British satirist and columnist Charlie Brooker has written a typically eloquent and reasonable piece about videogames for The Guardian, where he discusses the popularity of gaming when compared to television and movies, and claims that interactive entertainment needs to "exploit our humblest fantasies" if it wants to capture the imagination of the average Heat reader.
"The resulting lack of mainstream coverage means that, despite being about 10,000 times more successful than the British film and TV industries combined, the British videogames industry continually balances a pathological inferiority complex with a wounded sense of pride," explains Brooker. "Quite why it still wants validation from these older, fading forms of media is a mystery. It's like a powerful young warrior disgruntled at being ignored by an elderly and irrelevant dying king."
The writer points toward the so-called "casual games" market, and how this wave of humble and grounded titles are what the mediocre masses want. Stuff that any mong can relate to, such as The Sims, which is basically just about living in a house. He suggested his own ideas for the types of games that might ride this wave of humility, such as "Magic Agreement Party," where you sit at a dinner party table discussing your viewpoints on any subject, and the other people slowly all agree with you. His suggestion for "Peter Sissons' Tetris" is absolutely bloody hilarious, although only our UK readers will get the brilliance of that.
As usual, Charlie Brooker makes a fair point, both about how we get the masses to like games and about how videogames don't need the approval of ancient and arcane forms of entertainment. I fully expect Activison to capitalize on this idea by releasing Going To The Shops Hero and Going To The Shops Hero: Metallica before Christmas.
[Thanks Matte G]
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
9:40 AM on 03.16.2009 | 
Interactive media? Hey interactive novels were AWESOME!
Can you say the same about the uber-bloated, derivative, obnoxious muck the film industry has become? And still, the Kojimas of the world keep perpetuating this myth of Hollywood envy. That, and the seemingly inescapable need to make shitty tie-in movies doesn't help.
Also, first.
Perhaps this guy is right. Maybe the games industry shouldn't look to be validated by the masses of non gamers. In the last 20 years, its done just fine against the odd, criticism, violence debates and fear mongering. Where were these same people back then, when games needed people to come bat for them?
Exploiting our humblest fantasies? I don't think games will ever be as mainstream as a regular tv soap opera. Its grown, by creating new stuff and building on new ideas, not by staying the same, but adapting to the customers needs. Its also very male centric, but that is changing slowly.
For non gamers, I say take it or leave it, how it is. Games have a lot to offer, but finding what appeals to you takes time,, just like a good book, piece of music or film.
Well then, why shouldn't there be games like Wii sport and the such is there is a demand for it. It's not because our elitist circle (and I count myself in it) don't like the more casual games that we should hate the masses that like them. Shit, the masses cinema didn't kill the "film d'auteur" in the 60s-70s. They both lived parallel to each other. And ironically, our "hardcore games" are more like the masses movies than they are "film d'auteur". Alright, this is maybe the kind of attitude that Brooker criticize, but let's face it, how many of you played Flower or know about the critical talk (the kind of talk not on Destructoid generally) around that game ? I don't think we are better than the masses. We are as bad as them but for different reasons. I'm changing the way I act toward games, are you ?
how about being a rockstar? or maybe saving the world?
why has nobody thought of that yet??
Epic!