Progressing gaming

[runic knight]

After seeing an interesting tweet from our own residential twitter madman, Moviebob, it did raise an interesting question. While I am sure that given the context of the tweet was to, yet again, snipe at gamergate while stalwartly refusing to actually interact with it or even get facts right, the idea raised seems like a great debate topic. Tweet chain below.

Spoiler

The question is, Does a great gaming medium depend upon a great, superior audience?

Now to me, I would say no. Gaming is by definition art in the same way literature, film, comics and tv is art. This means that it holds within it the capacity to do all the things the greatest works of art can. Games can inspire, they can challenge our point of views, they can introduce new ones and they can stir up emotions.

Games are, just like those other mediums, also a commercial product. They are made for profit and as such profit is often the defining endgoal of their existence. And that is fine too. Not every film needs to be a great timeless movie, and not every game needs to be an impressive work of art. Art isn't defined by how well it is pulled off after all.

But games being a commercial product does mean that it has a broader, less "superior" audience it is targeted at. And that is fine. As a product designed to appeal to a lot of people, it makes it more profitable. Furthermore, broader reach means more will be inspired by the potential and seek to use the medium.

I see games in the same vein I see film. Initially written off as a novelty, it was only after it reached such wide audience that people really began to push for the true artistic merits of film. Thus it was not the "superior" audience that created the great works at all.

The way Bob presents things is that gaming needs an audience that is progressive and already shaped into the sort of people he wants to see as gamer fans. I think he has forgotten that art, "good" art, is suppose to move and influence people into being better.

The art is suppose to inspire us to be better, not decree the audience must first "deserve" the art.

What do you all think?

 

[Ambient_Malice]

>Gaming needs more diversity.
>Gaming needs to be populated entirely by people who share my sociopolitical views.

Choose one.

 

[runic knight]

>Gaming needs more diversity.
>Gaming needs to be populated entirely by people who share my sociopolitical views.

Choose one.

Umm... I am sorry, but your post doesn't touch on anything I was talking about. At all. What exactly are you trying to say here and where did you make that mental leap to get there?

I am talking about if gaming as a medium requires a superior audience in order to grow and progress itself. I personally disagree.

Nothing about any of that relates people wanting or not wanting diversity. How did you even get to that point?

 

[Elfgore]

That tweet would be my prime example as to why I despise that man. Just everything about that causes me to cringe.

No gaming does not need that. That statement screams elitism at me, which is the last thing gaming needs.

 

[PirataMan]

Does a great gaming medium depend upon a great, superior audience?

I think the question is not well formulated, and it's not your problem, but rather a problem with Bob language. Superior, higher, greater, all those are comparative formes, they need something else to be compared, is like saying "taller", means nothing on its own. a greater gaming medium? compared to what? which what frames? just a pointless question.

And to have a superior audience you would need to make it through comparison with other audiences that we know we can't catalogue them as better or worst, just as different or similars. Which mean the only way a superior audience would be made is one that overcome the obstacles of every other audience, basically this could be analogued to a übermench gamer, which is pointless because again, the words he is using can't formulate the proper propositions and questions.

Now if gaming want to reach new frontiers, then we really don't need journalists, we need programers, designers, artists and writers, they are the ones who actually make progress and create new things, they are the ones who make the games. Then the question turn to "what is the point of journos?". To make highlights of these progressions? just like it was made in the 90s when everything was like "check these new graphycs!". Or is it to state implicit or explicit social issues in games? Which can damage progression for the sake of being a social activist. Or is just to talk about theory, design and programing that is evolving? Then many journos would be out of job and you would need an audience for this (which probably exist).


At the end of the day what I think Bob is calling is for an elitist group without authority to push what he feel need to be pushed, but without a criteria. If video games are art then they can be racist, sexists, grotesques, inmorals, unethicals and soo on, and no one can say anything about it, because art is free to be whatever it want, this is why you can have movies like "birth of a nation" or "irreversible", because art can be things you disagree with and it has all the right to be that way.

 

[runic knight]

That tweet would be my prime example as to why I despise that man. Just everything about that causes me to cringe.

No gaming does not need that. That statement screams elitism at me, which is the last thing gaming needs.

