Fun article. What's your favorite part?

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010129/adams_01.htm

I couldn't help but think of Deus Ex when I read this:

"If a game is representational rather than abstract, it may contain no conceptual non sequiturs, e.g. medical kits may not be hidden inside oil tanks."

Whew, thank god, my Sirgia Ivanovich vrs. Justin Thompson Water Polo '94 doesn't break any of the rules.

Ummm...reminded you of Deus Ex how? Weren't all the medical kits in that game inside clearly labelled medical crates? I think there was even a fiction attached to it in the first couple of missions -- terrorists had hijacked a UNATCO shipment, and were trying to get away with the supplies.

And I'm not sure the Dogma film movement is really something interesting to emulate -- as I understand it, there have only really been two that weren't bad. Seems to me like independant filmakers trying to rebel against the pretension of independant film by being pretentious in a completely different way.

"Weren't all the medical kits in that game inside clearly labelled medical crates?"

Hardly. It sounds like you haven't played very much of the game.

Ammo, power-ups, weapons, and healing kits were scattered around the world of Deus Ex with little rhyme or reason. Whether you love Deus Ex or hate it, you can't deny that it's jam packed with "conceptual non-sequiturs".

"And I'm not sure the Dogma film movement is really something interesting to emulate"

Ernest Adams Gamasutra article was obviously tongue in cheek.

"Seems to me like independant filmakers trying to rebel against the pretension of independant film by being pretentious in a completely different way."

Dogme is a noble attempt to recover filmmaking from the studio/blockbuster model that has even coopted independent films. As far as the ratio of good/bad films dogme has created...well, it's no worse than the ratio you find in mainstream filmmaking. :)

-Tom

"Dogme is a noble attempt to recover filmmaking from the studio/blockbuster model that has even coopted independent films. As far as the ratio of good/bad films dogme has created...well, it's no worse than the ratio you find in mainstream filmmaking. :) "

You thought it was bad when every clown on the planet decided to create a gaming web site (myself included)? Wait until every clown on the planet decides to create an "independent" movie and distribute it on the internet 5 years from now. Digital camcorders, broadband.. it's coming.

Sometimes a studio structure, or a print magazine structure, isn't necessarily a bad thing.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"And I'm not sure the Dogma film movement is really something interesting to emulate ... Seems to me like independant filmakers trying to rebel against the pretension of independant film by being pretentious in a completely different way."

They just came up with a set of rules in reaction to what they believe to be entrenched and valueless filmic conventions, and they did it with a sense of humor (witness the dog's ass/eye that greets you at their website). They're trying to throw away all the crutches and easy tools of manipulation that are considered standard operating procedure. What's the problem?

It kills me when people have such a negative reaction to what simply amounts to a formally different approach; especially when there have been stunning results. Have you seen Vinterberg's The Celebration? Reviewers like David Denby in The New Yorker seem genuinely afraid of such experimentation, I guess because it threatens their limited view of art. And it's not even that radical!

I think the Dogma idea as it applies to games is a great one. Even if it's presented as completely tongue in cheek, the basic idea needs to be taken to heart by game designers. There's an excess of technical creativity, but only a handful of truly creative storytellers in this business.

"Digital camcorders, broadband.. it's coming."

Hasn't it been here for awhile already? And anyway, who cares? Ultimately, it can't be anything but a good thing. It's still only the good or appealing work that gets noticed; or, as always, the thing with the most promotion money behind it.

As you note, there are millions of websites that we are able to negotiate, and the print equivalent, zine publishing, has been around since the advent of cheap photocopy technology. We are none the worse off for it; there's a 9-1 shit-to-shinola ratio regardless of the market volume.

"Sometimes a studio structure, or a print magazine structure, isn't necessarily a bad thing."

If by that you mean such structures will filter out the bad stuff, you're just plain wrong. Disney or Rupert Murdoch aren't about quality control, they're about the bottom line. That's why we need critics like Tom and Mark.

And not just to act as consumer filters, giving us a simple thumbs up or down so we know how to spend our money, but to process aspects of our culture in a useful and reactive way. Even if it's just entertainment.

That's why these guys are good game critics -- They don't take it too seriously (they are after all just games), and they bring intelligence and perspective to their analyses. There's no way we can expect anything approaching that from a movie studio or most publishing houses.

