A Purist Gamer's Manifesto

A Purist Gamer’s Manifesto

The Quest for Balance in the Game Industry

At first glance, the gaming community may appear to be united, with slight differences found only in console and genre preferences. However, over the years of analyzing the game industry, I have come to the conclusion that this apparent unity is very much a mere illusion. There exists a deep divide in the game industry—one that transcends trivial contrasts between hardcore and casual gamers and console enthusiasts.

Given the current industry climate the game media has helped foster, it may be seen as a radical idea to suggest this concept. But I believe there are two prevailing schools of thought in this industry. One, which found its roots planted in the mid-80’s and has experienced a sharp decline in influence over the last several years, is what I like to call the purist gamer philosophy. The other, known as hollywoodization, has seen a steady increase in dominance since the late 90’s. When exploring these two groups of gamers and the ideals surrounding them, polarization is inevitable. When the industry’s future is at stake though, opening a culture of debate is exactly what is needed.

While some may argue that suggesting there are two prevailing camps in gamers is a generalization and oversimplification, history has shown that seeding a culture of balance and debate starts with outlining two basic conceptual visions. There are of course subgroups on many levels and exceptions to the rules that are difficult to categorize definitively. But for the most part, people tend to gravitate towards the philosophy they agree with most. It’s the same way with American society: people of all walks of life tend to align themselves with two main political philosophies--conservatism and liberalism. This division creates a healthy stage for discourse and prevents confusion and blankets of counterfeit accord.

Purist gamers are those who tend to value emphasis on challenge, gameplay, innovation, and family friendly themes. They desire a pure, unadulterated game industry and often look to the NES era of gaming as the ideal model for this movement. I sometimes use the term "traditionalist" instead of purist. But because "tradition" has a negative connotation to mean "anti-progress," it is somewhat misleading. Innovation and new gameplay experiences are some of the hallmarks close to these gamers’ hearts.

On the other end of the spectrum lies the hollywoodization of gaming. (It is important to note that the Hollywood reference is not to be taken as an exact parallel of every facet of the Hollywood industry and can be interchanged with pseudo-terms fan have suggested I use such as "MTVization" and "superficialization.") Hollywoodization gamers tend to focus on at least some of the following areas as the focal point of the industry: graphics, eye candy (ex. HDTV, dual monitor display), tech extensions (ex. music file sharing), "mature" elements (ex. sex, violence, gore), and hip and trendy themes. In short, hollywoodization has a tendency to be concerned with outside superficial elements in products.

Both purists and hollywoodization gamers are made up of hardcore and casual gamers. Both groups have gamers with various console preferences, regardless of the fact that Nintendo often heralds many purist ideals whereas Sony and Microsoft lean towards hollywoodization. There are also fanboys found in both camps. It is best to think of purists and hollywoodization gamers as two coalitions each made up of different factions, focuses, and interests that ultimately lead to two overall different paths for the industry. There has been little clearly defined debate about these ideas largely because the mainstream gaming media has stifled debate amongst gamers.

I am not a believer in vast media conspiracy theories, but I do know a slant when I see one. And one exists in much of today’s mainstream gaming media. While charges of anti-Nintendo bias against the media have been bantered around for years, the slant in most cases is actually pro-hollywoodization. The media elites of TV, magazines, and the web feel the need to cater their content menu towards gamers who value hollywoodization ideals for various reasons. Often it is a simple case of journalist preference for these same values. However, generally, the main reason outlets cater to hollywoodization ideals is because that is what their companies think the majority of gamers want. They correctly assume that most mainstream casual gamers are hollywoodization gamers. Thus, their logical conclusion is that appealing to these gamers is what helps the bottom line.

If you can identify with purist gaming ideals, no doubt you have often felt neglected, belittled or at least at odds with what you hear in coverage found on leading gaming TV outlets, magazines, and networks. There are many cases in the media where gamers who emphasize gameplay and innovation over eye candy and "mature" themes are made to look like backwards, ignorant fanatics. The most effective tool for stifling debate in popular gaming culture is the fanboy label. I have wanted to address this grossly misused label for some time now.

