Critical misunderstanding of video games

Speaking of the creator of AVALANCHE, he’s got a long (but very interesting) article about the consumption-based nature of the gaming industry and the problems it’s causing. It’s called Of Games and Swine, for some reason, and I do recommend you read it. The crux of the issue is that not only are most gamers critically unaware of the medium (like the kind of people who only watch summer blockbuster films), nearly all the critics are, as well. I think this sentence about sums up the problem:

Our standards for professional videogame reviewers in this industry end right after “do you really like playing videogames and do you know how to write?”

        Either most people don’t look at games as something with the same critical depth (not a great term, but hopefully you get the idea) as other mediums, or the people who do understand these things aren’t sharing their knowledge with enough people. It’s pretty easy to learn how to critically analyze a film or a book, but that’s not the case with games. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to analyze. The people who understand these things are going to have to explain it to the rest of us, so we can all get past the basic, literal understanding of the games we’re playing.

        For the most part, any time someone tries to critically analyze a game, they limit themselves to tools available from other mediums. It’s easy to analyze the music in a game, or its art, or its writing. But few people seem to understand how to analyze the gameplay, or the level design. Or they just aren’t doing it in public. I’ll admit that there are probably plenty of games designed simply based on how player feedback - “oh, they tend to run out of ammo here, we’ll have to add a supply station” - but that doesn’t mean every game is designed without any deeper meaning.

        One final note on this, Clint Hocking (known for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2, and being a super smart guy) is one of those people with the knowledge to critically analyze a game. I actually don’t know where I read or heard this, but it’s probably somewhere on his blog… Anyway, he mentioned somewhere an encounter he’d put in one of the Splinter Cell games where the enemy soldier begged for his life and mentioned his family. From what I understand, you can either kill enemies or simply knock them out, and the idea was to make the enemy more than just a tough, anonymous grunt. Then he said “if one single person even understood the reason I put that there, I’d be happy.” Out of hundreds of thousands of people who likely played the game, he figures not a single one will understand what he was getting at.

        Turns out that a number of people did get it, and have spoken about it in various places, but I can’t decide which is more tragic: the fact that we don’t truly understand the games we play, or the fact that the brilliant minds behind them don’t take the time to share their knowledge. If they would collaborate, create a place to share knowledge and spread the kind of critical understanding that allows them to make great games… If such a thing were to happen, I’d say it would only take ten years to establish the kind of widespread critical understanding found in other mediums.