The latest debate concluded this morning. It's all about Grand Theft Auto IV. We talked about bringing our A game for this one. Or at least we would have if we spoke in sports metaphors. It's full of spoilers... about the game's moral quandaries, its ending and other stuff. So beware.

But if you're looking to see him have a go at me for preferring San Andreas to GTA IV and if you're interested in stuff like this...

N'Gai: I'm wondering whether the fault lies not with inconsistencies in the work of Rockstar's writing team, but with the credulity of all of us. Liberty City is filled with self-deluded characters like Playboy X, Manny and Brucie, who present themselves one way only to be exposed by their behavior. Why do we take Niko at face value? Is it just because he's our avatar? ... Maybe Niko is deceiving himself as much as do the rest of the lowlifes he runs with. Maybe as much as he believes he's fatigued with death and killing, he's actually drawn to it? Maybe we have all misunderstood Niko Bellic.

...then head to either of our sites and read the loooong debate. I'm linking to his version, because I'm classy.

Round One
Round Two
Final Round

Back in April, Dan Rubenfield (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, etc.) ranted, raved, and put MMO developers 'on notice.' And, at the end, admonished developers to "quit making PC games. It’s a waste of time and money." Unsurprisingly, people hit back, and now over at GameSetWatch, Joe Ludwig (producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea) has a snappy little response detailing six reasons why MMOs are just plain harder to develop for consoles versus PCs. Does that mean it won't start happening in greater numbers? Of course not:

There is enough money to be made in console games that future MMO releases there are inevitable. It's just a question of when they arrive.

Several console MMOs have already launched. The most successful of these by far is Final Fantasy XI on the PlayStation 2. Everquest Online Adventures and Phantasy Star Universe (and Phantasy Star Online before it) are two more examples. There are probably more that I'm not coming up with. All of these games have seen some modest success, but none of them are either major console hits or major MMO hits.

... Eventually MMOs are going to come to consoles. It's just going to take them a while to get there, and they will probably never emerge in the same numbers as they do on PCs. Buck up, Dan. We'll get there some day.

He also points out that according to NPD, developing for PCs is anything but a waste of money. Overall, it's a really reasonable response to a sometimes reasonable, sometimes really not rant.

Why Aren't There More Console MMOs? [GameSetWatch]

GamerBytes, the new blog in the Game Developer/Gamasutra/GameSetWatch line up, chatted with some developers to get their opinions on the XBLA delisting issue. The little three parter is a nice look at a couple of view points. Unsurprisingly, opinions are mixed — some are staunchly opposed, while some (like the cofounder of Merscom, Buku Sudoku developer) think it's a fabulous idea:

I support this policy. I think it is important to maintain a consistent level of quality and if a game is not hitting these targets (which are not that rigorous) they aren't giving the gamer a good experience ....

I always believe in quality over quantity and I think the Microsoft policy is a good move in this direction. I understand how some developers feel they might end up wasting their effort, but I think if they make a REAL effort these hurdles should be a piece of cake.

Of course, there are some excellent points made against the plan — like the fact that even "low" revenues can mean a lot to small indie developers — but we'll see how this all shakes out in the wash.

XBLA Delisting - Developer Response (parts 1, 2, and 3) [GamerBytes]

... change to the fan sub-culture appears inevitable, but yet so are reactionary responses from the fans. But those responses are soon swallowed up by the progress of the sub-culture on the whole. Given this inevitability, is there reason for concern?

After all, the course of history has already begun to unfold. In the same way we gaming old-timers may look down on PlayStation fanboys (for the record, I'm a Nintendo man), those same gamers who cut their teeth on the PS2 may denigrate the n00bs who are just learning to waggle their Wii-motes. Wilson's critique may in fact stem from his own nostalgia for the good old days before a series of tubes became the internet we now know and love, and flame wars became easier to ignite.

