a short treatise on gaming in the 21st century

after being all but separated from the gaming world for more than a month, i just now rifled through some of my favorite sites and read some very interesting commentary on both games and the gaming industry today. i'm referring specifically to a well-thought-out opinion article over at etoychest.org, adamantly proclaiming the self-bastardization of Nintendo over the past few years, and calling for them to step up to the plate with some new and innovative content that does not fall back on old franchises in order to make a buck. now, i don't know if i can be called a die-hard fanboy for the big N, but i certainly hold a special place in my heart for the games they have made and will most likely continue to for years to come. in terms of business model, sure they might have royally screwed themselves, but then again maybe it was just a change in gaming ethos and culture over time; the modernization and expansion of the gaming industry is what led Nintendo to the supposed stagnance that people say they're wallowing in now.

one could claim that it was the "graphics revolution" that started, oh, about 1995 with the introduction of the Playstation that began the treachorous journey into modernity, and therefore sealed the fate of gaming forever. i remember when the Playstation first debuted and i began seeing the commercials for this grand new messiah of gaming delight. at the time i was a proud owner of a Sega Genesis, a console that, despite it's meager 16-bits, had kept me up all night to the day i sold it playing each and every game i bought for it, revelling in the challenge of getting past that damn marble and purple lava shit stage in Sonic the Hedgehog. that's right, the original. the game that came WITH the console is the one i played most frequently, in between bouts with my numerous other digital belles. but in a moment of weakness, i decided to embrace the future and sell not only myself, but also my beloved Genesis, in order to obtain the funds necessary for that glorious machine, 32-bits and counting. "look, dad, the future!" i triumphantly proclaimed as we walked toward the game section of the also once flourishing Toys R' Us. he was slightly less emphatic, but my brother, the little joy that he was regardless of the beatings i gave him, was fully with me on this decision, and eagerly jumped up and down as the man at the counter rang us up. little did i realize how high the price of modernity would be. in addition to the then astronomical sum of $300 plus tax that the system itself cost, we also had to shell out another $75 or so for two games: ESPN XGames and Fifa Soccer '96. we still own both games, and i'm surprised they still work, considering how many hours we put into both in those first couple months. now, these games were not the créme de la créme of anything heretofore released, but i was most definitely awed by the graphics, but also had a very good time playing these games, always working towards a better time on that damn Utah course.

over time, as my game collection expanded, however, i noticed a trend in my purchasing habits. i didn't so much focus on graphics, but on what i considered "adequate gaming experience." i had still maintained my standards, and in some ways raised them, from the time when i experienced my first truly fun video game: Super Mario Bros./ Duck Hunt (don't get me started on Duck Hunt and the joys contained within that case of plastic and silicon). and graphics, honestly did not matter. i loved Wild Arms (my first real RPG, and the game that solidified my love for the genre in the first tne minutes of play) just as much as FF VII, but because of the gameplay. granted FF VII was an infintely better game in all respects, and continues to be in my top ten after eight years of exposure to the novelties that modernity has brought, and sure i nearly peed myself during the opening cinema, but what kept me in the seat too small for my body, eyes glued to the thirteen-inch screen for more than ten hours straight, was the experience. i still search for that experience in every game i play, and that has led me to become even more selective in the games i purchase, particularly as steady funding for my habits has decreased exponentially over the years.

i've been with the industry for a long time. not as long, perhaps as the more "hard core" out there, those who can hearken back to the glory days of Pong, but a significant chunk of time nonetheless. i've watched as the games changes, the consoles grew in power and size, and the companies shifted with the same dynamic. and frankly, the most significant change that occurred in the gaming industry is not the games, the consoles, or the companies; it was the community, the ever-growing and now burgeoning group of people who deemed gaming a worthy pasttime to steal away their precious American dollars and free hours. perhaps it was the fault of the companies, ever pushing to expand their user base, but who can blame them? the business model that all the gaming companies have followed is the same as every other capitalist-run industry, and it's really the only way to make money in the free market today. large chunks of money, that is.

