Makes a nice review of recent discussions here, although it felt like two articles (one about women 'n' gaming, one about the general growth of gaming) kinda stuck together. Maybe I'm just too familiar with our conversations here, so I read it and think, "Oh yeah, I remember when we talked about that..."

Way to be in Salon, Jane.

Great article, Jane. One question though: The whole point of the article seems to be the state of gaming and gamers in the year 2003, so why did Salon decide to use a picture of someone holding an N64 controller to accompany your article? It was oddly appropriate, but I somehow don't think it was intended to be.

Great article Jane! Couldn't agree more...

Great article Jane! I'm a long-time Salon reader but have only recently come to hear of your site (from the guys at Penny Arcade). Funny this should come up, as I was talking about this with a friend of mine (who works for a certain game studio famous for a certain Miami Vice-esque title). From what he tells me, you're right on the money.

Good essay! One thing I'm curious about: when we say that we want "innovative" games, do we mean that we want something that will expand the audience of games beyond the "core gamer" crowd (new forms, more inclusive themes), or something that will reinvigorate that crowd (more sophisticated level design and AI)? Actually, I'm not sure they're different goals, but they're often framed as such.

Also: I really hope "Discotent" is an intentional misspelling.

Erm, that is, I hope it's intentional, because the word "discotent" makes me happy for some reason. Although I don't know why it would be any less pleasing for being an accident.

josh: oops!

glad it made you smile, but i didn't mean it! just a hasty typo. thanks for pointing it out!

Reading your Salon piece made me think about my gaming experience. My girlfriend recently bought the Xbox. She is fantastic - out of my league beautiful, smart (sysAdmin), and loves all the things most men fantasize about while chugging beer at Hooters. Not me though. I'm 32 (she's 9 years younger), haven't played a game I really like since I wore out my interest in the last CPU game I bought two years ago (a flight sim). I tried Halo, but felt it was a hollow knockoff of Counter Strike and Quake(s).
It's obvious to me that my interest in games is waning. Not because they suck, but because I'm tired of the same old. None of the new games' flash and "improved graphics" can compare to that first time I saw the fireball spewing monster in Doom. And I can't get over the fact that to this day the game that got the sensation of flying down the best was a DEMO! of Decent running on my ancient Win95 Compaq in 1996. My girl bought some crappy WW2 themed flight game, and the Star Wars game that came free flies shitty as well.
Sounds like I'm bitching - 'cause I am. Jane, you were correct in your piece when you wrote about the lack of true invention in today's games. And there is no way out but through the interface. All the unique concepts have been done to death. The overarching design of a new fictional game "reality" is a finite space. In other words, there are no new ideas, just new ways to do the old ones.
And the best new ways will come with improved, layered immersion - which can only be achieved through innovation in the interface.
A few weeks ago I caught a snippet of that Michael Douglas / Demi Moore movie from the mid '90s (can't remember the name...she sexually harrases him, blah, blah, blah) - there is a new dB interface the company designs that utilizes lasers to simulate a human's movements through a CG world (boring since it is just a f***'in file room)...Imagine that cleaned up and running on the latest system with Madden NFL 2010. I mention a sport title here because I think that when immersion reaches that critical stage many geeks and non-geeks (but really, isn't everyone who plays a video a geek to some extent?) will want to play games closer to reality. Why not be a "super human" sports star, or a nearly invincible thug (Vice City), or a surly PI that always gets the girl? Fantasy games will always have a place (hell, Dand D will never die in its original form), but imagine the "game room" in your house needing a full size crash mat for the football game.

I too am starting to feel this malaise, if you can call it that, so much so that I'm inclined to believe that I love the *potential* of games more than any gaming experience I've had to date.

Perhaps its the plethora of inane nihilistic shoot-em-ups -- shoot this, kill that, save the world from evil and impending apocalypse. The glut of games that turn people in human pitbulls, squeezing out every competitive instinct in a no-holds-barred battle for power and supremacy. The winner takes all, the loser humiliated.

