Esquire.com has entered into the familiar 'state-of-videogame-journalism' fray with an article asking why there is no Lester Bangs or Pauline Kael of videogame writing. A familar pack of pundits (is there a correct collective term for pundits?) is assembled to try and explain. Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good For You, tries to pin the blame on a lack of narrative cohesion in game design - i.e. there are no stories or characters so deeper criticism is impossible.
No, that's not it.
I prefer the response from Henry Jenkins, professor of comparative media at MIT and the author of 'From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games' - a landmark work in videogame academia (which, incidentally, quoted one of my Edge features then mis-credited it to Next Gen magazine. The chump). He says:
"Aesthetic criticism exists in this industry, but only as arguments among gaming scholars and game creators. And the gaming industry suffers because of that. There is a very conservative element to gaming because absolutely everything is built around consumerism. Game designers are asking themselves questions about how a game should look and what it should do, but not about what the game is supposed to mean."
Well, this is interesting, but not really correct either. Pauline Kael was just as sharp and provocative writing about formulaic Hollywood trash as she was discussing the works of Fellini. But what he says about games lacking meaning is accurate. You could perhaps force a range of nihilistic philosophies onto the GTA series, but you can be certain such considerations never came up in the game design briefing. Even indie games lack meaning. Mutant Storm is great, but it's not a daring, low-budget exploration of the faultlines in contemporary society.
In place of meaning, games have easter eggs. In place of themes, hidden extras. It is the actualisation of depth.
There is no sub-text. Just sub-bosses.
