The Artful Gamer

Although I’m a bit slow on the trigger, I’d like to pass along the news that the talented folks over at Retroaction Magazine have put together their inaugural issue of RETROACTION. If you are at all familiar with the fantastic print mag “Retro Gamer”, you’ll find Retroaction a comparable mag with the extra dosage of love that comes with a free publication wrought from the keyboards and minds of dedicated retro gaming fans.

According to the authors (one of which is our very own gnome of The Gnome’s Lair!), Retroaction will be issued one per season; four times a year. The first issue is roughly separated into four parts – a main feature on The Legend of Wukong (a new Sega MD/Genesis title), pretty darned in-depth coverage of the 2008 Retro Remakes Competition, a small feature on the UK-based television show “GamesMaster”, and a wonderful assortment of articles that focus on games for (mostly European) systems like the ZX ‘Speccy’ Spectrum, BBC ‘Beeb’ Micro, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, etc. Like any good retro gaming publication, the types of articles vary so much that I think anyone should find something they like in it.

Interested yet? Head on over to Retroaction and download the first issue (in Adobe PDF format). If you like what these dedicated authors and publishers have done, be sure to drop them a line over at their forums and let them know!

If you’re interested in what I think about Issue #1, read onwards…

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Yesterday, Brian Green over at Gamasutra posted his reflections upon the necessity of establishing “artistic legitimacy” for games. The article does not go into any depth or detail into what cultural/artistic/financial legitimacy actually means for people who are culturally/artistically/financially oppressed; instead it amounts to a bunch of rich kids screaming “You don’t understand us!” and “We hate living in this house!”

I apologize for my derisive tone, but I have never seen this degree of self-aggrandizement and self-pitied whimpering in all my time spent writing about, and criticizing, games. But really, does this kind of whining lend any legitimacy to developers at all? Besides – why has nobody asked if we really want legitimacy? Does legitimacy make good art? Since when was someone stopping developers from making games about the horror of war, or guilt and penance? I hate to rain on your parade here, Green, but most developers stop themselves from making artful games because they perceive a “small market” for that kind of thing. Brian Green claims that “we are stuck making works that can only be appropriate for children”. You say that you’re stuck in the children’s game business? Honestly, I’d like to see Mr. Green name 10 children’s games released this year that did not suck. Compare that to the hundred violent action games that were released, and made money, and we can start talking. Until then, this is self-deception to the nth degree.

Seriously. The folks of “Project Horseshoe” who came up with this idea need to pack up their sleeping bags, take their football, and go back home. Or move to Hollywood where you’ll get all the ego-stroking you need.

Note: Kumar Daryanani Arias posted a very insightful reply over at “Destral’s Blog”; it is worth reading in relation to Green’s article.

In this article I confront the New Games Journalism movement, and take a look at where it went. As a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek article over at Hardcasual.net parodies, it is becoming obvious that we produced a dysfunctional and narcissistic child. While I cannot pretend to have the “answer” or “fix” for our current crisis, I do offer what I think is a credible alternative. We need to open a dialogue on this issue, I think, instead of diagnosing and treating it like an out-patient. This involves our very identity as gamers, and without a hard look at ourselves we are at risk of repeating a long, uninteresting, history.

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This is a short post, in reply to an articulate exposition of the concepts of “szujet” and “fabula” by Corvus over at Man Bytes Blog. His patient and detailed consideration of fabula – a theoretical consideration of the narrative order of events – gives us an idea of what the Russian formalists had in mind when they conceived of narratives and stories. So please, head over to Man Bytes Blog and read his post and the comments to it before continuing here, as I will respond to his analysis of narrative as best I can. I apologize if this seems a bit of an academic conversation, but I think we are in ripe territory for a powerful re-imagining of what the story means in relation to storytelling in games.

Note: This is way too long, but it is the quickly-written culmination of six years of study in my life. I’d like to thank Corvus for launching us into the heart of the problem concerning stories and games. Without the kind of community that has come together through Man Bytes Blog, this quality of discussion would never be possible.

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