The Gaming Medium: Autuership, Crowdfunding And Wanting To Punch People I am a big advocate of looking at games in a broader context of the medium. At this point Ken has moved on from his Vegetables and is nibbling on some strawberries. I decide to move things away from Bioshock just as a game and talk to Levine a little more about the industry and artistic merits of the medium. I ask him if he does think that games do all have to be art in their own right. He quickly cuts down people who idolise him as a singular genius of the medium.
I have no patience for people who try and make games that I make, because only I make games that are "worthy". Seriously, I want to punch those people. I love great games, I love thoughtful games, I love stupid games in the same ways I like movies. I will love There Will Be Blood and I will love Idiocracy. I'll love great movies and I will love stupid movies. I love Harold and Kumar and I love Miller's Crossing, you know? I think that snobery is the enemy of art. Snobs always turn against every new form of art. Comic books, rock and roll music, Jazz, impressionist painting, it is always the snobs who are saying no. And it is always that snobs that hinder the progress of all art. I don't have any patience for that. And look, I make a certain kind of game, I have made some silly games. You know Freedom Force was fairly silly but it is a love letter to a certain kind of thing. And I make games that some people perceive as more serious or less serious and frankly that is my prerogative. And I mean, it is every artists perogative to make what he wants. Especially for another artist to poo poo that really bothers me.
His comments strike a cord with me. Snobbery is something that is often associated with critics. It is an important thing to remember when we are evaluating the worth of a piece of art. Now, I am a big supporter of new technologies like 3D and high-frame rates and often try and find worth in films I really don't like, but the sentiment is true, snobbery can only hold back a medium. However, what I also feel is holding back the medium is the suppression of Auteurism. By doing this. the medium is devoid of creative faces to rally around like a film director or novelist. But also on a more important point, it makes game creators interchangeable in publishers eyes. But Ken Levine is one of the mediums most revered creatives. So I ask him, Why do you think there is a lack of auteurs in the medium? "Well, I think This is a dangerous situation if the mediums artistic future is to be secured. Ken thinks "There are a bunch of reasons" for that.
One is, generally, film is done by groups of different people who come together for a short period of time, where as games tend to be companies. So... when you have Spielberg and he is working with literally dozens of different combinations of people like a different cinematographer, it is sort of easier to identify him as the common element. When you talk about Autuership, I think what you are really saying is, some one at the end of the day has to sort of make the taste decision. Not that they create everything, but that they have to sort of go, "Does this fit in the game or not?" At Irrational, that is me. I have a creating role, I am the writer, I am the lead writer and I have to develop my own stuff to and I have to decide, does this fit this game? There have been many, many, many, many times when the answer has been no. I am a writer who has no problem deleting that file. There are some scenes, I was at the Dolce Museum in Munich the other day, looking at smelting, where you seperate metals. I wrote this whole scene for Booker and Elizabeth where they had to do this quest that involves smelting. Booker knew about it because he was a strikebreaker for the Pinkertons, so he worked with all the scabs at the factories and he learned about it. And I researched it, and I really enjoyed it and it was precedual fun and they had a great banter. Then I realised that there was no way this was going to work in the game and I cut it out. I spent days on this and I really educated myself, but it didn't work so it had to go. It is the same for everybody elses work at the company. I think that what ever you want to call that person, there is a person whose taste is the final say. That doesn't mean that they make everything by any stretch of the imagination but they have to say does this fit, or does this not? I think some of it is, like say for a film director, for instance, can be on the Tonight Show or whatever, where as a game maker is not. TV is a very very powerful way to get someone's face out there. I remember after anytime I do something on TV, I get recognised for the next few weeks at a much higher frequency than I normally do because it has a much greater effect on people. I think that is part of what it is. Because the people making decisions about what goes on in talk shows and stuff, they don't get games. Even though the guys who have made Call of Duty are responsible for however many billion dollars of business, are making games that 15 million people or so more play etc, they won't get on these shows over a guy who has written a book that will sell 15,000 copies because the people booking these shows don't quite get games yet. I think that will change over time and you will see games creators having a higher profile. Specifically, and I know it sounds silly, because they will be on television more.
