Are we taking full advantage of our medium?

I recently read a post by Variety and Kotaku journalist Leigh Alexander, who mused over the Citizen Kane of video games - a game that "will blow the doors open on games' sophistication and cultural relevance to a larger audience."

To avoid beating around the bush, allow me to say that I believe this game will come.

That isn't to say, however, that that's going to happen any time in the near future - probably not even in the current generation. The problem is, nobody's tapped into the full artistic potential that games can provide. Sure, in the current generation, we've seen blockbuster stories (GTA IV) and experienced some truly moving in-game action (Call of Duty 4), but one area in which games have not seen much growth is the area of artistic interactivity.

In an interview I conducted with That Game Company's Jenova Chen, we talked about games as art and what they are capable of. Chen believes that all entertainment should serve as "emotional food" meant to positively affect an audience's mood. We also talked about interaction in games, and what interaction implies. When it comes down to it, the biggest individualizing aspect that video games have over other media is interactivity. But hardly has that been used to its advantage.

Bioshock was one game that used the interactivity of the video game medium to provide a commentary on its players. "Would you kindly" became a phrase that broke the fourth wall in some ways, comparing our positions as players to that of the brainwashed protagonist that we thought we controlled. The moment was a testament to the power of that untapped artistic interactivity I'm talking about - the kind of interactivity where your actions contribute to the art and the game's message as a whole.


Another example, Passage, was a short game that had a great deal to say about life. If you haven't played it, play it now and then read the creator's statement. As you can see, every interaction in this game is also in direct correspondence with the game's message. If you pick up the woman on your path, exploration is difficult. If you hunt down treasures, you will find that some chests are deceiving. Later on, you begin to recognize patterns on the chests and gain real experience in achieving success.

There is direct manipulation of the interactive medium present in these examples. The experience and knowledge you get from playing the game has its own reflection in reality. Getting married also implies the same thing - you feel the consequences of your actions, and that triggers emotional involvement. That involvement comes to a head at the end of the game, as your beloved wife dies and you reach senility. When you finally reach a game over, you're dead - there's nothing else.

Our actions in games rarely ever hold any meaning. We kill, we grind, we collect, we solve, and we platform, but rarely do we do anything with any sort of weight or consequence. To leave that consequence untapped is to leave behind the ultimate potential that video games can offer. For people to see first-hand what games do bring to the table, we need to find it ourselves first. With video games, we can make interactivity work for our artistic intentions, and that hasn't been recognized yet.
Until it is, I'm convinced that we won't see our Citizen Kane for a long time.

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