Sure, games like these have, and will always have, their place. Granted, violence and the competitive instinct are valid, and interesting, subjects of art. But isn't it time we explored something different?

Games that aren't games, maybe? Non-zero sum games?

Games that celebrate aesthetic pleasures -- of space and the senses, of body and movement, of human contact and interaction. Games that flow, enliven, inspire, inform. Games that enable creations greater than the sum of their parts. Games that don't just tie us to a screen, but blend into the spaces and places of the everyday.

More than any other cultural medium, such as film, music, literature, the visual arts, high technical barriers and lack of creative accesibility has meant that game production is dominated by technicians.

What we need are more artist-designer-engineers, true hybrids able transcend disciplinary boundaries. People able to drive their creative vision from conception through to construction through to completion. People with the skills and know-how to work independant of gaming beauracracies, sensitive to human experience, with the sensibilites to produce art, and the courage to experiment.

We also need more, and better, critical discourse. The history of artistic practise is one furthered and revolutionised by argument, of critical aesthetics. How are we meant to produce something different if we don't reflect?

Naive? Perhaps.

Maybe we're all just weirdos, jaded because we spend so much of our time playing games? I mean weirdos in a good way of course. :-) But most people don't seem to be very concerned about innovation, at least judging by the ever-increasing sales numbers.

In fact, people actually encourage the industry to innovate less, by purchasing the blockbusters and not much else:
Madden01 - 1M
Madden02 - 2M
Madden03 - 2.7M
Ico - 150,000
Rayman3 - 75,000
Parappa2 - 45,000
Mister Mosquito - 40,000
(numbers approximate)

How do we encourage the public to have interest in indie games, outre games, non-blockbuster titles? This question is not so dissimilar from "how do we get the public to watch indie movies" or "how do we get the public to listen to indie music". The first step is to make the public aware of them; the second step is to make the public desire them.

If the publishers don't see that the public appreciates innovation (through increased sales), they won't focus on it. It's much easier to create a derivative work, isn't it?

Our industry is currently failing at encouraging the public to purchase innovative titles. So we get the results we see this Christmas: good stuff, selling well, but nothing that keeps us up until 4am.

There are a few interesting initiatives beginning to pop up, and hopefully they will help bring greater awareness:
www.indiegames.com
www.indiegamejam.com
www.experimental-gameplay.org
www.digitalindies.com

But if you think that encouraging innovation is important for the future of the game industry, take a moment and reflect on what YOU can do to encourage it among your own community.

Ben, I think it's good to want all these things. I want them too.

The question is, are what we want games, or do we want some of the sensibilities of games to settle into non-game interactive art of another sort? In a way, the word "game" is sort of a straightjacket. Perhaps game:(x)::westerns:film, if (x) is what we're looking for.

My impression from the article (great, btw) is that the answer to the dry spell is getting females and underground japanise games. Not that I disagree, but we shouldn't have to look oversees to find a good game (yet hopefully we'll never become so isolated to ignore their influence).

"In fact, people actually encourage the industry to innovate less, by purchasing the blockbusters and not much else:
Madden01 - 1M
Madden02 - 2M
Madden03 - 2.7M
Ico - 150,000
Rayman3 - 75,000
Parappa2 - 45,000
Mister Mosquito - 40,000
(numbers approximate)"

Then again, Rayman 3 was derivitive, was not designed by respected Rayman creater Michel Ancel, and was very obviously produced to cash in on the name. Parappa 2 featured nothing new, was uninspired, and was mostly created so that Sony would allow Matsaya Matsuura to create the games he really wanted to make.

Bottom line--what do you or I know?

There are always going to be good things that do not perform in the market place. Games that do not break their niche. This is not a sign that the industry is dying so much as a sign that it's taking the first steps toward maturation. The indie flick does not out draw the summer blockbuster. It doesn't need to.

If you're going to say anything about Madden, be mad that it outsells ESPN by so much.

But why harp on Madden at all? Is it really that easy of a target?

Look. It does what so many of us want the industry to do. It has found a way to break out of the gaming populace, and into the true mainstream. Sports junkies buy Madden because they are sports junkies, not because they are gamers. The Madden model should be dissected before being derided.

