252: Our Turn to Decide

[More Fun To Compute]

Yes. Forget all of this "jam tomorrow" stuff about the world not being ready for the real good games that someone imagines might exist in the far future based on some manifesto of what their ideal game is. Games have been with us humans since before we started recording history and the idea of computerised or mechanised games is older than computers.

Adults have been playing games for ages from football to chess so these are, no doubt, not immature games. If we carry on playing computer and video games as adults and are happy then those bloody well should be thought of as being proper games. All this identity crisis about how games are such an "immature medium" or "jam/art/cinematic tomorrow" has nothing to do with games.

 

[scotth266]

The only times I have seen people refer to gaming as a young medium have been when they talk about the way gaming still has a long way to go to being accepted by society at large.

It is ironic then that you should mention comic books. Comic books went through a lot of abuse when they were a "young" medium, even enduring extreme censorship (ever hear of the Comics Code Authority [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority]?), in order to stay alive. Mature/Adult video games are in that uncertain period right now, where all around the world politicians are attempting to ban them as being "bad for the youth."

(Ironically, one could argue that the ESRB is essentially the rebirth of the Comics Code Authority. This is because while it does protect the industry from most scrutiny, it also amounts to standardized self-censorship: there's a good reason there are no Adults Only games made in the US, and it isn't due to a lack of demand.

 

[Tharticus]

Great article Brendan.

This also brings up the topic of "Grand Theft Auto" games. When I played GTA III series (Vice City and San Andreas) and being they have their own storyline, most players tend to be in a murderous rampage and just shoot... whoever it is in their site.

Being a murderous gunning mongerer aside, the game writing of GTA tend to lean on whatever is popular. Vice City being the 1970's so it's Scarface and San Andreas happening to be a African American protagonist so it's related to African America culture of rap/hip hop of the west coast of California.

This is where I draw the line that if Rockstar can make a better game without having to borrow elements from popular times and just go with whatever zany ideas because it's a laughable game where you commit crimes and having the police, SWAT, FBI and the army chasing you for committing terrible crimes.

Oh well. I guess if violence and guns is "mature" and sellable like hot cakes, it's certainly don't fix what ain't broke.

 

[Dhatz]

games have issues with controlls and no game had them figured out perfectly, also every current HW is piss poor to what is required for doing all the stuff at least a part correctly.
I think the whole civilisation is in infancy, especially the way we treat and bring up people(and that is where and why it all breaks).

 

[Kelbear]

Our Turn to Decide

Games are not "in their infancy" nor will they be "coming of age" anytime soon. If an age metaphor is necessary, gaming is already an adult and Brendan Main says that it's up to us to decide what that means.

Read Full Article

I have to disagree, games are still restricted by certain assumptions that hold the medium back.

Gaming differentiates itself from other mediums with it's interactivity, which allows a new depth to our perception of what is being presented.

Games today have to be fun though. This limits what gaming can be as a medium. "Night" by Elie Wiesel was not about entertaining the reader. I don't think that book really would have worked as a romantic comedy either.

Gaming IS in the process of shedding this cocoon and maturing though, take this game for example (It's only a few minutes long): http://armorgames.com/play/5355/immortall

Or "Sleep is Death": http://sleepisdeath.net/
A purely formless storytelling game.

 

[kirok]

"No games writing sticks in my craw worse than the assertion that the medium is somehow "still in its infancy." You probably have encountered one or more of its incarnations. Sometimes videogames are described as a disenfranchised teen, just waiting for that final growth spurt to mingle with the older kids - media like movies and literature that are old enough to borrow their parents' car keys without having to ask."

While their are many parts of the game medium can and probably should be considered mature and are still some that in my honest opinion are still in their childhood.
and in this way it cannot be compared to movies, literature, etc.

Gaming is still though by many conservatives and crazies to be for children and they continue to attack the industry as a whole.
Unfortunately we will most likely need to wait until some new shiny medium comes by and distracts them till we have can have any peace.

Not that overall the industry is not quite mature, but I think it still has a lot more growing room then film, literature, etc.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Gaming has already taken its place along books, movies, music, TV etc as an "adult" medium; each and every one of these is as capable of telling an adult story as it is a child's.
But the general public just doesn't see it that way...yet.

Perhaps the mindset here is the Peter Pan dilemma again: "why grow up if you don't have to?"

It's absurd to think of a person as not having to grow up, but that's a person.
A genre isn't a person; it changes, it improves, it stagnates, it even regresses.
All of those mediums I described on the first line went through that, and continue to undergo such changes today.

 

[XMark]

Hahahaha I love the background picture with Dom and Marcus.
Is Dom about to start crying?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I think one problem that gaming faces is that many of these 40- and 50-year-olds who decry current video games as "murder simulators" and come up with "witty" stings like "seXBox" are the ones who, back in the mid-1980s, sat their children down in front of an NES and watched them play Super Mario Brothers. An unfortunate aspect of aging is the tendency to cling to comfortable definitions and memories of younger days, and to many of these people, "video games" still equates to those happy memories of little Jimmy making the funny-looking plumber guy jump on walking mushrooms with eyes. Accepting the idea of video games "growing up" and creating things for older players means accepting that times have changed, that they are older and closer to death. Some people just can't handle that, and must attack whatever challenges their comfortable delusions.

