X- Men 2 Clone Wars Game and Art

              X – Men 2: Clone Wars; came out in 1995 for Sega Genesis I played it by using an emulator. That being said when i was a little kid i actually played this games with my Sisters on an actual Sega Genesis. I love this game, the X men are awesome. In the game you get your choice of 6 X men characters and they each has a special abilities; Cyclops, he can shoot optic beams, Wolverine he can use his claws and when his health gets low he can slowly regenerate some health. Next is Beast he is the most physically strong, Gambit can the energized playing cards, Psylocke she can concentrate telekinetic energy to make a knife and uses a sword, and lastly there is Nightcrawler, who can teleport but can not teleport through walls or obstacles( walls, ceilings, etc).

It’s a side scrolling game where you move to the right fighting red ninjas and machines to win and get to the next level. You get 7 lives and after each death you have the option to select a different character. You also have a health bar that usually has 7 points on it but you can get up to 9. X men 2 Clone Wars is definitely a game, using Jesper Juuls and Roger Caillois .As Jesper Juul said ” “A game is a rule-‐‐based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable.” X Men 2 Clone Wars completes all of these requirements. Its rule based, you go across the screen fighting ninjas and robots, if your health bar goes to zero you lose. Quantifiable outcome; you either make it to the next level or your character dies.You have to put in effort to play the game or nothing happens. After a while you will be completely attached to the game, especially when your just about to beat the level and your character dies and you have to start all over again( trust me it will happen A LOT!). The consequences of the game are completely optional; a) you beat the level and go to the next level, b) character dies and you have to use one of your seven lives and restart the level, c) you lose all seven lives and you have to restart the game, d) lastly you turn the game off and walk away. There are no real world consequences to playing the game. Another way it is a game is using Roger Caillois ” Ludus no less inspires in the player the hope of succeeding the next time when he may obtain a high“. Ludus is basically order and rules in a game. And in this game it has rules and while you play inside the rules you want to get better, get further in the game then you did last time. All that being said X-Men 2 Clone Wars is also art. Hegel

” “… Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic forms of art, as the three relations of the idea to its shape in art.” (Hegel in The Art of Art History a Critical Anthology, p. 98).”

The X men game is symbol of art in that when you look at it and play, just like looking at a painting your intent on getting all the information on the screen and trying to understand it. Its classical in that just like in paintings you can see the obstacles that a hero will have to pass through to get to the other side. It’s romantic in that there is always one more level to be passed rarely a time to rest just like the trials that Odysseus’s had to go through.  Like this image of Wolverine in this picture this is the very beginning of the game, and Wolverine is just there ready to start his never ending journey.

Lock at it in all its pixel-ated glory

G. W. E. Hegel. (1998 [1826]). “Philosophy of Fine Art.” In The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, edited by D. Preziosi. Oxford: Oxford University Press: pp. 80-88.

https://catcourses.ucmerced.edu/courses/3484/files/folder/Resources?preview=96044

https://catcourses.ucmerced.edu/courses/3484/files/folder/Resources?preview=96043

Crime and Art

We love criminals. It’s part of the American DNA – crime movies, crime and mystery books, prohibition style gangsters – we love  the portrayal of crime and the criminals that commit these acts. That is not to say that we love crime itself, but since the advent of cinema people have shown that they will consume various portrayals and media related to crime. Even before cinema, criminals like Al Capone were basically celebrities – to the point that that movies and books were written about them. American culture is forever linked to the dark criminal underworld – and no video game franchise delivers that experience like Grand Theft Auto.
The history of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is vast and all encompassing, spanning from 80s era Miami coke dealers ala Scarface, all the way to modern day Boyz In the Hood. As much as the GTA franchise, especially Grand Theft Auto 5, has been praised or pandered (depending on who you ask) for letting us play out our criminal fantasies, is it really a traditional game, or just a simulation of a twisted world we all secretly wished we lived in?

What makes a game, a game? 

