Culture Clash

(April 2006)

The Trouble with Scotland

Establishing an industry identity

“Top to bottom,” says Robert the Bruce in Braveheart , “this country has no sense of itself. Nobles are allied with England. Clans war amongst each other.”

There can be no nation without national identity. In many ways, the same can be said of the games industry: our nobles (developers and publishers), rightly committed to self-preservation and profit, dedicate boundless resources to franchises and “safe bet” titles, minimizing risky innovation. Our clans (gamers), greedily consume excrement like 25 to Life while ignoring their god-given right to play something better. The collective buying power of gamers remains the same whether they're buying creative, original work or regurgitant trash. If the industry would just produce more of the good stuff instead of relying on cowardly me-tooism, rest assured people would consume it.

In his Three-Finger Salute column in last month's Computer Games magazine, Tom Chick said he blamed gamers. He was only half-joking; gamers are partly responsible for the fact that the majority of the industry's output is dreck. If they buy dreck, then dreck shall remain the norm. Tom's right. Gamers are to blame – to a point. The crucial fact to remember is that they're only buying dreck because that's what the industry produces and puts into the limelight. It is a low-risk, high-reward tactic, and it should remain part of the overall industry strategy. But it doesn't need to dominate it completely.

Everything that is wrong with the games industry can be summed up in one word: Psychonauts . The fact that this wonderful game moved only a handful of units in the United States is an offense. The publisher didn't advertise aggressively, and I do hold Majesco partially responsible. But mostly I blame gamers for failing to buy a title with practically universal appeal. There is nothing weird or niche about this game, nothing that would turn casual gamers off; it's a goofy platformer. Goofy platformers have existed since Donkey Kong . It's not like Katamari Damacy or some similarly taste-specific experience. Gamers didn't ignore Psychonauts because it wasn't their cup of tea, they ignored it because they couldn't be bothered to look more deeply into the industry's canon than Best Buy's “Games that are just like GTA but not as good” shelf.

So gamers are to blame for the failure of Psychonauts , but they're not to blame for the commercial environment that caused it. So much of the industry's product is dedicated to recycling the past that gamers are too overwhelmed by the mediocrity – the Blacks and Perfect Dark Zeros of the world – to see the really special stuff. Simply put, people didn't buy Psychonauts because no one told them it was there . And that's just sad, because millions of gamers missed out on something really special. Consumers are now very able to decide for themselves what's good, but their radar is so dominated by the safe bets that some really amazing products often slide by unnoticed.

Whenever I write a column like this I get deluged with emails reminding me – as if I didn't know – that Barbie Horse Adventures sold better than Darwinia . Yes it did. Barbie Horse Adventures also got a wider release and has a broader appeal than Darwinia , attracting the ever-lucrative creativity leech that is the casual market. But that doesn't mean that all innovative and original games sell poorly, even among that casual base. Shadow of the Colossus debuted at #1 in the UK, knocking off a much more “mainstream” title. Gamers buy what the industry makes. If the industry suddenly started making nothing but ground-breaking games, I guarantee sales wouldn't drop. And gamers might finally realize what they're missing.

This year's Academy Awards drew criticism from conservative groups upset over the recognition of films with gay or racial themes. Pundits claimed that Hollywood was “out of touch” with mainstream America, citing the Best Picture nominees' collectively low box office takes compared to fan favorites like the unbearably endless King Kong or the rape-of-my-childhood Revenge of the Sith . But the Oscars have never been a popularity contest. The Best Picture Oscar is awarded to honor outstanding achievements in filmmaking, not box office receipts. This is why the Developers Choice Awards, not the Spike TV Video Game Awards, are this industry's most important honors. No one at Spike TV has ever heard of Shadow of the Colossus .

And yet the artistic and thematic potential of gaming's creativity need not languish forever in the shadow of that colossus. Now that the proof that games are art is out there and we've got our Citizen Kane , the next step isn't to rest on our laurels but forge bravely ahead into even more pioneering territory. If developers will only reach out and take the chance (and if publishers will let them), the second half of this decade can be remembered as the one in which games truly burst into their own as an art form. The games industry is, if anything, too in touch with its perceived audience. It's easy to claim that game makers create the games that customers buy, but the truth is actually the opposite: customers buy what game makers create – not because customers are ignorant, but because it's all that is available. This disconnect causes the industry to churn out the gaming equivalent of Bruckheimer films, over and over again, based on the misguided notion that it's all people want.

“The trouble with Scotland,” says Edward Longshanks in Braveheart , “is that it's full of Scots.”

Similarly, the games industry needs to decide what it is. There's certainly profit and probably long-term stability in continuing the status quo: franchises, sports licenses, movie tie-ins. But following that path exclusively means that gaming will never aspire to anything greater. If that's okay with you, then so be it; accept that this medium will forever remain a bastard stepchild, the lower spawn of higher arts. But if you agree that we have only just begun to explore the potential of video games, of their ability to enthrall us, to move us – then let's work together to find that national identity now, hand in hand with consumers, and explore a brighter future.