It is a more practical answer than what I was expecting but he is totally right. Getting game creators more loved and revered is likely to come down to how much time they get on TV as opposed to however many articles I write about them being 'artists'. But his answer brings up another interesting question. Has the medium been thrown into corperate franchising world before it had even found it's legs as an artistic medium? "Hm...Well, good question..." (I take a little pride from that one). Ken explains how Kickstarter could potentially help the industry get back to finding its roots and distance itself form publishers.
There has been a second wave of digital distribution with Kickstarter. This sort of new independent wave. In a film, you know it took a long time for film to develop in an alternate distribution model and also a funding model. Games have achieved both. And it is a very powerful thing because that is where innovation is going to thrive. The fact that you can kind of have this democratised patronage with Kickstarter or something like that. And who knows if Kickstarter is a permanent thing or if there is some other version and there is a way to have people buy shares in a company of repute. But the fact that gamers can say, I believe in this thing and I want to see it happen. I am going to put my money where my mouth is. And you know, you don't need to deal with a wheel within the giant machinery of a publisher. Now, it can't be something of that scale on Bioshock Infinite. It is on a scale that is intially not feasible. But the fact that you can go to a broad range of junior investors and one or a couple senior investors is an incredibly powerful thing. It will really allow a kind of development that just couldn't have existed a few years ago. I think that is really exciting.
While on the point of the future, I decide to ask Ken one of the broadest questions to explore. I give the question some context by discussing the last year of gaming with fantastic experiences like Far Cry 3, Journey and the Walking Dead. What does it all say about where we are going and where does Bioshock fit into that? He laughs, "Wow, f**ked if I know." He then did something that not many interviewees generally do. He went quiet to consider his answer. "I am trying to think of a thoughtful answer here that I have some faith in." I tell him those are the kind that I like.
I think quality matters and quality is always going to matter. I think how people buy their games, how they are distributed, where they play them, how they play them, is really up for grabs. I think that crowd funding is a real game changer. I think there is going to be some giant screw up that is going to cause problems, but it is realy a game changer because you are really allowed to vote with your wallets. People feel participatory and that is really great. That is not just for a game, that is for anything. People want to support the things they like. And banks and funding instiutions really had a monopoly on that. I think that is incredibly powerful. I think that games are going to be taken more seriously over time because the people who decide what should be taken seriously, don't understand games because, frankly, they are too old. People my age are too old. I just happen to be one of the few people who played games when I was a kid. Most people didn't know games and they didn't grow up knowing games. Like I have talked to plenty of film directors who are like, Oh, I love Bioshock. I watch my kids play it. because there is a literacy issue. In the same way, when novels came out, people couldn't read, they don't know how to do this right? And it is complicated. That is not easy when you are 50 years old to pick up. But as people in that group sort of move on and turn into soil and green... you know? you see 2 year olds with an IPad. It is like second nature to them. So game is just going to be another form of media to them. And just a valid as every other form of media.
It is a sentiment that was shared by
Jenova Chen in
my interview with him a few weeks ago. Older people are struggling to get into gaming. Levine is spot on to highlight a literacy issue, because it is just that. I can attest to it. I have tried to teach my own mum how to play Portal. It wasn't pretty. So while looking forward to the mediums future, I find it a shame that we must wait a generation for it to really get the prominence that it deserves. But in the more immediate future,
Bioshock Infinite is going to be hitting shelves on the 26th of March. While I can not say that the game will live up to the hype or surpass it yet, I can say that it was put together, by a wonderful development team with a thoughtful, intelligent and artistically attune creator, who was a joy to interview. That I will sign off on. If you somehow have missed the hype for the game, here is a trailer of the game to get you excited for it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLHW78X1XeE