According to Jesper Juul, a game must fit into 6 specific “rules” in order to be considered a game –

1. Rules – Every game must have rules with which the players can operate in, which can either be programmed into the game or easily defined outside of it. In the case of GTA 5, the rules are ambiguous, but they are still there and you must follow them in order to play. If you cause mayhem your star level will go up, and the police will go after you. If you fall from a great height, are shot too many times, stay underwater too long, get hit by a car, etc. you will die. During the missions you must follow the directions or you will fail. While much of the game leaves you to decide what you will do, you still must operate within a certain set of rules.
2. Variable, Quantifiable Outcome – GTA 5 has 3 multiple endings that are effected by the choices you make, each effected by your skill level and decision making. As someone that has achieved all 3 endings I can say that while some people might be unhappy with the way the story turns out, the game undeniably has an outcome that is unambiguous.
3. Valorization of outcome – In GTA 5, there is always a victor and a loser. Whether you are playing single player or online, there is always a superior outcome that you are striving to achieve. For example when playing a heist, there are certain objectives that you can meet in order to get more money in the end, The more positive outcomes is always more difficult to achieve as well.
4. Player Effort – There is no episode in the GTA series that doesn’t require tremendous effort and dedication to finish, and GTA 5 is no different. Even with days of game play logged there are plenty of mission that I haven’t finished, some requiring a level of effort that is only obtainable on those homework free weekends.
5. Player Attached to Outcome – One of the most enjoyable qualities of GTA is the attachment a player feels to the game. Being able to customize your character, buy houses, buy cars, invest money, practically live an entire digital life – its just so satisfying that you always feel attached to your character as if it was an extension of yourself.
6. Negotiable Consequences – While your character might die often in game, you don’t have to actually risk your life to play any of the GTA games.So much of GTA 5 encapsulates everything you would want from a game. It draws the player in with its environment and characters, challenges you with its missions and story, and forces you to donate hours of your time to entertain and stimulate the mind. GTA 5 is a perfect game, the culmination of years of innovation and improving design – its like playing a Michael Bay movie in real time.
   

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The question of whether video games are an art form is an old one. Most reviewers say yes. The game’s characters are multi-dimensional and fully fleshed out. Their stories have a cinematic quality and build through sharp dialogue. The game also mimics and mocks contemporary life, its urban world full of smartphones and an addictive social-networking site called Lifeinvader, a proxy for Facebook. Parents worried about the game’s notorious violence may take comfort in the knowledge that players can also learn about economics by trading stocks on one of two in-game markets.The game falls short in its portrayal of women, a point eloquently raised by Carolyn Petit of Gamespot, a video game website. But its narrative depth is impressive. Indeed, Adam Sessler suggests the game’s story, crafted by Dan Houser, a producer of GTA V, mirrors contemporary society as well as the novels of Charles Dickens.

This quote from the economist touches on some key points as to why GTA 5 could indeed be considered art – so much of the game is narrative driven, much like the films it aspires to recreate in video game form. While there are many arguments that exist to champion GTA as a game, I don’t believe we can actually call a, as John Sharp says –

Artgames are usually highly stylized systems, using abstraction, allegory and metaphor to create and idea space the the player can explore by engaging with the system through its game mechanics… Seldom do shooting, fighting, or literal simulations of real-world systems appear in artgames. Instead, challenge is often found in the unconventional themes and the mechanics used to explore them.

While much of GTA 5 is narrative driven, the story is not one that is unconventional, nor is it one that is trying to convey a deeper message to the audience. At its core, GTA 5 is there to entertain. Whether you want to blow up a bunch of stuff up Michael Bay style, or crash helicopters into freeways, or get tatted up and pretend your a gangster – GTA will find a way to satisfy your every fantasy. But that doesn’t make it art or an art game. It has a very utilitarian purpose, and art doesn’t usually flow in the same vein that we see in GTA as a series and game. GTA simply exists to entertain, and while some art exists to entertain as well, that is not its only purpose.

What makes Grand Theft Auto 5 a game but not art is the way in which it presents itself to it’s audience. Much like many gangster movies might not be considered arthouse cinema, or a piece of well made machinima might not be considered art, GTA simply does not aspire to be a higher form of aesthetic or art. Using Sheik Attack as an example of a violent machinima that can be considered art, we can see that Eddo Stern uses the narrative and gunplay in the video as a commentary/critique on the history and origins of Israel, the portrayal of violence in the media, and “a misremembrance of a long lost zionist utopia”. GTA 5 does not possess the same powerful critique on society – its gameplay and cut scenes are more for novelty than for any critique of violence in the media. The bloodshed and gratuitous violence exists simply to make the audience open their mouths in amazement at what they can do in this fantasy world – not make them think about police violence or brutality. If art is something more than a pleasing aesthetic and a good time, then GTA 5 most definitely does not make the cut.