In fact, people actually encourage the industry to innovate less, by purchasing the blockbusters and not much else:

By definition, more people will buy a blockbuster than a non-blockbuster. That's how you know that it busted the block.

Can I just say that I'm sick and tired of people complaining about a lack of creativity in games? Especially in the year that Wario Ware, WARIO WARE, was released? I'm sick and tired of it. There were a lot of unoriginal games. Yes, that is true. However there were a lot of powerfully original and, more importantly, amazingly good games released this year.

As long as I'm ranting, I would like to say that, as people interested in having intelligent opinions about games, we need to get over the mistaken notion that sequel == uncreative. This may be largely true of film (though not 100% true) but games are not film. The whole point is that games are a different medium from film. Judging games using the same tools that we use to judge film is as helpful as judging TV using the same tools that were used to judge theatre. It's a good start but it's time to move on.

Games are a mixture between creative endeavours and software. It may be true (but not 100% true) that sequels are indicative of recycled creative ideas in the world of film and books (though note that we have no problem with good dramatic television shows that run for many episodes). But games are also software. I don't think that any of us would complain that Adobe keeps releasing sequel after sequel to Photoshop. Photoshop 7.0 is a dramatically better product than Photoshop 1.0. Likewise, it is reasonable to expect that (game title) 2.0 could be a better title than (game title) 1.0.

By all accounts, Project Gotham Racing 2 is a dramatically better product than Project Gotham Racing 1. They tweaked the interface, they made it prettier, they added new gameplay functionality and they generally made it a BETTER GAME. It is uncreative? I would argue that the cool new things that they added were very creative. I can attest that Mario Kart Double Dash is a dramatically better game than Mario Kart 64 (or Super Mario Kart). They added some amazingly cool and creative things. The ability to team up and have two players on a single kart is solid genius. The ability to link systems and play 16 player is FUN ON A STICK.

I finished Beyond Good and Evil a little while ago. There better be a sequel. I want to know what happens next. I want to go back to the world and explore it more and meet new people and do new things. I trust that the fine people who made it will make part 2 very creatively indeed.

Now, this doesn't deal with that "making games that girls like" issue as far as revitalising the market. I don't have that answer to that, though I suspect that step one is making game controllers that fit in girls' hands and consoles that don't look like army equipment from space (Microsoft, I'm looking in your direction). Step two is to take a cue from movies and realize that while there are boy films and chick flicks, most movies lie in the nebulous space between and have a little something for everyone. Step three is most likely: Profit.

> The indie flick does not out draw the summer blockbuster.
What I'm concerned about is that game designers feel free to take a risk and do something innovative. The indie game does need to have a business model which allows it to make a profit, otherwise the indie game will gradually disappear.

Here is one interesting possibility:
Movie Shares

> But why harp on Madden at all?
Who is harping on Madden?

I think ClockworkGrue is right - the article is a rehash of a recurring theme on this site - the lack of innovation in gaming and the lack of the industry's ability to reach the female gamer. All the article was missing is that game reviewing has that same lacking that the game developers do. Some of this reminds me of my friend, the music-knowitall - I'd be embarrased to admit to him that I like to listen to pop music, just like I'd be embarassed to admit to you that I like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, BF194, etc. :) Ah the great unwashed gamer.

Now before I go on ranting here, I have to make it clear that I enjoy this site a great deal, because it is a departure from most of the other gaming information that I get. It's a great ADDITION, but by no means a replacement. I think that's a point that's lost on these discussions quite often. The type of thinking here IS niche. It is not mainstream. It is art house - not AMC. it's the beatnik coffee shop - not Starbucks. See the pattern there? AMC, Starbucks, etc. are the things that MOST people - the mainstream - like...not Mr. Mosquito, Stretch Panic, etc. The best you can hope for is marginal change (and that IS a good thing), but NOT a revolution. I'd hate if the majority of games out there were art house games.

