In case you hadn't heard, Sony Pictures wants to get their hands on the movie-rights to SUPER MARIO BROS. For what I should hope are obvious reasons, this is a terrible idea that I hope doesn't come to pass - at least not under the (of late) visionless Avi Arad or the current water-treading regime at Sony.
However! If this is some kind of indication that Nintendo is finally back to a point where they're willing to talk about licensing for Hollywood movies? I like the sound of that. It's time. Video game movies are probably the next big substrata of popular culture to mine after comics, and it's consistently depressing to see the adaptation focus being on currently-hot-but-who-can-say properties like HALO or ASSASSIN'S CREED or whatever while the actual titans of the medium sit by untouched (yes, WARCRAFT comes from storied stock, but it's still absurd that it gets to be a movie before ZELDA does.)
The one thing that disheartens me about the Sony/Mario rumor (apart from the obvious) is that the plan was apparently to make an animated franchise out of it. Sorry, no thanks. Not that I have anything against animation - quite the opposite, in fact - but more that it doesn't feel like the "event" that an authentic Mario feature deserves. Simply put: Mario has been animated, either as a sprite or as a TV cartoon, for as long as the series has existed. This is one of the biggest icons in modern popular-culture - the Mickey Mouse of video-games - he and his world deserve to "come to life" as big and extravagantly as, say, THE AVENGERS did.
I've been imagining what a live-action Mario would be like for decades - usually in-earnest in response to the somewhat perplexing idea that the property can't possibly work in live-action (and yet somehow Oz, Narnia, Wonderland, Middle Earth, Asgard etc have worked just fine?) So I figured it was time to sit down and actually type out an off-the-cuff version of how I'd pitch this project if I ever got the chance, rather than reciting pieces of it whenever the topic comes up.
This will probably be a long'un, so hit the jump for it:
Alright. So here it is. Bob "MovieBob" Chipman's hypothetical SUPER MARIO BROS. live-action movie pitch. The whole thing:
"25 WORDS OR LESS" PITCH:
"LORD OF THE RINGS meets 21 JUMP STREET. Fantasy/adventure, but with relatable wisecracking modern buddies instead of British dwarves or whatever."
ELEVATOR PITCH:
"LORD OF THE RINGS meets 21 JUMP STREET by way of GHOSTBUSTERS. Epic fantasy-adventure but instead of solemn British elves or precocious children it's two wisecracking blue-collar schmoes from Brooklyn; so it's relateable and "now." Major sequel/spin-off potential with a near-limitless merchandising upside plus massive youth, crossover and nostalgia appeal, based on a proven brand that's already more established and widely-recognized worldwide (particularly in Asian markets) than most of the Marvel/Avengers characters were prior to their movies.
STORYLINE (SHORT VERSION):
Two Italian-American brothers, plumbers from Brooklyn, are accidentally transported to a fantasy world of magic and monsters. There, they discover that their "alien" physiology imbues them with superhuman strength, speed and the ability to draw strange magical powers from "common" local plants and food. A kingdom of humanoid Mushrooms welcomes them as would-be heroes whose strength could turn the tide in their war against an encroaching army of evil creatures, while the brothers just want to find a way home. But when the Kingdom's Princess is kidnapped, it's clear that only they can undertake the dangerous rescue mission; ultimately finding their new destiny as The Super Mario Brothers!
STORYLINE (LONG VERSION):
Mario and Luigi are plumbers in Brooklyn, NY circa-1981. Fiercely loyal to one another in the fashion of archetypal working-class Italian brothers, but don't see eye to eye on much. Mario had dreamed of becoming an adventurer (think Hemmingway, Indiana Jones, Carl from UP) but put it on hold to take over the family business (with Luigi) after their father died unexpectedly. Luigi isn't a dreamer. He only ever wanted to follow his father as a plumber, resents Mario "always wanting more."
The brothers (the family's Americanized surname IS "Mario," owing to an Ellis Island foul-up of "Marionetti" that got their ancestor officially named "Mario Mario," a naming-tradition that carried on in his honor for first-borns) are called to repair a water-main break in a downtown Manhattan office, and note that seemingly every other plumber in the city seems to be doing jobs in the same area. They track the break to a rupture that leads into the sewer system, where they encounter what appears to be a huge turtle-like creature! Amid their struggle, a huge sink-hole opens, swallowing the entire city block, and the brothers (along with many others) suddenly find themselves in a crater in the Manhattan bedrock.
Luigi finds inquisitve Mario having followed the creature to a "cave" whose interior looks like some kind of ancient temple room. The creature has vanished back into a pool of water that seems to lead to a light source, and as the brothers argue about what's happening a second tremor knocks them into the pool...
They're spat-out of a huge green pipe jutting from a cliff-side into The Mushroom Kingdom (think Japanese/Brothers-Grimm Hybrid Oz, see below for details), where they encounter more hostile creatures and, in fending them off, discover their seemingly superhuman abilities and the powers they gain from the native nature (just Fire Flowers, to start - and yes, having fire-powers does make their clothing change color because magic). During this battle, one of the upright-walking, smarter creatures (see below) emerges from the pipe clutching some sort of glowing relic, and once he's out of range the other creatures blow up the pipe (much to Luigi's horror) and retreat - with one smaller creatures stealing a work-glove from Luigi's toolbelt.
A troop of Mushroom Soldiers appear (they've come to relieve the creatures of another "treasure" they were guarding - a giant green-spotted egg...) wary of the brothers. Mario decides they should go with them to try and find answers, but all Luigi wants is to find another way home. They're walked to the Castle, where they meet with Toad ("Captain of The Guards") and Toadette (the Princess' chief advisor.) Mario can't understand why Luigi doesn't at least want to know what's happening. Luigi is impatient, accusing his brother of already seeing this as "some dumb adventure" rather than a serious calamity. Their bickering stops when they're finally brought before Princess Peach, the Kingdom's leader, who (along with being beautiful) seems to calm all around her with her very aura - more like a mystic being than a monarch.
In conversation with Peach, they learn the facts of the situation: The Mushrooms and Koopas (race of humanoid turtles) have been at war for centuries, with neither side remembering who actually started the fighting but also unable to stop as the Koopas covet the Mushrooms' land and resources. Within the last generation, war has turned in the Koopas' favor via the rise of Bowser, a larger, stronger and smarter-than-average Koopa who has industrialized and militarized his people to previously-unseen levels. The only surviving member of the Royal Family, Peach seeks to defend her people but knows they can only hold out for so long. The egg the soldiers took from the Koopas is said to "belong to The Yoshis," and Toad believes that returning it to them could lead to a key alliance of forces.
The Mushrooms want the brothers to use their "magical" strength and powers (Mario and Toadette work-out that it's a matter of interdimensional physics being different) to help aid the fight, and while Mario seems open to the idea Luigi refuses - he just wants to recuperate and set out to find another "Warp Zone" (ancient inter-universe portals that Bowser's forces had been pillaging and destroying to find... something) to go home. Peach, though disappointed, agrees to let them leave. By accident, Mario witnesses Peach's otherwise zen-like calm/nurturing demeanor momentarily drop to sadness, and notices that it briefly begins to rain...
By night, a group of ShyGuys (Bowser's "ninjas," see below) slip into the palace and attempt to abduct Peach. A fight ensues (including Peach fending off several attackers using only her parasol in homage to the famous Umbrella Fight from ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA) but Peach is ultimately taken (so is the "Yoshi's" egg), seemingly spelling doom for the Kingdom.
Toad, Toadette and the other Mushrooms beg the brothers to at least help rescue The Princess - without her, they're doomed (though only Toadette seems to know why that is, and she's sworn to secrecy). Luigi is reluctant as ever, but Mario appeals to their shared sense of honor (they're rhyming catchprases: "It's an Italian thing" and "It's a Brooklyn thing") and his suspicion that Peach is possessed of a power that might help them get home. They set off to quest, with Toad additionally asking that they attempt to rescue the egg, if they can.
Peach is taken via improvised warp-zones directly to the Koopa kingdom, where she meets with Bowser and his scheming wizard/advisor Kamek ("The MagiKoopa.") Though she's a prisoner and locked in a dungeon, when allowed out to speak with Bowser she finds him to be surprisingly intelligent if unsophisticated. He doesn't share Kamek's eagerness for war and bloodshed (it's implied that Kamek is responsible for Bowser being born so large and powerful, and that he sees himself as the power behind the throne) but will conquer the Mushroom Kingdom if that's what it will take to get his people to stop wanting war and focus on the industrial self-improvement that he's worked to foster in them.
Mario and Luigi venture through the Kingdom, encountering enemies and natural-hazards. Though they work as a team, their disagreements over the situation (Mario can barely contain the fact that, yes, he's actually pretty thrilled to be questing like this, Luigi is miserable) continue to simmer. Meanwhile, back at the Castle, Toad and Toadette summon the citizenry inside to fortify and prepare for battle amid word of Bowser's forces massing at their borders.
The brothers find and ambush the Koopa caravan carrying the egg, and liberate it after a battle. Amid the fighting, though, both Luigi's rage at Mario's adventure-obsession ("You think your better than me?," basically) and Mario's view of his brother as a "coward" and "small-minded" both finally spill into the open. They nearly come to blows (old wounds, father issues, etc) but are stopped when the egg (damaged in the fighting) cracks open to reveal a bipedal baby dinosaur that calls itself Yoshi (it's growth seems highly-accelerated) and appears to understand English - even if it can only say "Yoshi."
Bowser knows that allowing Kamek to experiment on Peach to unlock the "legendary" power of her bloodline is the key to victory, but is reluctant to torture her (Kamek does not share this reticence). Apparently, the relic (a stone full of glowing, seemingly self-replenishing liquid) taken from the Warp Zone to Brooklyn may allow them another option - demonstrated when Kamek drops a Fire Flower petal into some of the liquid, causing an "opposite" Ice Flower to sprout. We also see Kamek performing magical experiments on the glove taken from Luigi in their first battle.
Mario, Luigi and Yoshi (now almost full-grown) work out that Yoshi's "people" are not far from where they are and will rally to the Mushrooms' cause if asked. The decision is made: Mario will press on to Bowser's Kingdom, Luigi will take Yoshi to his home. The brothers' apology is unspoken, as they vow to see eachother at the end one way or another.
Kamek appears to Peach without Bowser's knowledge, revealing that, as the palace was built to the giant (see below) Koopa's proportions, he's able to move about in secret via passages too small for his master. He also reveals that he knows the secret of her royal powers (her emotions, thoughts and feelings are tied to the very nature of the Mushroom Kingdom, hence her well-practiced zen calm) and has developed a machine that will forcibly draw reactions from her that can be used to cripple the Kingdom. Bowser insists that they first at least try using the relic to create a copy they can experiment on instead, but it's clear that Kamek would be happier tormenting the real thing. When he departs, Peach finally loses her composure and breaks down sobbing...
...which in turn kicks up a raging rainstorm over The Mushroom Kingdom, which Toad grimly notes can only benefit the approaching Koopa horde.
Mario's lonely journey to Bowser's Kingdom is hard-fought and arduous, and he begins to lose some of his romantic idealization of adventuring. He come to admit that Luigi has a point, and that by now he actually would like to see Brooklyn again - and that he won't take it for granted, this time...
Conversely, Luigi's journey with Yoshi (now fully-grown) takes him to a scenic region of the Kingdom that dazzles him, allowing him to see what Mario had always seen in an explorer's life. They reach The Valley of Yoshis, where (despite the somewhat hilarious language-barrier) The Yoshis agree to march to The Mushroom Kingdom and lend a hand thanks to the return of their "prince." Luigi resolves to catch up with Mario, and Yoshi goes with him.
Kamek uses the potion derived from the relic on a restrained Peach, which causes the magical "birth" of a "goth"-looking, black-dressed, purple-haired "evil Peach" ("Princess PLUM," maybe?) who shrieks and tears about the lab like an animal - frightening Peach and even Bowser as Kamek tries to force her into the emotion-manipulating machine... which fails to work. The relic didn't copy her gift. Kamek magically blasts the clone into vapor (which he collects in a bottle), and gleefully informs Bowser that they've now no choice but to use the procedure on the real Peach. Peach pleads against this, but Bowser is unmoved (though he's not above angrily reminding Kamek to know his place - and that he's NOT the "puppet master" he fancies himself, even if he did "create" his King.)