Si, Ceci Est Un Gamer [GameSetWatch]

However, someone sitting at a computer playing a video game, or someone with one of those small devices that young people have these days, the name of which I forget— [Interruption.] PlayStations or PSPs, something of that kind.

"Well, whatever they are called, when people play these things, they can interact. They can shoot people; they can kill people. As the honourable Gentleman said, they can rape women."

The gentleman he is referring to is the bill's author Julian Brazier, though being completely off-base when quoting someone else doesn't excuse you from being off-base in the first place. The man can barely remember what these horribly offensive rape-machines are. When you have to struggle to remember what you were talking about in the first place it's probably a good indicator that you should sit down and shut up.

Luckily for British gamers, the House isn't completely full of uninformed idiots. Conservative MP Edward Vaizey actually took the time to check this claim out with the BBFC.

"Is the honourable Gentleman aware of any video game that has as its intention the carrying out of rape or that allows the game player to carry out such an act? The BBFC and I are unaware of any such game."

"I cannot comment on the rape in games issue, but I can tell the House what Stefan Pakeerah's father said after Warren Leblanc had murdered his son. He said that "Manhunt" is a game using weapons like hammers and knives...The object of Manhunt is not just to go out and kill people. It's a point-scoring game where you increase your score depending on how violent the killing is. That explains why Stefan's murder was as horrific as it was."

Taken, and rebutted by Minister of State Margaret Hodge, who explained that not only was the game found to have played no part in the murder, it was the victim who owned the game and not the attacker.

Perhaps the real story here isn't that Mr. Vaz decided to claim erroneously that video games let you rape women, but rather the fact the the House of Commons debates had people present with enough sense to challenge the claim. Good show!

Pro Censorship MP Claims Games Glorify Nazis and Rape [SPOnG]

While I fully understand and support that games are a wonderful play pastime, and that gameplay and fun are the beating heart of our business, I find these assertions to keep everything the same as a set of false boundaries that foster cynical limitations by those in power to assure the status quo is comfortable and predictable.

The real truth is, games have always pushed the boundaries and evolved on their own, right from the beginning. First they were a simply a "Novelty." Then Time Magazine proudly labeled them a passing "Fad." Then they were a "Quaint Pastime." Then a "Cultural Phenomenon." And now a "Mainstream Entertainment" medium.

I think the problem inherent to these discussions is that while people can try and slough the question of 'what is art?' off to academics, it's very much tied to the question of 'art and video games' or 'art in video games' or 'video games as art.' Many modern media struggle with this, and it's by no means confined to games - but this debate has no end.

The Art Of Games [Gamasutra]

But comics and video games are alike in another way: they both remain marginalized, infantilized media, where the Wares are the rarest exception and the medium in general holds little to no value outside of very specific circles. The highest ideal of the vast majority of creators is to force the medium into being something it's not, and the largest segment of the audience consists of juveniles, in age or mindset, who haven't "graduated" to more respected forms of entertainment.

Browse the racks of a standard comic shop, and the books on the mainstream shelves will be filled with flashy illustrations depicting laughable actions stories, absurdly-proportioned women, and superheroes. Likewise, browse the racks of an Electronics Boutique and you're bound to find mostly sports stars, Japanese children's cartoons, burly men with guns, and women in shameless, implausible dress. The medium infantalizes itself through its chosen subject matter. Based on surface alone, I can't blame the outside viewer for thinking little of the medium at large.

Bad movies reign at the box office, bad books remain on top of the NYT best seller list for months, bad games get more press than the little gems. Still, no one would accuse cinema or literature at large of being juvenile, infantile, doomed to a ghetto. People like consuming crap, and 'low brow' sells; this is not news, and has caused legions of connoisseurs to throw up their hands in despair.

Borat Pfeiffer fired back at The Plush Apocalypse:

I've certainly had days where I'd agree with most everything he says. I get where it's coming from. Whether it was a frustrating day at work, or sometimes just going to a particularly rough GDC, I am not immune to that brand of despair. But, overall, I gotta say, games still have much more to achieve as a medium - if I didn't think so, I wouldn't be working on them.