As morbid as the idea is, the best course for gaming to take is to wait these people out. They will be replaced by those who grew up with gaming, who know its potential. And then they'll have the chance to gripe about "kids these days".

Life's funny that way.

 

[The Random One]

Okay, first, very well written article. Even if I hadn't agreed with it I'd still have loved it. Although mountain dew being better than regular dew is obviously arguable.

But yeah, I just read that other article that said that, compared to movies, games are still in the 'show meaningless pictures of car crashes' stage before people realized the moving pictures could be used to tell stories, and I wrote a lenghty post saying that, no, it's at the same stage as movies, it's churning out bland sequels and appealing to the lowest denominator because we're at a stage in which production is so expensive only blockbusters profit. The videogame industry is on its death throes and we'll need to wait for it to die and be reborn as something else for meaningful games to become anything other than an anomaly.

 

[pdyxs]

The message of this article that resonated most for me is that we need to stop 'babying' games. Yes: as Brendan says, games are now mature. From a technological standpoint, there will always be new developments, but this is true in all media. From a design tool standpoint: the tools are all there, and we know how to use them. I think we need to look closer at what these tools mean and how we can use them more effectively, but we've got all we need.

Yet our critical analysis of games often falls short of those of other media: this is the 'babying' that I think Brendan is alluding to. In my blog, I recently wrote a short article about the difference in the way we look at Kick-Ass and GTA, and how we simply don't hold games to the same scrutiny as we do films. In holding games to a higher level of scrutiny, we will discover opportunities to create deeper and more meaningful games, while also discovering better how to make games fun and entertaining.

So yes, the games medium is grown up. It's time we treated it like an adult.

 

[vortexgods]

The result was two generations-worth of headlines reading "Bang! Zoom! Comics Aren't For Kids Anymore!" which really is actually an odd way to announce something as adult, if you think about it. You don't see a lot of "Wham! Smash! Remember to Fill Out Your Census Form! Kaplowie!"
On the other hand, if they had had a headline like that, I would totally have filled out my census form!

 

[rmx687]

Yes: as Brendan says, games are now mature.

I don't understand why people keep saying games are "now" mature. I seriously doubt any video game could get any more mature, either in its narrative or its play mechanics than, say, the original Fallout, and how many years old is that game now?

The problem is we've already had Tolstoy/Dostoevski-class games made, long before this "generation" or even the one before that. We should be schooling the young adults/teens now into gaming on the classics, instead of inviting them to join us in metaphors about how old the personification of video games would be. It only dilutes our position.

 

[pdyxs]

I don't understand why people keep saying games are "now" mature.

Wow, I'm pretty sure I said 'now' reflexively, not intending to mean anything. I don't particularly believe that any technological maturity has happened recently - I think we've had the tools for meaningful and deep gameplay and stories for a long time (you only need to look at some of the flash games out there for proof of that).

I do feel that some newer games (Portal, Braid, etc.) have utilised gameplay to drive and complement story at a deeper level and with higher density than older games - I wouldn't necessarily call it a maturity though, and these games, while prolific, make up a small portion of the market. In these terms, many of the older games might not be the schooling that we need (I'd argue that new and evocative ways of using interactive technology is more important than trying to replicate something from yesteryear).

In terms of the metaphor, I agree that discussion of the semantics of a metaphor is rather pointless (are games 15? are they 21? can they drink alcohol legally?), but they do serve as a nice illustrative tool. The metaphor is the messenger, and we really shouldn't fight over its characteristics, but get to the heart of what its message means for the gaming community.

 

[ldwater]

Personally I think video game 'maturity' is more of a generation thing than a industry thing.

Its like when TVs were first invented the people who lived most of their lives without them would think them strange and weird and therefore see them as useless and 'immature' because your 'wasting your time' etc etc.

Its the exact same thing with video games.

I even remember in my youth that video games were considering 'geeky' and 'uncool' - they we're played by kids who wouldn't play sports or weren't cool enough to have alot of friends to play outside etc. These days im almost 99% sure that the guys who used to bully me about playing video games back then will playing them now.

The older generation who never grew up with video games will never conceed that they are better than the stuff that they had when they were kids.

Its also because of the very 'childish' notion of 'play' and 'fun'. Alot of the older generation will watch TV because it passes the time, but actual hobbies & 'fun' is usually more constructive passtimes such as gardening. This then demeens games to being 'childish' because 'play' and 'fun' are what children do and as adults your not supposed to have the 'same' fun as children do.

Personally I believe Billy Connelly was right when he said "Grow old, but don't grow up"

 

[GoodApprentice]

Since gaming is so entwined with its technology, and technology is always improving, gaming will always be viewed as being in a state of growth and maturation. People will always admire the latest games for their graphical and gameplay improvements and will forever speculate on what's still to come. I think that because of this, gaming will be consistently regarded as a maturing medium. There is no state of "adulthood" obtainable since its growth is perpetual.