References: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/09/art-grand-theft-auto

John Sharp. Works of Game: On the Aesthetics of Games and Art. MIT Press, 2015

Why Not Both?

After watching Red vs. Blue videos I decided to write this week’s blog on Halo 5: Guardians. Halo 5 is part of a Halo franchise, with a huge back story. It is a first person shooter video game and the first three games are based on a war between the United Nations Space Command and the Covenant (extraterrestrials) who declares war on humanity. In Halo 4 you follow Master Chief and deal with Prometheans (a very advanced race) although Master Chief beats the Prometheans he loses his AI, Cortana. Cortana sacrifices herself to beat Prometheans. In Halo 5 Master Chief is trying to rescue Cortana after he receives signals that she may still be alive. This goes against his order to stay back, so he goes absent without leave and the governing body sends Spartan Locke to get Master Chief back.

Halo 5 is a typical first person shooter, most game play is viewed through the characters eyes. The Spartans carry 2 weapons and grenades. Spartans have shield health and character health, but can both easily regenerate if they become hurt. The biggest additions to this game is the warzone assault where players play 12 vs. 12 and they have to either defend their three towers or push to attack the towers depending on the team they are on. The other is warzone where there three neutral locations that both teams want to hold down.

Groundpound

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Halo 5 as a game:

In order to define Halo 5 as a game I would take to multiplayer and Jasper Juul’s definition of a game:

“a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are negotiable.” (Juul, 36).

Multiplayer has specific rules/ boundaries you can’t go beyond the “invisible” walls because you die you can only carry two weapons and two of each type of grenades. Depending on what game mode you enter you have a different objective, for example: in free for all the objective is to eliminate everyone, there are no teams, in warzone the objective is to hold or take locations, eliminating enemies is still taken into account but it is not the way to win the game. In most game modes team communication and working together is necessary for a well-played game. Players will feel attached to the outcome because they want their team to win. Or in free far all they may want to have the most kills on the board, or least deaths. Others may feel attached to the game because they want to gather high Req points which are used to buy Req packs. Players do face consequences, for example if they kill their team mates during the game, they may be booted off the game. By Juuls definition of a game, Halo 5 is a game.

Halo 5 as art:

In order to define Halo 5 as art I will use the campaign aspect of the game.  As seen in some of the readings, art has many definitions.  Some say art is very much up to opinion while others claim that it follows a set of guidelines. If I had to summarize/define art based on most readings, art is something that is aesthetically pleasing/ appreciated and evokes emotion. At first Halo may not appear as art if you focus solely on multiplayer, yes there are aesthetically pleasing aspects, nice colors, nice graphics, and pleasing sound. However there may be no emotional aspect to it outside of a gameplay related attachment. However when you get to the story and you see the connection between Master Chief and Cortana you can’t help but root for Master Chief with his search for her. Their connection evokes emotion and curiosity. You want to know if he will make it or if Locke will find him and stop him. And you may or may not like Locke but he ultimately isn’t a bad guy, he is just doing his job, which he thinks is right. Campaign is like an interacting movie; unlike multiplayer the final outcome cannot be changed based on your actions. Halo 5 is a game and art.

All-out on Fallout

Given my great amount of excitement for the release of Fallout 4 November 9th at 9pm (Pre-order release at Gamestop), I decided to go with Fallout: New Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas is a single player, action role-playing game in the Fallout video game series. The game was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game is based in a post-apocalyptic, open world environment around the area of Nevada, California, and Arizona ish. The player controls the character known as the Courier, who is hired by a delivery service to take an unknown package across the Mojave desert to the New Vegas Strip. During the delivery, the courier is shot in the head and left for dead. At the beginning of the game, you wake up in the home of a doctor, and are able to choose the way your character looks, what your attributes will be, your characteristics, etc. You go back into the desert to seek revenge and find the package that was stolen from you. As the courier, you choose one of 4 different paths; fight for caesar (a group of Romanesque slavers), the NCR or New California Republic (an expansionist militia government), Mr. House (the enigmatic de facto ruler of new vegas), or you can do your own thing with the help of a friendly robot named ‘Yes Man’.

Is it a Game?