He goes on to refute several points of the original, addressing issues of accessibility, infantilization, and engagement. I think plenty of us have felt frustrated at some point or another with games and gaming culture at large, but the day I feel like we're really stagnant, not going anywhere, and stuck in a juvenile ghetto is the day I give my setup away and walk away.

N'Gai Croal spread his rebuttal out over two articles in Level Up; if you're going to read any response to the original, this one is it. As he astutely points out, many of the issues Gaynor is complaining about are simply endemic to mass audiences for all forms of art and culture (how else to explain the wild popularity of an 'artist' like Thomas Kinkade and faux oil paintings?). Do we think that more artistic and independent film makers aren't lamenting the same exact issues, or literary authors don't wish Danielle Steele wasn't ruling the best seller lists?

The very thing Gaynor decries—a lack of willingness among the audience to work for their entertainment—isn't inherent in to this medium. It's almost intractable among mass audiences no matter what the medium. Popular fiction generally outsells literary fiction. Summer blockbusters generally out-gross arthouse films. Is this any different from, say, Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat out-NPD-ing BioShock last year, or Madden doing the same to Shadow of the Colossus in 2005? Does it truly matter that in aggregate television is more mass a mass medium than videogames, when on an individual level, its practitioners are faced with the same challenges that plague those who work in other media?

John Walker adds his own take on the issue at Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

I think there is a missed target in all of this. I think we, the gaming press, and we, the gamers, expect far too little of games. BioShock was a great game, but really, its commentary was a pamphlet. And yet it was heralded as an intellectual goliath. Of course there was a backlash to this - no, most of us won't have read Ayn Rand, and will learn something. But it isn't good enough for the adulation it receives. However, it's a perspective thing, and when compared to the rest, we feel we've no choice but to get excited. "Good grief, this one tried!" I stress again, I thought BioShock was an excellent game, but one with a poor narrative structure, and many failed ambitions.

And at entirely the opposite end, I think we expect far too much of games. We do not lament Scrabble for its lack of Brechtian estrangement. We enjoy playing Mousetrap because the pieces go plonky plonky plonk and then the diver falls in the cup. Games so often should be visceral fun. I think that once we relax and let games be this, we'll perhaps develop the confidence to let other games aim higher, and achieve more, without feeling the need to pretend they're our Citizen Kane.

I think we have more than enough smart and talented people in all sorts of roles to 'aim higher'; that doesn't mean 'visceral fun' is going to be replaced by high brow topics. But diversity is never a bad thing, and I trust that in years to come, there will be an ever increasing array of options, from the high brow to low brow, from the emotional to the emotionless.

The whole debate is interesting to page through, and more people weighed in than listed here; if you've got the time, it's interesting to read how intelligent people are responding to a debate that does get played out over and over again, just usually not with quite this domino-chain reaction.

Wager [Fullbright]; Is the Cultural Trajectory of Videogames Doomed to Parallel That of Comic Books? Part I and Part II [Level Up]; The Cultural Significance Of Video Games [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

I don't know what convention organizers thought they would accomplish by bringing these men together, but what they got was a few heated arguments and well-placed jabs. Koster in particular had some great lines. At one point he was discussing 'clumsy microtransactions' that left gamers with a bad taste in their mouth. "Hello Lumines. Hello Oblivion. Yeah I'm talking about you." Apparently not a big fan of horse armor.

Once the smoke had cleared and then panel closed, there was no clear winner in the debate of standard subscription versus free-to-play microtransaction supported games. They only point that seemed to be agreed on was that anything that got gamers online was good, and that PC gaming wouldn't die until parents can work from home and children can do their homework with a games console. Productive!

Yes, it made the newspaper because I put it there and no, it's not game related, not really. But I thought perhaps you'd still want to read it, that and I mentioned it last night in my Night Note.

