Walking into X11 yesterday, Microsoft’s holiday video game preview event, I had a long-standing suspicion of mine confirmed: There is currently a civil war going on in the world of video games.
Held at the glitzy Muzik club on Toronto’s lakefront, it was hard not to notice the schism. On the right was a dark, crowded room, hot and sweaty, full of glossy big-budget games replete with complex controls and stylized, high-tech graphics. And on the left, was a cool, sparsely occupied room full of Kinect motion control games, simple and often aimed at kids and families.
It’s that division between traditional gaming, complicated and brash, and casual games, accessible and plain, that has come to define the modern gaming world. And for its part, Microsoft is doing its best to live in both worlds, attempting to appeal to core gamers and new entrants to gaming with Xbox 360 add-on Kinect, the wildly successful casual add-on that tracks the movements of players bodies and turns it into action on screen.
Of the former, ‘hardcore’ category, it was perhaps sequel Gears of War 3 that stuck out as emblematic of the industry’s tenor. The series has built its multi-million selling success on asking players to identify with hyper-masculine, futurist characters short on ideas and high on one-liners and aggression, and the third title simply ratchets this up. But as the multiplayer demo at the show highlighted, the series’ depth has always come from the intricacy of its control system that has you constantly ducking in and out of cover, and this feels as tight, responsive and strangely satisfying as ever. The visceral, cathartic thrill of Gears is still there, and as silly and enjoyable as ever.
At the other end of the gaming spectrum was motion controlled Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster. Created by Double Fine Studios, this motion-controlled kids game is framed as an interactive storybook in which players become part of narrative. They befriend Oscar, Elmo, Cookie Monster and move their bodies in various ways to participate in races, go through little action sequences, and even do things like dance or clean up a garden.
It’s simple and mostly fun though, like many Kinect games, it doesn’t control particularly well (it had trouble recognizing hand movements at the right time). But in stark contrast to Gears of War 3, it’s very much about what the PR folk call ‘Sesame Workshop’ values: making friends, learning empathy, solving problems and facing fears. As a company rep told me, “it’s more about being true to yourself”.
And in a sense, that is gaming’s ‘civil war’: traditional games ask you virtually embody another character, while casual motion control games have you literally embodying virtual versions of yourself. So the former continue to push for extreme violent arenas to appeal to our most basic, adolescent ids while the latter make things straightforward and transparent — occasionally losing gaming’s more radical potential in the process.
Both trends are, of course, about making money. With more and more entertainment options available, there is increasing pressure on game makers to make their products profitable and compelling by whatever means necessary, whether by refusing to evolve game’s intellectual content or simply making them as accessible as possible.
But it would be overly cynical to suggest that gaming is more corrupted than any form than the needs of the market. Just as in film, interesting gems still do slip through mainstream channels, and just as with movies, astute, patient fans can find titles worth their time and intelligence.
Still, as I stood checking my phone in that oasis of games, I accidentally overheard a conversation between a Microsoft rep and a visitor intrigued by all the media options available on the Xbox. “I’m really intrigued by the bandwidth of these things. We should get Sanjay down here,” he said to what was clearly a business associate. “If we could figure out the right metrics — the usage, the bandwidth, man… This is great.”
And that barrage of mostly misunderstood terms, spoken with dollar signs in the eyes, explains just about all you need to know about what has precipitated gaming’s inner conflict.