Well, as I mentioned in one of my previous articles, I agree with Juul 110% on what a game is;

1. Rules: Games are rule-based.
2. Variable, quantifiable outcome: Games have variable, quantifiable outcomes.
3. Valorization of outcome: The different potential outcomes of the game are assigned different values, some positive and some negative
4. Player effort: The player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome.
5. Player attributed outcome: The player is emotionally attached to the outcome of the game in the sense that the player will be a winner and ‘happy’ in case of a positive outcome, but a loser ‘unhappy’ in case of a negative outcome.
6. Negotiable consequences: The same game can be played with or without real-life consequences.

Fallout Karma Levels from bad (left), to good (right)

There are rules, although not very many because you make every single choice for your character, there are things that the game limits you to, such as the map, for example. There is a variable outcome, having control over New Vegas, is an example of that. And there is a quantifiable outcome, whether that be completely fulfilling all of the characters attributes or having a large amount of money to purchase any weapon you desire. There is a valorization of outcome in the sense that you control your karma level (you can have good karma or bad karma based on the things you do throughout the game), and you control who you decide to work with at the end of the game. That could be Mr. house (bad guy), the NCR (good guys), the legion (more bad guys), or yourself (good or bad guy). There is A LOT of player effort that has a large part to do with your outcome. The player is emotionally connected to the outcome because as the player, you could literally kill just about everyone in the entire game if you wanted to. You would be considered a bad guy, but it depends on you as a person. This would roll over into the player attributed outcome. And there are negotiable consequences.

Is it Art? 

Fallout: Titanic (Ha!)

“At first glance, we can identify a number of similarities (between games and art), both are presenting spatiotemporal zones, which are perceived as different from everyday life. Furthermore, art, as well as games, are said to be on the one hand governed by rules and on the other hand related to notions of freedom”

• Clarke and Mitchell, “Videogames and Art” p. 26

Hmm, governed by rules? That sounds familiar (cough, Juul, cough). Oh, notions of freedom? As in using games as an escape from the real world because the real world is fu***d up? Maybe. Do I consider this game as art? Of course I do. Because according to the Oxford English Dictionary, art is “Skill; it’s display, application, or expression.” And with Fallout: New Vegas, it took a major amount of skill to be able to create a game or space where the player is truly engulfed to the point where when the player plays, he/she is taken to a world that separates them from real life. A world that is esthetically pleasing and entertaining, and also gives you the freedom to do as you please.

I honestly can’t say what art is, but if there was a way to truly connect art and game or express art through game, I would without a doubt add Fallout 3, New Vegas, and even Fallout 4 (even though I haven’t played it yet) to that conversation.

Attack of the Ducks!

The game I chose for this blog is Duck Game by Adult Swim. I decided to choose this game because my boyfriend’s friend brought it over one day and I couldn’t stop laughing while playing it. I definitely used it to escape from reality the last two weeks!

This is a fairly simple game to learn. It starts off by letting the player choose a hat for their duck and then they have to pick up the gun and shoot the ice in order to jump into the middle tube to start playing. This game has several rounds and the object is to be the last one standing. The player can do this in a number of ways. They can wait for the other players to kill each other, they pick up a gun and shoot the opponents, or they can throw their opponents off the edge are to name a few. The person who wins the most rounds eventually wins! Click here to see the trailer and get a feel of what the game is all about!

How is it a Game?

“A game is a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are negotiable.”[1]

The Duck Game has all six features of Jesper Juul’s Classic Game Model [2].

1. Rules: The only rules for this game are to stay in the designated area on the map.
2. Variable, quantifiable outcome: The outcome that can be measured is the amount of rounds the player wins against their opponents.
3. Valorization of outcome: The valorization of outcome is either winning or losing a round, and each round the odds of winning are eqaul.
4. Player effort: There is definitely player effort in this game because trying to defeat the other players becomes very competitive.
5. Player attached to outcome: The player also becomes emotionally attached to the outcome of winning or losing because of the competition.
6. Negotiable consequences: The game has negotiable consequences because when someone gets shot or thrown off a cliff in real life, they die, and when these things happen in the game, the player’s character dies as well.

Since the Duck Game follows all six features of Jesper Juul’s classic game model this proves that it is a game. What still must be proved is why it is art.

Why is it Art?

Well first off, Raymond Williams has stated that art is related directly to aesthetics. With that being said, according to SImon Niedenthal, there are three main clusters of meaning around the term “game aesthetics.”

