so i read Divest from the Video Games Industry by Marina Kittaka
or rather, i re-read it, having forgotten i had read it once before.
i'd not forgotten it because it is forgettable, i'd forgotten it because year 2020 when it was published (and when i think i originally read it) seems like a lifetime ago, and also in my defence anything i've read or seen before taking my meds seems like a bit of a blur now
in fact i think the article is anything but forgettable, and i only got like 2 sentences in before remembering that i read it and the exact contents. if anything, with my cerebral make-up that is a testament to how memorable the article is (there are probably whole books that i could re-read in their entirety and still believe it was the first time i'd read them)
but the article
i clicked on the link because (again, not having remembered i had read it) i thought this was something that might align with how i feel about video games. actually i realized while re-reading the article that it had probably been part of the formative process that took me to where i stand on these things now
i dislike the AAA game industry, and i dislike AAA games
it's easy for me to write because i don't expect to ever work in the industry, and even if by some strange twist of fate i do wind up there eventually, i'll probably just be openly antagonistic until they fire me
Marina summarizes multiple reasons to hate the industry better than i ever could, so i'll do my best not to repeat any of the arguments from the article.
i am also not going to focus too much on the multiple gripes i have with AAA games themselves, maybe i will do that sometime in a different post.
in this one, i wanted to say one specific thing that for me defines my relationship with AAA games vs my relationship with small games that i feel like i am close to being able to express these days
by "small games" i don't mean like AA games, or even the moderately bigger and more successful indie games. i mean the SMALL games, the bitsies, the picos, the videotomes, the renpys, the deckers, the tiny maybe 10 - 20 minute miniatures made by real people as found on itch or glorioustrainwrecks or newgrounds or roguebasin and multiple other spaces online and offline
while i feel like Marina's argument focuses more on the industry, and the production process of AAA games (though not exclusively), my argument focuses mostly on outcomes: the quality of the game itself and the way you interact with it
let's start maybe with the interaction with AAA games
i have in my life played a few of those, and admittedly only a handful to completion (which i feel like already is a statement about these games, though maybe also about my attention span).
the last AAA game i played to completion was the witcher 3, back in 2015. i liked the witcher 3 a lot, i will not downplay this. i played it after a break from gaming in general, and i remember being stunned by what became possible in the realm of creating open worlds. also just by how well the game was optimized. it played rather well for me, on a PC that was way below the minimum requirements. i was impressed by it, and it gave me a glimpse into what AAA games COULD be sometimes.
but it's been ten years since then and i have not picked up another AAA game. why?
one immediate and practical reason at that time was that i couldn't afford to switch or upgrade my PC. so the witcher was kind of the most that it could run, and for any games that followed i would have to do an expensive upgrade.
the second reason was that really, none of the other AAA games at that time seemed that interesting to me. that was the year when people were getting excited about no man's sky, and seeing in real time the garbage fire that that turned into upon release i was feeling kind of ok with not playing big new games for now
the third reason was maaaybe that AAA games cost money, and i didn't have a ton. but to be honest i don't think i would play more of them even if they were free. there were multiple big new games coming out that WERE "free to play" (MMOs, gatchas or other microtransaction-ridden games etc.) AND my pc probably would run some of them. i just don't think i was interested
the fourth and biggest reason was that in 2015 i started making games myself, eventually finding my way onto itch, playing more and more stuff there, and realizing that AAA games, even when technologically impressive, will never ever be as interesting and worthwhile as games made by real people. but we'll get onto that
going back to the witcher 3 for a moment: yes - it was good, i liked it, it was a fun experience that i sank a lot of time into (way too much time actually, but i'll let past me off the hook here because i didn't know better). the game was also something like 50 gigabytes of disk space on my medium-shelf laptop, AND when i tried to re-play it after a year or two, the pc just couldn't run it anymore.