I know, not a fan of the guy any myself, but I do think the tweet has an interesting concept to debate within it.

Does a medium require the proper audience to grow and expand, or does the audience come in response to the improvement of the art first.

I suppose it could be explored a little further about gaming in that of the journalistic side too. In order to grow as a medium, would the audience have to demand better of the journalists or would the journalists demand a better audience?

 

[The Lunatic]

Surely, the a vital point of diversity in Video Games is that people of different viewpoints can play games that appeal to them?

If all games preach the same message about the same things, is that not destroying diversity?

Yet again, it's more of this "Diversity" being pushed which is simply "I want my character to have a skin colour hue-slider" or "I want a gender slider" without ever actually talking about the deeper differences that make up diversity.

The fight for "Diversity" in games is not one for actually diverse character, it's one for façades.

I'm all for actually diverse characters. I want my lead characters to bring stories in games that inform me of different cultures and lifestyles. I want characters of different backgrounds, ages and political viewpoints. I want diversity, but, I understand this also means games will be made that don't appeal to me. And that is fine. Some of them may be more successful than games that do appeal to me, but, in this vast array of video games, I think there should be a place for everyone.


Instead, we're told we're "Bad people" for liking video games that tell certain view points. We're told we're uncivilized for playing certain games, and that not supporting people that say these things makes us "Right wing" and not "Inferior".


I can't see how anyone can stand for diversity and not understand the fundamental freedom that exists for anyone to like anything like want to and it not being their place to attack people for doing so.

 

[Theodora]

I suspect a lot of these indie journalists wished to be art or literature critics but found that the high arts were dead, music criticism overcrowded and literary critics were largely a national joke.

Video Games status as "Art," is one that is debated and it exists in a murky grey area.

Video Games are said to not necessarily art in the strictest sense of the term. Roger Ebert on this subject said art has an element of "authorial intent," were as games TEND to be built as entertainment and the interactivity of the games make a specific authorial intent impossible on a functional level. Gone Home and Depression Quest are more interactive stories then actual Games.

While Video Games have artistic value, and intrinsic value as brilliant visual works with aesthetic details, ultimately they are argued to not be art.

THEN AGAIN, many video games can convey feelings, messages and stories. For example Amnesia and its many custom stories, Walking Dead, ect ect. Making the argument that art should not be limited to such definitions that Roger Ebert give it. If arts purpose is solely to evoke emotions then many games do that exceptionally well.

The issue we take with folks like Moviebob is that as a medium games are a form of art that has to have entertainment value and thus be popular. What his ilk SEEM to want is games as a means of propaganda. Games have to enforce cultural messages, ideas, and thoughts and punish other ideas, cultural messages and thoughts. The DiGRA crowd and hipster trustfundians present a false diversity of visually diverse peoples whom are ideological uniform. I.E. All women are Feminists, Women = Feminism. Non-Feminist women, or women who are not the correct form of Feminism are either erased, chastised as heretics ect. Non-White people likewise can only exist within a narrowly defined ideological space. Their diversity is diversity only in appearances.

Bob's issue is that his views fundamentally go against the purposes of the DiGRA set and "Progressive Cause," which is to use Games as a medium of transmitting their ideas of culture, belief and thought and imprinting it on the minds of Gamers. What he means, what they mean, is not necessarily that Gamers are Dead and should vanish, but that Gamer identity must be abandoned for the new church so to speak.

Of course, Moviebob and his compatriots are merely delusional but they are here.

 

[runic knight]

Surely, the a vital point of diversity in Video Games is that people of different viewpoints can play games that appeal to them?

If all games preach the same message about the same things, is that not destroying diversity?

Yet again, it's more of this "Diversity" being pushed which is simply "I want my character to have a skin colour hue-slider" or "I want a gender slider" without ever actually talking about the deeper differences that make up diversity.

The fight for "Diversity" in games is not one for actually diverse character, it's one for façades.

I'm all for actually diverse characters. I want my lead characters to bring stories in games that inform me of different cultures and lifestyles. I want characters of different backgrounds, ages and political viewpoints. I want diversity, but, I understand this also means games will be made that don't appeal to me. And that is fine. Some of them may be more successful than games that do appeal to me, but, in this vast array of video games, I think there should be a place for everyone.


