Video games are too big for their own good, according to “indie” game designers:
Video-game companies were once nimble trailblazers born in the countercultural spirit of the 1970s. But it didn’t take long for the industry to grow into a kingdom of conglomerates, spending tens of millions of dollars on big titles. Soaring development costs squeezed out small publishers and stifled creativity. “There are some great mainstream games, but they are getting to be fewer and further between,” says Rob Auten, who used to run video-game production for 20th Century Fox. “Our industry is probably more risk-averse than Hollywood. It is extremely difficult to break the patterns of the establishment.”
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Showcasing these flashy graphics requires bigger teams and more money, which has guided the industry toward safe prospects like licensed properties and sequels. Even when working on more original fare, the enormous teams that create today’s video games dilute artistic intention. There are exceptions like Will Wright, whose legacy includes The Sims, but they stand out because they are exceptions. “For the most part,” Rohrer said, “there’s no single person trying to bring a specific vision to life.”Making matters worse, according to Rohrer and others, video games fall into the trap of using the wizardry and craft of those big teams to emulate movies — bad movies at that. The narrative elements in today’s big games tend to be retreads of film-genre clichés. Or they’re extensions of actual film brands, like “The Godfather.” Rohrer calls this cinematic approach to video games “asymptotic”: in his view there’s no point in making video games as good as movies, because we already have movies. “Just as early film production copied the stage,” he said, video games have yet to escape the influence of film. “Eventually film figured out editing, camera movement — the tools that made movies movies. Video games need to discover what’s special and different about their own medium to break out of their cultural ghetto.”
The article recommends four small games:
- Jonathan Blow’s Braid
- Jason Rohrer’s Passage
- Thatgamecompany’s Flower
- Erik Svedang’s Blueberry Garden