Water Cooler Games - Art does not take exit surveys

Art does not take exit surveys
April 16, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

I should be frank: I'm actually a bit tired of hearing about Super Columbine Massacre RPG. That's not because I don't support the game -- I was one of its earliest supporters, and I remain impressed and intrigued by the way the game attempts to put the player in the disturbing shoes of Harris and Klebold. Rather, I'm tired of seeing conversations sparked by SCMRPG that only advance theories about games in general, instead of making actual critiques of this particular game itself.

The latest volley is from Will Interactive CEO Sharon Sloane, who recently wrote an opinion piece about the game on industry trade site Gamasutra. You can read the piece for yourself, but here's the part I'm most bothered by:

The point is not that games cannot cover serious subjects. The point is that if they choose to do so, they must do so in a considered way that is not about what the developer wants to convey, but is about what the user will feel and come to believe based on age, circumstances and personal experiences.

The increasing industrialization of all art contributes to opinions like this, which seem to hope that all expression can be made into science, guaranteed "effectiveness" and "results" that can then be measured against some known standard. I even devoted the last chapter of my forthcoming book to a commentary on this state of affairs. If all that "serious games" comes to mean is educational drivel produced to exemplify the latest learning theories then you can count me out.

Art is not supposed to be comfortable. Art is not supposed to be a "positive educational experience," to use Sloane's words. Art must be allowed to be disturbing and dangerous. It must be allowed to make us uncomfortable. There is a place in art -- and in games -- for work that speaks on its own, without appeal to authority, educational standards, psychology, or anything else. Designing solely for reception is a weakness we must overcome.

I made this point at the end of Georgia Tech's Living Game Worlds III symposium last month, and I'll make it again here: discussing how games do or should be created or received, in the abstract, is not useful. Discussing how and how well specific games succeed in their attempts at representation is useful. That's what we call criticism, and it's something we desperately need more of in games in general.

The world is a messy place, and we don't always, or even often, get to make sense of it in a clean way. We have to get our hands dirty. Art is one way to help us do that. And art does not take exit surveys.

Comments (4) | Post a Comment | TrackBack (0)

Comment from Ben Sawyer on April 15, 2007

"If all that "serious games" comes to mean is educational drivel produced to exemplify the latest learning theories then you can count me out."

Me too!

My speech at USC next month will deal with this as best I can. It's driving me nuts.

Comment from Patrick Dugan on April 17, 2007

I think if we're going to talk categorically, we need to demarcate "serious" games and "art" games. SCMRPG! is an art game. I could sayng Gears of War fails as a casual game, its true, but its not relevant to a critique of Gears of War. Punk fails as relaxation music, but whatever.

Comment from Borut on April 17, 2007

Tried to track this back, but apparently my blog doesn't use http post and I'm enough of a blog newb that I don't want to screw with it.

http://www.plushapocalypse.com/borut/?p=29

To Patrick's point, we really shouldn't be combining the sort of "games" WILL interactive makes with "art" games. I'm not particularly happy with the notion of having to categorize them as "art" games, but it's still better than lumping them in with "serious" games.

Comment from DannyLedonne on April 17, 2007

While I appreciate the fact that Sharon took the content seriously, I do think the idea that games should be packaged experiences with prescribed results is a worrisome one. This isn't a problem limited to games, by any means; so often a book or a film is measured by the expected effect it will have on an audience and thus any other outcome somehow indicates "failure" on the part of the artist/author.

Truthfully SCMRPG evoked reactions I never expected (while outrage was certainly one of them, appreciation for games as an art form was not). The fact that SCMRPG gave people unique, unpredictable experiences while playing it was not disappointing to me but rather it was validating and reassuring. I don't want to make art that gives a "predictable" reaction and I am not alone.

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