Instead, we're told we're "Bad people" for liking video games that tell certain view points. We're told we're uncivilized for playing certain games, and that not supporting people that say these things makes us "Right wing" and not "Inferior".


I can't see how anyone can stand for diversity and not understand the fundamental freedom that exists for anyone to like anything like want to and it not being their place to attack people for doing so.

That is great and all, but not the point I was trying to bring up for debate I am afraid.

I was more concerned with the concept of from where does the improvement of a medium come from.

Does it come from the audience being better in some way and thus demanding a better product, or does it come from a better product affecting the audience who then react to it and demand more?

Diversity is a great thing to me, but wasn't really related to this discussion save maybe a tangential connection as seeing diversity as progressing the medium itself, which is cool, but yeah...

 

[Vault101]

theres a saying that people don't know what they want until you sell it to them

and I think there is some truth there

you make games that are both good and inclusive (I'm talking basic levels of inclusive) then they have a shot at selling well...its not that hard

 

[PirataMan]

Video Games status as "Art," is one that is debated and it exists in a murky grey area.

Video Games are said to not necessarily art in the strictest sense of the term. Roger Ebert on this subject said art has an element of "authorial intent," were as games TEND to be built as entertainment and the interactivity of the games make a specific authorial intent impossible on a functional level. Gone Home and Depression Quest are more interactive stories then actual Games.

While Video Games have artistic value, and intrinsic value as brilliant visual works with aesthetic details, ultimately they are argued to not be art.

The old discussion of "video games as art" always remind me to the histeric and the master story. In which the Master try to define the histeric problem, but the histeric can always claim its much more than that. The art critique can define art as something and then the artists challenge that notiong of what art can be, and even more, people hold their own conceptions of what art is, in which can be challenged by the artis (failing or succeding).

The whole point on this is that, no mater if video games are art or not, because defining art for everyone in a society is a waste of time, you can only define it for yourself and debate those definition with others, but at the end art is going to change.

So are video games art? Who cares? Can video games provide artists experiences to certain audiences? Of course. Are video games entertainment or art? mostly the first, the last is a secondary outcome that different individuals are going to grant.

But here is the catch, if the person does define video games as art, then they can't judge them under political, social, ethical, or moral standars, because art doesn't need to address those things as you want. So if a video game is inherently racist, and you think video games are art, that game has all the right to be as racist as it was meant to be and more.

 

[runic knight]

theres a saying that people don't know what they want until you sell it to them

and I think there is some truth there

you make games that are both good and inclusive (I'm talking basic levels of inclusive) then they have a shot at selling well...its not that hard

So the audience is the reactionary one between the two then?

Also, I keep seeing people mention inclusivity, can you help me with why that might be? I don't think it popped up in my starting post at all and I am really quite baffled why it keeps showing up.

 

[The Lunatic]

That is great and all, but not the point I was trying to bring up for debate I am afraid.

I was more concerned with the concept of from where does the improvement of a medium come from.

Does it come from the audience being better in some way and thus demanding a better product, or does it come from a better product affecting the audience who then react to it and demand more?

Diversity is a great thing to me, but wasn't really related to this discussion save maybe a tangential connection as seeing diversity as progressing the medium itself, which is cool, but yeah...

Well, I suppose to describe more adequately, I'm of the opinion that the audience is already there.

People just aren't making games for them. So, I'm not really of the opinion that there is any improvement to be had.

It's up to developers to make games that cater to certain audiences.

It's a bit to vague to save "Improve". In what way do you seek the medium to improve?

In the case of Moviebob, he seems to think gaming as a whole is "Improved" by changing the skin colour of characters randomly and having some characters be a different gender.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Bob and others of the pop culture critic variety hold video games to a higher standard than other media, acting like top selling books aren't about BDSM, or a campy Dan Brown mystery, of the top TV shows aren't things like Big Bang Theory or Dancing with the Stars, or the top films aren't about guys in funny outfits fighting over a cosmic powered jelly bean. Media is built on escapism. It pays the bills and even failures of escapism can gross better than the more successful works striving for depth. PBS will always go begging while Charlie Sheen will get to stay on TV. Getting surprised the video games are dominated just as much by low brow escapist fantasies is up there with surprise water is wet. And ironically, he's on the other side of this in film, dismissing the "old fogies" upset that the oscar bait is being outdone by a racoon with a shotgun.

