The Gaming Industry and its Contempt for Itself (a Scape rant)

As much as I love the gaming industry and the wonderful stories it tells us I can’t help but feel that for the most part the industry kind of hates itself. There’s this contempt it has for itself, not just the journalists, but the fans, developers and publishers as well. For as much as gaming has grown and become a part of today’s culture and for as much as the lovers and workers of the medium hate being derided by others who hail from more respected mediums, the people of the industry seem to enjoy joining in their voice and treating games as immature little products that quite haven’t yet reached the levels of integrity that film and literature have.

There’s a truth to this in a sense. But that truth only extends to AAA titles for the most part. If someone has spent their entire life gaming and their only knowledge of film is of big summer blockbusters said person can just as easily assume that film is an extremely stupid medium that places more priority on special effects than it does character or story. The biggest problem however lies in gamers, journalists and publishers who seem embarrassed of their favorite medium. The industry tries more and more to create games that are “cinematic”, hiding from the fact that what they have made is in fact a game. Constantly they cry that we’re in our infancy still, the industry hasn’t been around long enough to actually mature and develop; but we’re getting there. How long is long enough? Gaming has been around for what; thirty plus years now?

Sure the industry wasn’t really focused on storytelling during those early days but c’mon. We praise something like “Skyrim” and hold it up as one of the greatest RPGs of all time. Yet you jump back into the 80s and we’ve got the “Ultima” series. It started off rather simple in its approach but it grew into something so much larger. It not only set the standards for the RPG genre but the story itself was extremely complex and philosophical. “Ultima IV” created the Virtues and cemented the religion of Britannia. “Ultima V” took what was established in the earlier entry and used that religion as the central conflict. What was once created as a guiding principle had become law. It quite literally used this to comment on the faults of strong ideologies, that no matter how noble the intentions anything can very easily be twisted and used as a form of oppression. There’s a whole helluva lot to these games and while their over the top medieval dialogue can get a little grating at times the premise and stories are executed wonderfully, and these were early games, back in the time when gaming was still just a product to be sold.

One of the biggest cries against the artistic merit of the industry is the fact that they don’t have one single voice, one person who decides how things go. Richard Garriot, Ken Levine and Hideo Kojima would more than likely disagree with this considering these people are the leaders of the stories they tell. Just because it’s made by hundreds of people doesn’t mean that there isn’t a single vision and driving force. By that logic film does not qualify as an art form as hundreds of people are responsible for making those as well.

But my biggest complaint about the industry's contempt for itself is the way they market themselves. We all know about the recent Xbox One unveiling and the fact that Microsoft seems more concerned with the sports and TV crowd than they are with the gamers; you know the target demographic? They do this in the hope that casting a wide net will bring more people in and get them more money. It won’t. Gamers are still the only people that buy these consoles. Sure you may have some non-gamers picking them up and maybe using them recreationally but these people tend to buy Nintendo products before they do Microsoft products. They just don’t care about bringing gamers in anymore; it’s all about trying to bring in the largest demographic. People are already saying there’s going to be an industry crash in the AAA console world. Well here’s to hoping it’ll happen and through it all the assholes that don’t give two shits about gaming will find themselves out of the industry. All I know is, at this point I’m just going to stick with my 360, PS2 and PC. I’d recommend you do the same and stick to whatever you have now. Keeping up with the consoles just isn’t worth it anymore.