These include:

1. sensory phenomena that the player encounters in the game
2. those aspects of digital games that are shared with other art forms
3. an expression of the game experiences as pleasure, emotion, sociability, form-giving, etc

Since aesthetics is used to describe art these meanings of the term “game aesthetics” is very important. In the Duck Game there is constantly sensory phenomena that the player is encountering. The way everything looks, the sounds that are being made when jumping and shooting, these are all part of what makes the game art. It is also important to note that the type of emotion that the player feels while playing the game contributes to the “art.” As I was playing this game I felt very happy and silly. I couldn’t stop laughing because of all the different things I could choose to do to try to kill the other player was funny. Since the Duck Game has all of these things, I believe it to be considered art and a game!

 

References:

Jesper Juul. (2005). “Video Games and the Classic Game Model” in Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: MIT Press: pp. 23-54.

The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Game & Art

For this blog post I decided on the popular RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. With over 20 million copies sold across the three major platforms (PC, XBOX, Playstation), Skyrim, at the time, was one of the most highly anticipated games. Developed and published by Bethesda Softworks it is the fifth installment of the Elder Scroll series, following in the same footsteps of the others.

The game continues in the same fashion as its predecessors in an open world sandbox style adventure. This allows the player to either continue on the main quest of the skill or take a break and decide to explore on their own, postponing the main storyline until they return. Over the course of the game, the player can fight monsters, fashion weapons, trade, level up skills, and also quest among many other things.

As A Game:

What is considered a game can vary greatly depending on who you ask. More specifically for this class a game was considered something that follows some basic characteristics..Juules considered a game as being something that followed a set of guidelines which he called the classic video game model which is as follows;
I am the anchor.

“A game is a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are negotiable (Juules, 36).”

According to these essential points outlined by Juules is Skyrim then considered a game? Well most certainly! It easily meets all of the criteria required. Of course this game has been well known to be highly customizeable with hacks/mods etc but to me, all  that really doesn’t take away from the game but more adds onto it. As far as outcomes are concerned the game is an open sandbox with no “right” way of doing things so in essence the sky’s the limit for the player. All that isn’t free though, the player is still required to put in effort into the game in order to progress just like any other adventure game. Lastly, a feeling of attachment and the outcomes that are faced within that world are also felt in Skyrim.  

As Art:

The question then become, is this game Art. We spent a great deal of time in class discussing various ways that games might and might not be considered art. Some examples of how something can be considered art is if it is aesthetically pleasing or unique. Sharp defines “game art” as follows;

“The appropriation of the tools of the game industry for artistic purpose (Sharp).”

He sees video games as being a medium for art to be expressed in a way. How does art and game art relate to The Elder Scrolls Skyrim? Skyrim being an open sandbox adventure game can be considered art for a couple of reasons. The world in which the adventure takes place is surreal and beautiful and that in itself can be considered aesthetically pleasing to some. Also, the way in which the game follows the path of the player in what they want to do, which can differ from the way of the actual story, gives it a unique sense.  

Some games like Skyrim are able to situate themselves as being considered both a game as well as art as long as they are able to fit the various characteristics that each entail. It has many strong points for fitting into the game model but also those consisting of art and “game art” in which the aesthetics of the game is what is being determined. Overall, Skyrim was a great experience and is highly recommended to anyone wishing to try out a game with a different pace in which the player is in control.   

Sources:

Jesper Juul. (2005). “Video Games and the Classic Game Model” in Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: MIT Press: pp. 23-54. [PDF]

John Sharp. (2015). “Introduction.” In Works of Game.

Infamous

Infamous quiet possibly one of the best games Play Station 3 ever had. In famous was so good that it had two sequels; one for the Play Station 3 and one for the Play Station 4. As well as spawning a couple of DLC’s.  The game takes place in a New York style city after a giant bomb has gone off. You take control of Cole, a man who gains the power to generate and control electricity after the bomb goes off.  And you must help bring order to the city, by going through the three sectors it is divided up into and defeating the boss as well as doing side missions to reclaim land that rival games have taken over. As all this is going on you/ Cole is given the moral choice in how to take care of a problem.