Still, he's not entirely wrong. For deeper works to flourish and get made there needs to be an audience, however, he seems to be so short sighted in game released his chicken/egg question is long past answered. Any fan of RPGs over the years has encountered deep political thrillers, metaphysical plot devices and theories, social commentary, psychological analysis, harsh ethical quandaries, religious symbolism, and more. It's not in every game, but there's always someone trying to go above and beyond and those that want these kind of things can seek out and find. But from Xeongears in the PS1 days to Virtue's Last Reward today, there just isn't the demand among those looking for the experience, these games left to very niche and hardcore gamer tastes.

He just comes off like wallowing in self pity about there being nothing he'd like on that front before looking at the full catalog.

 

[Nirallus]

theres a saying that people don't know what they want until you sell it to them

and I think there is some truth there

you make games that are both good and inclusive (I'm talking basic levels of inclusive) then they have a shot at selling well...its not that hard

AAA publishers won't do it because their costs are gargantuan and a game that "sells well" can still lose millions; they need games that they're sure will sell spectacularly well. Indies can try to do it, but the money situation is just as difficult for them - The only difference is the amount of zeroes in each number. And frankly a lot of them suck. And it seems you need to be a part of a Cool Kids' Club to get your name out at Indie events.

 

[runic knight]

That is great and all, but not the point I was trying to bring up for debate I am afraid.

I was more concerned with the concept of from where does the improvement of a medium come from.

Does it come from the audience being better in some way and thus demanding a better product, or does it come from a better product affecting the audience who then react to it and demand more?

Diversity is a great thing to me, but wasn't really related to this discussion save maybe a tangential connection as seeing diversity as progressing the medium itself, which is cool, but yeah...

Well, I suppose to describe more adequately, I'm of the opinion that the audience is already there.

People just aren't making games for them. So, I'm not really of the opinion that there is any improvement to be had.

It's up to developers to make games that cater to certain audiences.

It's a bit to vague to save "Improve". In what way do you seek the medium to improve?

In the case of Moviebob, he seems to think gaming as a whole is "Improved" by changing the skin colour of characters randomly and having some characters be a different gender.

I know, I don't exactly like the terms "improve" or "progress" too much myself, but it was more so the general concept of making the medium better in a nebulous sort of way. Really the question was more about who has the larger impact or responsibility to help shape that, or the larger capacity to encourage the change.

As such though I agree with your stance here, the audience is there they just aren't being provided the product of art they want, so it is little wonder the "improvements" (whatever that means to people individually anyways) aren't as forthcoming. Blaming the audience for the lack of it like Bob has seems sort of dumb to me.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

>Gaming needs more diversity.
>Gaming needs to be populated entirely by people who share my sociopolitical views.

Choose one.

Umm... I am sorry, but your post doesn't touch on anything I was talking about. At all. What exactly are you trying to say here and where did you make that mental leap to get there?

I am talking about if gaming as a medium requires a superior audience in order to grow and progress itself. I personally disagree.

Nothing about any of that relates people wanting or not wanting diversity. How did you even get to that point?

Bob's entire concept of a "superior" audience boils down to people who agree with his politics. His brilliant criticism of GamerGate is that it's right wing and right wing is bad.

I would argue that gaming as a medium will grow through diversity, or variety. Populating both audience and developers with people who are exactly like Bob Chipman is not going to result in games "maturing."

I'm sorry if my attempt at snark was baffling.

 

[Michel Henzel]

So his so called superior people and audience are going to create their own little niche corner and leaving gamers and gaming behind.

Well I don't know about you guys/galls, but to me that sounds great. They make their own little elitist and exclusive things and leave us alone, and we can get back to playing games. Sounds like a win-win to me.

 

[runic knight]

>Gaming needs more diversity.
>Gaming needs to be populated entirely by people who share my sociopolitical views.