As for the whole girl gamer issue...
I have three daughters all under the age of 5 and a wife that's 30. They are ALL gamers. My 4 1/2 year old daughter sat on Santa's lap this year and asked for a gameboy of all things. She plays all kinds of PC games, has games for our PS2, loves Rayman, and has even spent some time with Duck Hunt on the ol' Nintendo. My wife asked for an 8bit NES with Zelda for this past mother's day and is currently playing Zak & Daxter and is ADDICTED to Mario Party 4. She is a huge fan of Ratchet & Clank...in fact, she's just a huge platformer fan. So how did they not reach her? She's sees the same commercials I see and she wants them more than I do.

Where the girl game argument loses credibility...

"Most advertised games tend to fall into the shooter and sports categories," she noted. "I think it's a marketing problem. It certainly promotes the conventional-wisdom stereotypes about games and gamers." - And then she goes on to say that she'd rather play Counter-Strike than Lizzy McGuire. So what does that mean exactly? She later goes on to say that she doesn't want girl games...just good games. And what about the volume of platformers??? There are tons of those and my wife loves them. Is she just the exception? She seems like a normal mom of three to me.

As a gamer since the days of the Atari, the Odyssey, and even Pong....the game industry is in FINE condition as a whole. Yes, there is always room for innovation and creatity, but as a whole, it's quite healthy. And I'm raising a horde of girl gamers over here, so no worries there either.

I think ClockworkGrue is right - the article is a rehash of a recurring theme on this site - the lack of innovation in gaming and the lack of the industry's ability to reach the female gamer. All the article was missing is that game reviewing has that same lacking that the game developers do. Some of this reminds me of my friend, the music-knowitall - I'd be embarrased to admit to him that I like to listen to pop music, just like I'd be embarassed to admit to you that I like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, BF194, etc. :) Ah the great unwashed gamer.

Now before I go on ranting here, I have to make it clear that I enjoy this site a great deal, because it is a departure from most of the other gaming information that I get. It's a great ADDITION, but by no means a replacement. I think that's a point that's lost on these discussions quite often. The type of thinking here IS niche. It is not mainstream. It is art house - not AMC. it's the beatnik coffee shop - not Starbucks. See the pattern there? AMC, Starbucks, etc. are the things that MOST people - the mainstream - like...not Mr. Mosquito, Stretch Panic, etc. The best you can hope for is marginal change (and that IS a good thing), but NOT a revolution. I'd hate if the majority of games out there were art house games.

As for the whole girl gamer issue...
I have three daughters all under the age of 5 and a wife that's 30. They are ALL gamers. My 4 1/2 year old daughter sat on Santa's lap this year and asked for a gameboy of all things. She plays all kinds of PC games, has games for our PS2, loves Rayman, and has even spent some time with Duck Hunt on the ol' Nintendo. My wife asked for an 8bit NES with Zelda for this past mother's day and is currently playing Zak & Daxter and is ADDICTED to Mario Party 4. She is a huge fan of Ratchet & Clank...in fact, she's just a huge platformer fan. So how did they not reach her? She's sees the same commercials I see and she wants them more than I do.

Where the girl game argument loses credibility...

"Most advertised games tend to fall into the shooter and sports categories," she noted. "I think it's a marketing problem. It certainly promotes the conventional-wisdom stereotypes about games and gamers." - And then she goes on to say that she'd rather play Counter-Strike than Lizzy McGuire. So what does that mean exactly? She later goes on to say that she doesn't want girl games...just good games. And what about the volume of platformers??? There are tons of those and my wife loves them. Is she just the exception? She seems like a normal mom of three to me.

As a gamer since the days of the Atari, the Odyssey, and even Pong....the game industry is in FINE condition as a whole. Yes, there is always room for innovation and creatity, but as a whole, it's quite healthy. And I'm raising a horde of girl gamers over here, so no worries there either.

I think ClockworkGrue is right - the article is a rehash of a recurring theme on this site - the lack of innovation in gaming and the lack of the industry's ability to reach the female gamer. All the article was missing is that game reviewing has that same lacking that the game developers do. Some of this reminds me of my friend, the music-knowitall - I'd be embarrased to admit to him that I like to listen to pop music, just like I'd be embarassed to admit to you that I like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, BF194, etc. :) Ah the great unwashed gamer.

