But Hey, That's Just a Theory.... an English Theory
In our discussions on postmodernism in class, and how it developed from modernism, I wondered how the art form impacted forms of media beyond literature and the visual arts. More specifically, I wondered if postmodernism had begun to effect video games.
As an art form that has existed for less than 40 years, video games have had less time to develop stylistically than most other forms of art. Additionally, for most of that 40 year life span, games have been more focused on capturing realism than on games as an art form. Their struggle to capture realism and the elitism displayed by the triple A video game industry parallels traditionalist art. We still see their influence today, as the drive to increase graphical power continues. We've gone from a series of pixels on a screen to full scale replicas of ancient Egypt in Assassin's Creed: Origins, who's simulations of how the pyramids were constructed actually led to real life archaeological discoveries. There are problems with this traditionalist approach however, games tend to decay in graphical fidelity as newer games are made--so a game made 5 years ago won't look as realistic as one made today, and the barrier to entry for making something of such high graphical quality is often too expensive for smaller independent studios.
This isn't to say that gaming is entirely without modernism and postmodernism.
We can still see both modernist and postmodernist approaches begin to develop in gaming after the 6th generation of consoles. Cell-shaded graphics systems can be likened to Constantin Brancusi's incredible modernist sculptures, capturing the essence of the characters, and allowing us to engage with the medium even on outdated hardware-- Nintendo's 16 year old cell shaded Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker still holds up graphically today, while the 12 year old Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, although heralded for its more realistic and "mature" graphics at the time, fails to hold up.
Postmodern gaming is perhaps both the easiest and hardest to make in a way. Although games commenting on gaming are nothing new-- they've been around since at least the NES game Monster in My Pocket, where after the credits rolled, a 2D representation of the player character playing on a TV would be attacked by a boss. Other famous times would be the Psycho Mantis fight in Metal Gear Solid, who would read the player's memory card and required the player character to change controller slots in order to hurt the boss. My personal first experience was in Batman Arkham Asylum, during Scarecrow's boss fight, when the game pretends to glitch out and restart from the beginning, only with Batman as the prisoner. More and more, video game developers have their games acknowledge that their game is indeed... a game. Recently, with the rise of Steam, and the ease of uploading games to the platform, games have become more and more experimental and "meta". Notable recent releases with postmodern elements are Doki Doki literature club, Undertale, Petscop, and Lisa, with each making the player question their choices, game mechanics, and how they view gaming as a whole.
[JACK TIME]
Ok there's like a whole other article I could write here about how we could be looking at post post modernist gaming pretty soon because people could be getting tired of post modernism in gaming, but here's a youtube video explaining it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxzKZdTxNp8&t=363s
. Or how the triple A industry is basically in crisis right now because they're too busy using a games a service model, and focusing too hard on graphics and accessibility over gameplay. Or how video games aren't getting recognized as art bc traditional academics refuse to take an interactive medium seriously. ETC. ETC.
a
As an art form that has existed for less than 40 years, video games have had less time to develop stylistically than most other forms of art. Additionally, for most of that 40 year life span, games have been more focused on capturing realism than on games as an art form. Their struggle to capture realism and the elitism displayed by the triple A video game industry parallels traditionalist art. We still see their influence today, as the drive to increase graphical power continues. We've gone from a series of pixels on a screen to full scale replicas of ancient Egypt in Assassin's Creed: Origins, who's simulations of how the pyramids were constructed actually led to real life archaeological discoveries. There are problems with this traditionalist approach however, games tend to decay in graphical fidelity as newer games are made--so a game made 5 years ago won't look as realistic as one made today, and the barrier to entry for making something of such high graphical quality is often too expensive for smaller independent studios.
This isn't to say that gaming is entirely without modernism and postmodernism.