Choose one.

Umm... I am sorry, but your post doesn't touch on anything I was talking about. At all. What exactly are you trying to say here and where did you make that mental leap to get there?

I am talking about if gaming as a medium requires a superior audience in order to grow and progress itself. I personally disagree.

Nothing about any of that relates people wanting or not wanting diversity. How did you even get to that point?

Bob's entire concept of a "superior" audience boils down to people who agree with his politics. His brilliant criticism of GamerGate is that it's right wing and right wing is bad.

I would argue that gaming as a medium will grow through diversity, or variety. Populating both audience and developers with people who are exactly like Bob Chipman is not going to result in games "maturing."

I'm sorry if my attempt at snark was baffling.

You points are fine, but you seem to have, once again, completely ignored the point of my post entirely in order to be snarky still.

I thought it was pretty obvious I have no fondness for Bob. Should I put a disclaimer in the title post that this thread shouldn't be able people's personal issues with Bob's politics? This was about a concept he raised about where growth and maturity in an industry comes from first, the audience or the art. The "chicken and the egg" part of the talk. Bob being a terribly unpleasant person with horribly shallow views is noted but not really a point of discussion here.

I'm not trying to have a conversation about diversity itself. That is a pretty obvious topic of "yeah, diversity is good" so what would be the point?

I am not trying to have a discussion about what would make the industry itself grow or mature. I know Bob's opinion on a better audience would be essentially clones of himself or some such inane stance.

Instead I am asking about where a more progressive or "better" gaming medium first comes from, the audience itself maturing and demanding a better product, or the art itself being a higher quality product and thus reaching or encouraging the growth of "better" audience.

 

[Callate]

As a family member in genetics once told me: people tend to view evolution as linear, upward progression, forgetting all the branches that proved non-viable and died off along the way.

How are we defining "progress" here? Sometimes it just seems like "the medium and its audience has to be somewhere other than where it is now." The AAA version of the medium still seems likely to commit financial suicide, regardless of whether or not it rises to some sort of social aspirations. The independent scene produces some great things, but also clearly a share of auteurs whose desire for the spotlight and/or loud voice far outstrips their creative output, depth, or talent. Not, of course, that such personalities are unique to the medium of video games.

The sad fact is that however much people wax poetic about unhindered and unbound art, artists need to eat. At different times, this has meant art was created for wealthy patrons, for a benefactor government, for religious or educational institutions, or for a mass consumer market. Rarely have these patronages come without strings. One could even argue that longing for a "better class" of customers is, indirectly, making an argument for plutocracy- that the "best" people are going to be the ones who pay out for games, and those best people will coincidentally be the ones who can afford to do so. Looking at the growing phone and tablet market, composed of "freeloaders" and "whales", it's difficult to conceive that this or the kind of game mechanics rising out of it would be anyone's idea of a superior games environment or elite customer base.

I'm rambling. Sorry.

Does a great medium depend on a superior audience?

...Does it matter, if it isn't going to get one?

I'm not at all sure we've created a system for upward evolution. One way or another, we've created one that promotes examples of the medium geared for flash and noise- whether that flash and noise comes in the form of beautiful graphics, market-tested buzzwords, a controversial ad campaign, a loud and pugnacious auteur at the helm, latching onto a hot social issue, or just trending on Twitter.

I am sure there are great, beautiful, thoughtful games on Steam and GOG and the like right now, languishing without an audience- just as there are still great actors and scriptwriters who will spend their whole lives waiting tables, and amazing artists whose families will clear out their attics for their estate sale and say, "Wow, I never knew so-and-so used to paint."

This is probably very cynical. Pardon me. I've had the nonsense of adherents of both sides of a certain issue/hashtag bouncing off of my head for the last hour, and while it's been great for stoking that cynicism, it hasn't exactly been a boon to believing a "superior audience" actually exists out there somewhere.

Gaming will evolve. Whether like a crocodile or a dodo remains to be seen. But it isn't going to get there on the end of anyone's leash.

As for the Tweeter who instigated this: I think Bob is going to wake up in ten years or so with the realization that he was a closed-minded, reactionary zealot for a while, and be deeply embarrassed.