Rain continues at the Mushroom Castle, where long-range archers have already felled a series of Koopa Army advance scouts. Toadette can only console Toad that she "hasn't felt an earthquake... yet."
Mario at last slips into the center of Bowser's Kingdom, just in time to hear Bowser make a proclamation to his people via magical "projection" above the Castle, that their time is at hand. The Koopa King broods over this in his throne room, and sighs as Kamek pipes up with a projection of his own: He shows The Koopas Princess Peach locked into the torture-device that is "the key to our victory!" as the Koopa soldiers and citizenry cheer her first screams... Mario flies into a rage!
At the Mushroom Castle, Toad is momentarily heartened by the news that The Yoshis are speeding to their aid... until a temor is felt. On cue, the Koopa army advances in earnest. Back in the lab, Kamek is informed that Mario is tearing the Kingdom apart and turns the torture-controls over to an underling. He takes a red crystal that had been hooked up and "siphoning" some kind of energy from Luigi's glove, fixes it into his wand, and heads for the battlefield.
Luigi and Yoshi arrive at the cliffs bordering Bowser's kingdom just in time to see Mario engaged in a one-man war against the citizenry, soldiers and creatures (jumping, brick-smashing, Fire Flower blasts, the Mario fight-scene for the ages) as he fights his way to Bowser's Castle like a man possessed. Kamek stops him (just as Luigi and Yoshi arrive to join them) and taunts both brothers with the glove and claims that he "cracked the code" of transdimensional irregularity... before blasting them with magic from the wand. The result: Their super-strength is neutralized, they're now "normal" in this world.
Pounded by rain and wracked by tremors, Toad's forces are only just barely holding back the horde at the gates (think Helm's Deep from THE TWO TOWERS.)
Mario, Luigi and Yoshi are brought before a gloating Bowser, who orders them locked in the dungeon - but not before he specifically relishes taunting Mario, "The one who's name she still clings to." In the dungeon, Mario and Luigi apologize to eachother. Mario feels out of ideas, but a changed Luigi reveals that he pocketed a wrench and that they'll "plumb their way out," gesturing to the bolts on the large thermal pipes criss-crossing the roof of the dungeon...
Peach passes out from the strain of Kamek's machine. Bowser orders him to let her be - for now. Annoyed, Kamek departs as Bowser takes his leave as well.
At Mushroom Castle, the tide turns - ever so slightly - as The Yoshis (and several other dinosaur-like species) pour onto the battlefield and make a mess of the Koopa lines, while winged Yoshis arrive for air support. Toad is encouraged, Toadette less so...
Mario and Luigi use their plumber's intuition to move among the thermal-pipes between the walls of the castle (Yoshi has "gone on ahead," apparently with specific instructions from Mario) finding their way into Kamek's lab, where they find revive a dazed but not (physically) injured Peach. They go for the wand, angling that breaking it might restore their enhanced powers... but the wizard returns, and a fight breaks out. Kamek easily fends off the all-too-human plumbers with his magic (at once point attempting to drown Mario in the cauldron of relic-potion) with Peach looking on in desperation... and then anger.
Over the Mushroom Kingdom, the rain and the tremors stop... but the sky turns red with churning clouds and "lightning" that looks more like fire. (Toad: "Is that good news?" Toadette: "I have no idea.")
Eyes blazing, Peach attacks Kamek with vengeful abandon (and smashing his wand, causing the "powers" to zap back into Mario and Luigi) hoisting him over her head and throwing him out the window - seemingly to his death.
In the bowels of the Castle, Yoshi is using Luigi's wrench to mess with various pressure valves. As he does, we see various pipes and lava-pools throughout the (thermal-powered) infrastructure boil, buckle and bend.
As the brothers look on cautiously, Peach gradually calms (intercut with the sun finally coming out over the Mushroom Castle battlefield) and the trio make ready to escape; with a minor tremor alerting them that Yoshi must have found the valves ("That thing is a born plumber!") But Peach notices that Mario still has some of the relic-potion on his mustache, and realizes that they aren't safe yet...
A deformed, monster-like duplicate of Mario bursts from the cauldron, identifying itself as "Wario." Mario sends Luigi and Peach to escape while he holds him off, and they proceed to fight - intercut with Luigi and Peach (joined by Yoshi) fleeing through the castle as the tremors increase and lava, fire and steam begin to crack through the walls. They emerge into the Throne Room... where Bowser is waiting.
At the Mushroom Castle, the good guys have turned the enemy back. Toad and Toadette appear at ease...
In the crumbling throne room, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi dodge Bowser's attacks - including his now-revealed fire-breath. Mario and Wario, still wrestling, come crashing out of a balcony and land on top of the giant brute, bouncing to the ground where the fight continues until Mario manages to kick his doppleganger into a newly-opened lava-pit.
Mario and Luigi engage the gigantic Bowser in battle, pummeling him until he lies still on the ever-unsure floor. The enemy defeated, they turn to leave with Peach and Yoshi... but Luigi looks back, noting that Bowser is "still moving." Mario nods grimly, tells Yoshi to escape with Peach. She doesn't understand why they need to "finish" Bowser - "It's an Italian thing," "It's a Brooklyn thing."
Peach, riding Yoshi, dahses out of the castle across it's stone bridge, which now extends over a rising lake of fire and lava. Mario, Luigi and Bowser circle eachother, staring one another down and ready for an opening...
...the entire front of the castle gate crumbles as the three combatants come crashing out, wailing on eachother. Mario scoops up a Bowser-sized decorative axe, brandishing it as Luigi powers-up with a Fire Flower and lures Bowser to the center of the bridge. Realizing he's trapped, Bowser wheels back around in time to see Mario smash the axe down onto the bridge... causing it to crumble under his feet and send the Koopa King spiraling down to his doom as The Brothers exchange happy nods across the gulf.
Mario, Luigi and Yoshi receive a hero's welcome at Mushroom Castle, where Peach "knights" them ("These people didn't even have a word for 'knight' until Mario brought it up!" notes Luigi). There's talk of continuing to search for a way back to Brooklyn, but it's clear that both brothers have reached an equilibrium whereby they miss home but are also excited to be heroes exploring their new world.
Epilogue: In the remnants of Bowser's Kingdom, something stirs in a lake of lava... it's Wario, somehow alive (and lava-proof?) and clawing his way up onto the rocky shore - where Kamek is waiting for him.
AESTHETIC:
Mushroom Kingdom: Big and organic. As much visual reference to the games as possible in terms of the look and feel of the Mushroom Kingdom, but not leaning on intentional artifice - think Narnia, MALEFICENT's Moors, LEGEND or the original WIZARD OF OZ, not the Burton WONDERLAND. Lean heavy on the idea of extra-active plant-life, given the presence of the Mushroom People themselves: Along with the expected Piranha Plants and Goombas (they could be evil/primitive Mushrooms, right?) and so forth, think grabby-vines, moving flowers, etc. Mushroom Kingdom should be "fantasy self-sustaining, a super-colorful/cuddly cross between fairytale medieval Europe and fuedal Japan. Even "familair" looking flora and fauna look just a little bit more cuddly/friendly (big eyes, round proportions) than they would on Earth.
Big-idea stuff like the floating mountains from AVATAR? Maybe, but in trying to recreate the "floaty brick platforms" of the games maybe think more on the lines of ancient, crumbling instrastructure - think the ruins of the elevated Roman Aquaducts by way of M.C. Escher and/or Frank Lloyd Wright (imagine a fight/chase sequence in a canyon criss-crossed with stone bridges and stairs, Mario/Luigi leaping between them and smashing up through the stone from below to knock out enemies!) Should make some practical geographic sense, i.e. no lava-world right next door to the frozen-tundra for now reason.
Bowser's Domain: The Koopas live in a "valley" created by constant volcanic activity, which they've harnessed (crudely) into a power-source. It's an "industrial" Kingdom in contrast to the Mushrooms' clean, fanciful world - damn near everything is made out of red clay bricks, wrought-iron and logs culled from ancient, massive trees. It's not exactly Mordor, though - this isn't a "blighted" place, it's the logical solution to building a working civilization in the absence of key natural resources. The exception is Bowser's Castle, which resembles a traditional medieval fortress of gray stone but built to its master's gigantic proportions (see below.)
Brooklyn: Won't be seen for too long, but should be a fairly authentic looking recreation of New York City, circa-1981.
COSTUMING/CHARACTERS:
Mario and Luigi: Should divide in appearance, same as the games - Mario shorter, slightly older, stocky; Luigi tall and lanky. They Have their traditional blue overalls and red/green shirt/hat combos, but no initials on the hats and no gloves. They keep their clothes because, like them, their Earth-origins cause them to function like armor against weapons in the new world. They also have their tool-belts, which start half-stocked with common plumbing tools but are augmented to carry gear and items.
Princess Peach: Should look as much like the games as possible in dress and hairstyle, leaning heavy on the mashup of Disney Princess grandeur and Roccoco opulence. Might be prudent to hire a Japanese "idol"-style actress, someone familiar with the serene "zen-but-with-giggles" affect often baked into the traditional characterization of Peach, but also able to drop it when appropriate.
Toad/Toadette/Mushrooms: Probably best executed via CGI or CGI-augmented children/little-people in suits. Same design as the games, with personalities similar to "adult children" like Snow White's dwarves, Oompa Loompas, Munchkins, etc. Not precisely "comic-relief," but given their proportions just them moving about doing simple tasks should be amusing.
Yoshi: Think a T-Rex, but roughly the proportions of a mid-sized horse with a vastly less "threatening" face (big eyes, round snout, etc). Personality of a very large, friendly dog (once he's grown, prior to that more like a puppy.)
CREATURES (KOOPAS ETC):
Bowser: Stands roughly 12 - 14 feet tall, difficult to discern given bulky proportions and hunched posture. Color and shape should be as close to the game as possible, with realistic reptilian textures and musculature. Walks upright, but can "sprint" on all fours like a gorilla for added speed. Sharp teeth, horns, etc but they aren't the focus - this a brawler, not a biter. Should consistently Appear tired and resigned except when in battle or angry, a brutal tyrant but a brutal tyrant who would rather his people not be so demanding of brutality or eager for tyranny.
Koopas: Humanoid turtles, similar in design to Bowser but "lesser" (human-sized, for one thingf) highlighting that he's a "freakishly" evolved superior version of them. Most should appear harmless but not particularly clean or pleasant. "Soldiers" among them wear wrought-iron armor, and fight with weapons that are all variations on hammers.
Kamek: Older-looking Koopa, wears wizard robes and a pointy hat. Eager and sadistic, in contrast to Bowser.
Troopas: The turtle-enemies from the games, here utilized as beasts of burden by Koopa soldiers. Also turtles, but walk on all fours, have yellow skin and snapping jaws - resemble overly-muscled tortoises roughly the size of a small car, capable of withdrawing wholly into their shell when attacked. Flying variation with feathered-wings in place of front arms also onhand.
Spinys: Similar looking to Troopas but with stumpier limbs and shells covered with spikes (thinner, longer and more needle-like than the ones on Bowser's shell.) Should be at least one scene partially built around them emerging from eggs, but maybe save Lakitu (the cloud guy who drops the eggs in the game) for a sequel.
Buzzy Beetles: Change in design from the games, for the sake of variety: Actual large beetles (same size as the Troopas, roughly) instead of smooth-shelled turtles.
Goombas: Same design as the game (evil mushrooms with feet and faces) but here fast-moving and jumpy. Bowser's army version of "pawns," usually the first wave into any given fight.
ShyGuys: Masks identitcal to the games (white ovals with three black circles denoting eyes and mouth) red robes more in line with Arabian/Nomadic attire, built for movement. Completely silent, never seen without masks. Carry multiple stabbing/throwing weapons (swords, knives, chains, daggers - think ninja gear) and the occasional bow and arrow combo.
Piranha Plants: Large, plump venus fly-trap creatures. Should be a background presence in any scene set in a heavily plant-covered area, at least one action beat should be set around an encounter with one or more large ones.
Wario: "Mr. Hyde" version of Mario - exaggerated features, bulgy and muscular. Sharp teeth and claw-like fingernails. Purple overalls over a yellow shirt.
...so, yeah. That's what I got. Silly? Probably. Better if I actually sat around and workshopped it? Likely. But now when people ask, "how would you do it?" There it is.
Minggu, 14 Desember 2014
Selasa, 28 Oktober 2014
Rebuilding
So. It's time to let fans, followers, readers etc know where things stand and are going with these blogs and my general web presence (after you check the latest update, of course)...