i won't get too much into my gripe with AAA games being fucking massive, let's just say that for someone who remembers multiple games fitting onto a floppy disk (or compact cassette), the thought of downloading 100+ gb of data to your drive to play a video game is a joke. but again, i don't want to get into this (even though i would love to let you in on my tinfoil-hat theory for why modern games are so badly optimized)
i think Marina makes that point too, but i feel that a lot of the hype around AAA games is ultimately based on the "bigger is better" mentality that i just refuse to buy into anymore. bigger resolution, bigger map, higher frame rate, more hours of gameplay. required disk space too big for you kid? think of all the content there is! it's 60 hours of play time! think of the value you're getting!
i hate that
and when you do get past the paywall, and through the 100gb download, to get to the 60 hours of play time, what IS the value really?
the way i see it, AAA game narratives (and other made-to-market game narratives) are structured kind of like a hollywood blockbuster
they give you an illusion of progression, a mounting difficulty culminating in a final challenge, a big boss fight which both proves the worth of your character and resolves the games storyline in a satisfying way
interacting with the narrative is like touching a big, shiny, plastic gem. it is "immersive", but only in a way that it gives you a grand illusion of having experienced something and lived through something, when in reality you were sitting on your ass for 60 hours, and know nothing more of life than at the outset of the story
because real life is not like that
in real life there is no "progression" other than maybe the progression of time, which slowly wears you down and makes you uglier and weaker. there is usually no big culmination, no big boss fight or challenge. the real boss in life is you, and the fight is to stop that boss from subjecting you to a death-by-a-thousand-cuts of self-doubt and self-hate that they try to serve you up on the daily.
there is no one objective, no coherent storyline, but rather thousands of little storylines, most of which seem incomprehensible, disjointed and ultimately unresolved.
there is just no way that an AAA game will ever let you experience something that gives you insight into that.
by contrast, i think of the way i interact with small games
i check a game on itch (usually)
it takes me circa 30 seconds on the game's page to decide if i want to play it. there is no multi-million marketing machine churning in the back to get me to play, just a paragraph of barely readable yellow text on a pink background, maybe one or two incomprehensible screenshots.
i download the game, barrier to entry is low since it usually costs 0 pesos, and it's like 2 megabytes. i run the exe, i spend maybe 20 minutes with the game if someone went wild and made a full thing. in these 20 minutes i am smiling or sweating or stroking my chin. fuck sometimes i have a sob too. i come away both satisfied and wanting for more, and with a game that i'll keep in the "cultural heritage" folder on my hdd to replay probably forever, cause again it's lighter than a pdf
i go back to the itch page, leave a comment for the developer. sometimes they respond afterwards and even play one of my games too. sometimes we interact a bit elsewhere later.
NOW think of the value i'm getting
in 30 minutes of time, and having spent 0 money, i have seen a piece of art made by an actual person, felt an emotion, crumpled up yet another area of my brain, and possibly even did a "social interaction"
if you traded playing 60 hours of a AAA title for playing these small games, you would have touched a hundred little grains of sand. every one of those - a little poem, a sigh of a real person who is trying for something, a wish to be seen
you would have learned something of real people's hobbies, of their careers, of their backgrounds, of their transness, of their families, of their weird tastes, of their sexuality, of their trauma and of their healing - you would have learned something of life
that's why small games made by people are just so much better!
they are so much better in every way
and when the only "cost" that you pay for a game is the attention and feedback you give to the dev, that makes YOU feel better too
it makes you feel powerful, because you realize there is a world of games where creativity and love are the only currency
and instead of funnelling that currency (together with your other currencies) towards a big corporation that doesn't give a fuck what you think and also probably abuses the shit out of people who work therein, you can distribute it freely between people who are cool, who made something cool, and who are longing for you to love that thing
and once you're able to see that, it's really hard to go back
maybe this is something that's been said a thousand times elsewhere, and also maybe it's a bit naive, i don't know. but i have not seen it put this way yet, and it's just honestly the best way i can express why i think small games are really cool
if you got anything out of that, i hope you will go play some games on itch and leave a nice comment for the dev. they need it, and you need it too
anyways, that's all that i can coherently say on this topic. i've done a bunch of rambling, and now i'm back to the goblin mines.
i will crawl out again for sure, maybe with more letters, or maybe with a project who knows.
sending all the warm considerations your way.
peb