Video Games: The Ultimate Medium
Since their humble beginnings in games like Pong and Pac-Man, video games have made powerful strides to take their place amongst the mass media. One could even say that they have grown to surpass all other forms of media. You’ll often hear people discuss whether a movie adaptation does a book any justice, with people arguing on both sides. Every case is different, and in the end, it’s all a matter of opinion. However, there are certain irrefutable facts about books and movies which can be used to argue which form of media is superior in general. What advantages do movies have over books? Clearly, it’s the audio-visual presentation, allowing the creator to better represent their vision as opposed to leaving it to the variability of audience interpretation. The addition of music alone, capturing the essence of a scene, can make a huge difference.
What advantages do books have over movies? Books, unlike movies, do not have to conform to time standards or the often short attention spans of audiences. An author can take his/her time to fully explain their idea, fleshing out every last detail. There is also an undeniable pleasure for readers in shaping the writer’s ideas with their own imaginations. People often seek to relate to the characters presented through media, and allowing a reader to use their imagination facilitates that process. A movie, in how specifically it renders a vision, lacks this quality. What about television shows? The advantage that a television show has over movies is that like a book, it can stretch its representation of a concept over multiple episodes, giving it the time to include more detail. While they have the same advantages in terms of audio-visual presentation as movies, television shows are restricted even more by time standards. Also the continuity of the presentation is broken by advertisements and the usual episodic format. So, for the various reasons listed, books, television shows, and movies all have advantages and disadvantages.
This brings us to video games. Although they comprise a 13 billion dollar per year industry, video games continue to be pigeon-holed by the technologically withdrawn as mere children’s’ toys. You’ll even see this distorted representation in advertisements intended to sell games. There was a Wal-Mart commercial not too long ago which showed a teenage boy “playing” a contemporary game. He was moving the controller back and forth with the most idiotic expression on his face, as if he were having a seizure. In the background you could hear the archaic “beeps” and “boops” that haven’t been associated with games since they first utilized sound. This image, of kids engaging in something conceivably mindless and mesmerizing, is what keeps many people’s perception of video games from catching up to what they’ve actually become. If people would open their eyes for just a moment, they would discover that no one’s playing Centipede and Asteroids anymore. Oh, but there are times when their eyes are open – open as wide as their mouths with shock and dismay.
OH MY GOD. That fellow there, in that…electronic game…he killed someone. GASP! That woman there, why she’s wearing nothing but leather straps, and her breasts are impossibly large. FAINT! What are these companies thinking, exposing our children to such gratuitous depictions of SEX and VIOLENCE?! Hey hey, how about you settle down, Mr. and Mrs. Puritan, Jr.? What you and so many people have failed to realize is that video games, by and large, are NOT being designed for children. Recent statistics have shown that the age of the average gamer is somewhere in the mid to late twenties. Video games have grown up with the children who have been playing them since the beginning. Just like any other form of media, every game is different, and has a target demographic.
Games like the “infamous” Grand Theft Auto, which have adult language, allow you to kill people in cold blood, and have implied sex with prostitutes, clearly are not intended for children. Such distinctions between material for children and adults is made pretty clear in movies. A mere letter is all it takes to create a barrier between the precious children’s impressionable minds and all that god awful sex and violence. The big “R” for restricted is all it takes, right? Because surely there are never any cases of employee negligence which allow clever kids to sneak into these movies anyway, right? Oh, and what about that VHS tape or DVD lying around when the kid gets home from school? There are no employees or MPAA secret police around to stop them from playing that R-rated movie in their own home. By now you’ve probably already identified what it is that should determine whether or not a child is exposed to material that may not be appropriate, but hold that thought.
Let’s go back to books. Bookstores categorize their material by subject, and generally, adult material is hidden from plain sight. Naughty magazines are placed on the highest shelves so no children can reach them – with the exception of those rare giants who are a whole five feet tall or more. But what about violent books? Violence occurs in all genres, from romance to drama to non-fiction, being that – you know, violence is a part of real life. What is going to stop that 12 year old kid from picking up a book about Vietnam, with its graphic accounts of warfare, or that Idiot’s Guide to Sex? Like movies, and unlike books, video games too have a system in place intended to stratify them with regards to the maturity of their content.
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), is a body much like the MPAA, that plays through games to determine which of five ratings they will receive. They range from Early Childhood (eC) to Adults Only (AO), although most games fall in the three middle categories, E for Everyone, T for Teen, or M for Mature. Like ushers, who we trust not to allow little Susie or Johnnie into Texas Chainsaw Massacre, video game retailers follow a policy of not allowing children to purchase games with material that is too mature for them. However, there are always going to be cases of negligence or plain indifference, or situations where little Susie has her friend’s older sister buy the game for her. Well, guess what? Kids can get cigarettes the same way. At least video games don’t blacken their lungs, create physiological dependency and chemical imbalance, or increase their risk of developing cancer. That is, of course, assuming that children aren’t setting the games on fire, then eating them or inhaling the fumes.
