & Study Blog #1

I decided to take the logic I used to refrain from schooling (which we’ll conveniently sidestep) and turn it into a productive process for my blog. A generally and commonly known issue with American schooling (all I can speak for) is an issue of retention. It’s mostly structured for commoditizing information on a short term basis, usually leading to better grades and better ‘opportunities’ (my air-quotes here are extremely facetious by the way). Of course this is a generalization, but its rate of fallacy is pretty damn low nowadays. Not only does this relative ‘truth’ affect the entire perception of the ideal that schooling is supposed to nurture, but it actively castrates the actual goal of learning to begin with. Plenty of people fall through cracks for all sorts of justifiable reasons, some are just lazy, and some know how to work the system through self-applied work ethics and ambition. Of course some of us have egos so gargantuan, we end up smashing them against problematic ideals just to amuse ourselves (*cough*).

To stack yet another blog series on top of the other three or four I’ve got trickling out, I thought I’d give this a try as well. These posts will be aimed at tackling any book I happen to think fits a certain ‘pedantic quota’. With that, I’ll merge it with my own cynically obsessive drive and offer interpretations of the book’s context as a layer to place over its relevance with video-games. Textbooks are ideal for this, as they present certain facts (and knowledge trees) which go a long way to further thought, perception, and context. The good news is that I’ve been on a bit of a non-fiction binge for the past year. The bad news is that I ritualistically burned most of the textbooks I bought in school for reasons we won’t get into (however if you’ve read what I did with the unrevealed designs for my hypothetical games and most of the drawings I know will get too much attention, that should give you a clue).

I’ll make it a point to keep the title and details of the book itself a secret (as much as I can anyway); I think the age-old quandary of ‘judging a book by its cover’ will affect a lot what people read with these. I’m not all that interested in recommending that one checks out the book I’m using because that’s basically all it would and should be in the end, a simple recommendation (though if they proactively seek out or even recognize what I’m using, it will still work to the ends I intend to accomplish). Instead, I’m going to use the book’s ‘power’ to temporarily augment my own voice; you know --- continue to spread my virulence. I look around in the context of any kind of writing about games and I’m surprised at how much of a minority that subjective writing or personal analysis still is (I still stick out because of it). People are so willing to dig into objective facts, cite other accredited works, and stand (rather goofily) on top of the thoughts of others. Having an original thought is not common trait among people anymore; if it wasn't so disgusting, it would be hilarious.

The first book is mainly concerned (rather unsurprisingly) with theories derived from that tired horse that I never seem to get tired of beating, art.

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Humans have a ‘need’ for art. They desire such creation to express something apart from themselves. I’ve frequently pointed out a rather often-overlooked fact that the nature of a video-game almost dictates that the player become an author to a certain extent. A frequent point of contention these days is how much the player is meant to have; some of us still crave to be told a story while others seem to be driven towards having their hand seen in the game to almost vain extremities. The curse of living in these times is double edged, mostly due the diversity granted to us. It often fosters a significant degree of dissatisfaction (which is further exacerbated by the consumerist struts) with what we wish gain from art in the first place (something typically subjective and personal).

An interesting paradigm to present is a world or an arena in which a player is only granted access to very few games, not to mention limited access to other mediums. The human condition also has an alarming ability to adapt and apply meaning to just about everything. This is a creed I’ve specifically drawn from myself. Eliminating the need for things such as piles of shames and a explicit tie to the games being released around us really only serve as haze for me. I certainly don’t condemn those things; I just acknowledge that they distort my own reality with the medium. I’m always going to be more interested in what someone is obsessively playing from two years ago rather than their thoughts (no matter how insightful) on something released in the past month.

Though art tends to contradict the concept of structure, it’s also entirely reliant on it. Boundaries and limitations are things it typically cannot be without. Though the rise of retro-styled games is nothing new, we still rarely get minimalist styled titles. When we do, it’s along the lines of Everyday Shooter or some other implicitly music-based games. Certainly no discredit to them, it's just that they lean on the weight of a far more powerful medium to please an audience bred to demand first and question later --- much later (they judge before they truly question anyway).

How many games feature ‘subjects’? Sure, this could just equate out to the avatars, cursors, or characters we’re all used to, but an active subject being dealt with? It’s fairly rare, still. Developers have already set up basic ground rules for design. The past twenty years have been rather progressive for the medium, so playing with basic principles now is not only a possibility, it’s been peaking its head out in various titles over the years --- fairly big ones as well (e.g. what would a title such as Portal read like without the Half Life continuity?). We can now play titles on an iPhone that took an entire console to run two decades ago, yet we’re so caught up in the novelty of that fact, we can’t even see past it. Let’s not even get into abstraction either, as first games will have to start prominently addressing subjects to begin with --- let alone hiding them in abstract works (which could basically mean anything, I know).