And from the choices you make you either become Cole the hero of the city, and the city starts to look better and the graphics look a little brighter or Cole the Infamous, Which has the city get even worse and the graphics get a little darker. Even the color of Cole’s Lightning will change based on moral standing. Blue for when Cole is the hero and red for the infamous Cole. You even get specific electric powers for which side your on. Infamous was made in 2009 and the Authors of this game is Sucker Punch Productions. Now obviously Sucker Punch production isn’t a single person but a whole bunch of different people working together to craft this piece of art. As Becker states “Art worlds produce works and also give them aesthetic value. This book does not itself make aesthetic judgments, as the preceding remarks suggest. Instead it treats aesthetic judgments as characteristic phenomena of collective activity. From this point of view, the interaction of all the involved parties produces a shared sense of the worth of what they collectively produce. Their mutual appreciation of the conventions they share, and the support they mutually afford one another, convince them that what they are doing is worth doing. If they act under the definition of “art,” their interaction convinces them that what they produce are valid works of art.” Which basically states that even that in art you don’t need just one person to make art. And in fact its possible that with even more people working on a piece of art becomes even more special. And that is why Sucker punch production making this game so important. It took a while working together; crafting, testing re-crafting and re – testing then in the end promoting, to come out with what they felt to be a perfect piece of art. Even taking the extra step, in giving the player the choice( moral choices) in the game, in how they felt the progression of viewing/playing the game/art should be seen. Just like each viewer of a painting of sculpture looks at the piece of work then comes to their opinion of the piece of art; The player in Infamous goes through the game and makes the choices they felt were right for the game, and thus coming to their own opinion of the game.

Howard Becker, “Art Worlds and Collective Activity.” In Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press: pp. 1-39.

Who’s Doing the Shoveling?

The independent video game studio who created Shovel Knight

The game for this blog is one that I had recently played in the past week called “Shovel Knight” on the Wii U. The game itself is a side-scrolling adventure where you, as the knight wielding the shovel try to defeat a group of evil knights known as the “Order of no Quarter” to rescue his beloved “Shield Knight.” The game primarily allows the player to traverse different areas where along the way they visit stores and places for items and loot. The game itself follows mechanics from other games such as duck tales where the shovel is used in place of a cane but can also be used as a sword. The game also features unique variations depending on what version the game is played on. If you play on a  Nintendo system such as a 3DS or the Wii U, you have the ability to play with a touch screen along with obtaining multiplayer modes and challenge stages. Other consoles such as the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox one, have a unique boss with their own unique stage. The game has many other platforms to play on allowing anyone to play on a system of their choice.

Gameplay within Shovel Knight

 The game itself was created by the people at Yacht Club Games who are independent developers that essentially succeeded in crowdfunding this project. Which bring us into the whole idea of who really owns the authorship of this game. The creators Yacht Club Games would be considered the ones who came up with the game but without help of the crowdfunding backers there game would not even have life. Not to mention the composers such as Jake Kaufman and Manami Matsumae who are freelancers known throughout the gaming world that helped in creating the music found within the game. This brings me to my belief on who possibly owns this game authorship. Like the theorist Howard Becker, I see the authorship of the game being placed in the hands of all who developed it. Becker would explain it that those who didn’t have the ability to create the game as “less rare, less characteristic of art, less necessary to the work’s success, less worthy of respect“(Art Worlds and Collective Activity,1982). The quote itself shows that those who did not directly work on the game affected one of its people in a unique way are still part of what they game became. The big thing is that people who gave made this game include smaller people who gave up something to make sure this game came out, whether its money or time in supporting the studios work. The credit sequence within the game mentions many people as well outside of the initial groups mentioned as to show that without them they would not have been able to create the game. Most games do this as they clearly know that one person did not create the game without some outside help or influence by another person. Yacht Club games even go far as to have a level dedicated to the backers of the game who really believe in them and gave more money of course to the crowdfunding.

“Shovel Knight vs God of War’s Kratos”

The framework of the game was created by Yacht Club studios, while the game itself would not be created without the many backers, influences( such as “duck tales”), composers, and support from the families of the company. Personally, I believe create something that becomes a huge success as Shovel knight requires many people as a whole.

Howard Becker, “Art Worlds and Collective Activity.” pp. 17.

