Network now...BLOG
Are Videogames Entertainment?
I will save the introductions for later.
The cliched 'Videogames vs Art' debate is most commonly broached by industry pundits and hardcore gamers (like myself) desperately seeking some sort of recognition and credibility in a wider context for our favoured pastime. Whether it is a valid question or not, I have anecdotal evidence that we are trying to run before we can walk.
Case in point: the BBC News website covers everything from major financial crises to the latest fashion for footballers wives. It also has occasional reportage from the world of videogames.
This week alone we have been spoiled with 2 features (Developer showcases new Halo game & Gaming milestone for Elite game) from the stoic Daniel Emery (who I suspect harbours more enthusiasm for the subject than BBC journalism guidelines properly allow).
Although I have huge affection for the BBC News website - it is one of the staples of a rainy lunchtime - it has always bothered me that anything videogame related is automatically placed in the Technology News microsite when there is a perfectly good Entertainment News section just next door (covering everything from Reality TV gossip to *ahem* the High Arts - everything except videogaming basically).
Now I understand that there is a symbiotic relationship between Technology and Videogames (one could not exist without the other) but the same could be said about Technology and Reality TV stars - and I don't expect they are about to grace the pages of the Technology News any time soon.
On one particularly rainy lunchtime a couple of years ago, I was bored enough to email the BBC News site admin to query this anomaly. Below is an edited version of the response:
"Thank you for taking the time to contact the BBC News website, we are always grateful to hear the views of our visitors.
Our editorial team carefully consider the placement of content on the site, which is dictated by both subject matter and visitor expectations. In accordance with this approach it has been decided that visitors to the Entertainment News microsite would not find Videogaming content appropriate [to this section of website]."
So, there it is - videogaming is not considered Entertainment for the wider audience, by the wider audience.
Bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy really.
Contact Us / About Us / Advertise With Us / BeltwayBlips / TechBlips / MassiveBlips / GamerBlips / FAQ
Subscribe To Edge Magazine / Corrections / Terms & Conditions / Privacy Policy
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
Subscribe To Edge Magazine / Corrections / Terms & Conditions / Privacy Policy
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
Gameswipe
Did anyone/everyone catch Charlie Brooker's (hopefully not) one-off Gameswipe on Tuesday? It addressed brilliantly many of the reservations some of us have had about the validity - and ability to achieve - a review show for games in the current TVOD climate. The opening 15 minutes whiffed of beginners guide material but the stale template soon buckled under the great talking heads and the two reviews (Wolfenstein and 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand). It was the balance of informed critique and colloquial wry comment that hooked me (think Zero Punctuation, squared). If the show became regular - a la Brooker's Newswipe - it could make up the first episode's introductory dead-weight with some newsbites. Bring it on.
Everyone I know watched this and is talking about it today. It should be regular because it's the only games 'show' that actually had the right tone. Linehan in particular was a fantastic talking head, but in general a lot of the critiques and the style was right.
Criticisms? A little too much like watching david attenborough watching one of his own documentaries in an attempt to learn something new at times. It was clearly aimed at an audience who already knew this stuff but enjoyed having it repeated back to them in a well-worded style. But it showed how good coverage can be when produced by, rather than just for someone's idea of, gamers. Guardian review hit the nail on the head, too, in saying it was neither entrenched and defensive nor overly enthusiastic and blind to the flaws of gaming. The reviews were nicely worked into the format without jarring or feeling like a hamfisted feature, too.
It's not a question of whether 'what videogames are' but trather 'what is entertainment'?
Entertainment is a form of art. But Art is no longer aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others, it can (in contemporary fields) be, pretty much anything at all in the world. If a toilet seat, tent or unmade bed is removed from it's typical surroundings and placed in an installation- transforming it's visual representation into a depiction of life and experiences then why can't a console?
So do you place it in the arts section?
Personally speaking, I think it would make for for pretty shit visual art but nonetheless it deserves to be within the context of entertainmet at the very least. But that's the BBC for you - If they can class 'Help! My dog's as fat as me' as entertainment then I'm pretty certain videogames can be in there too.