Now before I go on ranting here, I have to make it clear that I enjoy this site a great deal, because it is a departure from most of the other gaming information that I get. It's a great ADDITION, but by no means a replacement. I think that's a point that's lost on these discussions quite often. The type of thinking here IS niche. It is not mainstream. It is art house - not AMC. it's the beatnik coffee shop - not Starbucks. See the pattern there? AMC, Starbucks, etc. are the things that MOST people - the mainstream - like...not Mr. Mosquito, Stretch Panic, etc. The best you can hope for is marginal change (and that IS a good thing), but NOT a revolution. I'd hate if the majority of games out there were art house games.

As for the whole girl gamer issue...
I have three daughters all under the age of 5 and a wife that's 30. They are ALL gamers. My 4 1/2 year old daughter sat on Santa's lap this year and asked for a gameboy of all things. She plays all kinds of PC games, has games for our PS2, loves Rayman, and has even spent some time with Duck Hunt on the ol' Nintendo. My wife asked for an 8bit NES with Zelda for this past mother's day and is currently playing Zak & Daxter and is ADDICTED to Mario Party 4. She is a huge fan of Ratchet & Clank...in fact, she's just a huge platformer fan. So how did they not reach her? She's sees the same commercials I see and she wants them more than I do.

Where the girl game argument loses credibility...

"Most advertised games tend to fall into the shooter and sports categories," she noted. "I think it's a marketing problem. It certainly promotes the conventional-wisdom stereotypes about games and gamers." - And then she goes on to say that she'd rather play Counter-Strike than Lizzy McGuire. So what does that mean exactly? She later goes on to say that she doesn't want girl games...just good games. And what about the volume of platformers??? There are tons of those and my wife loves them. Is she just the exception? She seems like a normal mom of three to me.

As a gamer since the days of the Atari, the Odyssey, and even Pong....the game industry is in FINE condition as a whole. Yes, there is always room for innovation and creatity, but as a whole, it's quite healthy. And I'm raising a horde of girl gamers over here, so no worries there either.

Les,

Pointing out that your wife and children are gamers doesn't change (what seems to be) the fact that *most* girls aren't gamers. Or rather that most gamers aren't girls. Mind you, we don't really have any solid data on that because the only survey that gets hauled out when we talk about girls in games is the highly suspect ESA one. It's like saying, "Well, *I* think that Deus Ex: Invisible War is the best game, ever, so most boys will like Deus Ex a lot. In fact most boys have played it and really like it. I know this because I am a boy."

The industry doesn't need to change to accomodate the girls who are already playing games. They're already playing games! But what about all of the girls that *aren't*? If you are willing to believe the figures that a Sony rep told me a month ago, the rates of ownership of consoles is like 90% men, 10% women. If that's accurate, the thinking goes, then there is a huge untapped market of people who might like games if only we could make a few changes to make games more appealing to them.

Then all the hand wringing begins about "what do girls want?"

William,

I realise what I was proposing moves somewhat away from "games" per se and closer to something more akin to "interactive art". I agree with you that such classifications might be unhelpful when dealing with such a young medium. I do think the important consideration should be play, whatever form it takes. Most "interactive art" as it exists now, as exemplified by Blast Theory, Char Davies, Myron Krueger, John Maeda, amongst others, has a tendency to be somewhat minimalist -- the gaming equivalents of, say, Pong or Pac-Man -- not to say this is necessarily a bad thing. There are various reasons for this, not least due to a natural fixation with some basic elements of a nascent medium, like interface, control, artifice, simulation etc. Contemporary games, I think, point the way to naratives and experiences that are more detailed and more involved.

Snowmit,

Wario Ware was perhaps the ONLY game that delighted me to any extent this year. I can name precious little else. For the most part -- same old, same old.