The definition of a fanboy has been sorely abused and distorted in recent years. It is common knowledge that the tone and atmosphere of gaming forum communities is usually a good reflection of the media outlets connected with them. At many message boards the fanboy label is hurled as viciously as "prude" is in American culture. Many gamers are wrongfully demonized and dismissed as fanboys for raising logical arguments or beliefs that are out of step with the gaming media-directed popular culture. These fanboy misconceptions popularized by the mainstream gaming media may sound familiar with most gamers:

You know you’re a fanboy if…

From the 70’s to the early 80’s, the Atari empire ruled the game industry. The latter part of this era was marked by a sharp decrease in quality and an increase in superficial values. As newly welcomed third parties joined Atari in publishing titles, innovation, solid gameplay, and new genres were no where to be found. There was nothing new. No fresh ideas were being brought to the table. As companies flooded the market with shallow games promising only updated visuals, licensed characters, and rehashed themes, gaming stopped being what it was always about: fun. While many of the elements of modern hollywoodization such as "mature" suggestive content were not commonplace, this was a form of hollywoodization, or superficialization, gone wild. Gaming lost its soul. As a result, the consumers collectively rejected a shell of an industry. In 1983, one million copies of the Atari 2600 game E.T., a game touted for its improved visuals and pop culture elements, were reportedly dumped into a New Mexico landfill. For the next three years, the console industry ceased to exist.

It was not until 1985 that the seeds of a gaming revival were sown. A relatively unknown company called Nintendo released its NES console onto an unsuspecting New York. Needless to say, the toy took off. Nintendo’s NES succeeded because it ushered in a new era of solid gameplay and innovation. It made gaming fun again. Nintendo ensured quality control by limiting publishers to releasing five titles a year on the console. It also led third parties by example; Nintendo’s own groundbreaking franchises kept publishers on their toes. Companies had to innovate or get left in the dust. As a result, new genres were born on a regular basis. Sure, there was a fair amount of garbage titles, but the overall industry atmosphere was dominated by a newfound purist mindset thanks to Nintendo and a coalition of fantastic publishers. It was a great time for consumers as well. Gamers expected solid visuals as the standard fare for entering the game market gate; however, exciting gameplay was the main focus. The NES era was a time when gamers didn’t really play games to be hip or cool. Consequently, a publication could get away with having a clay Mario figurine on its magazine cover rather than girls, guns, and tricked out cars.

The purist gaming philosophy dominated the industry into the early 90’s with the advent of the SNES and Sega Genesis. Both platforms continued the focus of pure gaming fun with family-friendly themes still a mainstay. New genres were born and old ones were reinvented. "Mature" themed games started to find their niche, but games like Super Mario Kart and Tetris still ruled the roost with their ageless appeal. Meanwhile, the predecessor to a major tenet in a future industry shift was born when Sega centered its marketing attention on the need to be hip and cool while gaming.

Ironically, but not surprisingly, the shift from purist dominance to a more hollywoodized industry was spurred by the overreaching arms of an unbalanced purist gaming mindset in the industry. The very strong-armed policies Nintendo used to force quality control on developers ultimately drove them away when Sony released the groundbreaking PlayStation in 1995. Developing on the PSX was a liberating and welcomed change. Many also felt Nintendo went overboard in trying to preserve a family-friendly atmosphere through its use of censorship. (Mortal Kombat II’s "sweat" was a famous example of this backfiring.) Furthermore, the steadfast purist move of shunning the movie and music industries’ CD-R format contributed to the purist gaming philosophy’s downfall. The philosophy was defeated because, similarly to the Atari era’s unchecked hollywoodization, there was nothing to effectively balance the purist gaming dominance of the past ten years.

