Freakonomics - Levitt 2006

Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner, 2006

• Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life
• Conventional wisdon is often wrong
• Experts use their own informational advantage to server their own agenda
• Knowing wht to measure and how simplifies a complicated world

Incentives/deterrents can be economic, moral (I feel good about it) and social (pressure from society, shame). Experiment: The first rule was "Parents must pick up their kids before 5pm". When this rule was in place, only a few parents picked up their kids late. When changing the rule to "Parents who pick up their kids late are charged $3", many more parents picked up their kids late. Parents who used to feel morally responsible could now buy off their guilt. And the low fine signaled that it was no big deal to pick up your kids late. In the same "vein" of examples, paying people $5 to give blood results in less donors. Replacing the moral incentive by an economic one changed the way they saw the situation: while saving lives could justify the hassle/pain, $5 is not enough. People also cheat to abuse the incentive and get more for less. Cheating is more likely to happen for clear outcomes (e.g. sports or politics) than if the benefit or its recipient are not obvious.

Asymmetric information: people with exclusive info can cause fear (e.g. the USA don't know when terrorists are going to attack) and respect/gratitude (e.g. experts such as realtor agents know how much your house is worth on the market, or doctor can tell what disease you have). Internet is decreasing the information asymmetry. Experts need journalists to spread their opinion, but journalists need experts to write about new interesting/provocative topics.

What people say is not what people do. Examples: profiles on dating websites (most people rate their look "above average"), or voting for extreme right (people are ashamed?).

Four factors determine wage: specialized skill, unpleasantness, demand for the job, and supply of workers. That's why prostitutes earn more than architects per hour.

Risk: We suck at assessing risk: we measure it (implicitly) as risk = hazard + fear, while it should only be risk = hazard. When fear > hazard, we over-react. Hence the most hazardous risks are not always the scariest. Risks we don't have control over are scarier, while familiarity decreases fear. [This echoes the class on stress] Examples: heart attacks cause more deaths than terrorist attacks, yet people still eat fast-food. People fear more plane accidents than car accidents, even though they happen as often per hour spent in them.

[Except the first 2 chapters, I found this book focused too much on poor Blacks vs rich Whites.]

Influence - Cialdini, 1993

Weapons of influence

Fixed-action patterns: the response behavior always happens in the same way. We're interested in the trigger of that response. Most of the time, the trigger is valid, but sometimes it's misleading. This response is triggered because the load of information in our society is too big for our lazy brains, and we need shortcuts.

Give a reason/explanation when asking a favor; it increases its chances of being accepted. "Let me pass you because I'm in a hurry."

Expensive = good. Make the customer think "it's a bargain!". Pretend to discount an item from $100 to $50 while the actual price really is $40.

Contrast principle: When buying a $30k car, a $1k radio does not seem like much. Show a $500 suit first, then a $50 shirt to make the shirt look cheap. Also works the other way: clients won't buy if you first show the cheap item and then the expensive item.

Reciprocation

Reciprocity rule: We feel obliged to return favors because society looks down on ingrates. You can increase compliance by providing ... a small favor prior to a request. Benefactor-before-beggar strategy.

Why it works: The reciprocity rule promotes the initiation of trade without fear of loss. It is too socially beneficial for us to want to violate it. It's also hard to reject gifts, even unwanted ones. Since society looks down on ingrates, feeling obliged is disagreeable, and that makes us ready to give a lot to get out of such a disagreeable situation. Examples: political favors, "you don't bite the hand that feeds you".

Concessions: the basis of trade and negotiations. Example: Boy scout in the street sells expensive lottery tickets for $10 apiece. When we tell him no, he asks "what about a $1 lemonade then?". We're likely to say yes because we think he did a concession to us. Add the effect of the contrast principle: $1 is nothing compared to $10.

Commitment and consistency

Once we make a choice (e.g. bet on a horse, or pick one of two lovers), we stubbornly stick to it and back it up ("despite all his flaws, he has lots of qualities").

Why it works: Lazy brains use consistency so that they don't have to re-evaluate a decision all the time. We are under pressure to bring our self-image into line with our past actions. Hence, any request that goes in that direction will be accepted. Example: Phone call and ask people how they're doing. They answer "Great!". They just made a commitment. Continue with "Glad to hear it, because I'm calling in support of a charity for Orphans in Hospitals during Christmas ...".

Foot-in-the-door strategy: sell an undervalued item to transform prospects into customers. When they realize that they are customers of yours, they will come back to buy any item, even overpriced ones, by self-commitment.

Active, public, and effortful commitment is the most effective at changing the self-image. We accept responsibility for a behavior when we think we've chosen to perform it in the absence of strong outside pressures (ie rewards or threats did not justify the participation, yet you participated). Examples: Customers who write the sales contract down themselves are less likely to cancel orders or ask for refunds. Undergrads who choose to endure a fraternity hazing convince themselves it was worth it.