We can still see both modernist and postmodernist approaches begin to develop in gaming after the 6th generation of consoles. Cell-shaded graphics systems can be likened to Constantin Brancusi's incredible modernist sculptures, capturing the essence of the characters, and allowing us to engage with the medium even on outdated hardware-- Nintendo's 16 year old cell shaded Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker still holds up graphically today, while the 12 year old Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, although heralded for its more realistic and "mature" graphics at the time, fails to hold up.
Postmodern gaming is perhaps both the easiest and hardest to make in a way. Although games commenting on gaming are nothing new-- they've been around since at least the NES game Monster in My Pocket, where after the credits rolled, a 2D representation of the player character playing on a TV would be attacked by a boss. Other famous times would be the Psycho Mantis fight in Metal Gear Solid, who would read the player's memory card and required the player character to change controller slots in order to hurt the boss. My personal first experience was in Batman Arkham Asylum, during Scarecrow's boss fight, when the game pretends to glitch out and restart from the beginning, only with Batman as the prisoner. More and more, video game developers have their games acknowledge that their game is indeed... a game. Recently, with the rise of Steam, and the ease of uploading games to the platform, games have become more and more experimental and "meta". Notable recent releases with postmodern elements are Doki Doki literature club, Undertale, Petscop, and Lisa, with each making the player question their choices, game mechanics, and how they view gaming as a whole.
[JACK TIME]
Ok there's like a whole other article I could write here about how we could be looking at post post modernist gaming pretty soon because people could be getting tired of post modernism in gaming, but here's a youtube video explaining it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxzKZdTxNp8&t=363s
. Or how the triple A industry is basically in crisis right now because they're too busy using a games a service model, and focusing too hard on graphics and accessibility over gameplay. Or how video games aren't getting recognized as art bc traditional academics refuse to take an interactive medium seriously. ETC. ETC.
a
You've found an interesting medium which reflects aspects of postmodernism and modernism. I imagine that a game with postmodernist aspects would be quite interesting to play, knowing that the game knows and acknowledges that it is a game (hope that made sense), and the fact postmodernism is creeping even more into the gaming industry makes me wonder what other types of 'experimental' games they'll think of next.
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool! I'm not that cultured in video games so I feel that I learned a lot about gaming overall from this post. I can imagine how post-modern gaming captivates its gamers - it pulls you into the experience and makes you realize that you're playing the game. With new games coming out all the time with different features and methods of drawing in the player, I would also not be surprised if post-post-modernist games would come out very soon.
ReplyDeleteEven though these types of elements are what I like to see in a game to make it unique, it never quite clicked that it is quintessential postmodern ideas are what drive those twists, turns, and even immersion at times. Lately I've noticed that developers are making use of the medium to convey social issues and moral quandaries much more actively, the more recent examples you gave being especially keen on doing this. I'm not sure if it will ever catch on to those who don't play video games, but it's definitely a new phase in the art form.
ReplyDeleteNice Game Theory Plug! As a subscriber I appreciated it. But also I think this is really cool. I liked the comparison from Wind Waker to the sculpture because it's true, it's a style of animation that works really well for "holding up" because it isn't attempting true realism. Similarly modernist paintings were not attempting realism, because the photograph had been invented, they didn't need too.
ReplyDeleteMeta games do offer a nice way to frame what postmodern gaming is but if we took just graphics, I think a game like Undertale, which is a meta game, but also has unimpressive graphics, we can see the postmodern corollary to Wind Waker's modernism. The fact that the company couldn't afford major graphics isn't the point, because they probably could have been like Triple A and focused more money on graphics, but instead the point is partially the pixelated graphics. Or the mini-games in Five Nights at Freddy's which are incredibly pixelated and also some of the more "artistic" storytelling in the game.
I guess my point is that it doesn't have to be just glitching and things like that that make a postmodern game. The creation of intentionally "bad" graphics in great games, or their use in ingenious storytelling (although FNAF is not a game I enjoy very much, Game Theory has convinced me of its storytelling intelligence), challenges the modernist (Triple A) idea of what makes a good game, i.e. graphics and technological prowess.