In the PSX/N64 generation of the late 90’s, the PSX revolution empowered more developers than ever before. Quality games and innovation were still found on both consoles, albeit in smaller doses. But the industry as a whole felt it was time to grow up, and the focus shifted to a march towards hollywoodization to see this goal come to fruition. Where there was once a dominance of family games and fear of censorship there were now shooters, Lara Croft, gore, and suggestive themes. Gameplay often took a backseat to graphics and realism. And in this battle of ideals, quality and quantity went toe to toe. Quantity proved victorious.

The adolescent industry began to seek the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. The maturing industry needed an expanded press to cover it. As a result, the roots of the mainstream game media leaders of today took hold. The young media was filled with return gamers—those who played NES games as children and then rediscovered their old childhood passion as a mature pastime adults could enjoy. These gamers generally saw the purist NES era as a relic of a fun childhood, but ultimately antiquated and trumped. They celebrated the new sophisticated entertainment industry that made it "okay for adults to play." These young adults flocked to fill the ranks of the budding media covering this gaming transformation.

In the current generation of consoles, the hollywoodization of gaming has only increased its dominance. Purist gaming ideals such as challenge, innovation, and ageless fun are being pushed aside more and more as a part of a quirky little niche. The game industry now has MTV coverage; a dedicated game channel that values "street fury" and women on trampolines; and lest we forget, our own Academy Awards, the fantastic VGA awards where hollywoodization is practically worshipped. You know gaming is seeing a disparity once again when talks of reaching out to consumers of all ages and both genders are labeled niche and "gameplay vs. graphics" is even an issue. Hollywoodization is engulfing the game industry and, if left unchecked by a purist force, will dilute gaming as we know it.

As you can see, the gaming purist school of thought is in trouble. It is simply not popular to champion purist ideals anymore—those things are deemed backwards, childish, and fanboyish. However, I firmly believe that gamers who value a purist direction make up a sizable segment in the industry. In fact, I would venture to say that purists might make up the proverbial "silent majority" of gamers. If that is not the case at the moment, it could very well be in the near future as an intelligent culture of debate is born and gamers reevaluate what they value most. In order for these gamers to embrace the purist banner and contribute to a balanced culture of debate, further clarification for what purists and hollywoodization gamers really are is definitely needed.

In order to fully grasp the dual gaming philosophy concept, the term "coalition" must be remembered. Like liberalism and conservatism in America, these groups are made up of people that do not always champion every ideal within the coalition, but support at least one of a key set of ideals that will take the industry in a certain direction. For example, most people would assume the hollywoodization camp is made up of mainstream casual gamers that swoop up the Grand Theft Auto clones and Madden renditions. These mainstream consumers tend to be greatly concerned with realistic graphics and technical bells and whistles. Yet there are many hardcore gamers that feel the success of the next generation of consoles will be defined by HD support, disc format, horsepower, and home entertainment capabilities as well.

On the other hand, purist gamers are not necessarily anti-gorgeous graphics and HD; they just may not think these should be the defining components of a game. As in the NES era, they feel solid aesthetics are the expected or understood part of the game, not the main event. Most purists do not shun HD either. (I myself enjoy the crisp picture the technology provides.) They perceive HD as a nice luxury addition to enhance games, not define them. HD is like leather seats in a car: welcomed but not essential to the driving experience. Furthermore, purist gamers are not exactly against gory games or "mature" suggestive themes in games. In fact, many of them enjoy some "mature" titles themselves. They simply feel that, unlike Hollywood, over-the-top sexual content and violence deserves a more niche rather than main focus in gaming entertainment. There are millions of longtime purist gamers that simply want to carry on their old pastime with their wives and children. That market demand will only increase as more and more gamers realize what maturity in gaming really is. The industry needs to realize that. For instance, I know a family in which the dad and mom grew up on the NES and SNES. The couple recently bought a GameCube to share many ageless classics with their 4-year-old son. They are not ignorant or backwards. They are enjoying pure and simple gaming the way it was meant to be. Likewise, many on the hollywoodization side are not against innovation and family/non-gamer approaches to design, they just see them as interesting side concepts of the market destined for niche status.

