Comments on Hit Self-Destruct: Video Games Are The Silver Bullet

I'll be waiting eagerly. :D

2008-07-30T06:18:00.000+12:00

I'll be waiting eagerly. :D

Awesome comment, thank you.I think there are resis...

2008-07-28T17:56:00.000+12:00

Awesome comment, thank you.

I think there are resistances from all sides that prevent the level of discourse you're talking about. If you'd gone all the way with Hines on Fallout's social/political commentary, you know most gamers wouldn't even care, and might actually be mad that you didn't ask about VATS some more. They want to be reminded about the generic shit and the easily digestible features or whatever. Hines knows that and he knows what the message is supposed to be. That's the reason you're talking to a guy like Hines in the first place instead of Pagliarulo or Howard. Game industry interviews are almost always one-on-one press conferences.

All of this is assuming that Fallout 3 even has some specific social/political commentary. Does it? I don't know. Certainly it doesn't have any subject matter as dear to its heart as objectivism was to Bioshock. And you're right that no one really asks Kojima about PMCs or Ubisoft about the Crusades but I know people did interview Levine about Bioshock's themes.

I think the problem is that developers and publishers are super focused on what the audience wants, and they don't think the audience is very smart. Even if a game does have some political content, it generally flies under the radar. (The ones that promote it usually flop hard: Blacksite, Bad Day LA. Correlation and causality apply there, of course, but it still probably doesn't look very good to marketing.)

I don't know with whom the responsibility should lie for bucking that trend. Is it up to developers to say "Hey, I'm making these game that's about these important themes and you can talk to me about it instead of our PR guy". Should journalists be more aggressive about it or will that make the fans hate them and the publishers pull their advertising.

Yeah, I don't know. This industry is a mess sometimes. Much like this comment. Sorry. You've given a lot to think about and I want to explore that in future blog posts.

I'd also like to share an anecdote. I was covering...

2008-07-28T10:58:00.000+12:00

I'd also like to share an anecdote.

I was covering E3 two weeks ago. Naturally, I was incredibly unprepared for the interviews I was doing, save for but a few select titles, including the one I was looking forward to seeing the most, Fallout 3.

I spoke with Pete Hines for about fifteen minutes. We covered all the obligatory generic shit, the RPG elements, combat system, etc. etc. He was thorough, polite, and enthusiastic about those things.

Then I started turning the conversation in a different direction. I wanted to know about some of the political and social commentary that they had sprinkled generously into the game. Iran had just been conducting missile tests a week prior. It seemed timely.

He reacted differently to this. I wouldn’t say he became upset, but definitely a touch more defensive. He was undoubtedly less willing to talk about those things and tried to steer us to a different topic.

I have nothing but respect for Pete; I think he’s great at what he does and Bethesda is extremely lucky to have him as a sort of public face for them. And I’m not saying everyone is like this. But if I was talking to Todd Howard or Gavin Carter or Emil Pagliarulo, would I have gotten better answers? Maybe, maybe not.

I know this isn’t exactly what you were talking about, but the point is, there definitely seems to be some resistance, whether it be internal or external, that's preventing many developers from digging more deeply into their own inspirations or beliefs when discussing their work.

Some of the games that have the most to say are having the least said about them. Why aren’t we talking to Kojima about his thoughts on the privatization of military forces? Why hasn’t Pandemic been asked about mercenary groups operating in Latin American nations? Why didn’t someone at Ubisoft Montreal have to answer questions about the current-day relations between Middle Eastern religious groups when Assassin’s Creed came out, a game that had a fucking disclaimer at the beginning of it? And Introversion, about survivalism and geothermal nuclear warfare?

And at the same time, do we need to hear those answers from the developer’s mouth for it to make sense to us? Shouldn’t games just be able to stand on their own and be open to our individual interpretations? Isn’t that a defining quality of art? Shouldn’t people 200 years from now look at Thief and say, “Oh yes, that’s an early Levine,” the same way they can recognize The Old Guitarist as an early Picasso? Isn’t that a true indication of how far gaming has come? When we don’t need to say anything at all?

This is a call to developers. Ken Levine cared abo...

2008-07-28T10:08:00.000+12:00

This is a call to developers. Ken Levine cared about objectivism and he said so. What moves you outside of games? What matters so much to you, but because you make shooters instead of social policy or literary journals, you never thought you the audience were receptive? Rock music? Mark Twain? Calculus? We're listening. Talk to us.

Don't you think a great deal of that responsibility lies with the gaming press? They're the ones who need to be asking the right questions to elicit the responses necessary to cultivate that kind of discourse.

Haha, it's fine, I apologise for whining about it....

2008-07-27T09:58:00.000+12:00

Haha, it's fine, I apologise for whining about it. Let's declare this part of Hit Self-Destruct history for fans and completists only.

I'll be the first to instantly post any random tho...

2008-07-25T07:22:00.000+12:00

I'll be the first to instantly post any random thought I have when I read anyones blog and I do think you bring up a couple of interesting points but I couldn't think of anything to add. So, in a twist that surprised myself, I didn't!

Also, I'm not a games designer. ;)

trainwreck.gif lol

2008-07-24T17:23:00.000+12:00

trainwreck.gif lol