Jim Sterling of Destructoid is awesome.  He’s mainstream gaming journalism’s harbringer of British cynicism, a loose cannon who openly rejects “news that isn’t news” while finding room for strong opinion.  And I want to thank him for the indie game shitstorm that has spilled over for a larger audience to read about.  The first salvo?  Artgame developers need less art and more game.

What most of you are doing right now is easy. It’s easy as fuck to make some vague shapes and rambling poetry dialog and claim that it has meaning. Actually try making an artistic, important, introspective game, but try making it fun at the same time. Try and do more with your message than throwing some obscure ideas together and telling us to figure it out. You’re not being clever, you’re not being deep, and you sure as fuck aren’t being unique. You’re being like all the other indie games that act like indie games.

The second? Big-budget doesn’t mean “stale”, and indie doesn’t mean “creative”.

The most perfect example of this problem came from G4TV’s Sterling McGarvey, who I briefly mentioned in a more humorous post. His response to the whole debate was one that, I think, truly sums up my major issue with those who defend art games.

“I’ll take a ‘pretentious artsy-fartsy indie game’ over creatively bankrupt bullshit any day,” is what he said.

Now, McGarvey’s comment was but one of many that shared similar sentiments, but it was a perfect snapshot of the big fallacy among those who stand up for art games — this idea that art games cannot be creatively bankrupt themselves, and that if you are against the indie crowd, you are against originality. This also leads onto a further incorrect but all-too common assumption — the idea that because something is innovative, it is automatically good.

I’ve played video games for twenty-one years and concluded they are a strong candidate for social history.  Technological limitations aside, the black-and-white storytelling in eight-bit Nintendo games can tell you much about the black-and-white Cold War climate they were created in.  It’s difficult to deny gaming can be a form of expression.

But like Mr. Sterling, I recognize artgames have issues.  And I don’t like that any criticism of the movement means we “don’t get it” or that we are “generalizing”.  Pick any criticism out of his articles: He’s either “trolling for views” or “doesn’t understand what art games are supposed to be” (in the same way a gamer doesn’t get World of Warcraft because he only got one character to level eighty).

The “No Russian” scene in Modern Warfare 2 was deliberately designed to make us feel uncomfortable.  BioShock’s approach to libertarian philosophy was a conduit for provoking thought.  And even indie darling Braid used an ambiguous, “the story is whatever you think it was” approach.  These games were capable of making statements because they were fun to play.

And with the artgame movement, I see the nether reaches of the internet responding to large-budget games that use graphics and technical superiority as a guise to cover up poor gameplay.  How are they doing it?  By using art and technical gimmicks…as a guise to cover up poor gameplay.

It’s quite telling in a period of time where Japanese game development has gotten its ass kicked on any front that doesn’t include “Wii” or “Mario”, the Japanese indie scene has thrashed this side of the ocean.  For every Braid, there’s a Cave Story, Melty Blood, or Touhou that dares to be as professional and playable as its commercial counterparts. And while these games may not be artistic expressions, Japanese doujin developers have developed a greater foundation for making “art” when they feel the time is right.

So believe me: People aren’t rejecting games that want to express themselves.  They just don’t want to play bad video games.  And as difficult as it is for one or many amateurs to press the right buttons and make a game fun, you’re going to be judged against the game industry you aspire to change.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Gameplay, Indie Gaming, Journalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.