"If by that you mean such structures will filter out the bad stuff, you're just plain wrong. Disney or Rupert Murdoch aren't about quality control, they're about the bottom line. That's why we need critics like Tom and Mark. "

Well I think Tom and Mark are outstanding, of course, but I said *sometimes*. For every site with quality writers like Q23 there are a dozen that just have no business existing.

A similar analogy could be made for self-produced movies. I don't think we've seen the level of broadband penetration we need for online movie distribution to be a reality. 5 years is probably too optimistic. The world would be a very different place if everyone had at least single-speed CD-ROM access to the 'net (150kb/sec). That's my barometer, anyway.

And heck even great stuff like Rushmore gets made inside the Disney system. It ain't *all* bad.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"Well I think Tom and Mark are outstanding, of course, but I said *sometimes*. For every site with quality writers like Q23 there are a dozen that just have no business existing."

Wumpus has a point, but I'd rather have too much than too little. I used to follow the contemporary poetry scene quite closely and you can argue that there were too many literary journals and too much stuff being published. However, it wasn't like the leading journals published the best stuff. Sometimes the most interesting work was being done in tiny 'zines being run out of someone's basement.

There are too many gaming sites, but so what? I just don't pay attention to most of them. When I find a good one, I bookmark it. I'd prefer filtering my choices that way to having someone else do it for me.

"And I'm not sure the Dogma film movement is really something interesting to emulate -- as I understand it, there have only really been two that weren't bad."

The Celebration is a great film by any standards, and Mifune and The Idiots were both interesting in their own way. Though the documentary about The Idiots (Jesper Jargil's The Humiliated) is probably better than the film itself. I didn't see Julien Donkey Boy because I haven't really liked anything with which Harmony Korine has been involved. What's up with the other 15? Have any of these seen wide distribution? Or any distribution at all?

As for the game version, it's interesting up until about #6. Some of the points seem ridiculous (no cinematics? only scrolling text?), and the same goal could have been achieved in another manner. Further, the idea of "genre" in games is very (or at least somewhat) different than the idea of "genre" in films. The list of no-no genres is somewhat silly. No "special attacks"? Is that just because the author dislikes fighting games?

It seems like a list of very specific complaints about current games, instead of general guidelines to foster creativity and accessibility in design.

I do realize The Celebration is supposed to be pretty good -- I haven't seen it, and heard mostly good word of mouth about it -- but again, by word of mouth, I've heard the rest are a bit too impressed with themselves, and in some cases, the restrictions the directors have imposed on themselves hurt the film. My problem isn't so much with thinking different -- it's with the thought process that proscribing certain elements or ideas from your work, it will somehow be better. Say I read Swann's Way, conclude that Proust's prose is too florid, and decide to create a movement where no noun can ever have more than one adjective modifying it. Or decide after reading Gravity's Rainbow that the first person present tense is the best way of conveying emotional involvement, and all books should use it. Or read Autumn of the Patriarch and decide that sentences can never be longer than 40 words.

In each case, there's debatably a point to be made, but strictures are not the answer. Restraint in use of things like cuing onscreen action with music is definitely a good thing, but again, getting rid of it entirely is, in my opinion, silly. For a group of filmmakers or game developers to set themselves up as true artists by rejecting conventional techniques is horribly pretentious and stifling. Is Shadow of the Vampire a bad movie because vampires don't really exist? Is it the fact that the Sci-Fi Channel Dune was filmed on a soundstage that made it suck?

I don't think any movement to revitalize independant filmmaking is bad, of course, but I strongly, strongly disagree with the mindset that induces you to sign your name to a list of "thou shalt not"s before beginning to create a work of art. Even if the rules are things I generally agree with, they still amount to an attempt to impose cultural fascism. That's bad.

And getting back to Deus Ex, I played through it twice, and maybe I'm not recalling things that well, but I honestly remember medkit placement as being refreshingly logical. Just going back over some levels in my head, there were times when the crates themselves were in slightly odd places, but almost uniformly they were in areas where people had bases of some kind set up, where transports might have legitimately been destroyed and dropped cargo, and so on. I dunno...I liked the game a whole bunch, so maybe I'm looking back with rose-colored glasses, but I don't remember item placement being that random.

