Finally someone publicly tells the industry what I've been thinking for years:
This year's rant, "Burned by Friendly Fire: Game Critics Rant," turned the mic over to game journalists instead of developers. Heather Chaplin, author of Smartbomb offered tough words for the gaming industry. "I've been covering the games industry for eight years, mainly for mainstream outlets, and I often find myself acting as a translator," Chaplin said.
Chaplin wondered how it is that videogames remain so focused on violence and zombie gore. "The excuse is that the videogame industry is only thirty-five years old," said Chaplin. "But after thirty-five years rock & roll had Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Clash. After thirty-five years film had Fritz Lang, film noire, and was a few years away from Citizen Kane." Chaplin blamed the inability of the medium to move beyond male-centric power fantasies as a direct result of developer heterogeny and immaturity.
"It's not that the medium is in its adolescence, it's that you're a bunch of ****ing adolescents," she said. "It's even worse because you're technically supposed to be adults." Chaplin traced the paucity of more mature content in games to four basic ideas that frighten men the most: responsibility, introspection, intimacy, and intellectual discovery. She described game developers in terms of neoteny, an idea from developmental biology that describes adults of a species who have juvenile traits. This can be seen in mature Chihuahuas, which resemble infant and fetal wolves. Chaplin closed by challenging the audience, "What do you want to be, a Chihuahua or a wolf?"
From IGN: http://wii.ign.com/articles/967/967318p1.html
My thoughts exactly. Not that every game needs to be deep. We do like our popcorn summer movies and poptart tunes after all but for all those who keep claiming Videogames are 'art' or should be given more credence by the public at large then this holds true.
It's past time games grew up. Stop pandering to mere adolesent male fantasies of violence and female objectification. Like any media, a great story is one that emotionally moves the audience, that challenges their beliefs and inspires them to be better people. How often does a video game even remotely try to do any of that? How often has any succeeded?
Nintendo has given the industry the world; male, female, young, old. It's thinking like this, creating a game that doesn't shy away from mature themes (and I don't mean MadWorld or GTA immature 'Mature' material) but instead embraces them and makes a title that grips the player emotionally and takes them on a ride of excitement and self-discovery, romance and risk, love and loss of ruin and rebirth. A game that both men and women, young and old will all enjoy.
When that day happens, video games will at long last have truly become 'art' and the mainstream and elitists will both embrace it lovingly.
