The Brainy Gamer

Spore and the rush to judgment

Spore is a disappointment. That's the word on the interwebs and bloggoworld. Seven years in the making, the game generated unprecedented cross-media hype and sky-high expectations. Now, a full one day after most of us finally got our hands on it, Will Wright's magnum opus has been met by what feels like a collective 'meh' from the video game cogniscenti. Nice for the noobs, but too simplistic for us vets. Sort of an interesting toy, but where's the gameplay? Five so-so games "smushed together in a casual-player-friendly manner."[1] Actually, "Spore is kind of boring."[2]

The prevailing opinion seems to be that there just isn't enough game in Spore. As simulators go, it's incredibly ambitious, but most reviewers seem to think "real gamers" will find little to enjoy in Spore, at least until they reach the Space phase. The Sporepedia is interesting if you like looking at other people's stuff; and wow, people sure are making a lot of stuff.

I wonder, in the rush to judge the game and assign a review score to it, are we fairly seeing Spore for what it is, rather than what it isn't? How much do we really know about Spore at this point, given the intrinsically organic nature of the game, its content, and the many ways players will discover to mold, create, and play with its malleable universe? The standard process for evaluating games - advance copies sent to journos; hours spent playing through the game; reviews written and published in time for game release - may not be the best or most appropriate way to fairly evaluate every game. It seems to me a fair assessment of Spore should require more time.

I haven't finished Spore, if finishing it is even possible. But I have devoted many hours to it, and I consider what I've seen so far a stunning achievement. Astonishing, really. Playing Spore - experiencing it all for the first time; imagining, creating, and exploring the game as a vast universe of places, creatures, and ideas - is unlike any gaming experience I've ever had. Approaching Spore as a game with its own utterly unique agenda; and accepting, even admiring, its insistence that this experience be accessible to gamers and non-gamers alike - both are pivotal to understanding what Spore is all about.

Is it possible that by misconstruing certain stages as "Sims-lite" or "Civ-lite" we are missing the forest for the trees? Spore intelligently generates a complete, diverse ecosystem based on the design and evolution of your own unique creature, integrating an eco-appropriate sampling of creatures designed by other people around the world...all seamlessly, and beautifully on current-gen PC/Mac hardware.

And here's the thing: it all works! I haven't even mentioned the procedurally generated music or the eighteen different types of editors available to the player. As my son likes to say, 'Are you joking me?'

Part of my concern about the critical reception to Spore (I should mention the European scores are notably higher than the U.S. scores)  is the limited and restrictive definition of that word we all love to hate: gameplay. The problem, say 1UP and IGN and Gamespot, is that Spore mimics a hodgepodge of gameplay modes from other genres, but none of them especially well. If Spore were really about action, RTS, RPG, or any other familiar game genre, this criticism would be warranted. But it's not. Not at all, actually.

Spore enables the player to create her own experience, her own narrative, her own meaning. What you get with Spore isn't a formulaic set of genre-specific gameplay modes, despite the trappings of these in various phases of the game. What you get with Spore is the most phenomenal and breathtaking toolbox any game has ever delivered. Inside that toolbox are the most wonderful and fantastical tools any game has ever offered. What we will do with them, how they will evolve, and what impact they will have on our "gameplay" is still anyone's guess.

I have no idea at this moment what Spore means or if/how Spore will matter in the long run. But why do we need to know now? Why can't we wait and see what happens? The necessity of release-date summary judgments and final scores has never been clear or obvious to me. In the case of Spore, I think such treatment does the game a disservice. I think I'll hold off awhile before deciding what to think about Spore.

One more take

After I posted my short and admittedly angry piece earlier today, several thoughtful readers suggested I elaborate on my objections to the IGN "Ladies of Liberty City" video. I agree that I didn't properly explain my point of view, so here goes. After this, I promise it will be back to normal programming.

I think it's unlikely I'll be able to persuade anyone of anything, especially given how polarizing this and other GTA-related issues tend to quickly become. But I can at least try to clarify my intentions in posting as I did. I'm speaking, obviously, only for myself here, but I feel strongly about this, so I'm sure my tone may be seen as harsh or dogmatic. I don't think there's much I can do about that.

What IGN did was morally and ethically reprehensible. They posted a video using stitched-together segments of GTA4 gameplay to show a series of incidents where women are paid for sex and then shot and killed, or run over by a car and killed. This montage was not delivered as some kind of ironic social critique. It was, essentially, a hip, funky homage to killing women.

A similarly heinous compilation pieced together in any other medium and posted on a highly visible website would be denounced immediately, if it ever saw the light of day. Why is it somehow acceptable - and why are responses like mine considered "hysterical" - simply because the video uses footage from GTA4?

I'm not the first person to suggest we're reinforcing the marginalization of the medium by falling back on the "it's only a game" argument (I would extend this to include "it's only GTA."). I recommend Mitch Krpata's "Sex, Violence, and Video Games" for more on this. He says it much better than me.

Of course it's possible to do all the things the video depicts while playing GTA4. It's possible to do all sorts of ugly things in all sorts of media, as well as in real life. The fact that it's possible doesn't make it acceptable to do what IGN did. If you want to play GTA4 at home and kill as many prostitutes as you can, that's your decision. It's another thing entirely to make a compilation video featuring one killing after another, set to music, and post it on your website that receives over 20 million unique visitors per month.

The video is a construction. It was deliberately made, edited, and posted. Someone made specific choices about what this video was intended to communicate. It's not simply "footage from the game." I am suggesting that whomever is responsible for it ought to be held to account.

I've played two hours of GTA4. I have no idea if it's a good game or a bad game. It's irrelevant to my argument. I admire Rockstar for their innovative approach to video game design. They have made an indelible impact on gaming and gaming culture. These facts are also irrelevant to my argument.

Finally, I don't mean to suggest there's some kind of monolithic entity known as the "gamer community" of which IGN is some sort of spokesperson. We're way more complicated than that. But there is a culture and community of gamers out here, even if we don't all think or behave alike. It's fair to say that video games continue to suffer a serious image problem in our culture at large. Making the case for video games as a legitimate form of human expression is a long uphill climb. I know this from personal experience as an educator facing resistance, misinformation, or simple ignorance from my peers and colleagues every day. I realize lots of gamers don't care how we're perceived. In my career, I don't have that luxury.

I'm trying to move the ball forward. That's why I started this blog. It's hard for me not to take it personally when a major media site devoted to gaming posts a video like this because they think it's funny or cool or subversive or whatever. From a purely selfish perspective, it makes everything I'm trying to do as an advocate for video games more difficult to justify or explain. This may not matter much to others, and that's fine, but it matters a lot to me.

Pushing back

When one of the major games media outlets (Fox-owned, ironically) does something like this, we can let the politicians and cultural hand-wringers frame the discourse for us...or we can do it ourselves.

Thank you very much Leigh, Lux, Stephen, and Angela.

Dear IGN,

Removing the video and saying you "crossed a line" is a woefully inadequate response. You need to issue a formal public apology, and the people responsible for creating and posting this video must be held accountable. Jack Thompson is the least of your worries. You need to answer to us, the gamer community, many of whom resent the self-inflicted black eye you just gave us.

Step up and do the right thing. Until you do, I will no longer visit your site, your sister sites (Gamespy and Rotten Tomatoes) or your podcasts. I encourage others to consider doing the same.