I have a theory that video games are becoming more likened to sport. Okay more darts or snooker than Iron man tri-athlon but still
What with Halo ranking, gamerscore, online leaderboards, MLG etc
There is a third contender
Games = Art vs Entertainment vs Sport
DISCUSS
At the end of the day, all videogames can be reduced down to numbers games. For example - ( and it's only an example, Ben, not a critique ; ) ), a game like (and we'll forget plot, morality, etc.) Manhunt can be reduced down to the purest form of gaming and be compared to a game like, say, Ikaruga: you enter a room, and use skill and dexterity to clear the room before being allowed to move on, rinse, repeat.
Whereas with Ikaruga you have scores to beat and compare with other players, Manhunt (or similar games), are more akin to Grouse-shooting, or sport-fishing (and no quips about Manhunt being a load of carp! Lol!), where one uses an aquired skill to either reduce the numbers or set targets (in Manhunt's case, gang-members).
I feel games, unlike movies, can be an aesthetic artform worthy of high-brow critique AND a sport. Maybe this very fact only serves to make the delivery of review programmes all the more complex an issue?
I am not a big sports fan, so maybe I am not best qualified to comment on this suggestion - but I am going to do it anyway!
To me, sports coverage is all about excelling at the performance of an activity - not about the activity itself (you don't watch Match of the Day to find out if Football might be a sport you want to take up). A book or film review is about recommending an activity which might be worth your time and money (and the review can be entertainment in its own right if done correctly).
That was the fatal flaw of Games Master to this viewer - I didn't want to watch other people play a game as a competition or achievement, I wanted to know about the game itself.
Programmes like Playr and GamerTV were far more appealing for this information, but only when the reviewer had an interesting presentation of the verdict.
This is why Film 2009 is the format I would root for - Jonathan Ross has a passion for the medium and presents the reviews as entertainment. I can enjoy his (positive) review of High School Musical 3 even though I would remove my eyes with a rusty spoon before going to see the film myself.
Maybe the Games vs Sport debate depends on your personal reference points, but I have to say it doesn't work for me.
Ah, you're probably right. Though I don't think it a conspiracy, just general pig-headedness and maybe a little jealousy thrown in, lol. For years now I've often wondered how they can run a (great) magazine programme like 'The Sky At Night' for nigh-on 52 years for a niche group of stargazers and people interested in celestial bodies (rather than the other kind ; ), yet totally ignore such a large and growing media like videogames. They even dropped the games review section from their CEEFAX service, while TELETEXT has a very popular one.
I'm not sure the Film 2009 format would be right: I would prefer the wall-to-wall-games format. That's why I used to love the awfully cheesy Cybernet: crap reviews I know, but at least you didn't see the presenters and they did cram so much in. As welcome as it would be, I think it would be asking too much for a serious highbrow, but entertaining show knowing TV's track record for treating the gaming teens!
Maybe in the mid-nineties, a 30-minute magazine review programme might not have been viable, but surely now the number and scope of gamers has grown sufficient to warrant a serious but entertaining videogame review show.
Sorry, this was a reply to deadkat, just posted it wrong!
On the topic of review shows: if we're going to get our medium into mainstream news outlets, is it such a long-shot to hope it may make it onto a show like Newsnight Review? A insightful and well-informed production, Newsnight Review is the poster-child of the Beeb's critical community and cultural intake. I long for the day we see a round-up show of that calibre tackling a games release, trade show or book. And how about having a couple of relevant guests to boot? It's revelatory of the Beeb's (and the arts world at large's) attitude towards the games medium that Newsnight Review doesn't give it a second look.
Wii and PS3, being released in the UK at similar times, made it onto Newsnight review: they said they were crap because they weren't books. Literally, in one person's case. It's on YouTube, but sadly, I can't find it.
More broadly on-topic, 30-minute review shows do still exist; there's Playr on Film24, and Ginx Files on Bravo, both weekly. But I'm going to be controversial and suggest that the reason we haven't really seen games on TV is because we haven't managed to evolve past the review show. (Or even evolve the review show itself- both programmes are all but identical to Cybernet)
Reviews aren't really that interesting to watch, certainly not at quantity- a lot of games making the same mistake in a short period of time means a lot of reviews telling you they've made the same mistake, most likely in the same way. Zero Punctuation is the exception, and that's only really because there's just one of them a week.
Also, more so than any other kind of content, they suit being pulled out of some database (or stack of magazines) as and when required- so you can research into a game when you've seen an advert/it's on offer/your mate's trying to offload his copy and the information's relevant to you.