To the Writers, I Give Authorship

Boy o’ boy, 17minutes of credits sure can leave a person wondering who is really behind creating Batman: Arkham Knight. Luckily for us, we aren’t here to figure out who is Really behind creating this beautiful work of Art (yes, work of Art). But before I lay my gracious argument, ill explain what this game is:

Batman: Arkham Knight is a single player action-adventure game created by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. for multiple systems including PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It is based on the DC comics superhero Batman, and it is the successor to the previous game Batman: Arkham Origins. It was written by:

1. Sefton Hill
2. Ian Ball
3. And Martin Lancaster

The game’s main storyline follows Batman as he confronts Scarecrow (the main villain), who launched attacks on Gotham, causing a city wide evacuation. The main story is complemented by a wide array of side missions that, once you successfully complete them all, will lead to 100% completion of the game.

I would like to stop there because I imagine you guys get the gist of the game. Now, this game has dozens upon dozens of names of people that contributed to the creation of this game. But I personally want to give authorship to the writers. Now, given the backlash I received on my last post, I expect people to disagree with me on this. Lets step outside of our boxes for a second and peep this: without the creation of the story line (and no, it is not Bill Finger because this story line is not the same as the original), the designers, the character voices, the visual effects, the sounds, it would not have been created the way it was without the story. You do not design a game, game world, and everything else first and then come up with a story. Just as you need a script before you start a movie or a television series, you need the story line for the game first, and everything else follows suit.

Batman Storymode Gameplay

“Whatever the artist, defined as the person who performs the core activity (in my argument, the writers) without which the work would not be art, does not do must be done by someone else. The artist thus works in the center of a network of cooperating people, all of whose work is essential to the final outcome” (Becker Pg, 25) This quote hits the nail right on the head for me. When some of you read this, you’ll think “Becker clearly says that it’s a collective effort, so let me go ahead and disagree with this.” I am not for a second saying that it isn’t a collective effort, because this game would be nothing without the 17+ minutes of people who contributed. But when Becker mentions that core activity, I immediately think writers of the storyline.

I love horror movies. When I was in high school, I went to see this movie called ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D‘. And although the movie was gory and violent and (at the time) a tad bit scary, I hated it. I hated it because in-between all of the scary action, the storyline SUCKED! If you ever check the rating for horror movies, out of 5 stars, the average is a 2 because mainly, the story line sucks. This falls onto the writers and producers. My point is, the writers of this Batman game matters so much because if the story mode sucked, no matter how good the graphics or anything else, the game just kinda sucks. The collective depends on the core, the core is the writers, so to the writers, I give authorship.

Left for Dead: Survival of the Fittest

Original PC Game

Left For Dead is a co-op action horror game for either the PC or XBOX 360 where four playable characters are in a struggle for survival against never ending swarms of zombies and other mutant monsters. The game can either be played single player style or cooperatively with friends.

Since the basic gameplay style never changes from map to map, players will usually learn the paths relatively quickly. Luckily in Left for Dead there is an AI known as ‘The Director” which makes dynamic spawn system for the game, randomly changing the dramatics, pacing, and difficulty at will. The game never becomes monotonous because new challenges are always ever present, essentially making no two playthroughs ever exactly the same.  

Left For Dead was released for the PC in November 2008 by the Developer/Publisher Valve. What is interesting here is that the same company both developed as well as published the game themselves which is not very common today. It is quite obvious that the author of the game is Valve themselves but it took a great deal of effort from more than just a single person to produce this critically acclaimed FPS.

FPS Style Gameplay

The theorist that I chose to relate this game to was Becker and his chapter on “Art Worlds and Collective Activity”. Becker’s argument was essentially about the complexity that goes into artistic work and how it is all intertwined. Even though Valve made the game themselves that doesn’t mean that it was a simple task and the intricacy and details like the AI for example, is sometimes taken from granted in today’s world while, back then, it took an entire team of developers to nail down. Everyone works as a team to complete objectives and goals set to make the game. It takes the effort of everyone to pull it all together. One quote from Becker that helps describe this idea is as follows,”

“All artistic work, like all human activity, involves the joint activity of a number, often a large number of people” (Art Worlds and Collective Activity pg 1).

The Tank

All in all Left for Dead is an amazing FPS game and even though it is getting quite old now, it is still heavily maintained by Valve and the online community that it has carried over the years has stayed strong in numbers. I you haven’t already I would give this one a try.

Citations:

Howard Becker. (1982). “Art Worlds and Collective Activity” in Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press: pp. 1-39