An unusual question, but a question i have asked myself quite a few times.
I guess first thing would be the need to clarify what i think subversive would represent in a game, and,to me, this would be breaking rules that director/company foresaw and allows the player to break. If a player had total freedom within a game, i am unable to comprehend how a game could develop a story. We do not have technology like the Enterprise where a machine can mix and match literature and make new endings, beginnings and middles. Maybe one day we will, but not for a while, not that many algorithms can be done.
I am happy with the way Half Life tackles this type of issue and makes the player feel as if he is breaking the rules, but at the same time is going through a linear experience, and any game could take a similar approach.

Bioshock taught me to reject brutalizing capitalism.

Thanks for 'subversifying' me, kevin levine.

Great article, but the one game that should've been covered was Defcon. Defcon gives an incredible feeling of unease about nuclear weapons without ever having to actually tell you that they're wrong.

Assuming you know the premise of Defcon (You're a general in an underground bunker, global thermonuclear war, launch nukes at other countries, win by getting the most population kills), let's take the example that you're firing a missile at Moscow. As soon as the missile lands, a little white mark appears representing and explosion and text scrolls by on the screen reading "Moscow: 2.8 million dead". Nowhere does it say "2.8 million dead, this is good." or "2.8 million dead, this is bad.". It just gives you the facts, that 2.8 million are dead (it doesn't even say "people"), and you tell yourself "that's *bad*".

It's a brilliant concept they used in Decfon. Rather than explicitly telling you what's right or wrong, they just give you the facts about something, and your own human nature tells you what to think. Games like Blacksite and Army of Two are crass attempts at shoving the issues in your face along with plenty of shooting and fist pounding, but it never really makes you think about it. And why should you? There are a whole load of guys to shoot at!

If it tells you to overthrow authority and portrays someone in the game very similarly to a person in real life. If a game tells you to overthrow a president's regime, portrays someone the acts like and looks like George W. Bush(probably with a different name), then it's probably subversive.

I guess that a game such as Tales of Symphonia could technically be called subversive because it centers a powerful, yet corrupt church. (And we all know what that refers to) But then again, this is also a staple of many other RPGs, so it's not alone. However, I don't see anyone trying to bomb Vatican City, so one can say that they have no substantial effects on an individual.

All these words, these paragraphs. So nice, but...

Killer7.

That's all that needs to be said, really.

Real subversion ofetn comes in the most seemingly innocuous forms.
One of the most subversive movies in the last decade or so was Adams Family Values, it played to a mainstream audience had had some of the most radical ideas abut family and what is acceptable.
Similarily, I think Nintendo have done more to chage the cultural landscape with games like WiiFit and Wii Sports than any of the games one might consider radical and "dangerous"

whats Subversive mean? lol

speed runs on any game really, and low level/power leveled playthroughs of RPGs

Still only six comments? It looks like not much of us knows what does Subversive mean :) And besides, Im not in the mood for thinking, last two days I've been riding a car around Liberty City in first person view listening to The Journey and now I feel hypnotized.

Comment on How Can A Game Be Subversive? I suppose the question is, subversive in regards to what? GTA is subversive to the idea that law enforcement is to be respected. Obviously, there are any number of games that are subversive to societal issues. Even more blatantly subversive are various hentai rape games. That is subversive to the concept of human dignity. Then there's the idea of being subversive in regards to game mechanics. For example, Portal establishes a set mechanic of level design, but you are forced to abandon that structure if you wish to make progress. Of course, one could ask the circular question, if you design a game to subvert game mechanics, are you really subverting the game mechanics you've created? Dictionary.com states one definition of subvert as to overthrow, or cause the downfall. Ideally, videogames would subvert that which is bad, and promote that which is good. But since agreement on what is simply good and bad is absurd. Most videogames subvert the idea of innovation, the importance of story. Anyway, I could continue on a tangential argument about the nature of happiness, but all forms of media subvert something. Likewise, all forms of media praise something. Whether that is good or bad depends on your value system.

GTA4=Subversive

@flappy: It's possible people have just been stunned into silence by the articles on Portal linked at that page.

Wow, it's just ... wow. I'd read one of them when it was first linked here and I'd forgotten just how batshit insane it comes across. It's a game, it's fun, it's not a carefully constructed subversion of normal modes of gaming. Destroying the WCC as removing the burden of a father figure? pu-leeze

I think get the argument. Suppose they made a game out of V for Vendetta. The content itself would be subversive. But if the game actually caused the player to question the establishment by virtue of the game mechanics and choices, then the game itself beyond the storyline becomes subversive.

what a load of bs, really

@Superuser: I don't see how GTA4 is subversive since it caters to a very particular audience that shares the same opinions as the developers. The audience doesn't finish the game struggling to reconcile their faith or morals with what was presented in the game. Controversy alone is not enough to make something subversive.

Cruithne's comment is much more insightful. Truly subversive material is very rare because few things can present a universal message that can leave people questioning the difference between right or wrong. GTA may try to be subversive but it doesn't achieve the moral conflict that is characteristic of subversive material.

I think the problem with this discussion is what Pfeifer hits right away, then backs away from.

The notion between a game's message and a game's "telling" is super-important. I don't think a game can be truely subversive on message alone. Okay, thinking about this, it's not quite true, but it's almost entirely true.

But real, honest, gutsy subversion needs subversion of the genre and the formula, and for that, you need "telling" subversion. But games, as a genre, are just barely reaching the point where we can imagine something like that as almost slightly possible.

Seriously, they've just not been along for long enough for all of us to have enough preconceptions over the way things work. And, in fact, because games consistently are on a culture of breaking preconceptions of how things work (gameplay has to be new) I'm suspecting that we might be in a genre that develops too fast for subversion.

But, yes, YHTBTR is probably the closest for a total "Fuck you!" to the experience, and, as such, on the list.

What a great article, and great thread! I just love your posts Maggie.

I tend to agree with Slatz - we are in the midst of a very young genre; the level of construction and deconstruction - of dialect, if you swing that way - that we see in film for example is still a couple of decades off in games, imho.

I often compare gaming now (circa 25 years old) as something akin to the silent era, pre-WWI (think 1912).

The technology had been around for a similar period, it was just becoming a form of truly mass entertainment, AND we were seeing the start of real auteurs.

Films like Noserfatu, directors like Murneau, Keaton, Griffith, and a little later Lang, Melies, etc. (Miyamoto, Wright, Meier?)

It was a truly international industry back then (much as gaming is now).

But more importantly, it was forming the language of cinema that we all now speak fluently, and subvert just as easily.

Even the things considered outre at the time - the Cabinet of Dr Caligari, for example - became very much part of the cinematic bedrock we have subsequently built on.

I believe we are seeing this with gaming now, which is partly why it can be so hard to find the truly subversive. And also, it should be pointed out that subversive will always be rare - it's not subservsive otherwise, it's status quo.

I'm so excited when I look at what's happening to gaming at the moment. I feel like we're standing at the edge of a mountain, and it's dark, but the sun is just starting to rise, and we're going to see an _amazing_ view. "O brave new world, that has such creatures in it" and all that.

Wait, so "Portal" is a subversive representation of the male/female dichotomy? And the portals themselves represent vaginas?

Sorry, but that is a BIG stretch.