I agree with your thoughts regarding game sequels. I'm less inclined to be suspicious of game sequels than I am of movie sequels, because such incremental modifications come quite naturally to the digital medium. Perhaps it might be helpful to think as some games not as fixed, static, works, but rather as somewhat mutable entities.

Les,

I think almost everyone on this site is aware that the views here aren't particularly "mainstream". Nevertheless, I see no harm in trying to push games in new directions, whether they make an immediate impact on the mainstream or not. I am most certainly not calling for an overnight revolution. Art house, indie, experimental (whatever you want to call them) games, I think, are important to the future vitality of the gaming industry.

Snowmit-

Admittedly my experience (w/ girl gamers) is anecdotal - I'm not a researcher - but maybe we need to check our basis for this discussion. While you disagree with my assertion that there may not actually be a problem, you provide nothing to back it up. In one sentence you say "...the fact that *most* girls aren't gamers." but then in the very next sentence you admit that "...we don't really have any solid data on that..." How can something be a FACT (as you put it) without any solid data?

What I'm saying is that I'm not so sure there actually is a problem, because the evidence that I see around me is in direct contradiction with what is being asserted - that girls don't game. More anecdotal evidence coming....I talked with my bro-in-law last night. He said he can't keep his two daughters away from their friends game systems when they visit. When his daughters come to my house - if there is a video game system available, they are all over it. I know...I know...is it the exception proving the rule? I dunno, but I can point to example after example like this.

Now, if we want to change the argument and say that it's really about reaching those girls that don't game, that's one thing. But to make a general statement that "most girls don't game" - show me that elusive evidence that backs up the statement. Until then, I'll be playing Gran Turismo 3 with my daughter. (She always wants a red car!)

And MUCH apologies for my triple posting earlier! That wascally internet!

Lack of innovation these days? Gamecube/Gameboy connectivity? Boktai game using sunlight? Eyetoy, Animal Crossing...I think there's plenty of innovation afoot.

Am I just a complacent gamer? Okay...gotta go...I think I hear a piper.

Hi Les,

All good points. You are right that I said we don't have hard data in this discussion. That's why I said "(what seems to be) the fact that *most* girls aren't gamers". The "what seems to be" part is important, there.

Just for fun I spent some time surfing the Internet to see if I could find any data on the gender balance in game purchasing etc. Most of the results are hidden in reports that you have to pay for, but here is some stuff that wasn't.

SIGIS Abstract and Executive Summary
Two years after launch and after spending considerable amounts of money on a global advertising campaign only 6.7 percent of registered owners of the PlayStation 2 (PS2) in the PAL territories were female.

((more))
the PlayStation, was redesigned and relaunched as the PlayStation one (PS one). Registration data after this relaunch indicates that the number of female registered owners doubled from 10 percent to 20 percent very quickly.

National Survey of Emergent Capability
The only other significant gender variation was that 86% of boys had a games console compared to 65% of girls - the difference between the two is closer than anecdotal evidence had led us to expect, but still significantly different.

Sex and ICT devices
Table 6.6. Respondents who had played games on PC or game consoles by gender in 2002.
play at least sometimes men: 46% women: 38%
several times a week men: 38% women: 20%

The ESA
Thirty-nine percent of game players are women.

Take from all of this what you will.

i was wondering about the use of an n64 stock photo as well.

Those seem like pretty good numbers to me. I really wouldn't even consider that stat on registering the system - I'm not sure what that tells us anyway. I'd venture to guess that most people don't register it - no matter what the sex.

Do we ultimately expect that the number of men v. women gamers should be about the same? So if 90% of guys game, should we expect 90% of women to game? Do we expect this in any other hobby? Do we expect model train collectors to be the same among men and women? If those numbers aren't the same, should we start examining how we can reach more female model train collectors? (I guess Lyonel probably does! :) )

I just wanted to comment on this:

More than any other cultural medium, such as film, music, literature, the visual arts, high technical barriers and lack of creative accesibility has meant that game production is dominated by technicians.