If we really want to protect the children, those poor blessed souls, then we’d better start putting heavy restrictions on everything. We’d better make matches illegal, because these days, a kid will smoke anything that’ll catch fire. We’d better force them to wear soundproof ear muffs to prevent them from hearing those naughty swear words. Also, before it’s too late, someone had better invent special glasses which can be tweaked to determine which things in the real world that kids can and cannot see. Actually, instead of all of that, we should pour money into wet ware research and invent a V-chip that can be soldered directly to their brains and filter out all potentially damaging phenomena. On the day they turn 18, it’ll melt and leak out of their ears, thus allowing them to be exposed to the world as it really is. You see, because it is an arbitrary number like 18, or a person’s biology which determines when they’re “mature” enough to “handle” certain material.
But hold on a minute. Isn’t there a better, more practical solution? This may sound far fetched, but what if the parents took responsibility instead, deciding what they can be exposed to and when, and ultimately raising them to become fully functional adults? Holy crap! I might just be on to something. It is not the usher, or the video game retailer, or the bookstore clerk who is supposed to shield children from potentially “damaging” material. It is not the job of every person on earth to “watch their mouths” or “be on their best behavior” when a child happens to be around. It is the parent’s job to filter a child’s experiences through education and guidance so that they can properly handle (and propriety varies by individual standards) the inundation of messages moving throughout the world. If that seems like common sense, that would be because it is.
To return from that tangent, the question should be raised of why video games are often singled out for criticism and moralistic scrutiny. Before we get to that, however, let’s do another trait by trait comparison. What advantage does a book have over a video game? None. Some games, such as those in the role-playing category, boast stories that dwarf most books in scope. One game in particular, Deus Ex, had a script over one thousand pages long. There are no limitations on the amount of detail that can be put into a video game. On the other hand, video games wield the same advantages over books as do movies and television shows – the use visuals and sound. What advantages do movies have over video games? None.
Today, video game budgets are often as large as those of blockbuster Hollywood films, and utilize much of the same kind of technology in bringing forth their vision. Cinematic directors are even sometimes called in to assist in the creation of video games, setting up dynamic camera angles for in-game activity and dramatic presentation for story-driven cut scenes. Video games, unlike movies, do not have time constraints. It is a simple task to save your progress in any game, walk away to attend to other matters, then come back to continue later. Some video games are designed to immerse the player in their settings and stories for 30-40 hours. Could you watch a 40-hour movie? Probably not. Television shows do not even need to be mentioned, because by now the video games’ advantages should be clear. Here’s a question. Why is it simple enough for a person to engage in 40 hours of gameplay, while it would be a chore to watch a 40 hour movie? That brings us back to the crux of my argument – that one little thing that separates video games from all other forms of media, and why in fact, video games are the ultimate form of media.
That one thing is interactivity. You can rip a page out of a book in frustration as a story takes an unfavorable turn, or you can yell your lungs out at movie screen as the stupid teenage girl wanders down the dark hallway alone towards the lurking killer, but chances are that you’re not going to change anything. In a video game, however, a person is given a measure of control over the characters and environment presented. In many games, they even take on the roles of those characters and completely determine the outcome. Even without my earlier comparisons, interactivity alone is powerful enough to catapult video games to a place of superiority. I mentioned how people often want to relate to the characters and situations presented in books, movies, or television shows. A person cannot get any closer to a character than to actually wear their shoes, to take on that character’s decisions as their own, to shape the environment with their own choices. That’s an important word there – choice. People are obsessed with being able to control their environment, at least to a certain extent. Video games provide people with all the depth, attention to detail, music, sound effects, and visual presentation as all other forms of media combined, and give them that oh-so-precious ability to choose. What kind of car do you want to drive? What kind of clothes do you want to wear? What kind of weapon do you want to kill people with? What kind of person do you want to be? For each of these questions, there is a video game out there that allows a player to make a choice.
As I mentioned earlier, it is this element which causes skeptics to give video games more attention when considering the influence of media on people’s actions – particularly those of children. A child can watch a man on the television shoot another in the head. Will that child be inspired to follow suit? Probably not. Chances are, if they are old enough to even understand what they are seeing, they will be horrified by it. That man will become a subject of the child’s own criticism, or at least questions as to why he chose to kill someone else. A video game on the other hand – using Grand Theft Auto again as an example – leaves that man’s choice in the player’s hands. In that game, you are literally set free in a fully realized city, able to do almost anything your heart desires. If you can find a gun, you can – like that man in the movie – walk over to a stranger and blow his brains out. However, you can also choose not to do that, and as in the real world, there are consequences in the game for committing random acts of violence. The police will pursue you, and if you exhibit even more extreme behavior, you may even incur the wrath of the military. They have guns too, and will not hesitate to shoot you to death. Now imagine you are a child, playing this game. If for some reason you regarded it as a model by which to shape your real life actions, then you would quickly come to realize that killing that random strangers will get you killed. There’s an incentive to be violent if ever there was one.