There were some real "conceptual non sequiters" though -- the conversation towards the end that went something like "To save the world, you're going to need to blow this thing up with 4 mines. I can sell them to you for 1600 dollars. Do it soon, or we're all dead." "Can't you give me a discount or something?" "Sorry, got to cover my costs" was a bit on the surreal side.

And I do realize the gamasutra article was tongue in cheek. Just trying to spark conversation :)

"There are too many gaming sites, but so what? I just don't pay attention to most of them. When I find a good one, I bookmark it. I'd prefer filtering my choices that way to having someone else do it for me."

But you can't have your cake and eat it too, Mark. If you have that many websites vying for the same advertising dollars-- there's a collapse. Much like the one going on right now. Too many producers and not enough consumers.

I am in no way advocating that we should go through and shut down sites that we think "aren't good enough". What I am saying is that barriers to entry can be a good thing, in that they weed out the people who are serious from those who are in it for a quick buck.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

The problem isn't too much supply. The problem is extreme lack of demand. No one is getting ad dollars right now, except for places like CNET, and they're huge and attract non-gamers too. And you can bet they're hurting too.

The barrier to entry may be low, but generating traffic volume isn't guaranteed by putting up a site. The quality sites will deliver traffic to advertisers. The junk sites won't. If there are ad dollars to be had, the quality sites will get them. Too much supply might help keep ad prices down a bit, but it won't kill sites.

The real barrier to entry is the effort it takes to put up a quality site. Right now Tom and I are running into that. It demands a lot of time, and without financial return, it's difficult to allocate the time. That's something that all sites have to deal with. Once you start adding paid staff, you have a pretty significant barrier to entry. It's likely that most sites can't compete for ad dollars (even if they were there) without bearing the expense of paid staff. For us, that would mean paying ourselves.

"I don't think any movement to revitalize independant filmmaking is bad, of course, but I strongly, strongly disagree with the mindset that induces you to sign your name to a list of "thou shalt not"s before beginning to create a work of art. Even if the rules are things I generally agree with, they still amount to an attempt to impose cultural fascism. That's bad."

Conversation sparked.

No offense intended, but I can't help but characterize your response as kneejerk; you're making all sorts of claims and objections about the Dogme approach, apparently without even taking the time to understand it for yourself or see any of its products firsthand.

The assertion that the Dogme filmmakers are guilty of some sort of cultural fascism is just fucking ridiculous. If there's any cultural fascism at work here, it's imposed by the mainstream film establishment and its notion of "what the consumer wants," dictating all sorts of mindless and idiotic standards for commerical motion pictures, which have in turn leaked steadily into the independent film world.

Anyone who *chooses* to use the Dogme rules does so voluntarily on a film-by-film basis, and may make a non-Dogme film at any time. Lars von Trier, one of the co-founders, recently made a musical, for crying out loud. Nobody signs away their career; they just choose to abide by the rules on a per-project basis. Maybe they and/or the audience learns from the experience, maybe they don't.

And if you don't understand the value of self-imposed creative limitations, then well, I'm guessing you haven't thought a lot about making art or the nature of creativity. By working within limitations, an artist is forced to fully explore a finite range of expression, and in so doing may discover things she never would have found otherwise.

This is precisely the goal of Dogme: they seek to reduce artificiality in the interest of finding something honest. They don't guarantee it will work; they're just exploring the possibilities.

There is a long history of "limitation" movements in practically every medium of expression. Limitations force us to truly communicate, to finds new ways to say things under sometimes difficult conditions instead of relying on cliches or foregone conclusions. What is a haiku if not a limited way to put together words? It forces the poet to consider very carefully everything he puts down on paper.

Limitations can range from the simple, like the haiku form, to the extremes employed by Georges Perec, a French writer who wrote an entire novel without using the letter "e" (http://dannyreviews.com/h/A_Void.html). As they apply to art, as long as they are self-imposed (and sometimes when they are not), limitations are actually a catalyst for creative expression, not an asphyxiator.

"Conversation sparked."

And shut right back down. Great post, Jason. Dogme is a bold experiment, not a mandate.

