Culture Clash

(January 2004)

Author, Author

The emerging canon of classics in gaming

I remember verbatim only one thing from my ridiculously expensive college education. A highly respected and world-renowned film professor was holding court before his Subjective Camera lecture section in the wake of the previous day's screening, a haunting Australian picture called Heavenly Creatures .

"Sometime in the next decade," he said, "you will see something special from this filmmaker. Something that will change the face of cinema forever. I don't know what it will be, but I hope I live to see it." It was obvious to any film student that the director of Heavenly Creatures was possessed of an impeccable eye, a profound camera, and real artistic vision. His name was Peter Jackson.

And while his 'something special' may not yet have changed the face of cinema, oftentimes the truly remarkable is felt before it is understood, and many years must pass before its complete worth is known. That is the nature of classics; true "classics" have to age, like wine or cheese, while "instant classics" tend to be forgotten reasonably quickly. Recall that the appalling Gladiator was hailed as such, while Citizen Kane bombed in the theatres. Which will still be around in two decades?

Now that electronic gaming has been around for thirty-odd years, we're beginning to see the emergence of a canon of classics in it. Some academics are already examining structural and thematic similarities in games to identify the building blocks of greatness. Such building blocks can be observed through recidivist play as well as empirical study. I came upon my Sega Genesis and PBC while rummaging through the basement in search of a waffle iron, and have been playing the shockingly brilliant Phantasy Star ever since, flabbergasted at every turn by the fact that it holds up after fifteen years. It, along with The Legend of Zelda , was one of the first mainstream console RPGs, setting the tone and style for all to come. That's a classic.

As usual, our classics will contain some obvious members and some surprises, but all will have to do or mean something. A classic isn't necessarily well-liked or easy to endure (witness A Separate Peace or Intolerance ), but it improves the literary spectrum of its medium. This is an important differentiator, because it's too easy to misinterpret the role and status of classics, especially, it would seem, in games. Site after site on the subject equates "classic" with "old," and the two are not always compatible. E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 is old, yet so far from being a classic that there is still a cache of them buried in the New Mexico desert.

In film and literature, the important parallel to a canon of classics is the influence of a single creative mind. It is true that films are created by dozens of individuals rather than one, but the filmmaking process is such that a good director's vision utterly dominates the creative direction of the picture. We often compare games to films, but it's not yet clear whether this auteurist principle will hold up in the medium. We do have our auteurs, developers whose names have become synonymous with quality games of a certain style, but in truth many of the classic games as they should be defined were not made by these people. It seems that more research into the cultural impact of games and how they are made will have to be performed.

Interestingly, we're seeing a resurgence of vintage video games right now, in the form of re-releases and shovelware packs. Our memories of a game are always better than the game actually was (I tried to play DOOM the other day and found its graphics and control scheme unendurable), and while the practice of re-releasing may prevent true classics from being forgotten in the swell of new product releases, it would be preferable for the companies responsible for them to look the other way when it comes to emulation and ROM downloads. Alternatively, the industry could start looking seriously at remakes, something I advocate but certainly see potential pitfalls in.

As accredited institutions start offering genuine game studies curricula, a "required reading" list of classic games will be necessary to give students a proper foundation. Since compatibility of both hardware and software is an issue in this, the industry as a whole should figure out an equitable solution that allows gamers to play the Phantasy Stars and Metroids of the world without being expected to maintain ancient game consoles or DOS PCs. Frankly, publishers are asking too much in expecting users to pay for the privilege of emulating a fifteen-year-old game; there is no indication that emulation of older titles adversely affects a company's bottom line in any way. To call it piracy is reaching.

The existence of classics in an entertainment medium is a significant step forward in that medium's attempts to be recognized as a valid art form. Classics demonstrate that the medium can evolve creatively, which is especially important in gaming, since the technical evolution is what most casual observers see from year to year. Study of classics will allow game scholars to reach a definitive conclusion about the role of auteurism in game development, and of course evaluation of classics is useful in determining the genetic makeup of a quality representative of the medium.