But wait a moment. Being killed in a video game is only a momentary set back. The game can be restarted, or you can often just “continue” after dying, more or less negating the impact of those consequences. Perhaps a child will think that if he takes daddy’s gun and kills someone, it doesn’t matter if the police come and shoot him too, because he can press a button and come back to life! Yeah? Well in this impossible scenario, the child is a complete moron. Someone could also ask the question of why, when given the option of doing anything in a game world, did that child choose to get a gun and kill someone? If a child was raised to believe that killing other people is wrong – or if they understand that innately, then would they not be mortified at the sight of gratuitous violence in a video game the same as they would in a movie? Keep in mind, though, that all of this is assuming that this child even has access to this game, which was designed for, marketed to, and clearly labeled for adults. If a child is influenced by a game like Grand Theft Auto, then it is not the game’s fault. It is the parent’s fault. Just as parents forbid kids from going into R-rated movies or browsing through a Penthouse magazine, they should exercise the same conscientiousness in monitoring what kinds of games are being played.
To even argue that violent or sexually suggestive video games are a bad influence on anyone is to blow things not only out of proportion, but out of context. Video games, just like books, television shows, and movies, are a form of escapism. We read them, watch them, and play them in order to experience things that we probably will not or simply cannot in real life. They are all forms of entertainment, not examples by which we will shape our lives or that will dictate our behavior. The only exception to this may be how people use television as insight into what’s “socially acceptable”, which may in turn determine their actions. If that’s a problem, then let’s get a lobby going to ban MTV. In the meantime, we can be having fun playing video games. But really, all of this hubbub only serves to prove my point – that video games should be regarded with the same respect as every other form of media, or if you buy my argument so far, a higher level of respect. That U.S. senators like Joe Lieberman have made it worth their time to speak out against games, it shows that they are an undeniable part of our culture, one that can no longer be marginalized as some mere “toy”.
Production values for video games are often extremely high, and to those who don’t know the intricacies of game design, it will probably blow your mind to know what kind of work goes into their creation. Game development teams have much of the same staff as do movies. There are artists, actors, writers, directors, sound engineers, music composers, 3D modelers, and graphic designers. There are also computer programmers, who make up the very heart of the team, and bring all the different elements together. Movie production teams have the advantage of rendering their vision in the real world. Game design teams must create the very world in which their visions will be expressed, which is all a matter of programming. These days, games are so meticulous in their attention to detail that they even include dynamic lighting and shading, anatomically accurate character movements, and even real world physics. G.I. Joe and Barbie are toys. Video games are interactive works of art that find reason for professionals of many fields, from music to science, to get together for the expression of a creative vision. To regard them as anything less is to remain uninformed, ignorant, and to do all these talented people the greatest disservice.
Game designers must not only concern themselves with all of the same aspects of presentation as films, but anticipate the players’ response to The Individualy interactive aspects of the game, as it will be the primary factor in determining rabid success or miserable failure. A movie can often stand on the merit of its visual presentation alone, but the same is not true of video games. A game may be aesthetically palatable (and they often are, given that budgets are well into the millions of dollars and they use technology similar to that used for movie special effects), but if a game is disastrous in terms of functionality, it will become the subject of heavy criticism. This is where the game designers’ roles are crucial. They must ensure that once the details of the design document are fleshed out, the final product is fully functional, well balanced in terms of difficulty versus playability, and above all, a fun experience.
Although it has taken decades, video games are finally being recognized by the mainstream as viable forms of media. You will now see video games being sold at movie stores, music stores, even book stores. You will see video game reviews in newspapers or entertainment magazines. You will see trailers for games shown during the previews at movies. You can even find nearly photorealistic renders of video game characters in Playboy magazine. The message here is clear. Video games are no longer just for kids, and they are proliferating throughout our culture, with no intention of going anywhere ever.
If you’re a person who responds well to economic data or statistics, then I’ll be glad to throw a few numbers in your direction. “Final Fantasy X-2″, a video game created by Square-Enix, sold 1.2 million copies in its first three days in Japan alone. At $50 a pop, that amounts to $60 million in sales. Not impressed? Dragon Warrior VIII, another Square-Enix game, sold 3 million copies on its first day. That’s $150 million. Need more? Halo 2, produced by Bungie and Microsoft, released only three weeks ago, has already sold 5 million copies. That amounts to more than $250 million. Those three games together comprise a total of nearly a billion dollars spent in a time span of less than a month. If you’re not impressed by now, then you’re just being obstinate.
If you’re a person who has made a blanket statement such as “I don’t like video games”, then you probably have some distorted and wholly inaccurate preconceptions about them. You also obviously haven’t played the right games. Truly, there are games out there for everyone, since there is hardly a facet of life, real or imaginary, that they have not touched upon. I look forward to a time when video games are recognized as unanimously as movies, and when game designers are critically praised for their brilliance or scorned for their incompetence in the same light as film directors, writers, and authors of all other kinds of media.