This G*org*s P*r*c guy, on th* oth*r hand, scar*s m*.

-Tom

"The problem isn't too much supply. The problem is extreme lack of demand. No one is getting ad dollars right now, except for places like CNET, and they're huge and attract non-gamers too. And you can bet they're hurting too. "

Well, I disagree in that

1) The real root of the problem is the false internet "economy" generated by the gold rush mentality.

2) In a world where every man, woman, and child on earth is one click away from everyone else, with no barriers to entry, you absolutely can have a case of too many producers. For example, how many game reviews do I need to see? How many opinion pieces can I read?

3) this could lead to the ultimate sort of "walmartization"; a tier of a few very large sites that serve 99% of the needs of billions, leaving little room for mom and pop operations. There's always specialization, of course, but why should I buy a video card or game from you when I can go to pricewatch and buy it from the lowest possible price vendor, which is invariably going to be the largest one with the largest volumes? It's almost like hyper-capitalism.

This is all just speculation, of course, but I think it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

"The real barrier to entry is the effort it takes to put up a quality site. Right now Tom and I are running into that. It demands a lot of time, and without financial return, it's difficult to allocate the time."

How about if I buy 56 copies of Tropico? ;)

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Really good points -- I overstated my case, I think (again, mostly to play devil's advocate, but whatever :)

Let me try to be clearer -- limitations per se are not what I'm disagreeing with, but the conception that art can only be created within those limitations. When I read the Dogma manifesto I see a document that seems to be saying that the savior of the modern independant film is at hand. I enjoy haiku a whole lot, and if someone decided that modern post-beat poetry had gotten too far away from its roots in precision of rhyme and meter and decided to only write strictly metered sestinas, more power to 'em. But once they get on a soap box and start proclaiming that they have an "indisputable set of rules" for creating art, my hackles start to raise.

It's not the idea I disagree with -- it's the presentation of it as something necessary to the evolution of film by its originators. If it was just an exploration, again, more power to 'em, but calling their limitations indisputable says to me that they're a bit too impressed with themselves.

Basically what I'm reacting to is the idea, unstated as it is, that a mediocre Dogma film is somehow intrinsically better than a good mainstream Hollywood film. If limitations help you create art, great, but beting your drum about the limitations at the expense of the art itself is at best a gimmick.

And plus I disagree with their conception that film as individual vision is false, but that's another story :)

As I see it, the standing rule is that you should give the people what they want. Unfortunately, this means that the demand must change before we will see a marked change in what is being produced. Extending this principle to games, I expect to see a zillion variants on the roller-coaster genre, much like the hunting game spin-offs from a few years ago.

The problem I have with Ernest's article is that it seems more reactive than proactive. In other words, the guidelines tend to focus on the game representation and implementation instead of the gameplay or premise.

- Alan

>>As I see it, the standing rule is that you should give the people what they want.

Actually people never know what they want. Did they know they wanted rollercoaster games?

Giving the people what they want gives you Daikatana. Letting people create what they want gives you, I dunno, RollerCoaster Tycoon.

If you want to create markets you need to take risks; if you want to follow you do what everyone else is doing.

"Actually people never know what they want. Did they know they wanted rollercoaster games? "

Actually I'm pretty sure the people wanted Diablo II (myself included). This cuts both ways.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

>>Actually I'm pretty sure the people wanted Diablo II (myself included). This cuts both ways.

Sequels are different because they have a built-in audience. People didn't know they wanted Diablo. And you can't know for certain if people would have preferred Diablo II to be different than it turned out...

>Giving the people what they want gives you Daikatana.

I didn't say that this was a good thing. I said it was the standing rule. Personally, I would rather Blizzard had done something other than a Diablo rehash, and we all know about Daikatana. *smirk*

- Alan

There are strong points on both sides of the argument. I tend to think of games as commercial products more than works of art, so I think developers always have to think about a game's potential audience. Otherwise you get Vangers.

That said, of course we want to be surprised and delighted by a game's creativity.

AOE2 is an example of a game that takes no risks whatsoever, yet I think Ensemble did well to give fans what they wanted -- AOE v2.0, so to speak.

Then you get a game like Sacrifice that comes at the RTS genre but has a very creative take on it.