Bad Writing Showcase 1

I’m calling this Bad Writing Showcase 1 because I can’t think of a better name, even though I hope there won’t be a Bad Writing Showcase 2. Still, I could screw up another post, and I could also showcase writing that isn’t mine. Bad Writing Showcase 1 just gives a better sense of closure than “Bad Writing Showcase.”

        Moving on. Below is a post I wrote a little over a week ago, which I never published because I felt pretty bad about it. I spent a lot of time writing it and trying to make it good, but as it is now, it can’t be what I want it to be. I’d have to do a complete re-write of it (my old Persona post is in a similar situation) and I just don’t really feel like doing that. When I say it isn’t good, what I really mean is that it isn’t good by my standards - I know I can write better than this. I’ve made these same mistakes before, and learned how to fix them. In fact, it’s eerily similar to the MacBeth essay I wrote. I’ve also made the same mistakes a ton of times in other blog posts, but it’s getting to the point where I need to do better.

        Much like my MacBeth essay, if it’s taken paragraph by paragraph, the writing is pretty solid. But much like my MacBeth essay, it was written without a thesis or an outline. It’s just a bunch of slightly related thoughts strung together, with a sloppy introduction and conclusion that try desperately to make some cohesive point out of all the individual paragraphs. It’s ok to sit down and throw out a big rant, because I can post whatever I want and who cares if anyone likes it or thinks it’s good? But I kind of want to take things I’ve written and say “hey, look at this, it’s really damn good and incredibly smart.” Also I fantasize about being paid to write smart things for video game blogs but that’s a risky proposition. So, in short, if I wanted to do those things, I would need to apply all my knowledge about writing to at least a few posts.

        That means taking the time to plan out my thoughts in advance, starting with a clear thesis and making sure everything I write serves to support it, and revising to fix the messy spots. I’ve been working on that for a while, and I’ve got a couple sheets of paper covered in notes for when I sit down to write one of these wonderful posts. It’s getting to the point where the individual paragraphs I had planned are becoming essays in their own right. I need to get other things straightened out first before I can start writing seriously, though.

        Anyway. I’m not going to go through this and point out everything that’s wrong with it, because I wrote it and I don’t want to tear my own work apart. Plus I don’t want to be tempted to improve it. I may start over at some point, but for now, it’s testament to the day I realized I can’t expect perfection to simply flow out of my fingertips. If you’re really bored, check out older posts and see how I couldn’t find a way to write a solid conclusion because they suffered the same problems.

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Gaming and the mainstream

Inspired by a MovieBob episode I overheard my brother watching, in which he has the following to say about film critics and the general population:

It’s often said that the problem with film critics is that we’re out of touch with normal people, because we see hundreds of films a year and thus get tired of formula quicker, and bored more easily, than people who only see a dozen or less. As such, we tend to overpraise certain films for things like narrative abstractions, explicit sexuality, taboo subject matter, or creative violence, because we’re just desperate for anything that surprises us - and conversely that we’re overly dismissive of otherwise solid films because they aren’t different enough to keep us awake.

        He mentions gaming, as well, to say that if every gamer were like Yahtzee or the Extra Credits crew, we wouldn’t get things like Halo: Reach (as he called it, just Halo 3 with a jetpack added). I don’t think that’s anywhere near as interesting as a subject, though - it’s just simple economics, and it applies to games, movies, books, television… If it sells, you make it, even if it’s derivative/unoriginal/starting to get stale after eleven iterations/not even that good/etc.

        Gaming is in a worse position than other mediums, because it doesn’t have the long history of great examples that break the mold that other mediums have, and it’s still a commercial industry at its core. Most games today are made as merely average commodities, as opposed to the exceptional (Portal 2) or the intellectual (), and that’s just how the industry is right now. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with making your game based on mechanics or “fun,” but it’s not really enriching anyone’s life if you have nothing interesting to say beyond “look how realistic our explosions are!” If you don’t have any issues with that, by all means, make what sells.

