Six games now. Two sets of triumvirates. 

The AAA; Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, Grand Theft Auto V. 

The indie; Papers, Please, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable. 

So, opinion time. Indie or AAA? PC or Console? Panel of judges or just myself? This year I only had the chance to play The Last of Us and Gone Home. They were both absolutely astounding and if anyone out there decides to give either a Game of the Year award that is okay with me.

The Little Ones

The games industry is more than just AAA, however, there is blooming indie scene. And luckily enough this year there has come forth an indie games triumvirate each also deserving of the Game of the Year award. The Stanley Parable, Gone Home and Papers, Please bring innovation and excitement back into the industry. Although the discrepancy between AAA and indie is still a horrid gap, the fact that one side is doing well is good news for both.

Gone Home is a masterfully told story wrapped up in some of the best design I have ever played. Everything about it is ineffable.  By using the smallest number of inputs to great effect, Gone Home minimizes the cluster and confusion resulting from too many ludic systems. The result is an immensely touching experience seamlessly connecting player and story.

Whereas Gone Home tells a story, The Stanley Parable subverts storytelling in videogames thereby creating itself to be an excellent meta-game. Just like the original Bioshock, and Spec Ops: The Line The Stanly Parable is a videogame about videogames. As an omnipresent smooth talking British narrator talks you through the game it becomes the player’s choice to follow it or not.  The Stanley Parable is both intelligent and fun, something all games should be.

Papers, Please takes an entirely different root. It has a purposely loose story allowing the gameplay to impart a ludonarrative upon the player. Papers, Please imparts emotions never before seen in a videogame, most notably being the sympathy from the player unto that of the player character. By forcing the player to do mostly simple busy work the full brunt of reality in a communistic dictatorship is felt. Morality is just as gray as the drab environments of your inspection station. Papers, Please is a simple game with powerful repercussions.

This triumvirate is the one that the industry as a whole should be following.

The Big Ones

So it appears that it is Game of the Year season again. And as excepted the three Big Ones of this year, the ones to beat, are Grand Theft Auto V, Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us. It is an AAA triumvirate of the best the industry has to offer. Depending on whom you ask any one of these games deserves the title of Game of the Year, and by the end of 2012 we knew it would be this way. The annual Game of the Year hubbub is the prime example of everything that is wrong with the way AAA games are made and reported.

The desire to create better versions of pre-existent genres consumes AAA development. The Last of Us perfects the zombie game. Bioshock Infinite is a better version of the original Bioshock, the new high for narrative first-person shooters. Every other open world game pales in comparison to Grand Theft Auto V. There is no more surprise. No more shockingly new excitement or innovation. Everyone wants to make the next one of these, because they are all great games and make a boat load of money. The desire to put revenue before the game plagues the AAA industry and will become the death of it, stopping innovation. As costs increase the risk becomes too great for publishers to approve anything that is not guaranteed to sell. It is this stagnation that hampers invention and creativity.

So which game deserves the esteemed title of Game of the Year? Shame to me because I have no idea. Each and every games publication seems to offer their own Game of the Year award. It becomes so that even individual journalists/critics form varying websites will have different opinions and deliver different rewards. Which one is more worth believing? Which one is more correct? Again, I have no idea. This is the problem with it. Every outlet is trying so hard for attention, continuous reporting and attention getting headlines, that it becomes a confusing mess. The D.I.C.E. Awards given out by the Academy for Interactive Arts and Sciences are often considered the Oscars of the videogame world. The other most known videogames award show is the VGX, former VGAs, hosted by Game Trailers and Spike TV. They went all online this year and most of it was not all that engaging either as an awards show or as a series of world premieres.  Still, their panel is respected the awards are given fairly.

This desire to be first, in both the development and media side of the AAA industry, is the cause of this problem. A shallow, borderline vapid, explosion of awards occurs at the end of every year in the games industry. It is a distraction to look only upon the deemed good of the previous year and ignore the more serious problems in the heart of it all. Everyone, including me, has something to say. I can only hope that at least one of us will get heard. The Age of Gaming will not be giving out a Game of the Year Award. It is for each individual gamer to decide what she/he liked best this year. When it comes down to it the award is just a matter of opinion. Find what you like and play it, show it support and let the developers, publishers and media know, because maybe then once the hubbub has died the real problems in the AAA industry can be addressed.

