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This is Braid. You should play Braid. And you should do it right now.
Herein: a developer's lament. Read ye at your own risk!
Pardon me if this entry seems a bit morose – I’ve been known to lurk on more than one gaming-related board, and lately the howls and hisses of the internet have weighed heavy on my developer’s soul. Phrases like “developers are just lazy” and “games are just out there to make money” and “what about a responsibility to your fans” ping out and hit like golf balls, and sometime one requires a break.
Personally, I’ve always found the “Are Games Art” argument to be kind of stupid, as I believe that if any other medium of entertainment can – books, film, comics, even television (and if you don’t think The Wire is art, I have a few choice things to say to you) – there has to be a way for gaming to be art. Interactivity shouldn’t be the deal-breaker, as in innumerable artist’s statements the phrase “the user’s eye” or somesuch details their goal – involvement. The user has to be invested enough in the work to divine the meaning, to look at it with more than a passing glance. What requires more involvement, more work, from the viewer than video games?
That point aside, designers live in a world of contradiction. OK, I’ll stop being a specialist and say developers as a whole. To many, all we make are things that go BEEP and BOOP and offer up pleasure, distraction, joy. To others, developers create art, and the moment artistic considerations are put aside for financial considerations, again with the phrases – this time of the “hack,” “betrayer,” “greedy” variety. It does hurt to read that. And nothing like being called “uncreative” or “lazy” if a certain feature isn’t included, or if the depth of character interaction or functionality isn’t there. Getting a game out features very long hours, and sometimes you have to cut things – it’s the heartbreaker of the industry, but there you go.
I’m not here to really win anyone over with an oh-what-a-poor-developer line, just maybe to reach for a bit of understanding. I know you can make an beautiful game that brings together artistic vision and superlative game design – anyone who’s ever played the incredible title Braid has to acknowledge that (and seriously, if you haven’t played that game, do it, and do it now). But at the same time, Braid cost money to make, and it costs money to get. The amount of polish and beauty that went into it may have been there because its creators wouldn’t want anything less, but it is an investment of money and time that they made, and need to see a return on. Even artists require an operating budget. It’s not out of line to hold the concept of a world where cost and artistic measures draw from the same well.
Sure. There are plenty of games who don’t give two craps in a hat about being “artistic” – and often, when some go for artistic, they veer too far afield and create a game that isn’t fun, and like an art film that waves its arms but goes nowhere and doesn’t get to the point, the message is muddled in the medium, and lost. I think games can be art but they don’t have to be. That’s one of the freedoms of the medium, and a point that author (and writer for the excellent site Rock, Paper, Shotgun) Jim Rossignol makes in This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities returns to several times, each with far more eloquence than I. Games are judged most often on what is “fun” – while game creators often get the lash for mentioning that art sometimes gets the short end of the stick in favor of functionality and fun, the triage of the game industry. Were it that we had patrons, but then again we do – the public who buys what we produce, and gives us money to continue. As in all things, the consumer has the power to decide.
If you like more artistic-style games, but all means, pick them up, and tell me what you thought about them. If you like 
straight-up addictive fun, go for that, and let me know. And if we botch a job, attack the game, not the creator. An author’s repertoire should always be bigger than one book, an artist’s more than just one painting, a filmmaker’s more than just one movie. It takes money and time, and that’s the reality of it. Working within that framework is the nature of the beast, but maybe – just maybe – we can come up with something you like, be it R-Type or ICO. Understanding the reality of how they’re made, in my mind, only makes the end product more satisfying. And in the end, even with art – isn’t it to reach someone?
Also please stop calling us lazy. I really hate that.
- R. Dobbs
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