Why wasn't Bioshock our Watchman?

[Uber Waddles]

I have to ask, what is it about BioShock that made it stand out as 'unique'. Watchmen had a certain appeal to people, a twist on standard conventions.

Watchmen also had a deeper meaning than just super heroes. Morality and patriotism were explored, along with governmental issues.

BioShock is just spiritual successor to a SystemShock, and didnt offer anything new in the gameplay, plot, etc. It didnt warp the standard conentions of games, it WAS a standard convention of games.

It didnt explore social or ethical issues. It had a "good" and "bad" system, which was not only done before, but just involved killing or setting girls free. Fable 3 had a better morality twist than BioShock.

FABLE. FUCKING. 3. If you get blown out of the water by THAT game, you arent art.

 

[Chanerd]

there's a whole bunch of people who seem to have no idea what is meant by "The Dark Knight Returns."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_Returns

And if you want the book that "The Dark Knight" was based on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Halloween

edit: typooo

 

[Sexbad]

As someone who dislikes Bioshock (see [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBJUJXOxztE] this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olAbSQW14Vo] five [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSbSI3QhH1w]-part [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Gxz8Tn3yM] review [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8k3_OEsJzQ]), I don't think it should be seen as the medium's greatest achievement. But that doesn't mean it's not art. All games are, because all games have some sort of creative spark put into them, regardless of its visual style, gameplay quality, etc.

 

[TeeBs]

Lets see.

Watchmen was a movie based on a comic.

Bioshock was a game, and doesn't leave its medium to prove a point.

 

[Axolotl]

Watchmen was a movie based on a comic.

Why do you assume the OP is talking about the film? Seriously why?

 

[Alexnader]

snip

I don't think Watchmen did either until the movie came out. I mean in the 90s I was a comic book geek, and I never heard of it until the movie.

Of course I also sorta lived under a rock at the times.

Yeah but where's the Bioshock movie? Until that happens it won't get enough publicity to do what the watchmen movie theoretically did for comic books.

 

[ultratog1028]

I consider it the Watchman so far. I think the problem is that the mass media can't tell games apart.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

Argh again with the art thing.

"Art" is stupid. Love what you love and screw everyone who doesn't agree. Not even Fumito Ueda thinks his medium is the high art so many here and everywhere else like to be so boisterous about.* I mean, the maker of the posterchild for The Highest Art Games doesn't think games are any more art than Naruto and Van Wilder. Does that change what SotC made you feel?

I've seen people here mention that the reason we should care is because of censorship. True, it may be harder to ban "art" than "entertainment," but does anyone really think the public would take such a prospect lying down, even if gaming wasn't considered "art" by Joe Schmo? Can anyone even make an argument good enough to damn gaming forever in the US? People tried not too long ago in California, but does anyone truly think they're gonna win?

Sounds to me like the issue isn't that the industry needs to "mature," so much as it's governments of less accepting countries needing to get their heads out of their asses. There's so much room in the world for an infinite amount of CoD sequels, as well as an infinite amount of pretentious arty indie platformers.


OT: Because Bioshock, like most videogames, is placing more of its focus on its fun, arcade gameplay than anything else.

* Source: http://kotaku.com/#!5773242/ico-creator-thinks-video-games-are-art-sometimes

Okay, I'm going to make this as plain as possible: I want games to be considered an art form so that it may enjoy all of the legal protections and responsibilities of one; just as painting, photography, film/television, music and literature enjoy. It is far harder to censure art.

Not every game will be something artistic of course, but this kind of protections is better to have and not need, than to need it and not have it.

I totally understand that. But you said it: it's merely harder to censor "art." It's not impossible. And maybe it's just me but video games don't seem to be any harder to censor than other forms of art. Again, does anyone truly think California has a case? But more importantly, governments are still banning literature. If they're still doing THAT, then what's the true worth of the label?

My point is that art will never go unchallenged, and the opposition will even win sometimes because it's just so subjective. The best anyone can do is defend their art whenever it's challenged.

Maybe the reason I'm so mad about people looking for the "Watchmen" and the "Citizen Kane" of gaming is because universal recognition is inevitable. It's the biggest entertainment industry as it is. All that's left is for the generation who doesn't see the art in games to either change its mind with the times or die off and make way for the ones who do. I don't particularly care about the idea personally, but I know with 100% certainty that it'll happen someday.

 

[Rayne870]

I never said it was a positive effect, I just said the impact it had on the industry was much greater, putting the FPS the biggest genre to be developed by soulless exsecutives who think a step forward is to have 3 more guns then last time.

Totally agreed here.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

This is a perfect example of why it is important for video games to be culturally recognized as an art form. Bioshock could have had a huge, awesome cultural impact, but it did not because of the exclusivity of those who enjoyed it and appreciated its depth. Because video games are seen as nothing more than a pastime for the select few who enjoy it.

People say the "games as art" movement and argument is useless, but things like this are the reasons they are absolutely wrong.