One Year

Dear Scott C. Jones,

In the May 2010 edition of Gameinformer (issue 205) you published an opinion piece stating that gamers should respect their elders. You stressed that this was of even greater importance in terms of videogame journalism. By having crafted sentences for decades and being able to remember when games were pixels you make the argument that elder gamers are just as qualified if not more so to write about and review games. You present the story of Crispy Gamer as proof of the unfair treatment that elder gamers are faced with. Its unfortunate demise was and still is the foremost example just how cruel and unforgiving this industry can be to those who are outside the accepted age. Finally you ended the piece by asking a question for the gaming community at large: “Do gamers truly want more sophisticated content? Or is it simply something that they like to think they want?”

And now, nearly four years late and spammed through the only available contacts I could find for you on the internet along with being posted on my blog, I would like to answer that question. Today is my eighteenth birthday. It is also the one year anniversary of my blog The Age of Gaming. Started when I was officially considered by the ESRB to be “rated M for mature” I set forth to write intelligent articles based in fact with developed and supported opinion. It was my grand goal of reducing the negative stigma that surrounds teenaged gamers. Whether or not I have succeeded is ultimately not for me to decide. But this noble experiment has taught me something and that is yes.

In answer to your question, yes. Gamers truly want more sophisticated, mature content. Because maturity is not a measure of age nor is it a classification to be given out by a ratings board. Maturity is a mental state. Sophistication is a side-effect. The desire for more maturity does not result from a dearth of it. It is, instead, the genesis of change within the industry and the gaming community at large. In the one year since I began I have noticed it. And in the four years since you first posed the question the answer is an undeniable yes. Videogames are finally coming of age as a medium. The painful and prolonged adolescence that so stagnated this industry is finally over. The next level is about to start.

Arguments can be made that say because of games like The Last of Us, The Walking Dead and others that games are becoming mature. Others point towards self-analysis in games as an indicator of maturity heralding The Stanley Parable and Spec Ops: The Line as the forerunners of change. And last, it is impossible to deny that no matter what happens within the gaming landscape that of the outside world has changed in such a way as to make games “legitimate” whether we think they are or not. The Museum of Modern Art opened an exhibit focused solely on videogames. I like to think of that as the undisputable litmus test.  Games are now mature and sophisticated enough. But all these great advancements and markings off of the great maturity climb are only external repercussions of internal change. The medium and industry of videogames is now mature because, from within itself, the shift from adolescence to adulthood struck stealthily in the night. These grand steps forward are only the result of the small steps taken inside each and every one of us. Maturity is the culmination of personal responsibility, devotion to others and the ability to admit your failings. These past four years have shown the death of THQ, Guitar Hero and all the old Gods. Some lessons were learned and others were forgotten. However, it is the growing sentiment to accept and understand these losses as well as the successes that give this medium its rise and fall. Maturity and sophistication begin in the mind and it is in the mind of the gamer that things have changed.

When I started this blog I had about a month’s worth of articles, or at least ideas, ready. One of them was this letter that you are currently reading. But, I held off knowing that I was not yet ready to write it. I did not feel prepared enough to venture out into the wild and harsh landscape that is videogame journalism. Not entirely anyway. More so I was frightened of the repercussions I might face, if my work wasn’t good enough or liked. So I waited and wrote and played and then wrote some more. The final result is thirty one articles, each of which I am immensely proud of, thirty game concepts and this. The letter that I wanted to write since day one. Because I wanted so much to say, but did not feel ready to until now, that you are right. Ageism in the game industry is not limited to stigmatization against teenagers. It cuts deep separating those who have loved this medium the longest. It was my hope that I could change the world, or at least gaming, with my thoughts, ideas and most importantly words. I stood to fight the intolerance directed at myself and my peers. And I was selfish. Narrower in my perception than I originally believed. There is no proper age of gaming. Neither is there a new one or an old one. We are all gamers, united by the love of the game. It is the hobby that becomes a passion. Consuming through us like fire, filling within us the very desire to save the world.

I was adolescently self-absorbed when I began this blog. And now I feel mature enough to admit that I was wrong. Presenting myself as the hottest, newest commodity in an industry built off of constant advancements was how Crispy Gamer failed. This out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new philosophy is the bane of industry as a whole. And for my part I would like to apologize. The Age of Gaming stands for equal representation of any and all people who willingly describe themselves as gamers. We are all of the Age of Gaming. That is why it is now that maturity has taken hold. The medium has grown to a point where it is so wide spread and so common place any attempt to add extraneous and erroneous definitions is obscene. Maturity is not defined by age; it is a state of mind. You asked if gamers wanted sophisticated content and the answer is yes. You asked if gamers will ever respect their elders and the answer is yes. Because we, as a gaming community, believe ourselves to be and through that belief find ourselves becoming mature and sophisticated. Whether you are 18, 44, 52, 12, 35 or 7 the Age of Gaming is what you make of it.

                                                               Play On:
                                                              Steven