Games, Narrative and Art: A Rant
Posted: July 17th, 2002 | 1 Comment »Went to one of the first events of
Literary Festival, namely “Can Computers Tell Stories?” (
it’s-all-bollocks attack, saying that trying to delve deep into computer game narrative
is pointless: like it kung-fu and porn films, it’s just there as an excuse for the
action. He reprised some of the gags from his old Wired piece (“If your spaceship in
Asteroids has such a kick-arse hyperspace feature, why can’t you just hyperspace out of
the place where all the rocks are? In Scramble, you get more fuel by bombing fuel dumps -
how does that work?”) but the funniest bit was (and I’m paraphrasing here):
“I’ve got this Edge article here, and it says that people still think computer
games are ‘silly’. [Long bit here comparing the definition of 'game' with the
definition of 'silly'] To push the point, the article says, ‘Last year, the UK games
industry generated over a billion pounds in revenue – more than the film industry.’ And
because of this, games should be taken seriously as an art form. Now, this is a good
point. However, it turns out that last year, the UK crisps & snacks industry earnt
1.9 billion pounds, and I don’t hear anyone asking to examine that as an art
form… I mean, I’ve got some crisps here [produces packet of Doritos] and
we can try discussing their deep emotional meaning, but I think it’d be quite dull.
Also, the UK magazine industry generated 1.2 billion pounds, but most of that was
Edge, which costs a fiver!”
I disagreed with most of Dave’s points, but it was great fun. As I later yelled from the
audience, the necessity for plot depends on the type of game: Half-Life‘s plot,
often given as an example of a wonderfully rich storyline, is actually pretty simple.
Apart from the plot-twist halfway through (which does help a lot, but is just one
feature) it’s nothing special. What makes the game so engrossing is the way the plot’s
delivered: When plot points happen, they happen to you, not some plot-controlled
version of you in a cut-scene. There are no cut-scenes in Half-Life, no points at
which you lose control of the character, and this is why playing it is a much more
immersive experience than most other plot-driven games. I agree with Dave that, in action
games (including Half-Life) the plot is there merely to contextualise the action;
having a great plot helps, but isn’t necessary to make a great game. However, that
doesn’t apply to all games: Adventure games depend heavily on plot, and on the successful
integration of that plot with the action of the game. (The classic examples here are
Infocom and LucasArts adventures)
James Wallis, who
was also on the panel, referred to the continuing (if minor) popularity of text
adventures, which have always tended to have the richest storylines of any computer game
genre. Every so often I take another look at interactive fiction (of which more later) I
have a quick look around in wonderment and quickly bog off again having hardly played
anything. IF is the ultra-high-culture of computer games; as
Sir Humphrey said
of Radio 3, “Nobody listens to it, but you’re
glad it’s there!”
The Clerkenwell talk was just the latest in a continuing series of efforts by
literati and other high-culture mavens to find something in a popular medium that they
could show as transcending its popularity to be something more meaningful, more
artistic. I find the concept somewhat patronising: it endorses the value
of games by highlighting their huge popularity, but then says that the
popular stuff isn’t actually the good stuff, the artistically valuable stuff.
It’ll celebrate Mario and Lara, put them on the covers of magazines and hold them up as
cultural icons, but then most of these literati will then applaud the likes of Peter
Gabriel for churning out pretentious unplayable shit and lament the trivial attention
spans of fifteen-year olds for not buying what’s good for them.
I’m overdoing the righteous bile somewhat, and I’ll backtrack more in a minute,
but let me give some context: I went to Game
On at the Barbican a few weeks back, and it was fantastic; a great exhibition
put together by people who obviously know and love computer games. (It’s on until the
beginning of September – go!) The only major blights were the “contemporary commissions”,
works of game-inpired art by multimedia artists. Most were typical bits of interactive
art, but they were placed in the worst possible environment: they were surrounded by
really good games. As such, they didn’t stand a chance. Each seems utterly pointless when
placed next to something that’s actually playable and enjoyable. (The only one that held
my attention for more than a few seconds was Ping in the Sound section, which is a
genuinely nice piece. There were also pieces that would have been terrible in any
environment. Space Invaders, but with the words of French philosophers in the place of
aliens? That’s an insult.)
Okay, I’m talking about some evil shapeless mass of evil literati here, but
we all know that it’s a much greyer area than that. Yesterday’s talk was arranged by
the guys from Pilchard Teeth a
Sony-sponsored games-culture fanzine that’s fun and intelligent. The average age of
gamers is higher than it used to be, and there are thousands upon thousands of
twenty-to-thirtysomethings who will follow a browse through the Guardian Review or
Salon with
an hour’s blast on GTA3.
I like this culture crowd, partially because I tag myself that way too (uh oh) but mainly because
they actually play the games they talk about. When Lara made it onto
the cover
of The Face you could be sure that at least a couple of notable members of staff
were just as much fans of the game as they were of the character.
I think my argument here is more along the lines of that old standard, the merits of
populism vs art, but it’s mainly aimed at people who can’t accept that the popular
games are actually good. This argument is thrown around with most other media just as
much as it is with games, but I think it’s more valid here, mainly because games
consumers seem to be far more clued up with the critical opinion of the games they buy
than film or music audiences. I think this comes from games playing starting in
childhood, not having much money to spend on games, and so making sure to read the games
magazines before wasting my money. I haven’t stopped, and I know most others haven’t
either. Sure, there are plenty of good games that don’t make it big, and there are
occasional exceptions, but it’s usually the
case that when games make it big, it’s because they’re good. You rarely get the
situation that often happens with films, where terrible releases make money purely due
to the names in the credits.
Despite how it sounds, I do want to see artistically-interesting games. Unfortunately,
as with most other media, making something that’s artistically fascinating and new and
different is something that the big games distributors (who are as greedy, short-sighted
and downright stupid as movie studios) will gamble on so rarely it hurts, and even then,
only when the developer has a legendary track record. There’s no way that Black And
White would have had even half of the sales without a name like Peter Molyneux behind
it. Games development tends to have a big financial barrier to entry, which is what kills
off most interesting projects. There may, however, be a way of offsetting most of the
development costs if you use pre-existing, freely-available technology. This is what I’m
going to talk about next…
(Oh, and something I meant to yell out at the talk but forgot:
Rez is mostly
wank. No, really. It’s very pretty, and I can pick it up and have a bit of fun with it,
and I do enjoy it in short bursts, but it’s not a particularly great game, in no way is
it a revolution, and the storyline (what there is) is just rambly hand-wavy
pseudo-science wank. So there.)
this is just beatiful