Firstly, if you're not already following me on Twitter, please consider doing so even if you never use the service yourself (speaking wise.) I'm not exactly what you'd call a "convert" to the power of social media, but I find Twitter to be a genuinely awesome tool. It's the immediacy of it that I like, and the way the character-limit forces me to get to the point when sharing a thought. The idea of essentially tossing a thought into a public square and having it "hang" there for others to see and respond to at their convenience suits my style, and is one of the reasons you've seen fewer small/random blog posts here - why draw out into a tedious blog what I can Tweet and reach more people more concisely?
However, blogs and personal-sites have a certain usefulness as a "hub" for making all of one's work link together - and also, as has become more necessary recently - a place to put material that (for whatever reason) is unable to find a proper home. On the other hand, as much as I tend to get stuck in my ways vis-a-vi technology, the fact is systems like Blogger, Tumblr etc are not conducive to the web presence I need (and want, frankly.)
So. Right now, the plan looks like this: At some point in the near(ish) future, this blog (and also the seperate/dedicated Game OverThinker blog) are going to either go away or go "dormant," to be replaced by a singular site that's more like, well... a SITE as opposed to a blog (though there will still be a heavy blog/newsfeed component.) My hope - and make no mistake, this is all very preliminary - is for this to be part of a new paradigm for my online presence, and can make (hypothetical) new avenues I've been looking to explore for awhile like merchandising, Patreon, etc more easily implemented (these would be, at least for now, based around projects outside of material co-produced for/with The Escapist.)
As for The Game OverThinker, I can now clarify more of what the plans are for that series going forward. For those who've been keeping track, I think I've made it quite clear that the "arc" that the series is in the midst of now is a kind of climax for the series in it's current incarnation. It will end, likely on or around it's 100th episode sometime this year or early next, time depending. It's a series I'm immensely proud of, both in terms of where it brought me and what I've been able to do with it, but the time has come to reshuffle the deck and relaunch.
What I wanted to clarify is that that many people have assumed that this means an "end" to the narrative/storyline/"sketch" aspect of the series entirely, and with things moving forward behind the scenes I can now say with some confidence that this is NOT the case, at all. What the series will move away from (at least primarily) is the presence of a constantly foward-moving narrative "arc," and into something more episodic in nature. I can't be more specific about how this "works" without giving away the ending of the current series, but suffice it to say that you can look forward to the main Game OverThinker series being predominantly focused on opinion-piece presentations (think my friend Jim Sterling's JIMQUISITION show, though not 100% on that model) with other characters like Ivan, OverThinker, RetroThinker, etc. onhand as supporting players - not quite "comic relief," but exaggerated alternative voices to break up (or bookend) the occasional drawn-out nature of my soapbox-soliloquy.
But did I say "main" series? I did. Part of the desire to relaunch Game OverThinker in this way was the realization that some of these characters, personas and voices were suited to saying certain things and performing certain functions that I wanted to make more use of but didn't necessarily want to overwhelm the series itself. So my plan (very beta at this point) is to have shorter series/vignettes specifically built around these personas that play to their strengths. More details to come on that front, but you may get a taste of things in these last few episodes of the current version.
FINALLY: As you've no dobut surmised, a lot of my time and effort recently has been taken up dealing with the same unpleasantness that's been derailing many other voices in the so-called "geek culture." And while I'll always speak up when I see/hear something wrong being done around me, I've come to the conclusion that what can be "done" about matters like these on a one-to-one social-media plane has been, well... done. Instead, I've decided to turn most of whatever percentage of my attention had been going toward such things toward something more ambitious and (hopefully) helpful: I'm going to write another book.
This new book will NOT be a follow-up to Brick-By-Brick. This will be more a work of recent historic/cultural/political analysis and commentary on the last decade of gaming-culture - specifically changes in the business, development, aesthetic and fandom of video-games and gaming over the last decade and a half, roughly beginning with the immediate cultural impacts of The Bush Era, 9-11, Iraq/Afghanistan, The Obama Era, the rise of the Tea Party, drone-paranoia, Wikileaks, Snowden, etc on this side of entertainment culture and it's manifestations today. More details to follow.
So. That's where we are moving forward. In the meantime, I'm going to get back on track with keeping this place updated with news stuff and not just my new videos. For example: Did you hear about DOCTOR STRANGE? That's a pretty big "get," innit?
-- Bob.
Firstly, if you're not already following me on Twitter, please consider doing so even if you never use the service yourself (speaking wise.) I'm not exactly what you'd call a "convert" to the power of social media, but I find Twitter to be a genuinely awesome tool. It's the immediacy of it that I like, and the way the character-limit forces me to get to the point when sharing a thought. The idea of essentially tossing a thought into a public square and having it "hang" there for others to see and respond to at their convenience suits my style, and is one of the reasons you've seen fewer small/random blog posts here - why draw out into a tedious blog what I can Tweet and reach more people more concisely?
However, blogs and personal-sites have a certain usefulness as a "hub" for making all of one's work link together - and also, as has become more necessary recently - a place to put material that (for whatever reason) is unable to find a proper home. On the other hand, as much as I tend to get stuck in my ways vis-a-vi technology, the fact is systems like Blogger, Tumblr etc are not conducive to the web presence I need (and want, frankly.)
So. Right now, the plan looks like this: At some point in the near(ish) future, this blog (and also the seperate/dedicated Game OverThinker blog) are going to either go away or go "dormant," to be replaced by a singular site that's more like, well... a SITE as opposed to a blog (though there will still be a heavy blog/newsfeed component.) My hope - and make no mistake, this is all very preliminary - is for this to be part of a new paradigm for my online presence, and can make (hypothetical) new avenues I've been looking to explore for awhile like merchandising, Patreon, etc more easily implemented (these would be, at least for now, based around projects outside of material co-produced for/with The Escapist.)
As for The Game OverThinker, I can now clarify more of what the plans are for that series going forward. For those who've been keeping track, I think I've made it quite clear that the "arc" that the series is in the midst of now is a kind of climax for the series in it's current incarnation. It will end, likely on or around it's 100th episode sometime this year or early next, time depending. It's a series I'm immensely proud of, both in terms of where it brought me and what I've been able to do with it, but the time has come to reshuffle the deck and relaunch.
What I wanted to clarify is that that many people have assumed that this means an "end" to the narrative/storyline/"sketch" aspect of the series entirely, and with things moving forward behind the scenes I can now say with some confidence that this is NOT the case, at all. What the series will move away from (at least primarily) is the presence of a constantly foward-moving narrative "arc," and into something more episodic in nature. I can't be more specific about how this "works" without giving away the ending of the current series, but suffice it to say that you can look forward to the main Game OverThinker series being predominantly focused on opinion-piece presentations (think my friend Jim Sterling's JIMQUISITION show, though not 100% on that model) with other characters like Ivan, OverThinker, RetroThinker, etc. onhand as supporting players - not quite "comic relief," but exaggerated alternative voices to break up (or bookend) the occasional drawn-out nature of my soapbox-soliloquy.
But did I say "main" series? I did. Part of the desire to relaunch Game OverThinker in this way was the realization that some of these characters, personas and voices were suited to saying certain things and performing certain functions that I wanted to make more use of but didn't necessarily want to overwhelm the series itself. So my plan (very beta at this point) is to have shorter series/vignettes specifically built around these personas that play to their strengths. More details to come on that front, but you may get a taste of things in these last few episodes of the current version.
FINALLY: As you've no dobut surmised, a lot of my time and effort recently has been taken up dealing with the same unpleasantness that's been derailing many other voices in the so-called "geek culture." And while I'll always speak up when I see/hear something wrong being done around me, I've come to the conclusion that what can be "done" about matters like these on a one-to-one social-media plane has been, well... done. Instead, I've decided to turn most of whatever percentage of my attention had been going toward such things toward something more ambitious and (hopefully) helpful: I'm going to write another book.
This new book will NOT be a follow-up to Brick-By-Brick. This will be more a work of recent historic/cultural/political analysis and commentary on the last decade of gaming-culture - specifically changes in the business, development, aesthetic and fandom of video-games and gaming over the last decade and a half, roughly beginning with the immediate cultural impacts of The Bush Era, 9-11, Iraq/Afghanistan, The Obama Era, the rise of the Tea Party, drone-paranoia, Wikileaks, Snowden, etc on this side of entertainment culture and it's manifestations today. More details to follow.
So. That's where we are moving forward. In the meantime, I'm going to get back on track with keeping this place updated with news stuff and not just my new videos. For example: Did you hear about DOCTOR STRANGE? That's a pretty big "get," innit?
-- Bob.
Kamis, 23 Oktober 2014
Minggu, 19 Oktober 2014
Another Long Collection of Thoughts About #GamerGate
NOTE: This was originally a piece that was intended for publication elsewhere. Length, however, became an issue (a shorter, "to the point" version is in-production). But I still wanted a "one-stop" source for my positions on the Recent Unpleasantness as a whole, because it helps make certain social-media interactions mercifully shorter.
I have a lot to say about the so-called “GamerGate” controversy, much of which I’ve already said but much of which I’d wanted the opportunity to say with more clarity. So to keep this from running too long (Spoiler Warning: I will almost certainly run too long, anyway) and losing your interest I’m going to forego the use of flowery “clever” segues between thoughts and lay this out categorically.
But if you’re impatient to get down into the comments and start debating what variety of heated-adhesive and which species of fowl would be best suited to my tarring and feathering and want the TL;DR version right-off? Fine: I think of GamerGate alternately as a joke that got infuriatingly out-of-hand and an outright campaign of hate and harassment either dense (or pretending to be dense) enough to think itself otherwise; and it’s goals (both stated and implied) are the exact opposite of the self-betterment that gaming desperately needs - and was (not accidently) right in the midst of achieving when this foolishness started. In short, I find it to be a wholly destructive thing with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
That’s the short version. If you want the long one, keep reading.
Firstly: To my “Gamer” bonafides:
I’ve been playing, following, studying and loving video games for about as long as I can remember. Some of the happiest moments of my childhood are centered around video-games. I’ve waited overnight in lines for video games. I got into stupid schoolyard fights about video games (kid, “GamerGate” ain’t nothin’ – I survived SNES vs. Genesis!) I saw The Wizard in movie theaters. I wrote a book about games. I do a silly internet show about games.
There’s an NES, an SNES, a Dreamcast, an N64, multiple variations of GameBoy/DS/3DS portables, a Wii, WiiU, Xbox360 and corresponding game collections in the room adjacent to where I write this, along with Genesis games for a clone console (which is also for running Famicom carts) and space reserved for a PS4 the next time I’ve got the money/time set aside. I’ve got Captain N: The Game Master on DVD. The whole run of the series. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, too. The first and last issues of Nintendo Power are framed on my wall. Would you like to know which currently-available breakfast cereal tastes exactly like the long-discontinued Mario/Zelda cereal from the mid-80s? Ask me. I have very strong, specific opinions about Mega Man.
So yes, I know my video games. And for a long time I was very protective of the idea of “gamer” as a cultural identity. Mostly, it was because I came up as a gamer in an era when devoted video game aficionados really did tend to be a specific subset of (then) youth-culture who were misunderstood and occasionally ostracized by the mainstream, and was smack in the midst of young-adulthood when the gaming Censorship Wars were going down – Joe Lieberman and Night Trap, Jack Thompson, that whole mess. I get the need to form “community” around shared interests and to strike a “wartime stance” when those interests (and, by implication, oneself) become a “target” of one kind or other.
But today? Sure, I can see why the “subfandoms” of gaming – your Final Fantasy acolytes, your Nintendo diehards, your master-level devotees of Pokemon, Starcraft, various fighting franchises, that one guy (or gal!) who’s still really, really into Bonk - still exist and serve a purpose… but when gaming is as mainstream and widely-spread as book-reading, movie-watching, TV-viewing and music-listening? The idea of “gamer” as a “cultural identity” honestly begins to sound a little… insipid, really. In a world where my mom and a Korean StarCraft pro are both “gamers” in as much as they both play games, there’s just no reason to still be acting like there’s a secret-handshake to get into the clubhouse (unless your “putting it back on” for a larf when attending an event like PAX.)