Here's my perspective:

I don't see the idea of games being art as useless. I personally think games are most definitely art, and can be art higher than what Fumito Ueda thinks. I see the "movement" as completely stupid because as I just said, it's an inevitable conclusion. There's no movement to be had when you know how it ends. So instead of discussing whether games can be art or not, why don't we move past that and discuss the art in games?

To me this is such a logical next step that it is why it pisses me off to keep seeing the same arguments, examples and comparisons to things like "Citizen Kane" and "Watchmen." It's not just with the "art" question, but with the other "serious questions" like feminine equality in gaming and stuff. They've become as meaningless as industry buzzwords with how often we bring them up, and how little we variate our examples and arguments (I mean, every last feminist argument will include Jade, Alyx, and Bayonetta and damn Peach and Zelda in some way. Really, that's all there is folks?) Every gamer knows games are art and will be known as such one day. I mean, do a Google search for "video game museum" and it will autocomplete you with the cities of New York and Berlin and the state of California.

So why do people desperately want to be assured of this by people who don't get it, don't wanna get it, and as such will never get it? Just who are we telling all this to? Why do we need to repeat the same arguments to ourselves every now and then? What's the point of making a "cultural impact"?

What will it take for the "movement" to be satisfied? Will it be when someone goes on TV and says "I am (influential pop icon) and I say games are art, so stop challenging it?" Because dream on. The integrity of the medium will forever be challenged. Even after we've taken over the planet. The integrity of literature, an art form that is approximately as old as fuck, continues to be challenged by governments and organizations worldwide, big and small, meaningless and influential.

I might sound a little heated, but I seriously have those questions, and would love a take on those questions. I'm in no way meaning to troll or be inflammatory or come off as dense, because maybe I don't do hard research too often but I definitely think about these things in my downtime. If it comes off that way, I truly apologize. I just really don't get it from my perspective, ya know?

 

[KingofMadCows]

I think we'll have to wait until games like Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Legacy of Kain series, etc. get ported to mobile devices.

 

[Shirokurou]

I'm sorry, but Braid encompasses the "games as art" thing 9000 times more than Bioshock could've hoped.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

In order to have the same status as Watchmen, it has to be a bold statement AND it has to be accessible to the masses. Bioshock was incredibly alienating, so the cost of entry was more than just your 60 dollars, at least as anything other than a core gamer.

Half Life, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Shadow of the Colossus, Psychonauts, No More Heroes... these are the sorts of games that can rocket us to a status similar to Watchmen. A game like Bioshock can make a bold statement, but not to the entire audience.

 

[Murray Whitwell]

"the biggest change in the industry that came out of 2007 was CoD 4."
"change" "CoD 4"
What change?

 

[TeeBs]

Watchmen was a movie based on a comic.

Why do you assume the OP is talking about the film? Seriously why?

You think the masses would have known about Watchmen if it wasn't for the movie?

 

[Chased]

Because Bioshock was a game and Watchmen was a movie. People go to a theater and see Watchmen and say "Hey! That's great! I should read the comic!" while Bioshock will rarely, if ever, be played by someone who has never played a video game. People who never read comics can see Watchmen, people who never play video games don't play Bioshock.

In all fairness, my friend got heavily into reading objectivism after playing Bioshock.

I don't think it's an issue of medium but more so time. Comics have had far more exposure to the masses and a much longer running than video games.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Okami did the games and art thing way better than Bioshock.

The intro to the game actually turned me off quite a lot. I step into the doorway and see the giant golden bust of the founder of Rapture. "Well... this isn't subtle at all... this is the realm of a mad egomaniac". And then the cinematic shown in the submarine simply cements it "I reject capitalism and communism, but 'lo and behold, even a fool can see from this brief film explaining what I did that I clearly incorporated the worst of both worlds!"

By the time I had my first plasmid (done in a way that made me think of the protagonist as a complete idiot, jabbing an unclean and rusted needle into himself, containing a completely unknown substance) the game had completely lost me. I ventured on a bit further, knowing many of my friends placed, but the more I learned, the more I realised only an absolute nitwit would follow Ryan into his mad underwater dystopia.

So yeah, to me Bioshock was a complete dud, an utter failure in video game storytelling carrying all the subtlety of a glowing brick.

 

[soren7550]

So, I ask you my fellow Escapists, why wasn't Bioshock our Watchman?

Here's the real short version:
It's interactive, therefore it cannot be taken seriously nor can it be art.

That's what many seem to think anyway. I of course disagree.

A bit more, it's partly because video games are still a relativly new medium. Watchmen came out in the 80s, right? Comics at that point had been around for 50 or so years. Video games are much younger, and and have only fairly recently (considering) have reached the same deph and complexity of movies, novels and so on.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Watchmen was a movie based on a comic.

Why do you assume the OP is talking about the film? Seriously why?

You think the masses would have known about Watchmen if it wasn't for the movie?

It was from the comic, the movie barely made back it's budget.