        But what I’m really here to talk about is the gaming public (your parents, perhaps your children, your co-workers who don’t know what a ‘source engine’ is) and the way they’re different from gamers. It’s not just the gaming media that have completely different ideas and expectations about games from everyone else - the gaming media is for gamers, by gamers, and we share their ideas and expectations. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they share ours. But to be accepted as a medium and an art form, games are going to have to deal with the radical differences in its audience. Things are better than they used to be - smartphones and the Wii have brought gaming to the general public, but compared to books and film, it’s still a niche.

        People like your parents and your “non-gamer” co-workers and friends probably play as many video games per year as I watch movies: a handful at best. “Gamers” either play or keep up with more games per year than so-called “non-gamers” have played in their entire lives. We may scoff at minigame collections for the Wii, or cry that “Angry Birds is just a reskinned version of a flash game I played years ago,” but for the average person, these are totally new to them. We may have played similar games in the past, perhaps even better games, to the ones “non-gamers” buy in droves. But there are only a few million “gamers.” Meanwhile, there are billions of “non-gamers.” Very few developers can afford to cater to the gamers now, because the audience isn’t big enough to sustain the costs of development for modern systems. Of the few million gamers out there, how many only buy strategy games? How many only buy shooters? Each genre has its own niche audience among the greater gamer population, while “non-gamers” don’t even know what those terms mean - they just buy the fun games.

        Hollywood makes films for people who only watch a few movies per year, and film critics complain about it. But film is accepted as a medium because the average person still watches some movies, and they’ve probably even watched a few really good ones. The absolute gems of film are just as accessible to them as the summer action films - all they have to do is buy a ticket (or DVD) and sit down to watch. Video games still aren’t accepted as a medium because they’re foreign and strange to most people, who only play those few accessible titles. The difference is that games made for people who have been gaming for years are NOT as accessible as Wii Sports Resort, and the average person can’t get over that hurdle. My dad will occasionally take our Wii and Wii Sports Resort with him when he goes out, and play it with people who have never even seen it before. Could you do the same with Starcraft 2 or The Witcher? Of course not, because they rely on you knowing a lot of other things that you’ve learned from previous games.

        (Side note: among the people who play games on their computers at all, I would guess that the proportion of “gamers” to “non-gamers” is far more skewed than that for dedicated gaming consoles and handhelds, making core games and complication the rule rather than the exception)

        MovieBob said that film critics are “out of touch” with normal people, but he went on to justify that in the context of a film critic. To him, being out of touch and having higher standards for films is no problem, because it leads to a greater appreciation of the medium that “normal people” don’t get when they only watch movies like Transformers 2. But that justification only works if you care about film as a medium, and aren’t one of the people who just want to see something fun or interesting. Hopefully something fun and interesting that blows up. The average person will still see the film critic as out of touch, because to them, Transformers 2 was still fun to watch, and the film critic is just too jaded to enjoy it.

        So what happens to video games? A medium built on us, the gamers, all of us out of touch with what normal people can handle? If you tell someone who hasn’t been gaming for years to “press the L3 button” on a PlayStation controller, they’ll just glare at you. Using a piece of plastic that has four directional buttons, four face buttons, four shoulder triggers, two analog sticks (which press down to provide two more buttons) and now three “control” buttons (start, select, and the PS/X button in the middle of 360 and PS3 controllers) is not a skill most people have. Swinging your arm to swing a sword is much easier to understand, with the next best thing being a button that says “kick” used to make your character kick. Why is it any wonder that normal people like my father can play games on the Wii or in an arcade (granted, not very common these days, but they can handle it), yet he can’t figure out how to watch a movie on my PS3… or how to turn it off afterwards?

        And now, I realize the solution is incredibly simple. Just wait. In another decade or two, everyone will have grown up playing video games. Problem solved. When most people were illiterate, books didn’t have much widespread acceptance as a medium. “Moving pictures” were probably incredibly frightening to people who didn’t grow up with them. Now that video games are in the hands of an audience at least ten times the size of what it used to be, it’s only a matter of time. Yes, video games are complicated. Yes, most people don’t understand them. But that’s changing, as more and more games fall somewhere between “dead simple” and “requires fifteen different buttons to play.” Before long, there will be plenty of games for people of every skill level, and then the medium will be accepted by the general public.