Especially when dicing ourselves up into “hardcore” and “casual” camps serves not the interest of “gamers” but of making it easier for the bloated, greedy Hutt’s that are EA, Activision, etc to market to us. Taking unironic “pride” in the hardcore-ness of your game-buying preferences is like being “proud” of how much money you’ve given to Coca-Cola over the years – enjoying the fruits of Capitalism doesn’t mean you need to start forming religious devotion to corporations. Or their products.
File that, because it’ll be important a moment or two from now.
Secondly: To my politics and/or philosophy:
Everything has a political dimension to it. Everything. Often implicit, sometimes also explicit, but always there – especially in places where it’s not “intended.” GamerGate has so many political dimensions (gender conflicts, class-stratification, age/generational disagreements, international unease, economics, the environment, you name it) it may as well have its own Unified Field Theory… but we’ll get to that.
I’m not an “apolitical” person. I have very strong, long thought-upon opinions about most important issues, and I vote/advocate/agitate/etc on their behalf when I feel it is necessary or I have something to contribute. What I don’t have is a particular allegiance to a specific political school of thought or “philosophy” outside of a very broad pragmatic view that broken or flawed things about a society or system should either be fixed or discarded and replaced in whatever fashion achieves the best result.
I respect the academic study of philosophy and the idea of esoteric/hypothetical debate over this or that point, but in the real world results generally matter (and have more lasting impact) than animating schools of thought. ”So do the ends justify the means?” Well, that depends on which ends and means we’re talking about on a case-by-case basis. For me, adhering with any rigidity to political “philosophy” or “ideology” is like being a carpenter who shows up to build a house but declares he will use only a hammer – no saw, no screwdriver, no wrench, no drill, just a hammer - because he is a “Devout Hammerist.” Sounds ridiculous, right?
So when I see something broken/flawed in society and am looking at solutions to fix/improve it, I could care less whether a solution is philosophically Capitalist, Socialist, Objectivist, right-wing, left-wing, Libertarian, Authoritarian, whatever - all I want to know is if it will work and what will the immediate effects be. Beyond that? There’s an imperfect world to keep improving and a better tomorrow to get to, and I’m for using every tool in the damn box (and inventing some new ones, when necessary) to get there. Fortune, after all, favors the bold.
So, then, to GamerGate.
What it is:
This is already feeling long, so I’m not going to mince words: Pretending that GamerGate did not originate as a slew of woman-hating (in the guise of being against “Social Justice Warriors,” of course) creeps gleefully and viciously attacking a female game developer (whom they already hated because they felt her game didn’t “deserve” a place in the Sacred Holy Temple of Steam) who then propped-up a façade of having done so “only” because of some noble commitment to fighting various other concerns (some legit, some only legit-sounding) that so-called “gamer-culture” had about game journalism to pad out their ranks and feign legitimacy doesn’t make it not so.
Furthermore, even if one were to consider the (demonstrably false) premise that “GamerGate” has grown in such a way that it’s problematic origin-point is no longer relevant enough to hold against it… well, it just doesn’t hold up. Setting aside the fact that real-life doesn’t run on some kind of weighted “morality points” scale whereby filling up your blue “good works” meter lowers/negates the red “evil deeds” meter; the “movement’s” actions hence reveal that it has remained very-much “on topic” from where it was at the beginning.
No one disputes that ethical issues plague journalism in the ever-shifting digital age, consumer journalism especially and games journalism in particular. But not only does “GamerGate” not seem particularly interested in many of the medium’s most prominent longstanding ethical concerns like stage-managed preview-events, lavishly-ornamented “review copies” or aggressively favorites-playing public-relations operatives (at least to any meaningful/visible extent); it often doesn’t seem to see them as a big deal at all.
Instead, GamerGate’s dragons to be slayed have all seemed to come from a small, specific set of niches: Mostly women (and/or male allies) aligned with “feminist” or “social justice” causes (racial/gender diversity, LGBTQ issues, etc) in either the journalism or independent game-development spheres; with the intensity of the attacks being largely dictated by a target’s popularity or visibility. The attacks (like all such attacks) come with a tiny fig-leaf of quasi-reasonable justification – initially the idea that certain games and developers were being given an unfair spotlight because they were on friendly-terms or ideologically-aligned with this or that journalist; or that in a worst-case-scenario were gaining dishonestly-positive review scores for the same reasons – that has by now spiraled out into laughably-elaborate conspiracy theories that by now involve (hilariously so) DARPA. At this rate I fully expect anti-fluoridation paranoia, anti-vaccination panic and David Icke’s ”Reptoid Hyptothesis” to become accepted-fact among GamerGate any day now.
Meanwhile, the pernicious (and exceptionally visible!) ways in which the corporate overlords of mainstream game-development can be observed to bend and warp ethics around the press (and vice-versa, in many cases) in order to control the narrative around their products appears to be something GamerGate regards as the industry functioning, well… functionally. That’s not to say that nobody who’s ever so much as clicked the “favorite” star on a Gate-hashtagged Tweet feels strongly about or has spoken out on these issues, but they certainly have not generated the organized, pre-planned “Operations” (complete with embarrassingly-hyperbolic co-opted military rhetoric) that were apparently warranted when it came to punishing Gamasutra for Employing a woman who said something ‘Gaters didn’t like.
In this way, GamerGate reveals itself to be fundamentally a reactionary movement, if not wholly a “conservative” one; not simply opposed to progressive voices in the games media because of what they have to say or which games they choose to say it about because of ideological disagreement (though that’s certainly a common enough thread as well) but because they threaten The Status Quo: Sure, EA isn’t exactly a “hero” to GamerGaters, but their sketchy behaviors are a “necessary evil” part of The Machine that keeps the flow of big, shiny, 60fps, multiplayer-focused, achievement-packed AAA blockbusters that defines so-called “hardcore gaming” coming. ‘Gate’s “core” variety of gamer hasn’t simply hitched their very identity to gaming, but to gaming as it exists right now as an ideal.
Whereas the “SJWs,” on the other hand, not only have less-than-flattering things to say about some of gaming’s biggest sacred cows, their perceived increased prominence (in terms of press coverage, at least) means that they could change the medium in some way. And it doesn’t seem to matter if that change comes in the form of developers listening to criticism about “problematic” issues and choosing to revise their presentations (which GamerGate claims to see as tantamount to “censorship”), or more games that don’t fit the “hardcore gamer” model finding success, or the demographics of game-consumers itself moving away from the absolute-dominance of 18-35 year-old males: Change is bad. The status quo must be maintained.
This helps to explain (in part) why the only remotely positive “real” press attention GamerGate has earned has come from minor-league players in the American conservative political sphere; mainly Breitbart.com’s Milo Yiannopolous (though he didn’t used to feel that way…) and American Enterprise Institute fellow Christina Hoff Sommers – a self-described feminist whose career consists almost exclusively of projecting nefarious motives onto the modern movement. GamerGate may or may not see itself as “right-wing” movement, but in framing feminism and social-justice as change-agents set to “corrupt” a functioning status-quo it aligns nicely with the general through-line of American cultural-conservatism – its “face” may be ”Vivian James,” but its soul is very much Sarah Palin.
”But I’m part of GamerGate and I’m NOT a…”
This is probably the most difficult part of all this.
GamerGate has been built (and yes, it was built – this is not an organic movement, it just wants to look like one) around a “playbook” of 21st Century activism so broadly-applied that you can find its mirror in everything from the Tea Party (right-wing) and Occupy Wall Street (left-wing) to Re-Take Mass Effect (enviable surplus of free time): A small core with very specific concerns/goals nudging the movements of much larger “outer shell” of seemingly-diverse concerns lured into the collective by appeal to personal causes (”Mom said you can’t play GTAV? Our hashtag includes that – welcome aboard!”)
So while a majority of GamerGate is almost certainly not “represented” by the outright-sociopaths directing “gamified” online harassment campaigns that drive outspoken female devs out of their homes “for the lulz” or the agenda-driven opportunists aiming at the same targets but for political reasons… those toxic, entirely-destructive forces are very much in the driver’s seat and thus the “movement’s” goals have remained toxic and entirely-destructive – as they were designed to. And if you “joined” GamerGate because of sincere (however misguided in my opinion) corners about journalistic ethics or “censorship,” you need to understand (or at least consider the possibility) that your sincerity is being used as both shield (irony!) and cudgel for ugly goals that you likely didn’t “sign up” for.
People don’t like to hear that. Everyone likes to think of themselves as autonomous and self-aware, at least to the degree where they can’t be manipulated into something they didn’t want to do or wouldn’t have done otherwise. It’s natural to feel defensive (”You callin’ me a sheep or something???”) but it happens to the best of us; sometimes in big ways like supporting a cause or voting for a candidate, sometimes in small ways like decided to buy one soft-drink over another.
What’s important is being able to acknowledge when it’s happened and take corrective measures if you find them necessary. At this point, I’m think it’s reasonable for even staunchly anti-GamerGate persons like myself to accept as possible the idea that a good number of people with legitimate concerns about the games industry and game journalism ethics who would not otherwise have become… “animated” about those concerns exist within GamerGate and would be well worth listening to and taking seriously apart from the white noise of the thoroughly-discredited “movement.” However! The first step toward being listened to/taken seriously for such folks would be to separate themselves from the true-believer ‘Gaters: You are not using GamerGate as a megaphone for your concerns – GamerGate is using your concerns as a silencer for its hate and harassment.
About “Corruption.”
…but let’s talk about what some of those concerns were.
Again, make no mistake: It is crystal clear that the attacks against Zoe Quinn that “birthed” GamerGate were about a devoutly-hateful subset of gamers believing that they had finally found A.) An opening to “take down” an outspoken developer they already despised that B.) could then be expanded to take down similar people and viewpoints within gaming culture. This cannot (and should not) ever be removed from any discussion on the subject.
But the sick genius of harassment campaigns like this is that the issues and concerns the progenitors feigned interest in actually are real issues and concerns. The gaming press growing bigger and more professional while also retaining a semblance of the close relations with its corporate subjects more befitting the fan/enthusiast press much of it grew out of raises a lot of problematic issues, particularly given the shameless willingness of some publishers to push the envelope on that particular codependent power-imbalance. The lack of unifying ethical guidelines (or genuine adherence to the same) is a worthwhile thing to question.
Above all else, the idea that journalism – even of something ultimately “trivial” like playthings (at the end of the day, folks, yes… we are talking about electronic toys here) – might be offering misleading or dishonest information to its readers/viewers in exchange for gifts or favors is about as fundamental a concern as one can have about the press. Any press.
Here’s where I stand: What used to be called “payola,” i.e. someone handing a critic an envelope full of money in the understanding that a positive review will be coming in exchange, is completely wrong and unethical on every conceivable level. No serious-minded person disagrees with this.
Everything else, though? Not nearly as clear cut.
On the one hand, game (and film, for that matter) companies sending out review copies of their products with lavish “garnishes” is gauche, and everyone knows what the intent of doing so is even if “being friendly” to a journalist isn’t (and shouldn’t be) illegal. On the other hand… since it’s also not “required” that journalists get the early access they often need to do their jobs, it’s also not feasible to start dictating terms to publicists for most outlets. All any journalist can be expected to do is disclose and be open about the circumstances of access, and for readers to cultivate a cache of trusted critics/reviewers; and to consider that while a devoted fan for whom games are a favorite hobby or a blogger/YouTuber just starting out a fancy resin bust of an orc might conceivably be something ”sooooo cool!” you’d go “easy” on a flawed game in (unasked for, I stress) appreciation for… that’s unlikely to be true for a professional who knows their credibility is one of the main things keeping a roof over their heads.
As to friendships/relationships between press and subjects? That’s been thorny for as long as there has been such a thing as journalism; and as much as I hate the phrase “There are no easy answers…” in this case, it’s true.
This is a place where I can only assume I’ll be breaking ranks with some colleagues: I think that the “ethics panic” in the early days of GamerGate may have nudged some areas of games journalism to take too hard of a line on inter-industry friendships. And while doing so is within the rights of publishers and individual journos… I think it does more harm than good.
I am a great lover of video games (see above); but as a critic/journalist I live more in the world of film. And in that world, the idea that the press would be walled-off from filmmakers on a personal level is regarded as absurd – and for good reason. Whereas major studios can spend billions to get the word out about their blockbusters, smaller and independent films rely on journalists who develop particular fondness for certain films and filmmakers as a big part of their quest for eyeballs. To put it bluntly: One of the main reasons you’ve heard of (now) major filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, Kevin Smith and (more recently) James Gunn is because they formed either fan-to-fan connections or outright friendships with critics and (recently) movie-bloggers who became (uncoerced) “advocates” for these then-upstarts and their work.