It is true that many gamers are hard to place neatly into one side or the other. For example, a tech enthusiast may be all for challenge and innovation. With these subgroups and moderates, their priority list of values is the best way to gauge their place on the purist-hollywoodization spectrum. As in other areas of life, it often comes down to a little black and white and several shades of gray. However, the two directions of purist gaming and hollywoodization serve as beacons to which all gamers can cling in deciding what is best for the future of the game industry.

As with gamers, there are some games that are hard to classify. Modern classics like Resident Evil 4 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas offer a perfect balance of purist and hollywoodization values: glamour and substance, graphics and gameplay, realism and challenge, innovation and mature themes. However, one cannot help but protest the idea of any industry filled with the two examples’ excessive gore and violence so, to that extent, even those kinds of evenhanded games can advance imbalance if the market does not supplement them with family games like Harvest Moon and Gran Turismo. There are many angles to consider when determining where the game market stands.

There is no denying the fun found with the many quality titles on the PS2 and Xbox consoles, but let’s be honest about Sony and Microsoft’s goals. Sony has gone on record saying it does not support pure gaming but rather jack-of-all-trades entertainment with its future systems. Their goal is to conquer the home entertainment center with an all-in-one computer system.

As for Microsoft, any business analyst worth his/her title knows the real strategic reason why Microsoft entered the game industry. Microsoft needed to stop a potential Windows PC killer in the Sony PlayStation-Linux operating system alliance. A PS3 with a fully functional operating system on the TV has the potential to severely cripple Windows on the PC. Also, from a marketing standpoint, Microsoft has used the Xbox brand to foster corporate identity appeal to the coveted young adult demographic that it has not connected well with due to its association with the older businessman crowd.

Most purist gamers feel that these goals are attractive but ultimately dilute and throw off focus the game industry they love. Again, that does not mean these purists do not enjoy the many excellent products available on these companies’ platforms. They simply disapprove of the direction Sony and Microsoft are taking the industry.

As you probably realize by now, Nintendo has been the most vocal supporter of purist gaming principles over the years. It is hardly alone though; several developers continue to promote pure gaming in their products as well. Despite being lambasted and ignored by its critics and opponents, Nintendo has adhered to a largely purist gaming approach to this day. Nintendo has made its fair share of mistakes. But from an idealist standpoint, Nintendo’s two biggest differentiations from purist values is its recent stance on challenge and stories in games. Some of their recent games have under-performed in the challenge level department. A few overpriced rehashes and gimmicky titles may provide some of that desired challenge but leave an overall sour taste in purist gamers’ mouths. In addition, purist gaming does not shun engaging storytelling like Nintendo admittedly did with their departure from Silicon Knights.

The upcoming Nintendo Wii promises to be an ideal console for purist gamers. Its Virtual Console download service will let gamers revisit (or visit) the charming classics found on over two decades of classic systems. With its unique controller, Nintendo seems set to deliver true innovation and new genres—something the GameCube did not quite deliver satisfactorily. Perhaps the biggest purist hallmark for the Wii is its promise to truly reach out to all people—existing gamers, ex-gamers, and non-gamers alike. If it succeeds in attracting people of all ages and both genders, the Wii could prove to be the ultimate antithesis to hollywoodization. After all, many of the ideals promoted with the dominance of hollywoodization—suggestive themes, violence/gore, eye candy, elaborate technology and the complex controls that come with it—have been the barriers to the game industry breaking out of its niche demographic of 12-35 males and expanding to females and those 35 and up. Perhaps this achievement is the final stage of maturing the game industry into an enduring art form on level with movies and music. I’ll touch more on that later.

A common defense of hollywoodization and mainstream superficial focuses is that it is simply a matter of money. Glitz sells. Sex, controversy, and pandering to "in" fads are what keep the industry’s publishers afloat. I have also heard from various editors of leading publications who claim they would love to provide more in-depth and thoughtful pieces in their content. However, they feel they have to cater to the mainstream gamer values (but I identify as hollywoodization ideals) to keep the bills paid. So it is true: hollywoodization does sell and expand the market to an extent. However, take a look at the top five best selling games of all time. I see games like Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and The Sims. Where's Hollywood?