So hit up the Rocky Mountain News and read my pro-pirate stance and then vote to your heart's content. And remember what else they call silent but deadly. ;) Brian Crecente

Crecente: Pirate-vs.-ninja debate rages [Crecente: Pirate-vs.-ninja debate rages]

If you live in the California, PA area and are free tomorrow night, you could be in for a real treat. JT Lawyer Guy will be at the California University of Pennsylvania campus on Tuesday the 30th at 7 p.m., debating author and culture critic Gerard Jones over violent video games and their sale to children. Jones is the author of "Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes and Make-Believe Violence," a book that explores the importance of games, comics, and other fantasy violence in helping children learn to deal with anger, violence, and sexuality.

If I had known about this a few days ago I would have extended my New York trip to include a visit to my Pittsburgh relatives. just for a chance to catch JT in action. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article paints him as a man who only wants to prevent the sale of violent games to minors...something I am completely in favor of. Perhaps in some other world, he and I could have been friends. Maybe one day we'll crash land on a barren alien planet and be forced to cooperate to survive. Michael Fahey

Violent video games are topic of debate at California U. of Pa. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via GamePolitics]

Presidential hopeful Mark Warner recently held a press conference in the MySpace of MMOs, Second Life. The coverage of the event was decidedly subdued, and I've seen very little followup worth reporting.

Except, of course, for the article from which the following excerpt is plucked. Surprise surprise, all did not go as planned. Uninvited attendees were removed from the premises while shouting slogans about freedom and democracy; the invited reporters, fresh from Help Island, couldn't figure out how to use the provided chairs; and once the impertinent questions from the same reporters were silence by the moderator, the former quickly became restless and took matters into their own hands, making this the most entertaining political debate since the word "internets" was coined.

One reporter was a green Incredible Hulk type, one was a series of tubes, another was a knight with feathers in the helmet, still another carried a balloon proclaiming "Stop Slavery," and several turned themselves into buxom blondes. Warner chose a dark jacket and tan slacks.

[...]

The avatars became bored. Whirling Eddy and the tube guy began to fly. Others joined the governor on the stage or made some of the "gestures" in the program, such as muscle-flexing, yawning, rock-scissors-paper and a spanking gesture called "kmb" — kiss my butt.

After fending off the questions with increasing ferocity, moderator Hamlet Au pronounced the governor a virtual success. "You've performed quite well, sir," he said. "You are not a noob."

Eliza Gauger

edit: I updated with a new photo, which I graciously stole from Joystiq. Observe the Series of Tubes in the second row.

Do You Have a Question, Pixeleen Minstral? [Washington Post, via GamePolitics]

Roger Ebert took the time to watch Silent Hill, I say that with all sincerity, because they didn't show a preview for him, he had to actually go to the movies to see it.

His write up of the movie is quite interesting. It's not so much a review as a, I don't know, monologue. I don't mean that as an insult, Ebert's look at the movie doesn't lack some interesting points, but it seems that it was more about his firming up his argument about games and art.

I was out in Boulder last week on a panel about video games and whether they can be art, and a lot of the students said they were really looking forward to "Silent Hill" because it's one of the best games and they read on the internet that the movie was supposed to live up to the game. That was all speculation, of course, because Sony Pictures declined to preview the film for anybody, perhaps because they were concerned it would not live up to the game, or because they were afraid it would. When I told one student that the movie was not being previewed, there was real pain on his face, as if he had personally been devalued.

Not only can I not describe the plot of this movie, but I have a feeling the last scene reverses half of what I thought I knew (or didn't know). What I can say is that it's an incredibly good-looking film. The director, Christophe Gans, uses graphics and special effects and computers and grainy, scratchy film stock and surrealistic images and makes "Silent Hill" look more like an experimental art film than a horror film — except for the horror, of course. The visuals are terrific; credit also to cinematographer Dan Laustsen, production designer Carol Spier, and the art, set and costume artists. But what are we to make of dialogue such as I will
now describe?