the fact remains, however, that the gamers changed. gone were the days when gaming was a diversion relegated to only the most elite of all societal outcasts: the geeks. knowing the base stats for a D20 system Mage or how to program how to output at least your name in BASIC was no longer a requirement to be a true gamer. with the advent of the Playstation, gaming suddenly became mainstream, most likely through some form of voodoo spell cast by SONY's top warlocks or priests or whatever atop their tower of power in Tokyo. suddenly anyone could revel in the digital goodness that was gaming, and so games tailor-made for each type of person began to be manufactured at an alarming rate. soon every genre had been broken through or had coagulated with some other genre to form, god forbid, hybrid genres, and the dilution of gaming as an art form had begun in earnest. now i'm not saying that these games were all bad, certainly they were not, and i continue to play quite a few of them, and loving every minute of it, because of the pure ingenuity that some developers have managed to mine out of the cold, hard quarry that Atari had first tapped so many years ago. i don't know how it happened, exactly, but the force that has kept the industry going for the past few years, and in fact has made it flourish to the point of breaking, "the mainstream" is is ultimately responsible for what i see as a decline in the quality of games.

here's my reasoning: developers want to make money by selling games, as much money as they can. gamers, of all shapes and sizes, want to play good, hearty games that get their thumbs and eyes moving at speeds previously unknown to modern man. average joe wants to drink coffee and eat pizza, and spend his leisure time in fun and interesting ways. at some point, developers realize that there are infinitely more average joes out there than gamers, all looking for a fun and interesting way to spend their leisure time, and therefore, their money. thus began the whoring to joe public. perhaps this train of thought is not a dead-end, for many awesome and delightful games have been spawned by this unholy alliance (the GTA series, for example). my beef is with the mass-production of crap games that average joe (and unsuspecting new inductees into the cult of gaming) will buy without realizing their negative worth, and, regardless of whether they keep the game or not, thereby contribute to the statistics that developers receive that point to everyone wanting just that: crap games.

it's unfortunate that i can make such an easy comparison to the current theatre industry in the States. the same sort of thing has happened, and to heighten the tragedy, with an irony that exceeds all expectations. these two industries are based around the production of art (i believe games are a form of art, in the same sense that sports are a form of performance.) and are therefore reaching for a higher aesthetic and "spiritual" experience with each new attempt. the need to make money to support this noble cause has, however, led to a trend that caters to the less discerning and, perhaps, less critical audience. i will always make the argument that the best art is that which reaches the widest audience, but when i say that i'm talking about quality, not quantity. it's not about reaching the MOST people; it's about REACHING the most people. providing the BEST experience to the greatest number of people. and the number only matters because artists like to proliferate their work and there would be no point were it not for the audience. the great irony is that in trying to reach the most people, the two respective industries have lost sight of the more important aspect of quality. maybe it's a function of business in a capitalist society. maybe it's alright that the public is content with substandard work. but maybe, just maybe, the die-hard fans are right, simply because they know better and expect only the best from an industry that at one point was focused on making something good and wonderful, not just a buck.

i continue to play video games because i love the thrill of a challenge, and the fun of immersing myself in another world, hopefully alien in some way to my own. i'm not looking for perfection, and i certainly don't think that the gaming industry has gone down the tubes. sure, it's lingering in old plots, genres, and proven money-makers, but there is some true ingenuity still occurring in the form, in the same way that new and interesting theatre is being created after over two thousand years of staged performance. and in regards to Nintendo, Shakespeare's plays have barely changed at all in nearly four hundred years, but we still find new ways to present them, and the audience still enjoys and learns from them just as much as the Elizabethans did. he also stole his most of his characters and plots from all over the place. nothing is original. Nintendo, however, after nearly thirty years of the same characters and stories, still makes games that are amazingly fun to play, and that's all i'm really here for. roch on, big N, rock on.