One could argue that form equates to what we’ve pigeon-holed as ‘genres’ and it’s something we’ve skipped over adequately fleshing out. We’ve run towards and messed over content as well. The will for a game to have a message is simply overshadowed by the demands being asked of it. The fact that animated titles are just starting to become a frequency will serve as a testament to this in terms of aesthetics. Be it Okami, A Boy and his Blob, or even The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, something is still contributing to the visual virginity of the medium. This chastity belt has been tied to games by media and the perception that a game should not deeply impact a person’s life, lest they become some gun-toting sociopath who just-so-coincidently happened to have played a Grant Theft Auto title in his/her life. The mechanics of a game --- have they yet moved into anything even resembling abstraction? I’d argue no, as we still rely on goals and structure in our games. Often without a proper subject, the game’s ‘flag and castle’ (i.e. making it to the end) becomes a surrogate subject. Games are mostly a bad night of sex between Semi-Abstract and Naturalism. Realism is only affective as far as visuals go, we've effectively disallowed otherwise.

I’ve stopped using the term ‘gameplay’ in most contexts because it’s become a term which means nothing to me anymore. To further bolster this post, I’ll state that some people would use it as the definitive subject of a game. It’s fair, but flawed --- mostly on the premise that a gamer will always be driven to compromise unity. How the game works together or flows is something that will always be under constant scrutiny for players. This is because they spend their time fighting with concepts rather than ideas. While the two terms will no doubt show together up in your average thesaurus, they are still separate words for a reason. Games are still built on concepts, which is just a non-pretentious word for theory; it has an implied ‘this is that’ clause. Ideas are far more nebulous and require a distinct injection of bias, opinions, and subjective truths. Games fight with this because the act of play kind of muscles in on the act of thought. To ‘contemplay’ in this age of gaming is very rare and even when it does happen, it’s only because the player is willing to go the extra mile to meet the game for themselves.

The ‘blind’ allure of interactive fiction would have more in common Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ or even Mondrian’s ‘Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, and Gray’, much more so than a game actually depicting the visual similarities between the two. Perception is key here and manipulating what the game is will require an act between the developer and their audience as well. There’s a very large wraith of objectivity hovering over how games are seen now and it filters into how they’re played as well. Watching people talk about games always translates to me and multiple children tugging on the same stuffed animal.

“On one occasion above Milan, over in the direction of Lake Maggiore , I saw a cloud shaped like a huge mountain made up of banks of fire…”
-Leonardo Da Vinci, Treatise on Painting

The Divine Simulacrum – Any instance that shows the creator and their created at war with each other.

Hell, do I dare even comment on the state of narrative? We’ve all set it ablaze with the desire for sophistication and in doing so have degenerated to becoming little more than over-zealous pyromaniacs. Some of the paintings that I absolutely detest tell stories, yet we want our jumping batch of polygons to do it all. Present the choice of free will, and people will be tenaciously driven to kill their beliefs, ambitions, and themselves. One could easily categorize people that take such pride in the concept of their choice as a gamer being nothing more than ‘ludological atheists’, driven to smash out or reconfigure any semblance of what I term as the ‘divine simulacrum’; man destroying their personal God (which in this case, is the developer’s intent). Don’t get me wrong either, the other side runs much hotter, letting all passion dictate reason. Few ever waste their time trying to climb to the middle ground because picking a side often rewards more meaning, more so than climbing to that middle ground for a better view. In the state we’re in, the industry currently resembles Ancient Greece, people with the devout acknowledgement that the flimsiest veil lies between them and powerful gods that resemble themselves. Games are the only artform that proactively profess a state of free will, which seems to (rather consistently) only confound those of reason, and seduce those of passion.



Do we consider the tools of which we engage the game? The controllers are already being accompanied by motion control technology, which only runs second-fiddle to the computer. Computers build the game from the ground up and our understanding of them (as an audience) is still sporadic at best. Of media --- for example, can we simulate the effects of charcoal somehow? Not literally of course, but can it somehow translate the effects and influence that it generally has on the artist/audience and factor it into a game somehow? It doesn’t seem so far-fetched to me.

Scale, size, composition, planes, frames, positive/negative spaces, optical and conceptual perceptions, etc, etc, etc…

There’s a vast chest of things that games have either only grazed or overall disengaged because we cast them off prematurely when they’re toyed with. Twenty years in and we’ve already repeated the same mistakes as before, basing the eras of our games mostly on a singular aspect that composes them (something that games absolutely scream to be taken apart from). To rid one’s self of the rules --- I personally don’t think games will ever do that, but then I don’t trust gamers to do that (and only gamers can do it).

Too much time is simple wasted blaming developers, dictating what’s right/wrong, and avoiding everything else out of misplaced mindsets of inferiority. I’d rather sit back and condescendingly talk down to myself…as I’m inherently a part of the crowd I take such pleasure in pissing on.

~sLs~