But still, I don't play this game because I care about the inner turmoil that haunts its fighters. That's what College Humor is for.

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]

Julian "Rabbit" Murdoch over at Gamers With Jobs took the trek to Irrational Games' studios in Quincy, MS and had a chat with ken Levine about BioShock. Of course, in and of itself, this is nothing new. Levine has been interviewed up one side and down the other about his creepy underwater brainchild, but what sets this article apart is it's attention to the details of the story and not just the gameplay. There's a great breakdown of the game's plot as well as a showing the comparisons between it and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. If you are a BioShock fan and looking to learn more than just surface details, this is a great piece of weekend reading. Flynn De Marco

BioShock [Gamers with Jobs]

Earlier, wrote an article about a game called Metronome and posted a trailer. Thanks to a link provided by commenter, Psychotext, I was able to check out a page on the game on creator, Tarsier Studios' website. There's more about the plot here and while it's not much, gives us at least a little more information on a game I'd like to see more of. There are also several screenshots that look pretty amazing and remind me a bit of American McGee's Alice.

In the game, you take on the role of a young train conductor. You get to venture into the city of Metronome, a sprawling mass of haphazardly built houses and huge steam engines where the outlandish inhabitants are carrying out their chores day and night. A city where the life of every citizen is dictated by the Corporation, a single bureaucratic entity that owns all the land, the entire infrastructure and all the industries.

Explore winding alleys, skewed rooftops and crowded apartment buildings as you search for proof of the Corporations secret agenda, all while listening for sounds to record.

The game's full title is actually The City of Metronome and according to Tarsier's website, although they still haven't found a publisher, the game is indeed still being worked on. The website update and new trailer I mentioned earlier were announced on the site around mid December so hopefully we will see more soon.

If any of the major publishers out there are listening, many of us would like to see more games of this ilk on our new generation consoles. Less shooting, more thinking. Flynn De Marco

Wild Arms 5 is officially under development, according to Sony's Wild Arms website. New flash on the site say that Wild Arms: The Vth Vanguard is coming.

No specific release date is mentioned, but the flash opens with this phrase: March Winds and April Showers Bring Forth May Flowers. Perhaps May is when it is coming, or maybe that's just when it will be unveiled.

There is a bit of story unveiled in some text at the end of the flash movie. Here it is:

The planet named Fargaia slowly but surely loses its green and changes to the wasteland Severe environment and the cruel monsters threatens life, people still hang on the planet., a wild world, there are adventurers who ask for a thrill or a dream. People call them "Migratory Bird."

Wild Arms [Official Site]

S. John Ross' Big List of RPG Plots strips down the endless weak storylines and repetitive side-quests of role-playing games to single paragraphs of generic description.

Quest For the Sparkly Hoozits

Somebody needs a dingus (to fulfill a prophecy, heal the monarch, prevent a war, cure a disease, or what have you). The PCs must find a dingus. Often an old dingus, a mysterious dingus, and a powerful dingus. The PCs must learn more about it to track it down, and then deal with taking it from wherever it is.

Common Twists & Themes: The dingus is incomplete when found (one of the most irritating and un-fun plot twists in the universe). Somebody already owns it (or recently stole it, sometimes with legitimate claim or cause). The dingus is information, or an idea, or a substance, not a specific dingus. The PCs must "go undercover" or otherwise infiltrate a group or society, gaining the dingus by guile or stealth.

See how many games you recognize on the list, it's kinda scary.

The Big List of RPG Plots [Plots]