By Loyd Case on 7/31/00

Article Discussion Forum

In college, I started out in environmental studies but later moved on to physical chemistry. I have minors in math, physics, geography and anthropology. The only art classes I can recall taking were a survey class on art appreciation and a literature course called "Nonsense in Literature" (I am not making this up). I tell you these things to clearly lay out my qualifications as an art critic: I have none. Actually, people know me as the hardware guy.

Yet, these days, I find that I have been worrying about the artistic merit of computer games. Now, before all the highly capable artists, modelers and musicians who work in the game biz write flame mail to me, I want to make one thing clear. I believe that most computer games these days have a tremendous amount of artistic content. Graphics are more lush than ever, soundtracks are more polished and 3D models are getting more detailed. But I fear for the overall artistic merit of game titles.

Unfortunately, most of this promise seems to have fallen by the wayside, left behind in the dust of lost idealism. You hardly ever hear about computer or console games becoming the next great art form. Not long ago, Chris Hecker had an interesting back page column in Game Developer magazine on the topic. Near as I can tell, it fell on completely deaf ears.

My point is this: If the hardware guy is worrying about games as art, maybe it's time for other people to sit up and take notice.

Is the Game the Thing?

There is this debate that occurs when reviewers look at games; they are criticized for focusing on eye candy rather than gameplay. Debates rage on the newsgroups about the various aspects of how today's popular titles are played. A title like Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, which tells an interesting story as you wind through its missions, gets crucified because it is not as complex as its predecessor. This has become quite a trend. The recent Indiana Jones game gets dismissed as "just another Tomb Raider clone." Core gamers criticize Tiberian Sun as just Command and Conquer at a higher resolution. A game is not considered new if it uses an older game engine; "just an overpriced mission pack" is the usual comment in those cases.

It is true that the interests and needs of core gamers drive much of the industry, and most are early adopters who often crave new experiences. While I am not suggesting this is a bad thing, the net result is a somewhat incestuous industry that has not been particularly successful in widening its appeal. Look at the discussions that are still going on about how to attract girls and women to gaming. Imagine what movies would be like today if this type of thinking had been prevalent. John Ford cranked out a huge quantity of films. Many were westerns, and quite a few had the same basic plot. But they were, for the most part, great movies. Yet, gamers would say things like, "Geez, another western" or "Cinemascope again?" In reality, John Ford managed to make the same movie over and over again. And yet, each time it seemed somehow fresh and interesting.

A lot of core gamers and people who write about games (who are usually core gamers themselves) often scratch their heads and wonder why Myst is successful when the answer is really quite simple: Myst tells an interesting story in an engaging way. While the puzzles can be fairly arcane, somehow the game does not make the player, even a fairly new player, feel stupid. People want to uncover the mystery, and an engaging story and creative writing keep the player interested. I am not suggesting that Myst is great art, but it certainly approaches the idea of a computer game from a slightly different angle. Most of the "Myst clones" that came out later fell short of the original by focused on creating an adventure game and less on sucking the player into caring about the story.

Conflict and Violence

Then there is the whole issue of violence. Now, I am not going to weigh in on whether or not violence in games is a good or a bad thing. What is much more interesting is the context in which the violence increases. Games like Quake III: Arena or Unreal Tournament are just a form of virtual football to me. The number of online game players who leave their computers and gun down innocent people is far fewer than the number of football players who come off football fields to assault others, and even those amoral football players are few and far between.

In other games, the context of the violence is often missing, and context is key to making people think about the consequences of their actions. In that old classic, Duke Nukem 3D, you could gun down exotic dancers, and your only penalty is that a couple of monsters pop out of the woodwork. And this only allows you to rack up even more kills. Contrast this to Rainbow Six or Rogue Spear, in which if you kill an innocent person or fail to save someone, BOOM! Game over.

There has been a lot of discussion lately focused on the detailed gore in Raven's Soldier of Fortune. Certainly if graphic body damage was the only feature of the game, I would be concerned. But when I read interviews with the designers, one of the key points is that the violence is in context. If you blow away a bystander, game over. I find that encouraging. However, I would also like to see a situation where it is "game over" if you kill a bad guy that surrenders, something you can still do in Rogue Spear, for example, with no penalties.

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