Exactly what could be covered by a games show instead of thirty minutes of reviews is another matter- those rare occasions that somebody tries something new, other factors come into play which cause it to bomb and take everything else out with it by association- there's been valiant stabs at eSports which nobody saw because they were only ever on at two in the morning with no marketing, as one example.
Out of curiosity, did you ever get the chance to see the talk show Games Night when xLeague was still going?
With the dawn of iplayer and such applications, review shows may yet find a second life. I have to agree with edshot below - we need to get a better PR angle. What few "moguls" the industry has produced in the West thus far have been Jade Raymond and Cliffy B - is it a coincidence they're the most photogenic? But we're still lacking a good, intellectual public persona/speaker - someone who can draw in the charisma/presence required for a presenter's role and the journalistic ability to strike the right tone throughout. It's a tall order - perhaps Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe tomorrow night will shed some light on things...
TBH you are totally right, review shows are weak in comparison to a magazine review or a metacritic score, they are normally out of date or too short to be relevant.
Saying that, I used to love Games Master, not for the reviews but for the features, brief glimpses of monitors showing games in development, Japanese Street Fighter champions beating long lines of contendors, a distorted patrick stewart.
It was light hearted and fun, im not sure it would work now but god bless Dominic Diamond
I agree. But I also think what's missing in the game's industry is a familiar face that can humanize what is really an industry full of avatars and virtual worlds.
I think it telling that in cinema, people like Martin Scorcese and Quentin Tarantino can and have made violence in cinema an art form in itself. In particular, Quentin Tarantino was responsible for elevating the Grindhouse cinema from cult obscurity into the mainstream.
Not to mention the maestro of balletic violence himself, John Woo. But how many non-gamers would know he directed the videogame Stranglehold. Further, it is the sequel to his film Hard-Boiled and re-unites him with Chow Yun-Fat?
In order to 'get on the telly', I feel the industry has to prove itself to the programme producers that it can relate to both gamers and non-gamers alike. For that we need a face. The games industry's top-brass, I strongly feel, should be seen to be doing a lot more to further the medium as a serious stable mate to film.
Instead of pontificating in the games press (preaching to the converted), people like Ian - sorry - Sir Ian Livingstone should be 'chaining themselves to fences' so to speak and getting themselves on the 6 O'clock news. They should out there continually changing the media's and public's perception that videogames do nothing but produce teenage joyriders and high-school killers.
If the movie industry can do it, then there's absolutely no reason at all why the videogame industry can't. We just need a good PR man - and a friendly face.
Whilst it's been a long-standing argument with TV companies that games programmes are unviable because no sooner the programme is broadcast, then the games shown are already out of date, therefore there is little replay value for the programme.
But the lack of videogame news on the BBC's entertainment website makes me believe more my theory that videogames take people away from the programmes they broadcast. After all, how can a family enjoying a bonding session together on Wii Sports be sitting passively watching Strictly (or other garbage). The BBC aren't gonna pro-actively review, therefore advertise stuff that rivals their own, surely.
Having said that, maybe the affiliation with Beeb and Microsoft will change that. After all there was a recent ad - sorry - news story on the BBC Technology pages of the release of Halo ODST, complete with links to Microsoft and Bungie. So to be honest, I probably wouldn't trust a BBC review of games anyway.
Thanks for the comment - but I have to say that I don't hold with the conspiracy theory that the BBC consider videogames as a threat to their mainstream product - and they do run stories relating to competitor's output (X-Factor, Britain's Got Problems et al).
I would welcome the BBC running a review programme of videogames (perhaps in the format of a Film 2009 style slot) but I have no desire to see reviews on their website, or any Games Master style TV presentation (*shudder*).
Apart from the celebrity gossip (which I think has been overplayed a bit!) the BBC News Entertainment section also features articles along the lines of "Spielberg considering Indiana Jones 5 script" and "Radiohead to release online only album".
I don't think it is too much of a stretch to imagine the equivalent articles presenting "Molyneux working on Fable III" or "Miyamoto considering a return to Videogame development".
UPDATE: The top news story from the BBC News Technology site: "Nintendo drops Wii console price" - which replaces the previous top story of "Bus CCTV could predict assaults" (!)