Games Aren't Numbers

It’s the year 2010 and we’re all still frustrated about how little our culture accepts videogames as a respectable form of entertainment, and even less so a form of art. This frustration isn’t unwarranted at all, but the reality has to be accepted. I don’t put a lot of value in the public opinion anyway, since the public’s opinions are too frequently contrary to my own. But there are real consequences to being trapped in the cultural gutter. There’s little respect or recognition down here, escape doesn’t come easy.

However reacting directly to this fact, or perhaps just overreacting to it, isn’t likely to improve the situation. Doing so breeds insecurity which breeds false saviors. The notion that videogames will one day get their very own messianic “Citizen Kane” is a most prominent example. I’ve contested that idea a few times in the past, but I’d like to revisit it since there are so many problems I still want to address.

First of all, let’s look at what a “Citizen Kane” is thought to mean. The film Citizen Kane is widely considered to be the milestone where film culture became an art form respected and accepted by the public masses. It demonstrated exactly what film can do artistically and why it’s more than just a moving picture. Now, over seventy years later, film is an enormous part of seemingly everyone’s lives.

Except that this is a myth. Right now only “Hollywood” films are a significant part of our culture. Art house, documentaries, indie, non-American, etc. are all still on the fringe. There is only one particular type of film that has actually been rocketed to the point of a cultural institution. It’s a fallacy to assume that film is an entire medium, there are many mediums contained inside it.

Now let’s switch tracks an look at videogames. They’re even more divided that film is. The only reason why the public lumps every game under one term is ignorance. As more people realize what Halo and Civilization are they’ll also realize that these two games aren’t remotely similar at all. There won’t ever been enough room for every, or even most, types of games to break into the mainstream, but I’m completely sure that there will be a certain type of game that does.

Oh wait, that already happened to an extent with Wii Sports, except that it doesn’t count now that videogame culture has all but disowned the Nintendo and the Wii. And that only demonstrates my point.

With society as it is, we will never be satisfied with the amount of public acceptance games will get because it will never be acceptance of the games we like the most. “We” being people who spend lots of time playing lots of different games and have opinions about them. I can safely assume that I won’t ever be able to have casual conversations with my mom about King’s Bounty or Freespace. The most we can realistically hope for is the end of the perception that games are all about headshots and naked women. But then again, if you look at the top selling games each month that’s not untrue.

The only way for videogames, all videogames, to become a more mainstream force in our culture is if our culture itself changes. People need to grow up in an environment where serious games are played and talked about. A society where children are taught how to play and appreciate games in school. That’s why everyone has a respect for literature, even people who never read or have any interest in reading. Our society is currently full of people completely illiterate in the systems of games.

Videogames could make this happen, and maybe they will. I believe that on some level our society needs to evolve and play more games. Every time I read a story that uses chess as a metaphor I think that in some alternate universe a game like Civilization or StarCraft was used instead, perhaps more meaningfully. There’s something in human nature that is drawn to games, and in our millennia of existence we’ve only scratched the surface of their potential. The modern explosion of computer technology might be what was needed to finally unleash our potential to explore all the possibilities of games.

Are there problems with videogames in general that need to be addressed? Yes, certainly. The constant fetishization of gore and egocentrism of the players are definitely giving serious games an undeserved reputation by association. Physical hardware is and will probably continue to be an issue. The fact that so many games are expected to be forgotten after a couple of years makes them tend towards being forgettable. But plenty of perfectly good valid games exist. Society is what needs to catch up and accept them.