Gambit Op-Ed – 7/31/19
There was a time not all that long ago where there was an honest debate about whether video games are art or not. Those on the art side of the debate had a lot of ammunition with games like Blue Ocean, Journey, Abzu, Portal, anything that Shiny ever developed and so on. Those on the opposite side said games are simply made to make money and have disposable fun I’ve never sided with the games are art as video games were created to make money and be a disposable entertainment medium. That said, while I don’t think video games are art, I do think they can be art.
That was my position for such a long time, at least until the tail end of this console generation. I was there when horse armor was introduced and I ignored it, I was here when DLC was introduced in favor of the expansion pack and passed it off, I was here when the season pass came along to allow publishers to sell unfinished games for full price to my disappointment, and I was here when loot boxes brought gambling to children across the globe. But it’s this new games as a service craze has killed the idea that video games are art.
Never before has there been more AAA games released that lack a heart and soul. They offer nothing under the surface and I can’t remember the last time a wrote a review on a AAA game where I noted that you could feel the passion and love the designers had put into its creation. We live in a paint-by-numbers era of video game creation where hundreds of people create the same thing over and over again and are disposed of when that paint-by-numbers game does not sell millions.
What’s worse is that people seem to be fine with it. We used to live in a world where there was always a Citizen Kane, a 2001: A Space Odessey, a Blade Runner that would come out, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, or at least not as often. Imagine a studio in 2019 pitching a game like The Last of Us? There’s simply no way that game would get made at an EA or Ubisoft because it could not be monetized post-release. There’s no way you’d get a game like God of War today without already having an established fan base.
The games as a service line is to sell you a piece of pie and then try to continue to sell you more piece until maybe someday you get the whole thing. A lot of people out there might be okay with this sort of concept as there’s nothing wrong with making money. But that’s just it: making money. When you break up a game, break up the vision of a designer or designers, you lose the heart and soul of a product.
The Silence of the Lambs is a fantastic movie, but it wouldn’t be quite as impactful if it was cut down and filtered so that more people could enjoy it. It wouldn’t be as great if you paid for a movie ticket and then a quarter of the way through the screen faded to black and you needed to wait for another six months if you wanted to pay for another part of the movie. But if you want to see it sooner you could get the Silence of the Lambs season pass to see it a week sooner, get some neat swag that costs nothing and save yourself a few bucks.
And that’s how they trick players, especially the younger ones. These publishers are providing gamers deals not and are not taking away half a game only to then give some of it back for extra money to serious fans. Games as a service isn’t the fault of publishers like EA and Ubisoft, but it lies on the backs of gamers that are okay with it and with people like me who ignored it when Bethesda offered up totally optional horse armor that was purely cosmetic. And we already know kids aren’t bright when it comes to these things and will do whatever it takes to get to a product. Hell, just look at Fortnite and the skins game.
It’s all about making money. This means that if Bethesda released horse armor and nobody purchased it they would return to the old formats if their bottom line was in danger of taking even the most minor of hit. But it didn’t; it increased. Look at the era of the PS2 and a lot of the Xbox 360. Games completed, printed onto discs and released to the masses. Developers and publishers benefited from taking the time to offer a complete package in the best possible form so that they could then sell you an expansion pack on PC, or a follow-up on consoles.
In 2019 that isn’t even an option on the table anymore with most publishers, or lack of publishers in the AAA space as the industry is consolidating. Because people bought onto the horse armor train, bought onto the DLC train, are okay with a broken game that “might” get fixed down the road. People are buying games because they know the brand. Just look at Call of Duty and how far down the games as a service hole it has fallen. Their remake of Modern Warfare Remastered has microtransactions, an idea that wasn’t even around at the time of the original.
“I’ve been inundated with ads for their new Diamond Casino on my favorite podcasts that have nothing to do with games.”
They took what many consider a work of art in Modern Warfare and monetized it where it wasn’t before. They need to make more money off the consumer even after they purchased their product in full. And I’m not even mad are free-to-play games as I’ve enjoyed a few over the years. But when you implement that sort of format into a game where it wasn’t before you now begin to lose the plot. Money drives this industry and its money that will lead to the next video game crash that just over the horizon. I’m not saying that video games will go away, but the current state of the industry is simply unsustainable.
Art is art. It’s created to promote the vision that a person or small team has. I can look on my shelf right now and pull out half a dozen games that would never be able to be made in today’s microtransaction market. Metal Gear Solid would never happen, but it’s a good example as Metal Gear Survive is what you get when games as a service become the standard. Just look at the joke that Grand Theft Auto Online has become. I’ve been inundated with ads for their new Diamond Casino on my favorite podcasts that have nothing to do with games.
Rockstar has no need to begin work on the next Grand Theft Auto because there is no money in it at the moment. And this scares me for what the next GTA might look like. This current GTA Online is about as gross as it comes. The games as a service format is on full display with an honest to god casino in the digital space. You can spend and lose real money gambling but without the chance to win anything of any real value. I love Vegas and even though I know I’m going to lose more often than not, there’s the potential of winning real money that I can then use to pay my mortgage or hoard more skittles.
When a publisher or studio is more concerned about finding ways to extend or open up new revue streams you lose all the artistic merit that the game is supposed to be. These companies also leverage games as a service as a way to control their games and bypass or get rid of software licenses. You probably have games in your library that will eventually die when the money stream ends and you’ll never be able to play them again as you are essentially just renting the product.
Video games aren’t art and in this next generation, I fear we will see the end of artistic vision on the whole in the AAA space. If you don’t believe me just look back at 2018 and 2019 and tell me the artistic value or merit of any AAA games that released that didn’t have an established IP behind them. Yes, there is an indie market and 95% of the games I play for enjoyment come from that market, but sales numbers show the indie market isn’t enough to sustain the current video game development model. It’s there for AAA publishers to pillage and then shut studios down.
I love Mass Effect and Red Dead Redemption a whole lot, but not at the expense of the health and lives of those people working on them. I’m okay waiting a few extra months if that means lives don’t have to be ruined. I’m okay not buying every bit of content so that these teams can not sleep under their desks and get tossed aside like a cheap date. I’d like artists and designers to go home to their families at night. My need to make a character run around in an earth-tone world isn’t as important and the mental health of a human being making it.
Let these talented people create art and make fun games. It’s unfortunate that that really can’t happen anymore in the AAA space. I just want to play a game that’s fun and every day it seems like publishers are making the experience less and less so. Say what you will about Nintendo and all their faults, but at least they understand that video games should be fun and complete experiences.
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