I happen to think it would be a huge mistake to restrict the potential of such relationships to yield similar results for gaming in the name of some hypothetical inoculation against accusations of “bias” later on. While I absolutely support critics who remove themselves from reviewing their friends’ work voluntarily out of personal policy or concern about the appearance of impropriety (and have done so myself – my casual acquaintance with some of the principals involved is mainly why you didn’t see me review The Angry Video Game Nerd Movie yet) well…
…honestly? The possibility that being friends (obviously romantic/sexual relationships are another matter entirely) with a developer might lead a journalist to be more “forgiving” of this or that flaw in some egregiously inappropriate way (oh lord, now I have to talk about freaking review scores…) is so miniscule (in multiple senses) as to be barely worth a thought next to the possibility that two people who love games – one an amateur critic, the other an aspiring developer – might “hit it off” at a gaming con and keep in touch over the years until one day the now-established critic looks into an indie game because they recognize their friends’ name in the credits and that’s how a great title that might’ve been overlooked otherwise becomes the next Minecraft.
Yes, “objectivity” is important. Obviously. But despite gamer culture’s (geek culture as a whole, really) tendency to assume that everything worth expressing about a work can be so expressed as a numerical equation… it’s just not the case. And no ill result of “bias” is worth sapping emotional connection, humanity or heart out of games journalism - whether it’s in the form of reducing all reviews to “objective” number scores with no aesthetic/emotive component or putting harsh restrictions on friend-making.
But what about “collusion?”
This is the big one, right? The one place where GamerGate’s feigned concerns for “journalistic integrity” (a joke when they treat this walking embarassment as the model modern journalist) and it’s actual concerns that the “wrong” people and viewpoints might “take over” their hobby. Is there “collusion” among gaming journalists and gaming academics of similar ideological stripes to “push” certain themes to the forefront and nudge the culture in a certain direction – and, if so, is that a problem?
I can’t really speak to the first question, since though I work for a gaming-centric site I’m primarily a film critic and my video-game show is… well, a bit silly. So I don’t generally get invited to those types of parties, suffice it to say. But I have a hard time believing the Illuminati-level type of conspiring people have imagined going on therein (seriously guys… DARPA!?)
But is it possible that games journalism and gaming academia are too ideologically similar in an “echo-chamber” sort of way? Oh, sure – I just don’t see anything “sinister” coming out of it. Annoying? Absolutely, I still get the shakes remembering that moment in time where people suddenly wanted “Ludonarrative Dissonance” to be a commonly-used term we talked about all the time. But some “progressive cabal” within gaming conspiring to nudge the medium into a decidedly different direction than it’s currently headed while simultaneously working to remake “gamer culture” in the same way? This Alex Jones nonsense? Nope, don’t see it.
Tell you a secret, though? I kind of wish I did. And by “kind of,” I mean I absolutely wish I did.
At the beginning of this piece, I outlined how much I love video games. You may have gathered that a lot of that love centers on the “retro” gaming of my formative years, and you may have assumed that this is because I am, in fact, a gigantic child. That’s probably true, but I also genuinely find that gaming (and gamers) have taken a sharp turn within the last decade so – roughly-parallel (but perhaps coincidental) to the decline of Japan as console-gaming’s driving force and the rise of the West in the same space – and become something that I increasingly don’t recognize and feel alternately bored and repulsed by.
I look at a medium where once upon a time I could walk into even an average-sized arcade and be presented the opportunity to play as men and women of many races and creeds (even ones that didn’t actually exist!) along with animals, robots and all manner of beings (ditto!) that has now devolved (in mainstream spaces) into an endless succession of the same gruff, boring Daddy Figure starring in variations on two or three genres and I think… how did we get here?
I look at a medium that once (however crudely at times) had ambitions to tell stories well beyond the expected capacity of Hollywood… but then I look at how Hollywood responded (overall) to The War on Terror with measured concern, criticism and even some outright condemnation of gung-ho militaristic zealotry, while video games response was simplistic military hardware-porn with endorsements by Oliver North (seriously!) and I think… how did we get here?
I look at a “gamer culture” that welcome me back when few did now largely seen to be circling the wagons to tell the “wrong” kind of people who may enjoy the “wrong” kind of games to just get out… how did we get here?
I look at a “gamer culture” that fought hard for the medium to be taken seriously as any other art form, but now seems in a hurry to abandon that victory if it means being culturally-critiqued… how did we get here?
I look at all that, with GamerGate as the last straw, and I think… Man, I wish there was a “progressive/feminist conspiracy” to remake games and game-culture! Because right now both of those things are in the worst shape they’ve been in since The Crash of ’83; and while I’ve had occasion to think (and indeed continue to think) that a second “crash” of this blighted mess the medium has become might be pretty damn beneficial overall… if and when it happens it’s going to be messy and painful. For a lot of people. Maybe everyone. I’d like to see anything that can be done to prevent it at least tried - and like I said at the beginning: I don’t care what “philosophy” or “ideology” a tool for fixing this problem comes from – I only care that it works.
In conclusion:
And in the end, that’s where GamerGate and I will simply never see eye to eye, even if all the doxxing and harassing and sexism and bigotry were to suddenly go away… at the end of it all, GamerGate is premised on the idea that the transformation of gaming into a more inclusive space is a bad thing. That diversity is a bad thing. That the influence of feminist and “social justice” critique are bad for the medium. That gaming becoming (as it was once before, I once again point out!) less overwhelmingly dominated by retrograde masculinity, “macho” single-mindedness, reactionary militarism and Stern Daddy Figure patriarchal power-fantasy is a bad thing.
Whereas I look at all that and all I can think is: Yes, please, more of that! More progress. More activism. More change. More voices. More diversity. More types of characters. More types of reviews. Hell, more things being written than just scored “consumer-reports” style reviews. And yes… more attention to (and from) gamers who don’t currently get counted as “gamers.” And if some (even most – though it is nowhere near most) in the gaming press are more interested in covering, talking to, seeking out and spotlighting material that can speed that transformation along? I don’t call that “corruption” – I call that media-journalism performing its highest possible function: Encouraging both the medium and the audience to grow, progress and improve.
Because while I don’t believe that gamers should ”die” (and neither did the authors of the supposed ”Gamers Are Dead” pieces and you know they didn’t and pretending you thought they did so you have one more thing to be pretend-outraged about is shamefully silly) …y’know what, folks? The notion (factual or perceived) that “real gamers” should primarily refer to one type of person – specifically the angry, entitled, reactionary, change-fearing corporate apologist type of person – because “that guy” is easier for EA etc to shovel increasingly-empty experiences at for maximum profit?
That - the notion - cannot die fast enough.
I have a lot to say about the so-called “GamerGate” controversy, much of which I’ve already said but much of which I’d wanted the opportunity to say with more clarity. So to keep this from running too long (Spoiler Warning: I will almost certainly run too long, anyway) and losing your interest I’m going to forego the use of flowery “clever” segues between thoughts and lay this out categorically.
But if you’re impatient to get down into the comments and start debating what variety of heated-adhesive and which species of fowl would be best suited to my tarring and feathering and want the TL;DR version right-off? Fine: I think of GamerGate alternately as a joke that got infuriatingly out-of-hand and an outright campaign of hate and harassment either dense (or pretending to be dense) enough to think itself otherwise; and it’s goals (both stated and implied) are the exact opposite of the self-betterment that gaming desperately needs - and was (not accidently) right in the midst of achieving when this foolishness started. In short, I find it to be a wholly destructive thing with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
That’s the short version. If you want the long one, keep reading.
Firstly: To my “Gamer” bonafides:
I’ve been playing, following, studying and loving video games for about as long as I can remember. Some of the happiest moments of my childhood are centered around video-games. I’ve waited overnight in lines for video games. I got into stupid schoolyard fights about video games (kid, “GamerGate” ain’t nothin’ – I survived SNES vs. Genesis!) I saw The Wizard in movie theaters. I wrote a book about games. I do a silly internet show about games.
There’s an NES, an SNES, a Dreamcast, an N64, multiple variations of GameBoy/DS/3DS portables, a Wii, WiiU, Xbox360 and corresponding game collections in the room adjacent to where I write this, along with Genesis games for a clone console (which is also for running Famicom carts) and space reserved for a PS4 the next time I’ve got the money/time set aside. I’ve got Captain N: The Game Master on DVD. The whole run of the series. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, too. The first and last issues of Nintendo Power are framed on my wall. Would you like to know which currently-available breakfast cereal tastes exactly like the long-discontinued Mario/Zelda cereal from the mid-80s? Ask me. I have very strong, specific opinions about Mega Man.
So yes, I know my video games. And for a long time I was very protective of the idea of “gamer” as a cultural identity. Mostly, it was because I came up as a gamer in an era when devoted video game aficionados really did tend to be a specific subset of (then) youth-culture who were misunderstood and occasionally ostracized by the mainstream, and was smack in the midst of young-adulthood when the gaming Censorship Wars were going down – Joe Lieberman and Night Trap, Jack Thompson, that whole mess. I get the need to form “community” around shared interests and to strike a “wartime stance” when those interests (and, by implication, oneself) become a “target” of one kind or other.
But today? Sure, I can see why the “subfandoms” of gaming – your Final Fantasy acolytes, your Nintendo diehards, your master-level devotees of Pokemon, Starcraft, various fighting franchises, that one guy (or gal!) who’s still really, really into Bonk - still exist and serve a purpose… but when gaming is as mainstream and widely-spread as book-reading, movie-watching, TV-viewing and music-listening? The idea of “gamer” as a “cultural identity” honestly begins to sound a little… insipid, really. In a world where my mom and a Korean StarCraft pro are both “gamers” in as much as they both play games, there’s just no reason to still be acting like there’s a secret-handshake to get into the clubhouse (unless your “putting it back on” for a larf when attending an event like PAX.)
Especially when dicing ourselves up into “hardcore” and “casual” camps serves not the interest of “gamers” but of making it easier for the bloated, greedy Hutt’s that are EA, Activision, etc to market to us. Taking unironic “pride” in the hardcore-ness of your game-buying preferences is like being “proud” of how much money you’ve given to Coca-Cola over the years – enjoying the fruits of Capitalism doesn’t mean you need to start forming religious devotion to corporations. Or their products.
File that, because it’ll be important a moment or two from now.
Secondly: To my politics and/or philosophy:
Everything has a political dimension to it. Everything. Often implicit, sometimes also explicit, but always there – especially in places where it’s not “intended.” GamerGate has so many political dimensions (gender conflicts, class-stratification, age/generational disagreements, international unease, economics, the environment, you name it) it may as well have its own Unified Field Theory… but we’ll get to that.
I’m not an “apolitical” person. I have very strong, long thought-upon opinions about most important issues, and I vote/advocate/agitate/etc on their behalf when I feel it is necessary or I have something to contribute. What I don’t have is a particular allegiance to a specific political school of thought or “philosophy” outside of a very broad pragmatic view that broken or flawed things about a society or system should either be fixed or discarded and replaced in whatever fashion achieves the best result.
I respect the academic study of philosophy and the idea of esoteric/hypothetical debate over this or that point, but in the real world results generally matter (and have more lasting impact) than animating schools of thought. ”So do the ends justify the means?” Well, that depends on which ends and means we’re talking about on a case-by-case basis. For me, adhering with any rigidity to political “philosophy” or “ideology” is like being a carpenter who shows up to build a house but declares he will use only a hammer – no saw, no screwdriver, no wrench, no drill, just a hammer - because he is a “Devout Hammerist.” Sounds ridiculous, right?
So when I see something broken/flawed in society and am looking at solutions to fix/improve it, I could care less whether a solution is philosophically Capitalist, Socialist, Objectivist, right-wing, left-wing, Libertarian, Authoritarian, whatever - all I want to know is if it will work and what will the immediate effects be. Beyond that? There’s an imperfect world to keep improving and a better tomorrow to get to, and I’m for using every tool in the damn box (and inventing some new ones, when necessary) to get there. Fortune, after all, favors the bold.
So, then, to GamerGate.
