With that spirit in mind, we decided to make some New Year’s resolutions for the videogames industry as a whole. We’re optimists here at PALGN, and we like to think that the industry is improving with every year. However, today provides an excellent moment to take a look back at 2007 and a look forward to 2008. What are the bad habits the videogame industry should be kicking?
Shorter, cheaper games
Portal was a revelation in more than one way. It was a clever, reflexive, and highly enjoyable game. But what made it most interesting, though, was that the developer didn’t feel the need to expand it into a full $100 package. Portal was four hours for one playthrough, which meant that most gamers finished it within days of buying The Orange Box. This had a not unreasonable impact on the popularity of the game; the fact that most who had bought Portal could talk about the entire game meant message boards (including our own) were inundated with jokes about the Companion Cube and that mythical cake. Ultimately, Portal’s length meant it was the most accessible out of The Orange Box, and is still the game most likely to be played when first booting it up.
Portal - an indicator of the future?
Similarly, if gamers picked up more than two of the pre-Christmas glut of releases, and do something other than play games with their life, then surely there is an incomplete copy of an $80-plus game lying around the house. People don’t have time to finish more than one 20-hour game every few months, especially as the average gamer’s age continues to rise into times when presumably players have careers to worry about. If gaming is to become more mainstream in 2008, it can keep the occasional Mass Effect, but it needs to have more than the occasional Portal.
Similarly, paying $100 for a game is not something people want to, or can do regularly. The success of the DVD industry would indicate that consumers are very comfortable about spending $30 or less on a regular basis. The games industry is clearly established and successful on its current pricing of about $100 for a new release, and as such is unlikely to change. However, we’d like to see the effect a quality, four-hour, $30 new release would have in 2008.
Better storylines
Seemingly, videogames have been making the resolution for better storylines for years now, only to break it hours after the New Year’s Day hangover wears off. The plot of a videogame is indisputably often laughably bad (clearly illustrated by numerous game-to-film conversions over the years). In 2007, there were several clear attempts to rectify this. Bioshock, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, and Kane and Lynch: Dead Men all represented attempts at either original plots, settings, or characters. Despite this, plot almost always remains a secondary force to gameplay. We are yet to see a game that truly exists to tell a great story as well as being a great game. Even the list of ‘games that were considerably impacted upon by good plotting’ remains easily countable over two hands. Mass Effect, probably the prime contender for storyline of the year, was still let down by some one-dimensional characters cribbed from Hollywood. Assassin’s Creed had the advantage of a setting almost untouched by film and literature, but felt the need to add superfluous Sci-Fi elements and dialogue that can only be described as woeful.
Not every game needs to tell a good story. But when a game puts its force of narrative down as a major credential, it simply needs to be better than we’ve routinely seen so far.
The Christmas games glut - how many did you finish?
Better adaptations
When a novel is being adapted for the big screen, creative types spend hours pouring over questions like, “What is the emphasis we should be drawing out?”, and “How can we best retain the spirit of the original while still making something fresh?” When a film (or less frequently, a novel) is being adapted as a videogame, it seems the questions are more likely to be “How can we get this out in time for the film?” and “Is it a platformer or an adventure game?”
For too long now, ‘film adaptation’ has translated to ‘avoid’ in gaming circles. Too many nasty and cheap conversions mean that more often than not, a game-of-a-film will rightly hit the bargain bin within a few months of release. However, videogames present an amazing amount of possibility for adaptation: a great reworking of Blade Runner, for example, seems obvious, as the themes of the film (and novel) focus on the delineation between human and android. What better way to express that than in a game, where everyone except the protagonist is controlled by artificial intelligence? The recent Simpsons Game was a lesson for all adaptations - it perfectly captured the humour of the show, but applied it deftly and appropriately to the game.
The Simpsons Game wasn't perfect, but it was a lesson in using a license.
Gender
We know, it’s been done to death, but the representation of women in most games is still embarrassing. By and large, women exist in the game world as objects derelict of physical imperfection. Ever seen videogame cellulite? Didn’t think so. A female protagonist will be presented in third-person, while a first-person protagonist will almost always be male (notable exception: Portal). These are just basics that should be fixed.
It goes beyond this, however. If videogames ever go mainstream, they must change their target audience. Titanic was so incredibly successful because it targeted all demographics: there was a love story, violence, historical significance and an epic setting and effects. Quite literally, something for everyone. Videogames must get over the notion that males like violence and destruction, while females like collecting and caring. In terms of marketing, the industry is also heavily segregated: Pink DS’ are for girls, Gears of War is for boys.
Homosexuality is still near-invisible in mainstream gaming. More often than not, the only time you'll hear the word 'gay' is as an insult within gaming culture. Mass Effect is popularly seen as Bioware's attempt at making a more mainstream game, and in contrast to their previous effort Jade Empire, the option to play as a gay character was removed. It's still possible to play as a lesbian, but in all likelihood this was retained so that males playing as females could still enjoy the company of the female characters of the game, rather than any statement about lesbians in space. Surely there are gay players, critics and designers out there. It's time they were given a voice.
In all likelihood, these resolutions will still need to be made come December 31 2008. There is hope, however. 2007 was an outstanding year for new IPs - a resolution that someone in the industry surely must have made after Mario Party 35. We also started to actually see a new generation of gaming come to light, rather than the same gameplay with improved graphics that we had in 2006. And as we said - we’re hopeful for gaming’s future. There are just a few points here and there that we need to fix up before we get a few years down the track and realise we’re churning out the same games as in 2007. Now, hold hands with the nearest person, charge your glass, and get ready to sing at far too loud a volume. It’s going to be a hell of a year.
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