[QUOTE=lissener]
I mean, it seems to me that what serious critics write about–in movies, at least, which is the closest relative to video games on the evolutionary tree as I understand it–is the stuff beyond the simple surface plot. Right? Criticism is rarely simply a plot synopsis, right? But videogames–and again, I acknowledge that there are videogames and videogames–are almost entirely “about” what happens, since that’s the player’s involvement. In fact, what a player gets out of videogame is the the *fact *that he’s making what happens, happen. This is A) the least interesting level on which to seriously discuss *any *work, and B)–and this is where videogames are unique–highly subjective. Even more subjective than the opinion of a critic: the actual facts of the “plot” is subjective in a videogame, because it’s different depending on the player. This as-many-plots-as-there-are-audience-members aspect of videogames will necessarily make any approach to serious criticism–beyond the level of the review–well, different from movie or music criticism.
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I think you’ve made a couple of mistakes here. First of all, even the most open-ended narrative video game is still very tightly scripted. In terms of craftsmanship (if not artistry) video games can be harder to write than a novel by an order of difficulty. If act one can end in five different ways, you’ve got to make sure that act two starts in a way that makes sense with each of those endings. I don’t think this takes anything away from the game as a work of art, though. The novel A Clockwork Orange was published with two different endings: this divergence of plot obviously does not effect the value of the novel. Games simply incorporate this multiplicity of narrative choices as an integral portion of the work. The idea that a work of art that changes depending on who is viewing it has been an integral part of the post-modern art movement since its inception: video games are the most perfect realization of this concept, although not always the most sublime execution of it.
More generally, though, you’re discussing video games as if they are by nature a narrative art form. They are not, although they often disguise themselves as one. What I’m arguing is that the “art” in video games is not in the story, or the characters. The art is in the game itself: there is some point where the combination of game mechanics, control scheme, level design, and player input fuse into something larger than the sum of its parts. That’s where the art happens in video games. The plot is merely something to hang those elements on. Think of it like opera: operas have a definite plot, but it’s usually a pretty dopey one. The plot in opera is merely an excuse for the music, and it is on the strength of the music that an opera succeeds or fails. Similarly, in video games, the plot is an excuse for the gameplay, and not usually held to be the standard by which you judge the success of the game.
You’re half right here. It’s not the next generation of video games we need to wait for, it’s the next generation of video game designers. It’s been thirty-five years since Pong. It’s been twenty since the first Nintendo console brought video games firmly into the home, and cemented their role in modern culture. The people coming into the gaming industry now are the kids who grew up with video games. These are not people for whom games are some shiny new gimmick. They’re people for whom video games have been a cornerstone of their lives, and they’re going to be more invested in examining video games from that perspective, both externally as critics, and internally as artists looking to use the medium to make a statement.