Darkwind Media Blog

Well, the heat here in Rochester might not make sleeping all that comfortable, but it certainly can make for nice photos (coming soon.) We have moved / are moving into our new offices here in Rochester to accommodate our slightly growing staff. One quarter has come to a close and we are ready to hit this summer running. We are going to be wrapping up some external and internal projects in the next few months as well as continuing our R&D in some advanced visualization and interactive technologies. We are thrilled to welcome Chris Cascioli to our team who will most certainly prove his weight in gold as we integrate his graphics and game programming talents into our work here. We are also thrilled to have Mathew Mikuszewski in house with us now who will be a major player in our web services. With all this full time work expect some really interesting updates from the Darkwind Media Blog in the coming months …

Every year the film industry follows a certain cycle that is incredibly predictable. When summer rolls around the film studios release their large-budget films. These films cost a considerable amount of money to make, and predictably bring the studios back most of the revenues they collect for the entire year. When autumn arrives the entire character of American cinema changes. Most of the larger studios have already pushed out their blockbusters. Instead, as Oscar season approaches, a new kind of film comes to the theaters. These are more somber, dramatic, thought-provoking, character-driven instead of epic, flashy, and effect-filled. The fact that these types of more serious films are released later in the year so that they are fresher in the minds of the Academy is irrelevant. Their existence alone is important to note.

It’s critical to recognize that there is a fundamental difference between the summer blockbuster and the autumn “Oscar-bait.” Both kinds are entertainment, yes, but they are different in many ways. I’d make the claim that fun and entertainment are not one and the same. Both kinds of film are entertainment, but blockbusters are meant to be fun. This is an important, though maybe minute, distinction that will be critical for this discussion.

How, if at all, does this relate to gaming? The answer should be fairly obvious, as gaming is but one member of the larger entertainment industry, sharing space with films and books. Gaming is the newcomer, the youngest, and it is without doubt useful to look to the more matured forms of entertainment for lessons. I’ve discussed films above, though books can teach just as much or more, and I will allude to some literature later in the discussion. But, for now, we can focus on how films can be contrasted with gaming as it is produced today.

It is trivial to match up Halo 3 with film counterparts like Transformers. Halo 3 is the very essence of a blockbuster: high-cost, high-revenue, effects-filled, and fun. Whether or not you think Halo 3 is a shining example of gaming, a great blockbuster of this industry, is not important. There are many genres of gaming, just as there are many genres of film, but there are very few that stray far from the blockbuster formula, regardless of whether they achieve blockbuster sales figures.

If you can see where I’m going with this then I’d like to offer first a few consolations to appease any dissenters. I am aware and follow with great interest the serious games movement, and the use of games as something other than entertainment alone. I concede that not every game is a Halo 3 clone or pretender (having earlier noted the many genres of games, I am speaking now as to the character of the game itself). However, there is still a substantial lacking in games that cries out for further discussion.

We’ve paired a representative from gaming with a similar sample from films. I wonder now if we can do it again with that other flavor of film. I would love to find the equivalent of Schindler’s List in the world of games. Is there no analogue for A Beautiful Mind or Crash? I don’t believe I’ve ever played a game with the same emotional impact, and I continue to be baffled as to why. It is without doubt that some would claim games intrinsically lack the ability to act as vehicles of emotional gravity as these films do, but I cannot accept that.

All of this is no doubt tied in some form to the maturity of gaming. Films, and most certainly books, have come of age. They’ve matured and been accepted and become respected and revered forms for communicating our thoughts to each other. I cannot say I feel games are receiving the same respect. The fact that the average gamer is not a teenager (far from it) is not what I mean by a mature medium. The fact that games are even questioned as avenues of artistic expression screams that we have not yet convinced ourselves of their power. What I mean to say is that games, it is time to grow up.

Now, I don’t want to seem condescending, because the last thing I aim to do is belittle the great work developers have been doing and are doing right now. But I would like to point out that more can be done. There is so much more we could say with games that we are not saying. There is much more I want to say with games than what is being said.

So, to all those who are making great, imaginative, artistic, and fun games: keep up the great work. Perhaps, sometime in the future someone (and I do hope it is me, but I concede it might not be) can introduce you to a kind of game you may not have even realized was missing.