Last week, Anthony Burch over at Destructoid put out the latest entry in his “Rev Rants” series.  In these short videos, Mr. Burch picks whatever aspect of gaming is weighing on his mind and gives a spirited “rant” about what’s wrong with it.  In his most recent rant, Mr. Burch declares that it’s time for video games to just stop being about “fun,” and that they need to tackle more serious matters.

Already a lot of people have reacted to this piece, and while I am not David Jaffe, I too have been thinking over his words and my reaction to them.  Mr. Burch makes many points that I agree with, but I find that, overall, he is arguing on somewhat flawed grounds.  While I won’t call this a rebuttal, I’d like to take the time to go over some of his points and where I feel they are mistaken.

BIG GUNS AND BIG THOUGHTS

One of Mr. Burch’s main points is that, in his estimate, 90% of games that come out these days are “juvenile fantasy;” violence-filled romps of mayhem.  While the actual percentages can be quibbled over, I would concede that, in general, he is right; games about shooting things, be it nazis, aliens, or alien nazis, do tend to dominate the current gaming landscape.  However, if we step back and take a look at popular titles over the last few years, it can be seen pretty clearly that these aren’t the only titles that are selling.  Pokemon titles still remains a top-selling mainstay when they come out, sports titles (especially of the Madden-ilk) are always strong sellers (whether these count as juvenile or not is another discussion), and titles like Wii Play and Wii Fit have had some of the strongest numbers of any titles out there in recent memory.  So, yes, your Gears and Gods and Halos of War do continue to sell like gangbusters, but they are certainly not alone on the charts.

I think much of this argument stems from a tendency among many “serious” gamers to dismiss the Wii and casual gaming in general as something that doesn’t count in the broader sense.  I view this as a flawed way of thinking, as while you personally may not consider casual games as relevant to your interests, the money generated by them is certainly relevant to developers.

More importantly, though, I think that Mr. Burch is not taking a long enough view of gaming history.  What is popular in gaming is an ever-shifting affair; what’s hot today may not be hot tomorrow.  Take, for instance, adventure games. When I was younger, they were coming out with adventure game hits left and right.  Yet, somewhere along the line, it all began to fade away; fewer and fewer adventure games came out, and the ones that did weren’t exactly raking in the profits.  Just a few years ago, one could easily find a handful of articles every week around the web proclaiming the “death of adventure gaming.”

Now, just recently, adventure games have been making a comeback.  While they might not be toppling Halo off the top of the charts, they are making enough money for these developers to keep making them, and enough to encourage other developers to get in on the action.

The point is: things change. Saying that only macho power-trip games dominate the scene is both not entirely accurate and something that should not cause too much worry.  A few years down the road, we may be complaining about there being too many strategic Napoleonic war titles; it’s all up to the ever-shifting whims of the people.

THE CITIZEN KANE OF GAMING

The larger point that Mr. Burch keeps coming back to, and the one that I take more issue with, is one that I have heard from far more sources than just Mr. Burch: that games need to be more like movies.  In this context, Mr. Burch says that movies serve as something more than simply idle entertainment, and that they have the ability to emotionally effect us, as well as teach us something about the human condition.  This, he argues, is what games need to aspire to be, that “the Citizen Kane” of games must be made.  I most certainly agree that movies do possess all of the aspects that he mentions, but I disagree as to the idea that this is the ideal games must aspire to.  In fact, the game and movie industries are already pretty similar to begin with.

While movies do have emotional resonance, any quick survey of a compiled list of recent titles will show you that is certainly not true of every movie that comes out; perhaps not even true of the majority of movies to come out. In any given year, there will be a number of “deep” movies, movies that can move the heart and touch the spirit, but they are going to be heavily outnumbered by movies that feature robot dogs humping people’s legs.  And, statistically speaking, the movies with leg humping probably make more money than the movies about the human condition.

The truth is, though, that all these types of movies exist side-by-side, and the presence of one does not preclude the other.  For every Milk that comes out, there are probably two or three (or more) Paul Blart: Mall Cops, but that doesn’t mean that the Milks won’t get made.  Plenty of independent cinema (and thoughtful non-indie cinema) exists at all levels of quality, from those supported by the big studios to those that may never play beyond festival circuits and direct-order DVDs.  The films are still made because the filmmakers love what they do, and they go in with the knowledge that, yes, they probably won’t beat out a Spider-Man 7 at the box office, but at least they will have gotten their story out there.  And, sometimes, they really do take off in ways no one expected, and something like a Little Miss Sunshine is a name that everyone suddenly knows.

My point here is that, yes, powerful, resonant movies exist, but on a day-to-day basis, and in monetary returns, they are overshadowed by mass-market schlock.  Yet they persist, and in the long run, they are often the ones remembered fondly down the line.  In the gaming world, we too have our mass-market schlock, mostly centered around the violent man-boy-gun themes that Mr. Burch addresses.  Mr. Burch asserts that the dominance of these games is holding gaming back from growing, and there I must disagree with him.

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

The issue here, once again, is business: the big development houses, much like the big studios, are going to make what sells, and currently the big money is in shooting, sports, and casual titles.  That said, there is nothing preventing smaller, more “artistic” indie games from being made, and they, in fact, are released with increasing frequency.  What Mr. Burch seems to believe (in my interpretation) is that, even though they exist, they do not really matter until they have achieved the level of sales of something like Halo 3.  I think indie games are more than capable of being meaningful, and even influential, without selling millions of copies.

It is a question of influence; a game like Passage would not (despite Mr. Burch’s claims) cut it as a $60 full retail game (much of its effect comes from its brevity).  However, I think the real value of Passage comes from those that see it, play it, and are perhaps inspired by it.  Some of those may go on to become game designers of their own, and they too might then work in some deeper themes to their games, which may in turn inspire others, and so on, and so on.  Who is to say that, some many years down the line, Gears of Gods XII might not be a title in which you slay ancient Greek aliens, but also experience a heart-rending tale of love and loss?

Ultimately, it will be an organic process.  The games industry, compared to the movie industry, is a young one.  It is still very much growing, and very much changing.  Mr. Burch demands an immediate surrender to his position, going so far as to call everyone who denies him “cowards,” but from my own point of view, I see it as an constantly evolving process.  The truth is, mass-market appeal will always dominate (that is the very nature of the mass market), so demanding that the masses yield to your tastes is a pointless fight – the real strategy is to seek out what you do enjoy, support it how you can, and perhaps even participate in the process.  Mr. Burch, like myself, aspires to be a game designer, and has already released a game of his own.  Why stop there?  Instead of ranting, get working, and do what you feel is right, and perhaps you will get to be the one that does find a foothold in the masses.  Or, failing that, at the very least you may inspire someone else.