What it is:
This is already feeling long, so I’m not going to mince words: Pretending that GamerGate did not originate as a slew of woman-hating (in the guise of being against “Social Justice Warriors,” of course) creeps gleefully and viciously attacking a female game developer (whom they already hated because they felt her game didn’t “deserve” a place in the Sacred Holy Temple of Steam) who then propped-up a façade of having done so “only” because of some noble commitment to fighting various other concerns (some legit, some only legit-sounding) that so-called “gamer-culture” had about game journalism to pad out their ranks and feign legitimacy doesn’t make it not so.
Furthermore, even if one were to consider the (demonstrably false) premise that “GamerGate” has grown in such a way that it’s problematic origin-point is no longer relevant enough to hold against it… well, it just doesn’t hold up. Setting aside the fact that real-life doesn’t run on some kind of weighted “morality points” scale whereby filling up your blue “good works” meter lowers/negates the red “evil deeds” meter; the “movement’s” actions hence reveal that it has remained very-much “on topic” from where it was at the beginning.
No one disputes that ethical issues plague journalism in the ever-shifting digital age, consumer journalism especially and games journalism in particular. But not only does “GamerGate” not seem particularly interested in many of the medium’s most prominent longstanding ethical concerns like stage-managed preview-events, lavishly-ornamented “review copies” or aggressively favorites-playing public-relations operatives (at least to any meaningful/visible extent); it often doesn’t seem to see them as a big deal at all.
Instead, GamerGate’s dragons to be slayed have all seemed to come from a small, specific set of niches: Mostly women (and/or male allies) aligned with “feminist” or “social justice” causes (racial/gender diversity, LGBTQ issues, etc) in either the journalism or independent game-development spheres; with the intensity of the attacks being largely dictated by a target’s popularity or visibility. The attacks (like all such attacks) come with a tiny fig-leaf of quasi-reasonable justification – initially the idea that certain games and developers were being given an unfair spotlight because they were on friendly-terms or ideologically-aligned with this or that journalist; or that in a worst-case-scenario were gaining dishonestly-positive review scores for the same reasons – that has by now spiraled out into laughably-elaborate conspiracy theories that by now involve (hilariously so) DARPA. At this rate I fully expect anti-fluoridation paranoia, anti-vaccination panic and David Icke’s ”Reptoid Hyptothesis” to become accepted-fact among GamerGate any day now.
Meanwhile, the pernicious (and exceptionally visible!) ways in which the corporate overlords of mainstream game-development can be observed to bend and warp ethics around the press (and vice-versa, in many cases) in order to control the narrative around their products appears to be something GamerGate regards as the industry functioning, well… functionally. That’s not to say that nobody who’s ever so much as clicked the “favorite” star on a Gate-hashtagged Tweet feels strongly about or has spoken out on these issues, but they certainly have not generated the organized, pre-planned “Operations” (complete with embarrassingly-hyperbolic co-opted military rhetoric) that were apparently warranted when it came to punishing Gamasutra for Employing a woman who said something ‘Gaters didn’t like.
In this way, GamerGate reveals itself to be fundamentally a reactionary movement, if not wholly a “conservative” one; not simply opposed to progressive voices in the games media because of what they have to say or which games they choose to say it about because of ideological disagreement (though that’s certainly a common enough thread as well) but because they threaten The Status Quo: Sure, EA isn’t exactly a “hero” to GamerGaters, but their sketchy behaviors are a “necessary evil” part of The Machine that keeps the flow of big, shiny, 60fps, multiplayer-focused, achievement-packed AAA blockbusters that defines so-called “hardcore gaming” coming. ‘Gate’s “core” variety of gamer hasn’t simply hitched their very identity to gaming, but to gaming as it exists right now as an ideal.
Whereas the “SJWs,” on the other hand, not only have less-than-flattering things to say about some of gaming’s biggest sacred cows, their perceived increased prominence (in terms of press coverage, at least) means that they could change the medium in some way. And it doesn’t seem to matter if that change comes in the form of developers listening to criticism about “problematic” issues and choosing to revise their presentations (which GamerGate claims to see as tantamount to “censorship”), or more games that don’t fit the “hardcore gamer” model finding success, or the demographics of game-consumers itself moving away from the absolute-dominance of 18-35 year-old males: Change is bad. The status quo must be maintained.
This helps to explain (in part) why the only remotely positive “real” press attention GamerGate has earned has come from minor-league players in the American conservative political sphere; mainly Breitbart.com’s Milo Yiannopolous (though he didn’t used to feel that way…) and American Enterprise Institute fellow Christina Hoff Sommers – a self-described feminist whose career consists almost exclusively of projecting nefarious motives onto the modern movement. GamerGate may or may not see itself as “right-wing” movement, but in framing feminism and social-justice as change-agents set to “corrupt” a functioning status-quo it aligns nicely with the general through-line of American cultural-conservatism – its “face” may be ”Vivian James,” but its soul is very much Sarah Palin.
”But I’m part of GamerGate and I’m NOT a…”
This is probably the most difficult part of all this.
GamerGate has been built (and yes, it was built – this is not an organic movement, it just wants to look like one) around a “playbook” of 21st Century activism so broadly-applied that you can find its mirror in everything from the Tea Party (right-wing) and Occupy Wall Street (left-wing) to Re-Take Mass Effect (enviable surplus of free time): A small core with very specific concerns/goals nudging the movements of much larger “outer shell” of seemingly-diverse concerns lured into the collective by appeal to personal causes (”Mom said you can’t play GTAV? Our hashtag includes that – welcome aboard!”)
So while a majority of GamerGate is almost certainly not “represented” by the outright-sociopaths directing “gamified” online harassment campaigns that drive outspoken female devs out of their homes “for the lulz” or the agenda-driven opportunists aiming at the same targets but for political reasons… those toxic, entirely-destructive forces are very much in the driver’s seat and thus the “movement’s” goals have remained toxic and entirely-destructive – as they were designed to. And if you “joined” GamerGate because of sincere (however misguided in my opinion) corners about journalistic ethics or “censorship,” you need to understand (or at least consider the possibility) that your sincerity is being used as both shield (irony!) and cudgel for ugly goals that you likely didn’t “sign up” for.
People don’t like to hear that. Everyone likes to think of themselves as autonomous and self-aware, at least to the degree where they can’t be manipulated into something they didn’t want to do or wouldn’t have done otherwise. It’s natural to feel defensive (”You callin’ me a sheep or something???”) but it happens to the best of us; sometimes in big ways like supporting a cause or voting for a candidate, sometimes in small ways like decided to buy one soft-drink over another.
What’s important is being able to acknowledge when it’s happened and take corrective measures if you find them necessary. At this point, I’m think it’s reasonable for even staunchly anti-GamerGate persons like myself to accept as possible the idea that a good number of people with legitimate concerns about the games industry and game journalism ethics who would not otherwise have become… “animated” about those concerns exist within GamerGate and would be well worth listening to and taking seriously apart from the white noise of the thoroughly-discredited “movement.” However! The first step toward being listened to/taken seriously for such folks would be to separate themselves from the true-believer ‘Gaters: You are not using GamerGate as a megaphone for your concerns – GamerGate is using your concerns as a silencer for its hate and harassment.
About “Corruption.”
…but let’s talk about what some of those concerns were.
Again, make no mistake: It is crystal clear that the attacks against Zoe Quinn that “birthed” GamerGate were about a devoutly-hateful subset of gamers believing that they had finally found A.) An opening to “take down” an outspoken developer they already despised that B.) could then be expanded to take down similar people and viewpoints within gaming culture. This cannot (and should not) ever be removed from any discussion on the subject.
But the sick genius of harassment campaigns like this is that the issues and concerns the progenitors feigned interest in actually are real issues and concerns. The gaming press growing bigger and more professional while also retaining a semblance of the close relations with its corporate subjects more befitting the fan/enthusiast press much of it grew out of raises a lot of problematic issues, particularly given the shameless willingness of some publishers to push the envelope on that particular codependent power-imbalance. The lack of unifying ethical guidelines (or genuine adherence to the same) is a worthwhile thing to question.
Above all else, the idea that journalism – even of something ultimately “trivial” like playthings (at the end of the day, folks, yes… we are talking about electronic toys here) – might be offering misleading or dishonest information to its readers/viewers in exchange for gifts or favors is about as fundamental a concern as one can have about the press. Any press.
Here’s where I stand: What used to be called “payola,” i.e. someone handing a critic an envelope full of money in the understanding that a positive review will be coming in exchange, is completely wrong and unethical on every conceivable level. No serious-minded person disagrees with this.
Everything else, though? Not nearly as clear cut.
On the one hand, game (and film, for that matter) companies sending out review copies of their products with lavish “garnishes” is gauche, and everyone knows what the intent of doing so is even if “being friendly” to a journalist isn’t (and shouldn’t be) illegal. On the other hand… since it’s also not “required” that journalists get the early access they often need to do their jobs, it’s also not feasible to start dictating terms to publicists for most outlets. All any journalist can be expected to do is disclose and be open about the circumstances of access, and for readers to cultivate a cache of trusted critics/reviewers; and to consider that while a devoted fan for whom games are a favorite hobby or a blogger/YouTuber just starting out a fancy resin bust of an orc might conceivably be something ”sooooo cool!” you’d go “easy” on a flawed game in (unasked for, I stress) appreciation for… that’s unlikely to be true for a professional who knows their credibility is one of the main things keeping a roof over their heads.
As to friendships/relationships between press and subjects? That’s been thorny for as long as there has been such a thing as journalism; and as much as I hate the phrase “There are no easy answers…” in this case, it’s true.
This is a place where I can only assume I’ll be breaking ranks with some colleagues: I think that the “ethics panic” in the early days of GamerGate may have nudged some areas of games journalism to take too hard of a line on inter-industry friendships. And while doing so is within the rights of publishers and individual journos… I think it does more harm than good.
I am a great lover of video games (see above); but as a critic/journalist I live more in the world of film. And in that world, the idea that the press would be walled-off from filmmakers on a personal level is regarded as absurd – and for good reason. Whereas major studios can spend billions to get the word out about their blockbusters, smaller and independent films rely on journalists who develop particular fondness for certain films and filmmakers as a big part of their quest for eyeballs. To put it bluntly: One of the main reasons you’ve heard of (now) major filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, Kevin Smith and (more recently) James Gunn is because they formed either fan-to-fan connections or outright friendships with critics and (recently) movie-bloggers who became (uncoerced) “advocates” for these then-upstarts and their work.
I happen to think it would be a huge mistake to restrict the potential of such relationships to yield similar results for gaming in the name of some hypothetical inoculation against accusations of “bias” later on. While I absolutely support critics who remove themselves from reviewing their friends’ work voluntarily out of personal policy or concern about the appearance of impropriety (and have done so myself – my casual acquaintance with some of the principals involved is mainly why you didn’t see me review The Angry Video Game Nerd Movie yet) well…
…honestly? The possibility that being friends (obviously romantic/sexual relationships are another matter entirely) with a developer might lead a journalist to be more “forgiving” of this or that flaw in some egregiously inappropriate way (oh lord, now I have to talk about freaking review scores…) is so miniscule (in multiple senses) as to be barely worth a thought next to the possibility that two people who love games – one an amateur critic, the other an aspiring developer – might “hit it off” at a gaming con and keep in touch over the years until one day the now-established critic looks into an indie game because they recognize their friends’ name in the credits and that’s how a great title that might’ve been overlooked otherwise becomes the next Minecraft.
Yes, “objectivity” is important. Obviously. But despite gamer culture’s (geek culture as a whole, really) tendency to assume that everything worth expressing about a work can be so expressed as a numerical equation… it’s just not the case. And no ill result of “bias” is worth sapping emotional connection, humanity or heart out of games journalism - whether it’s in the form of reducing all reviews to “objective” number scores with no aesthetic/emotive component or putting harsh restrictions on friend-making.
But what about “collusion?”
This is the big one, right? The one place where GamerGate’s feigned concerns for “journalistic integrity” (a joke when they treat this walking embarassment as the model modern journalist) and it’s actual concerns that the “wrong” people and viewpoints might “take over” their hobby. Is there “collusion” among gaming journalists and gaming academics of similar ideological stripes to “push” certain themes to the forefront and nudge the culture in a certain direction – and, if so, is that a problem?
I can’t really speak to the first question, since though I work for a gaming-centric site I’m primarily a film critic and my video-game show is… well, a bit silly. So I don’t generally get invited to those types of parties, suffice it to say. But I have a hard time believing the Illuminati-level type of conspiring people have imagined going on therein (seriously guys… DARPA!?)