I'd say go read the rest, because it is worth it, but only do so if you don't mind tons of spoilers. I'd suggest maybe coming back to it after seeing the movie, if you plan to.

Oh, one more thing. Ebert gave the movie one and a half stars, his readers gave it three and a half.

Silent Hill [RogerEbert.com, thanks Brad]

After getting back from Boulder, Colorado, Jim Emerson wrote up quite a lengthy explanation of how he researched and formed his opinions for his debate with Roger Ebert about the whole "are video games art" question.

He was even kind enough to link to Kotaku's coverage of the event and my saying that it was bound to be a sham.

His response:

Hey, I am a big "fan" of Ebert's, otherwise this job wouldn't interest me. Trust me, I wouldn't want to be the editor of michaelmedved.com or geneshalit.com. But, as actual readers of this site know, Roger and I don't always see eye-to-eye ("Million Dollar Baby," "Crash," "Fight Club," "Mississippi Burning," and so on) — any more than any other two people on the face of the planet do.

Going in to the video game panel, I'd been hoping the audience (mostly students) would be fired up about the subject and challenge the panelists, but they were unfortunately pretty passive. Maybe they were intimidated by the rather formal (for Boulder) theater setting, I don't know. Ebert began by explaining why he felt a game (particularly the shoot-shoot, point-scoring kind) was not an experience equivalent to that of reading a great novel like, say, "The Great Gatsby," because games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human.

The story is well worth a read if you have any interest in this topic.

Video games: The 'epic debate' [RogerEbert.com]

Seattle-based movie critic and editor of RogerEbert.com Jim Emerson dropped me a line over the weekend in response to my rantish blurb about the video games as art "debate" he took part in with Roget Ebert last week in Boulder.

While I still find it contemptible that Ebert didn't get someone with more gaming knowledge to debate him over the issue (Emerson says the last game he played was Myst), it does sound like the discussion they had raised some interesting issues.

Emerson points out (as we have covered in detail) that the debate has been raging on RogerEbert.com for sometime, but he also goes over his personal feelings on the matter. Hit the jump for his full letter.

Regarding the "debate" over whether video games are considered "art" at the Conference on World Affairs a couple days ago (somebody sent my your misleading blog post): The panelists were Roger Ebert, Leonard Shlain, and me. And, yes, Ebert said they weren't art. I said they question was stupid — like saying "Are movies art?" or "Are books art?" or "Is painting art?" — because, obviously, it depends on the individual game. I brought up Myst as an example of an older game that provided an immersive interactive experience that provided what I consider an artistic experience. Shlain talked about interactive video/web installations his techie/artist son-in-law has done, including one what was included in the Whitney Biennial. It was a game-like environment involving a Ouija board operated by thousands of users simultaneously. And, hey, the Whitney thought this web-based "game" was art.

If you want to know more about why I think video games certainly can be art (although, as a critic, I'd argue that Doom, for example, is nothing more than Astroids with blood), you may want to look at some of the stuff I wrote about the topic on rogerebert.com last year. I was chosen for the "Are Video Games Art?" panel not because I am Ebert's web site editor (or his "biggest fan," as you say, without offering any support for that assessment), but because I actually have written about why I think the subject is more complex than "art vs. not art." I published a lot of mail from readers debating this question on rogerebert.com. Here's one posting from my blog, Scanners:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051206/SCANNERS/51206001/1023

Movies began to develop their own language and aesthetics (apart from still photography or theater) in the early part of the 20th century. And there have always been those who questioned whether movies — especially once they became industrial product pieced together by huge teams in "entertainment factories" called studios — could ever hope to aspire to the level of art.

I confess that the last video game I played was probably the first version of "Myst" — an immersive, otherworldly mystery that, I think, is worthy of comparison on some levels (though character development is not one of them) to mystery-driven narratives like "Twin Peaks," "Mulholland Drive," "Veronica Mars" or "Lost." The point is not so much to find all the clues and solve the mystery as it is to get wrapped up in another world where your curiosity keeps you engaged in exploring.