Video games are unique in that they are just as much a craft as an art, and because they are almost entirely dependant upon technology. But I don't think that things were that different with film- that entire medium is made possible only by several technological developments that had to be mastered by technicians before the artists could really get their hands on it. It took film something like 40 years to produce Citizen Kane; and even after that there have been technical revolutions in film (technicolor, CG effects) but creative control never really left the hand of the director. I think that by the next batch of consoles, the technology will have leveled out somewhat- not to say that there won't be any new leaps in technology, but the difference between the Playstation 3 and the Playstation 2 probably won't be as big as the difference between the SNES and the PSX- and then developers will no longer be limited by that "technical barrier." I don't think we need "artist-designer-engineers"; we just need artists.

Andrew, I mostly agree with you that we need more artists. But my call for more artist-technician hybrids stems from a doubt in my own mind about the ability of a pure artist to manipulate the technical elements of a formative medium with any real degree of fluency. Is it possible for an artist with little technical understanding of a medium to offload their vision to a technician without their vision being diluted? Can such a system of production ever reach the heights and clarity of a master at work in their native medium?

Looking back to the formative stages of film - the early Russian filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and Dimitri Vertov, and the cinema of the Weimar Republic/Bauhaus - all who helped define film as a distinct artform. Central to their accomplishment was their technical innovation - montage, layering, fast cuts, split screens, to name but a few - and in particular the way they manipulated these innovations for artistic ends. The contemporary film director comes to the role with a solid grounding in both the artistic and technical aspects of film - all have had some basic practical, hands-on experience with every aspect of production through their training in film school and beyond. While they might not be masters of a particular technical discipline, they are intimate with it, they know its potential and limitations, and they most certainly know how to manipulate it to achieve aesthetic ends.

I don't see the same fluency in game production. From my perspective, many artists given conceptual control of a game have had a tendency to emulate and borrow techniques from other media - film and literature in particular - rather than wielding their creative license to produce something that demonstrates how games can be distinctly different from these media. I'm sure when the medium has matured a little more, when some "language" of games can be determined (just as one can delineate a "language" of film), artists will be better able to manipulate the medium. But until then, I think those that bridge the art-technical gap are in the best position to innovate.

From my perspective, many artists given conceptual control of a game have had a tendency to emulate and borrow techniques from other media - film and literature in particular - rather than wielding their creative license to produce something that demonstrates how games can be distinctly different from these media. I'm sure when the medium has matured a little more, when some "language" of games can be determined (just as one can delineate a "language" of film), artists will be better able to manipulate the medium. But until then, I think those that bridge the art-technical gap are in the best position to innovate.

Perhaps. But I have a cursory understanding of the theory of computer programming, and the definition of an algorithm, that being any action that can be broken down into steps that are performable by a human (it's something like that anyways; it's been awhile since my last computer science course.) I'm not saying that directors should have no familiarity with the tools of their trade- but I am saying that they shouldn't think in those terms artistically. I agree with you that right now most games only imitate film and literature in their storytelling techniques, and that the principle artistic advantage of games (interactivity) is generally not exploited as an artistic device. But in that sense, games present what may be the greatest artistic challenge a director can face- because he must be fluent not only with principles of visual (and audio) storytelling but also with the principals of gameplay and interactivity. Even most games that are actively trying to tell a story always seem to falter in one category; seeing a tour-de-force (Metal Gear is the only game that really comes to mind immediately) is incredibly rare, and even that series is somewhat marred by an uncomfortable juxtaposition between filmic and gameplay presentations (ie the long cut scenes and codec conversations versus the actual gameplay.) One challenge that I think hasn't been fully approached is finding a way to meld the aesthetic principles of visual storytelling (for instance, composition of shots) with smooth and inspired gameplay; the survival horror genre might be the closest, but the gameplay and interface is almost universally clumsy, and they wind up having to rely on preprogrammed camera angles. Is it possible to teach a computer how to frame its shots like a cinematographer? Or to program AI to behave convincingly as actors in a play? I think that these are the challenges the next generation of programmers and directors face.

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Posted by: outsider on April 11, 2006 08:17 AM

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Posted by: pppp on June 3, 2008 01:12 AM