But is it possible that games journalism and gaming academia are too ideologically similar in an “echo-chamber” sort of way? Oh, sure – I just don’t see anything “sinister” coming out of it. Annoying? Absolutely, I still get the shakes remembering that moment in time where people suddenly wanted “Ludonarrative Dissonance” to be a commonly-used term we talked about all the time. But some “progressive cabal” within gaming conspiring to nudge the medium into a decidedly different direction than it’s currently headed while simultaneously working to remake “gamer culture” in the same way? This Alex Jones nonsense? Nope, don’t see it.
Tell you a secret, though? I kind of wish I did. And by “kind of,” I mean I absolutely wish I did.
At the beginning of this piece, I outlined how much I love video games. You may have gathered that a lot of that love centers on the “retro” gaming of my formative years, and you may have assumed that this is because I am, in fact, a gigantic child. That’s probably true, but I also genuinely find that gaming (and gamers) have taken a sharp turn within the last decade so – roughly-parallel (but perhaps coincidental) to the decline of Japan as console-gaming’s driving force and the rise of the West in the same space – and become something that I increasingly don’t recognize and feel alternately bored and repulsed by.
I look at a medium where once upon a time I could walk into even an average-sized arcade and be presented the opportunity to play as men and women of many races and creeds (even ones that didn’t actually exist!) along with animals, robots and all manner of beings (ditto!) that has now devolved (in mainstream spaces) into an endless succession of the same gruff, boring Daddy Figure starring in variations on two or three genres and I think… how did we get here?
I look at a medium that once (however crudely at times) had ambitions to tell stories well beyond the expected capacity of Hollywood… but then I look at how Hollywood responded (overall) to The War on Terror with measured concern, criticism and even some outright condemnation of gung-ho militaristic zealotry, while video games response was simplistic military hardware-porn with endorsements by Oliver North (seriously!) and I think… how did we get here?
I look at a “gamer culture” that welcome me back when few did now largely seen to be circling the wagons to tell the “wrong” kind of people who may enjoy the “wrong” kind of games to just get out… how did we get here?
I look at a “gamer culture” that fought hard for the medium to be taken seriously as any other art form, but now seems in a hurry to abandon that victory if it means being culturally-critiqued… how did we get here?
I look at all that, with GamerGate as the last straw, and I think… Man, I wish there was a “progressive/feminist conspiracy” to remake games and game-culture! Because right now both of those things are in the worst shape they’ve been in since The Crash of ’83; and while I’ve had occasion to think (and indeed continue to think) that a second “crash” of this blighted mess the medium has become might be pretty damn beneficial overall… if and when it happens it’s going to be messy and painful. For a lot of people. Maybe everyone. I’d like to see anything that can be done to prevent it at least tried - and like I said at the beginning: I don’t care what “philosophy” or “ideology” a tool for fixing this problem comes from – I only care that it works.
In conclusion:
And in the end, that’s where GamerGate and I will simply never see eye to eye, even if all the doxxing and harassing and sexism and bigotry were to suddenly go away… at the end of it all, GamerGate is premised on the idea that the transformation of gaming into a more inclusive space is a bad thing. That diversity is a bad thing. That the influence of feminist and “social justice” critique are bad for the medium. That gaming becoming (as it was once before, I once again point out!) less overwhelmingly dominated by retrograde masculinity, “macho” single-mindedness, reactionary militarism and Stern Daddy Figure patriarchal power-fantasy is a bad thing.
Whereas I look at all that and all I can think is: Yes, please, more of that! More progress. More activism. More change. More voices. More diversity. More types of characters. More types of reviews. Hell, more things being written than just scored “consumer-reports” style reviews. And yes… more attention to (and from) gamers who don’t currently get counted as “gamers.” And if some (even most – though it is nowhere near most) in the gaming press are more interested in covering, talking to, seeking out and spotlighting material that can speed that transformation along? I don’t call that “corruption” – I call that media-journalism performing its highest possible function: Encouraging both the medium and the audience to grow, progress and improve.
Because while I don’t believe that gamers should ”die” (and neither did the authors of the supposed ”Gamers Are Dead” pieces and you know they didn’t and pretending you thought they did so you have one more thing to be pretend-outraged about is shamefully silly) …y’know what, folks? The notion (factual or perceived) that “real gamers” should primarily refer to one type of person – specifically the angry, entitled, reactionary, change-fearing corporate apologist type of person – because “that guy” is easier for EA etc to shovel increasingly-empty experiences at for maximum profit?
That - the notion - cannot die fast enough.
Kamis, 16 Oktober 2014
Sabtu, 11 Oktober 2014
Selasa, 07 Oktober 2014
Kamis, 02 Oktober 2014
Senin, 29 September 2014
(STILL) Under Construction
Alright. Starting to get back on track here.
Here's a review of "THE SIMPSONS GUY" crossover...
...and also THE EQUALIZER.
Here's a review of "THE SIMPSONS GUY" crossover...
...and also THE EQUALIZER.
Jumat, 19 September 2014
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Those who follow me on social media are no doubt aware that this particular Autumn is a busy time for me: Lots of work stuff, lots of family/personal stuff, all of it putting a certain premium on my time. In addition, I'm working toward a "revamping" of my blogosphere presence that will likely mean a rejiggering of my site(s) in general, but that's down the road.
In either case, I remain sorry for the lack of updates and can only assure followers/fans that I'm working to change course on that. Until then, here's this week's ETTM.
In either case, I remain sorry for the lack of updates and can only assure followers/fans that I'm working to change course on that. Until then, here's this week's ETTM.
Kamis, 11 September 2014
CHRISTIAN MINGLE: THE MOVIE Is A Real Thing
h/t Badass Digest
You've probably heard of ChristianMingle.com, but if not it's exactly what it sounds like: A niche dating site for Christian folks. Other than deriving a laugh here and there from their Hallmark-earnest TV commercials, I got no problem with that sort of thing existing... but I'm not sure it's something that requires a movie to advertise itself.
But, here we are.
CHRISTIAN MINGLE is, evidently, a feature-length commercial for it's namesake; though in the form of a romantic comedy about an unlucky-in-love career woman (Lacey Chabert - oh, that's too bad...) who dives into online-dating and meets The Perfect Guy... but with a catch: The site that matched them was Christian Mingle, and she's not actually a believer - so she tries to fake it. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that the film doesn't end with the would-be beau learning to tolerate and respect her non-belief.
Along with Chabert, the rest of the cast are the usual type of former stars and also-rans that tend to make cottage industries of the Christian film scene when not doing Lifetime or Syfy movies, notably David Keith and Morgan Fairchild. For some reason it's directed by Corbin Bernsen, who I'll always remember best as THE DENTIST.
You've probably heard of ChristianMingle.com, but if not it's exactly what it sounds like: A niche dating site for Christian folks. Other than deriving a laugh here and there from their Hallmark-earnest TV commercials, I got no problem with that sort of thing existing... but I'm not sure it's something that requires a movie to advertise itself.
But, here we are.
CHRISTIAN MINGLE is, evidently, a feature-length commercial for it's namesake; though in the form of a romantic comedy about an unlucky-in-love career woman (Lacey Chabert - oh, that's too bad...) who dives into online-dating and meets The Perfect Guy... but with a catch: The site that matched them was Christian Mingle, and she's not actually a believer - so she tries to fake it. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that the film doesn't end with the would-be beau learning to tolerate and respect her non-belief.
Along with Chabert, the rest of the cast are the usual type of former stars and also-rans that tend to make cottage industries of the Christian film scene when not doing Lifetime or Syfy movies, notably David Keith and Morgan Fairchild. For some reason it's directed by Corbin Bernsen, who I'll always remember best as THE DENTIST.
Selasa, 09 September 2014
Jumat, 05 September 2014
A Long Post About #GamerGate
Okay. So, right upfront, I feel like I need to say that I’m posting this to my own blogs on my own time under my own name and my own name only because its coming 100% from me. It’s got nothing to do with any person I work for or any of the websites/outlets/etc my work appears on. Nobody asked me to write this, nobody asked me not to write it, and you shouldn’t take anything I have to say as either endorsement or rejection of anything any other person or entity has said or not said on the matter – personally or as a matter of policy. Being a grownup, I’m perfectly capable and willing to work for and alongside people who disagree with me, so long as it’s amicable and mutually respectful. I have done so in the past, and I expect to do so in the future.
So…
The #GamerGate thing would seem to have gotten wildly out of hand, but that implies that it was ever “in hand” to begin with. Given that the entire thing began with a jilted boyfriend posting still yet-unproven allegations of his girlfriend cheating on him to the internet and only became a “gaming story” because the accused was an indie developer and one of the alleged paramours was a games journalist, thus giving the semblance of weight to otherwise outlandish long-held theories about how “arty” indie games are so beloved by (parts of) the gaming press but so commonly rejected by so-called “core gamers”… well, I question whether something with those beginnings can be said to have ever been “in hand” in the first place.
I can already hear some people jumping up to tell me that that’s not what it’s “really” about, that the origins were “just a spark,” etc. I hear you, and I will answer you. Keep reading, this is a long one – hence the blog instead of Twitter/Facebook/whatever.
It’s hard for me to “objective” about the organized campaign of harassment going on via social media, both before and now through the #GamerGate stuff. Mostly because so much of it is being launched against people who are my friends and colleagues, but also because it’s difficult for me to even find a proper way to respond – hence why I’ve occasionally been seen to resort to harsh language, angry name-calling or simply retweeting the anguish I’m seeing from others (those first two I’ve apologized for already, the third demands none.) The reason for my difficult is simple: To the degree that #GamerGate, or at least parts of it, aren’t just a loosely-organized blunderbuss being used shove female, LGBT, liberal/progressive etc voices out of game journalism; it seems instead to be seeking a solutions that can’t be implemented to combat a problem that doesn’t exist – or at least doesn’t exist to the degree that some believe it does.
THE ISSUE:
The demand, we’re told, is for an end to “corruption.” But the fractured nature of this so-called movement has made it abundantly clear that there’s no one single definition of “corruption” that seems to satisfy every complaint. You begin to get the sense that “corruption” or “lack of integrity” have become buzzwords seized onto by a coalition that knows it wouldn’t get the same attention or presumption of seriousness if they simply yelled “Pay attention to me and tell me my input matters!!!” into the void, even though that’s what’s down at the heart of it all – and, frankly, games journalism should have seen this part of it coming.
As has been elaborated on at length by others elsewhere, at the root of the problems many people see in the gaming press is the fact that it began as and still very much is “enthusiast journalism,” meaning that the existing structures and many of the most entrenched, powerful, respected individuals and entities therein started out from a place largely more of awe and eagerness than skepticism and a desire to turn over rocks and dig through garbage: People who loved video games and thus already thought they mattered and were important writing largely for an audience that already agreed on that point. See also: Sportswriters. Different lyrics, same tune.
What this means (in part – just clipped out a lengthy digression about another part because it was straying off-topic, may revisit if there’s room) is that it’s a type of press that’s innately invested in a narrative of reinforced positivity on two fronts: Not just reassuring the medium “you are important enough for there to be journalism devoted to you,” but also telling the audience (or helping the audience tell itself) that “this thing that means so much to you is important enough to have journalism devoted to it.” In the early days of gaming fandom – particularly before the (mainstream-available) internet – being able to leaf through a big thick “real magazine” like GamePro or EGM or even Nintendo Power was reassuring unto itself: “They made a whole magazine about games! Pages and pages of maps and reviews and columns and news! With writers and editors – just like they make for big important stuff like sports or politics or movies! Video games matter! This proves it!”
And just as the number one rule of “playing ball” with the makers of the product being covered is to never make them feel disrespected, the number one rule of reassuring an enthusiast press’s readership is to continually reinforce their sense of self-worth and importance: Don’t tell your audience that they are a problem, or should change their behavior, or anything else like that – even if it happens to be true.
Helpfully, for a long time you’d have been hard-pressed to find an instance where “gamers” (though we weren’t called that yet) were really a problem of any real kind. They were the niche “dedicated” customers of a niche medium that existed mainly in arcade cabinets set up as time-wasters in roller-rinks and pizza shops or on PCs and/or dedicated consoles that only some households ever owned; mostly kids, teenagers and tech-hobbyists adults. The only reassuring we needed – craved, in fact – was that games weren’t stupid and that we weren’t wasting our time with them; and if you could tell us that in the form of a caricatured “take that!” to a parent, teacher or authority figure who’d ever insisted otherwise? All the better.