A quote from Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime helps put the success of our current glitzy game industry into perspective:

"Look at this generation compared to the first one 15 years ago. Research today tells us that among those 52 million machines already sold, a full 24 percent are part of dual-system households, and eight percent reside under roofs with all three consoles. The math shows that our 52 million systems have only reached a little better than 35 million discreet American households, about 31 percent of all current U.S. homes. Back in the 8-bit days, there was only one console—the original Nintendo Entertainment System—which meant there were no dual-households. So 31 million systems equaled 31 million homes. And that represented 33 percent of all American homes at the time. It’s unsettling to see that in 15 years, we really haven’t increased the percentage of game-playing homes. The population has grown, but our relative popularity really hasn’t."

Brace yourself; this next sentence has a lot of meat. The fact that a supposedly matured entertainment industry with extensive media exposure and three of the wealthiest companies in the world has actually decreased in the United States when compared to a fledgling "children’s market" of the NES is absolutely astounding. It speaks volumes.

Clearly, this country’s most expansive era of gaming and all-time best selling games shared one key thread: pure, innovative, ageless fun.

As a purist gamer, my goal is not to see the death of hollywoodization. As history has shown, that would be both unrealistic and damaging to the industry as a whole. Instead, what others and I simply seek is balance. With no atmosphere of open debate about these ideals in place and a continuing imbalance in industry focus, the industry is headed for dark days ahead. I am not suggesting a picture of doom and gloom in the next generation. The purist force preventing that picture must be defeated or pushed into an insignificant niche corner for that to happen.

However, if hollywoodization continues to consume more and more power over the purist gaming philosophy, radical changes are in the future. Within a decade’s time, the gaming industry could be diluted to the point that it resembles something close to the MTVized music industry and Hollywood movie industry. Make no mistake, the film and music mediums have achieved art status. However, today’s mainstream music and movie industries lack substance. Movies like The Princess Bride are few and far between. And the music industry rarely produces songs with material that makes a genuine impact on listeners. So too, games will be devoid of essence and innovation. Gamers will have to be satisfied with a small "indie film" segment equivalent for purist games. Is that too hard to swallow? Just think: how many fantastic, innovative films have you seen in theater in the last year? The figure is depressing. The numbers drop further when evaluating mainstream songs and music videos.

Look, some people are content with having their pure games sparse like their quality movies. I am not. I will not stand for it. We do not have to settle for niche, not in this industry.

The other, less-likely scenario for a completely hollywoodized industry would be that the diluted console industry would simply collapse once again. Gamers would reject a shallow and empty shell of an industry. Though unlikely, this scenario of hollywoodization gone wild has a slight chance of happening. The very direction hollywoodization is headed would keep it from expanding beyond the confines of its current 12-35 year-old male core. Studies consistently show that that young male audience is slowly dwindling. The game industry would fail to become a lasting, ageless medium like film, music, and literature.

I refuse to dwell upon all the possible outcomes of an imbalanced, diluted industry. The winds of a renaissance of purist gaming ideals are in the air. When purist gamers make their voices heard in the industry and engage in a healthy debate of ideals with their hollywoodization friends, we can begin to balance the gaming industry like never before. Likewise, keeping the game media accountable and, in turn, fair and impartial will ensure a healthy playing field for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii. Media outlets and game developers will take notice.

Looking back at the history of this great industry, there are many lessons to be learned. But perhaps the most important lesson is that the industry will be at its finest when it finds that idyllic, balanced culture of purist and hollywoodization ideals. Agree or disagree. Whatever you do, keep this in mind. With the dawn of an exciting new console era, it is time to open the great debate.

Update: This article was originally penned exactly one year ago--November '05. Still, the content of the article is ever relevant. Needless to say, a lot of progress is being made in the attempt to balance hollywoodization with a purist gaming revival. Purist games are winning on the sales charts--especially in the handheld market. And thanks to challenges in several sectors of the game media, steps towards fairness are being witnessed. However, much work is still to be done.