I definitely haven't written for lack of things to write about. I gave a speech at the EMC's Grand Opening about a month ago, and I just got back from the Montreal International Game Summit. It is for the latter reason that I now write, and that I now force myself to publish the post without leaving it drafted for another three weeks. There are many things to consider and share about my time at MIGS, but I'm going to break them down into chunks that are easier for me to commit to writing.
So, the first thing that became a pretty strong trend over the course of the conference: meaning in games. I will have to stay away from commenting on Jonathan Blow's final keynote speech on the subject because I left early to help out at the glorious Gamma 3D party, but I did catch enough of his presentation to know that he was addressing the issue. I also attended a panel discussion on the subject, however, which was followed by a round table. In that time, I noticed a very interesting dilemma.
During the panel discussion, it was easy to observe that the men lined up before me to debate the issue of meaning in games were not new to the industry; they looked at least a little seasoned and comfortable in their shoes as creative directors (Although Jason Della Rocca was on the panel and isn't a creative director, he looked quite comfortable anywhere I saw him over the course of the conference). At the round table after, I was struck by the fact that 95% of the participants were students. What does this mean?
To me, it means that being able to inject meaning into games, or even being able to stop and think about it seriously with others, is a privilege within the industry. In college, we are pushed to experiment and question and theorize in ways that we cannot when there are jobs on the line. Once you've climbed the latter and find yourself resting on a sturdy rung, you can then return to the thought that you should hold firmly to values and create meaningful experiences.
At least that's the way it looks right now. If I turn to Warren Spector's opening keynote speech on the game industry, it was clear that he had a great amount of faith in the upcoming generation as design pioneers, ready to take the foundations of game development and utilize them in previously unforeseen and unfeasible ways. I hope that his was an accurate forecast of times to come. If it was, I would be legitimately excited to immerse myself in the game industry and to create something that is both meaningful and engaging. However, it was made abundantly clear that this is not industry standard at present.
One of the first sessions I attended was a talk by Eric Chartrand in which the paradigm of games was identified as unrealistic and inaccessible to most members of the new game audience. He pushed for games that would appeal to larger markets, and for doing so by questioning the facts of games we take for granted. They were humorous rules, noting that all good things must come in crates and that every few minutes a huge bad ass monster boss fight will occur, but he made an important point. We have established a language of games that is neither comprehended nor appreciated by a vast majority of human beings.
Randy Smith went on to reference similar aspects of games in his talk on games as art. Observing that games are able to make as much or more money than films when only targeting a small slice of the audience that movies touch, he called for a shift in beliefs away from the fact that games have to be fun and for more informed design choices that speak to a real message. This is not necessary in all games, but it is important to compare movie and literature genres to game genres. How long has it taken for us to begin to encompass not only sci-fi and fantasy, but horror, comedy, historical and realistic fiction? When will we get to the documentaries, dramas, and biographicals? How lightly do we touch on these genres without ever getting beyond the surface? When will there be games that feel like short films, or even poems?
I have reached the conclusion that if I get into the gaming industry without veering off in the direction of serious games entirely, I will want to make a game like a poem. A really epic poem.