Web sites — like those for "The Blair Witch Project" or "Donnie Darko" — have already shown how the experience of a movie can be creatively extended into an interactive realm beyond the movie itself. Maybe that's where games are going, too...

Ps. Maybe you're not his biggest fan, but that message from the editor you wrote for RogerEbert.com in 2004 reads like a love soliloquy, it just needed to be written in iambic pentameter.

Ebert Debates Games as Art [Kotaku]

Wonderland directs readers to a debate taking place over at MMORPG.com on whether or not established properties are good fits to be turned into MMORPGs. Jon Wood and Dana Massey find themselves on opposite sides of the fence on the issue. Wood maintains that using existing franchises leads to disappointment when the game ultimately doesn't live up to player expectation. Massey defends using existing IPs because the worlds we're escaping to via MMOs are worlds we may have already escaped into via film (Star Wars) or literature (Lord of the Rings). I'm siding with Massey, despite Wood being right in saying that gamers will often be let down when their favorite world becomes an MMO reality. Even if they were going to be butchered, I'd still love to see The Wheel of Time series become a solid MMO.

Debate: Should Major IPs (Intellectual Properties) Be Made Into MMORPGs? [MMORPG.com]
Take One IP: Should You or Should You Not Turn it into a MMOG? [Wonderland]

Games Industry reports that Atari founder and Chuck E. Cheese mastermind, Nolan Bushnell, thinks that the Revolution controller is a pretty good idea. He thinks the controller's simple design will help ease people into gaming who have become "interface phobic." What about people who are afraid of swinging their arm around at a video game? What about their fears?

Addendum: BTW, it looks like Games Industry was reporting on Ashcraft's coverage of Bushnell's speech. Toss a cite in their next time, you guys went to college, cite your sources.

Atari Founder Praises Nintendo's New Controller [Games Industry]

After we gathered some impressions from around the web, Next Generation pulled aside some developers, journalists and executives for their response to the Nintendo Revolution.

I'm not sold on the Revolution controller yet. It's either a wild moment of genius for Nintendo or another step in company's transformation into Sega. Nintendo consoles and the Brontosaurus could have a lot in common if this idea fails.

Gamasutra reexamines the rivalry between the DS and PSP. The article is a collection of reader feedback on the two portable platforms.

My take? The PSP is quickly squandering its opportunity in the hand held industry. Too many titles are ports of existing franchises. The recent success of Nintendogs has finally given the DS some much-needed momentum. Nintendogs has boosted sales, we'll see if the PSP has an answer when GTA arrives.

Crecente: Video gaming's dirty little secrets [Rocky Mountain News]

p.s. I don't write the headlines.

I finally figured out a non-server crashing way of putting my Fox News Channel appearance up on the site. Check out the tiny video and remember that my name is neither Steve nor Bloyce.

Me on Fox (Large 87 MB file) or Me on Fox (Small 18 MB file)[Megaupload]

Just got back from the local Fox News Channel studio where I did a live something in other defending the game rating system.

It was much shorter than I expected it would be, though I did find the anchor Uma Something Something very insightful. I mean, in our brief conversation she discovered two whole names for me that I didn't know existed. Apparently my full "Christian" name is Brian David "Steve" "Bloise" Crecente. Sweet, I've always wanted to have an extra set of handles to go by.

If you caught the couple minute segment and thought I was a big confused, I was. I wasn't sure when to talk because Uma kept throwing out new names for me, once christening me with the same last name as the other guy talking about the issue.

All my pointing out that my name was in fact Brian did was strip me of a chance to respond to the other guy's non-sensical wrap-up about how games have to be in stores to make money. Good thing because I think that would have deserved a perfunctory no shit.

I'll see what I can do about posting a video of the segment on Monday.