THE WAR:
As I once offered as an explanation for the confrontational state of some gamers (among which I included myself) in a friendly conversation with a woman famous for socio-political analysis of video games (yes, probably the one you’re thinking of) that you can’t understand “gamer culture” without looking at it as a post-war veteranocracy. The entire notion of “gamer identity” as a singular thing (as opposed to “Nintendo fans,” “Sega fans,” “PC game fans,” etc) didn’t really exist until the 1990s, and it coalesced for one reason: The Censorship Wars. There was a very real possibility that figures like Jack Thompson were going to convince actual legal authorities to restrict or otherwise “clamp down” on video-game violence and the like, and only by assembling into a single unified front and pushing back were we able to hold it back from happening.
We won, but it’s now clear that the victory came at a terrible price: Since any criticism of games from a socio-political standpoint from “outsiders” was inevitably going to be seized on by Thompson etc as “evidence,” we trained ourselves to respond to such criticism in only one way: “No it doesn’t. You’re wrong. Games effect nothing. It’s just games. Go away.”
I think that was necessary at the time, in the same way that I think sometimes “civil disobedience” protests about far more important things DO have to break a window or vandalize a wall sometimes to get the point across: It was a “war,” at least as much of one as the situation could allow, we did what we had to do at the time. But afterwards, we should’ve turned it off. We should’ve moderated and figured out how to move our newly-minted “culture” forward. But we did not. Instead, we (“we” here meaning the presumed supermajority of self-professed “gamers”) contentedly let games grow bigger and bigger but not appreciably more thoughtful or (content-wise) diverse either in subject matter or development while we rested on our laurels – the rest of the media and academia paid us no mind because games were just dopey teenage boy stuff, and we were fine with that because the media and academia brought talk of politics and “isms” and we were just trying to have our escapism.
And we thought we were all together on that, still.
THE WAR AT HOME
So when people like Anita Sarkeesian showed up, it wasn’t so much like a bomb going off but a shade being flung open. For what it’s worth, while I consider Mrs. Sarkeesian a friendly acquaintance and I support her work, I don’t necessarily agree with every conclusion reached or theory presented in the Tropes vs Women videos. That having been said, I also don’t see what about them is supposed to be so frightening or “radical.” The points she’s both making and jumping off from are fairly mild and uncontroversial in any other context: Introduction to Feminist Theory 101 as-filtered through video games. In any case, my observation is that the “discussion” that each video touches off is actually the most helpful/interesting thing about them.
Like I said, a curtain being flung open: The light fills up the dark room, and suddenly you can see that everything isn’t as pretty as you might have thought. The truth gets revealed – and in this case the “truth” was not necessarily “ALL GAMEZ R TEH SEXIST!” but that “we” weren’t quite as unified as we’d let ourselves believe. As it turned out, there were people in “gamer culture” who already weren’t happy about a lot of the things Sarkeesian and others were talking about, and now had occasion to let the rest of us know. Ever been told that something about you or that you’ve been doing is making a friend feel uncomfortable and you’d never had the inkling that had been the case until just then? It’s not a good feeling, whether you think there’s “merit” to their discomfort or not.
That many of those speaking up were journalists of people working on the fringes of the industry was inevitable for many factors (let’s not mince words: Big-time gaming is an aggressively masculine business, and so the indie and “art game” scene is packed with women and LGBT folks for whom that’s not just the ground floor but the space where they’ll have the most opportunity), but it made the schism that much easier: “Real” gamers – the kind who played the traditional money-making hits that had turned the industry from a niche to a powerhouse – versus “those other gamers;” with the added bonus of this happening during a smaller, pettier “war” between casual and “hardcore” that had been fought in the forums during the rise and tapering-off of the Wii phenomenon. Your classic snobs versus slobs fight, but with a socio-economic inversion: “Snobs” that include mostly small devs and chronically underpaid writers versus “Slobs” (of the positively self-indentified “Caddyshack” variety) mainly constituting people with disposable income and the billion-dollar game companies who make their favorite games.
But as to the journalists?
THE “CONSPIRACY”
I understand how #GamerGate came to believe in the conspiracy theory that underpinned the first wave of the movement: “Gamer Culture” was, until recently (within the last decade or less, really) used to games journalism being more or less in line with itself ideologically, if not on every game. After all, game journalism in its present state has only really existed as long as “gamers” have, and for awhile it was a great double act: “I grew up playing Nintendo/Sega!” “As did I!” “Cool! That means your opinion is likely similar to mine! How’s this game?” “Here’s a graphics-number, a gameplay-number, a story-number and a total score!” “Thanks!” Simple as that.
But that’s the thing about criticism-as-journalism: Even if you come into it with the equivalent experience and taste of the average consumer, doing it for a living and experiencing more of the medium in a different way will inevitably change the way you look at it. This is why film critics are so eager to delve into independent cinema and foreign films and anything even slightly different from the norm: We watch more movies than the average person and we get sick of formula and familiarity faster. How many blockbusters did you see this summer? I saw them all, even the bad ones – I don’t need to see another actor outrun a green-screened fireball until at least the next Hobbit movie… and I like green-screened fireballs!
So it’s not surprising that the same would happen to the still young and evolving field of games criticism: All those mediocre Call of Duty, God of War and Assassin’s Creed clones you didn’t play because they got universally bad scores? Game critics played them. Is it really unbelievable that after doing that all damn day stuff like Flower, Gone Home, Journey, Depression Quest, etc would jump out at them and feel incredibly refreshing just by virtue of being different? The seeming affection for “social justice” (read: “liberal, but I’m not going to say ‘liberal’ as a slam because that’s what my FoxNews loving dad says and I’m totally not him because he’s all Jesusy and I read Dawkins!”) subjects like diversity and LGBT rights? Well, let’s be frank here: People coming from an academia background, especially in art/culture fields even including gaming… they tend to fall on the “progressive” side of things. You know it, I know, it is what it is.
I also get that, well… let me re-post a portion of a comment I left on a forum on the subject:
“90% of what any journalist (or critic, if we're being technical) will ever report on will involve people. Reporting on people means you have to talk to people, and talking to people often means for relationships of one kind or another to facilitate more direct, deeper discussion. Said simply: Sportswriters tend to become friends (and also enemies!) with athletes, coaches, managers, owners, etc. Food writers tend to do the same with chefs, cooks, vendors, etc. Film critics? Actors, directors, producers, technicians, grips, you name it. News reporters? Politicians, speechwriters, security personnel... you get the idea. These relationships are not just an unavoidable (if you're trying to do a good job) they are where much of the journalism comes from. When a news anchor says "sources tell us" or "insiders say," the "source" or "insider" they're talking about is generally not a bug on a telephone (that's illegal, in fact) or someone from their network crouched inside a crawlspace listening in on important business - it's a person they know, from whom they get information. Without exaggeration, this is how many if not most of the biggest and most-important news stories ever broken got broken.
It also means, yes, that journalists (being human) will occasionally have blind spots or a perspective colored by who they know and like - which is why you should get your information from as many sources as possible in order to get the most complete view possible.”
So… yeah. I get why people who don’t either work IN journalism or are only particularly passionate about one form thereof can look at things writers being on friendly terms (or more) with people in the medium they cover and see a shadow-conspiracy collaborating to push certain types of games or games of certain themes or “agendas”… but honestly, I’m looking and all I see is the regular bog-standard mechanics of an arts/entertainment journo community chugging along. You don’t have to like it – frankly, too much “like-mindedness” in media ISN’T a good thing, that I agree with – but that doesn’t make it The Illuminati.
Oh, and one more thing: As to “Death of The Gamer” thing? The language was probably needlessly harsh given the volatility of the moment… but I get where that was coming from. Seeing the mainstream media (or at least other parts of the “geek media”) put the spotlight on bad behavior by core gamers in the same timeframe as those statistics about half of gamers being adult women after all? I can see and even very much sympathize with some game critics getting excited at the prospect of having an audience of more diverse tastes to write for – an opportunity to write something beyond “Decent graphics, gameplay could use tightening, not as fresh as last year’s installment, 7/10” and still earn a living – and wanting to will it into existence.
I mean, as a film critic… if the “movie audience” was aligned as such that my reader/viewership wanted to hear about Transformers, The Expendables and NOTHING ELSE? And then I got the inkling that there was a chance the dam could break and I could suddenly ALSO be writing for people who might like to hear about Woody Allen or Werner Herzog once in awhile? Yeah, I might be inclined to get excited and preemptively dance on the “grave” of what’s already just a silly marketing label anyway. Inartful? Sure, but I get it.
THE DANGER
As mad as I am at seeing #GamerGate being used (either by design, by co-opting or by scattershot aim) to push good writers and devs out of gaming… I’m not “worried” for most of them. Good writers will find work, and if gaming refuses to be a safe space for them (no, dealing with psychopathic harassment is not “the toll” for being a person on The Internet, and if it is we should not accept it) they may be happier working in another medium. I hate the abuse, I hate the harassment, and that’s why I’ve occasionally said some harsh things to the abusers and harassers. I’m human.
But what worries me almost as much and definitely makes me as mad and depressed is what this means for video games. Spoiler: It ain’t good. Gaming is in a pretty stagnant, going-through-the-motions place right now – to the point that NINTENDO games, even though the company has been aesthetically jogging in place for almost 20 years, now look and feel radical compared to how homogenous everything else looks and feels. But at least people are trying. You can see, between the margins of the Assassins Creed games or in the fuck-it-all weirdness of Saints Row, that there are people INSIDE this creatively-mummified industry struggling to be better and more interesting – and you can see the people in the indie/art scene who, if given the chance, will help that cause as they gradually bleed into the mainstream scene. You can see members of the gaming press ACHING for better, fresher, more interesting stuff to turn their readers onto.
If “we” chase that out now –if #GamerGate is really going to plant this flag and say “No politics, no deeper themes, no difficult subject matter, just more shooty-shooty-jump-jump-chest-high-wall and power-fantasies for insecure teenage boys because that’s REAL video games” and chase out (regardless of whether that’s the intent) different voices and opposite perspectives as collateral-damage in a “war” against some nebulous phantom of “corruption?” That’s not good. We will lose an ENTIRE generation of the developers who will make the games that bring gaming to the next artistic and cultural level, AND we will lose an entire generation of the writers and journalists who will write the criticism that will make the world take a second look at this medium and realize there is worth and value here after all. Francois Truffaut, Jean luc Goddard and “Cahiers du Cinema” made the world realize that “Hollywood junk” like noir detective films were actually great art – wouldn’t it be great if an outside-the-box game critic were to show the world that Mortal Kombat was actually a work of subversive genius? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to lose that.
Furthermore, while I support the right of gaming sites and other outlets to “go after” as big or small an audience as they want AND understand the (short-term) business logic of catering to “real gamers” at the expense of “casuals” or emerging audiences in terms of marketing or editorial style/policy… I also think those that do MIGHT be hurting themselves, in the long run. “Gamers” like me are a big audience right now, yes, but guys in their early 30s with disposable income become guys in their late-40s with bills and expenses faster than you think, so there’s both a ceiling and a time limit on THIS particular money-spigot. Ask yourself: Would you rather be IMAGE Comics, unstoppably huge for just under a decade only to collapse into a niche/nostalgia shell of your former glory when the party ends? Or would you rather be MARVEL Comics: Friendly to longterm fans but also aggressively courting new audiences and new outlets, and as a result the biggest and most powerful entertainment brand in the world right now? That doesn’t seem like a hard choice to me.
This is probably too long. I hope you read all the way down. I love video games. I loved what they were when I was a kid, I like what they are now with some MAJOR reservations and I’m hopeful about what they can become… but now I’m also worried about what they can fail to become if this current insanity goes on much longer.
Games journalism is imperfect, but there’s no conspiracy and what some have convinced themselves is a conspiracy (the “pushing” of indie/art/progressive-themed games) I see as (when done in good faith, to be clear) a common critics desire to better/broaden their own medium. People critiquing what they see as systemic, unwelcoming flaws in the medium are not they enemy, even if “we” disagree with them. A bigger, more diverse industry’s worth of games for a bigger, broader audience doesn’t mean YOUR demo has to “die” even if some critic jokingly snarks in that direction.
We can be better. We need to choose to be better. I hope we do.
Thank you for your time,
Bob Chipman.
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