The Art And The Artist
August 23rd, 2008When I was younger, there weren’t too many gaming personalities that stuck out strongly enough to stick in my memory. One exception was John Romero, who came out of id’s early 90’s successes with burning ambition and a big ego. His infamous Daikatana ad (copy: “John Romero’s About to Make You His Bitch… Suck It Down”) led to a huge gamer backlash when Daitakana showed up years later, late and mediocre. Oddly, the game itself was, if not successful, at least not a complete failure: it sold reasonably and hasn’t turned out to be the complete disaster it seemed at the time.
It was this memory that came back to me during the recent discussion of Too Human and the backlash that Denis Dyack has spawned. Gamers are hardly unique in their willingness to transfer distaste for individuals to the products those people have created; Michael Bay is widely loathed for his film style, and it’s difficult to dissociate Ezra Pound from his support for Italian Fascism. That said, gamers seem to me to be more willing than normal to hold games accountable for the sins of their makers. (They’re also more willing to put certain individuals on pedestals and follow them avidly.)
As Jeff mentioned, this tendency is a bit troubling, even if you don’t accept the proposition that gamers are more inclined to do this than anyone else. For one thing, it’s bad for gamers: if we’re unable to differentiate the art from the artist, then we’re going to miss out on quality games that happen to have obnoxious creators - or to elevate poor ones for the opposite reason. For another, it’s bad for the industry: the nascent growth of gaming personalities suggests that we’re increasingly able to identify strong talent and provide it with opportunities to put it to use. Yet personalizing that relationship and making value judgments on the basis of individuals’ personalities rather than their output makes them less useful to us and the developers and publishers that employ them.
After all, these aren’t moral judgments we’re making. Dennis Dyack or Peter Molyneux making grand pronouncements about their game are irritating, but they have no real ethical component to them, unlike Pound’s fascist tendencies. Rather, these feeling stem from a desire to prove people wrong - a mentality that “if Dyack can’t deliver on his promises, then he’s going to regret it.” We don’t want to reward the proud, the popular, or the unlikeable.
There’s certainly room for legitimate criticism in this industry, and the average gamer is as qualified to make it as anyone. But we’re not going to improve the quality of the gaming universe if we fail to adopt a more seasoned attitude towards those arguments.
Posted in Geoff, Personalities |
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I think you are being too Croalesque and philosophical there. The hippy “let’s make the [gaming] world a better place” is a cute statement but in any case, fanboys are fanboys are fanboys. They’re like religious fanboys, political fanboys, nationalistic fanboys, racial fanboys. [substitute "fanboy" with any synonym you can think of, and you can start to see what I mean]
many people already buy games for the game itself, not on the developer’s kerfuffle.
fanboys cannot be helped, but they can be ignored. Let’s do that.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:57 pm
oh and you made a post a long time ago asking if they’re any gaming blogs/sites worth reading…may i suggest eegra? they’re most famous for their outlandish comics [my currently favorite gaming webcomic, above even PA], and they make a lot of hilarious blog posts, but they make serious posts too.
check out this sample:
http://www.eegra.com/pages/show/title/06_12_2007_Feature__Morality_Play___The_Role_of_Videogames_in_Moral_Education/page/6
a sample comic
http://www.eegra.com/show/sub/do/browse/cat/comics/id/9
their mission statement
http://www.eegra.com/pages/show/id/39/
If you remember that Brian Crecente parody Youtube clip….they’re the same guy.
Enjoy!
August 24th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I remember playing the Daikatana demo and actually thinking the multiplayer was pretty fun. The single player was an abomination though.
August 24th, 2008 at 12:24 am
“But we’re not going to improve the quality of the gaming universe if we fail to adopt a more seasoned attitude towards those arguments.”
This is a great distillation of the Dyack matter. Looking at the issue through the lens of “does this behavior impact the industry we care about” is a good idea. I would agree that I think the converse issue of elevating games based on their designers is probably every bit as big a problem.
I got into a similar discussion with my wife as we watched the olympics. We’ve observed (as much as possible considering our obvious lack of knowledge) chinese gymnasts and divers getting significantly more favorable scores than their competitors and in many cases the scores appeared to be unearned. Even the commentators have made mention of it multiple times (commentators who happen to be experts/participants in the given sport). From what I can tell the idea appears to be that it’s EXPECTED of these athletes to perform at a higher level so somehow they are judged from a higher starting point (not referring to “starting VALUE”). It’s gotten so irksome that I can’t even bare to watch events that are subjectively scored.
Similarly, games by high grade developers are often not nitpicked for issues that other less seasoned developers might be, seemingly because the viewer is looking deeper for that special “je ne sais qua”. And when you look for something, you’re more likely to find it I guess.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:25 am
cisco-
The Olympic scoring, particularly in Gymnastics, has been one of this years “scandals” (along with the ages of the female Chinese gymnasts). I feel like something along these lines happens at every Olympic games, whether because of corruption or just plain incompetence.
With that being said, the host country typically gets a bit of a boost, if I’m not mistaken, so I suppose it’s not that big of a surprise when some of the “close calls” end up going to the Chinese athletes.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:23 am
@Jeff,
I know, and honestly I don’t fault the judges for viewing the host countries athletes with a bit more excitement. The question is whether that is enough to explain away any potential discrepancies. I’m of the mind that it’s not.
It makes things even more complicated when those getting higher marks really ARE of higher potential and will have true moments of brilliance punctuated with inconsistencies that seem to go unnoticed. Perhaps I’m just a biased Shawn Johnson fanboy.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:37 am
cisco,
Is the concern really that the bar is being set higher because it’s Dyack? To my mind, the issue is that people kind of enjoy seeing pride come before a fall.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:50 am
@Rob,
“Is the concern really that the bar is being set higher because it’s Dyack?”
Not at all. I think you may have misunderstood me (and my unartful comparison to the Olympics) if that’s what you took away.
“To my mind, the issue is that people kind of enjoy seeing pride come before a fall.”
I agree completely. The point I was making (or moreso AGREEING with) is that we need to try to remove this type of motivation when evaluating a game. It’s not constructive for the industry if our view of a game is too strongly influenced by something external to the product, like our interest in seeing some drama (i.e. pride before the fall) played out.