Low-balling: Promise people a reward (e.g. money or fame) if they do something repeatedly (e.g. save energy, take out the trash), and cancel that reward after a while. They are likely to keep doing it because in the meantime, they have built other reasons to support their new image (e.g. "I am the kind of person who saves the planet or helps someone").

Social proof

We find correct what people similar to us find correct (social evidence). Example: canned laughter in TV shows to signal that it's funny, or herd behavior.

Pluralistic ignorance: Lots of people, none of them knowing what's going on, are all looking at each other for clues of what to do. Since they can't find any, nobody does anything because everyone wants to stay poised in public. Even more efficient when people are in unfamiliar contexts (e.g. abroad or in fancy receptions).

Liking

Tupperware parties and obligation of friendship: people twice more likely to buy because from a friend than because the item is useful. Door-to-door marketing: simply mentioning "your friend X recommended you to us" is enough: turning the sales person away ... is almost like rejecting the friend.

We like and are more likely to favor good-looking people and people similar to us. We generally believe compliments and those who give them.

Cooperation: when cooperation is required to achieve common goals, and each party has a part of the solution, it can turn enemies into collaborators, and then friends. For example, Bad Cop puts pressure on the interviewee, so that Good Cop looks like he's cooperating with the interviewee, and makes him comply with his requests.

Association: we hate people who bring bad news, and we tend to prefer products who are advertised by good-looking people. The association does not have to be logical, just positive. See also Pavlov's dog. Similarly, when our national team the soccer world cup, we feel associated with their success: "we won!". But when the team loses, "they lost!". We are particularly eager to bask in reflected glory when our image has been recently diminished.

Authority

Milgram experiment and its addition: instead of a single authority figure asking to give shocks, have two authority figures giving conflicting orders (shock vs don't shock). The subject tries to see who is the boss of who.

Clothes and titles: an actor disguised as a doctor in a TV ad gives more credibility to the medicine. Security guard uniform doubles the rate of people who give a dime to another person for parking. When jaywalker in business suit, people are more likely to mimic him.

Important things and people are seen as taller. Yet the more a category of people is concerned by a mark of authority (e.g. students by teachers, or males by cars), the more that category underestimates the authority's impact on them.

Scarcity

We are more motivated by not loosing something, than by gaining something of equal value.

Reactance: as we're losing opportunities, we feel like we're losing freedoms. Since we hate losing freedoms, especially those most recently acquired, we'll fight to keep them. We'll also give those freedoms more importance or qualities than before. Example: 2-year-old kids discover they have a body of their own (a form of freedom newly acquired). They'll say no to everything to check their new boundaries. Same with teens realizing they can be independent of their parents: they fight parental authority.

Scarcity works on objects: ban phosphate use and people start finding it more useful. It also works on persons: cf the Romeo and Juliet effect: because their parents forbid it, their love is bigger. It also works on information: tell supermarkets that beef is scarce and that it's rare to know that beef is scarce increases sales by 6x. It also works on rights and ideas: forbid a book to minors and 1) they want to read it more, and 2) more of them think they're going to like it.

Temporal scarcity: examples include "available only this week" or pausing a face-to-face conversation to take a phone call because "he may not call again!". Being put in competition with other people (e.g. auctions) is even more efficient.

Scarcity creates a desire that has little to do with the merit of the commodity. The joy is not in experiencing a scarce commodity, but in possessing it.

What MEUPORG can teach us

Yann Leroux wrote on March 27th a blog article entitled Ce que MEUPORG nous enseigne (what MEUPORG can teach us). It is an account of what happened on the Internet after a French TV journalist tried to explain what MMORPGs were, and somehow failed. Since the article is in French, here is a (rough) translation.

The MEUPORG story is very insightful. There is not only in it about how video games are mistreated in our society. There is also about how gamers are organized today and how a TV channel reacted to a crisis that happened on the Internet. The beginning of the story is quite ordinary:

1. Journalist Nathanael de Rincquesen has one minute to summarize a topic in Télé Matin. In one single minute, he can but only rush through it.
2. He relies on a news article from a French newspaper - Libération - and copying-and-pasting does not help thinking.
3. He stumbles upon an acronym.
4. William Leymergie, the host of the morning TV program, interrupts him mischievously.
5. The journalist continues in his error.

Elements of popular imagination have always been attacked by the media. Then, those media become the elite's spokesperson. But the 21st century has something different; opinions are no more confined in pubs or workshops. The Internet is one of the places where they are created, transmitted and spread. We have now entered an era of commentary economics. It can be rejoicing or deplorable, but it is a fact that should be taken into account. Unlike the past century, the Internet offers a place where opinions can sprout nearly immediately. Some people in the audience are next to their laptop or their smart phone. They are looking for interactivity and will look for online places where they can express what they want to say.

The birth of a meme

A first video is posted on Youtube, it is soberly titled France 2 - télématin - MMORPG . Among others, Korben relays it. The video is seen and commented by a considerable number of people. Starting with this first video, the MEUPORG meme is born. Images, websites, tee-shirts or Facebook fan groups, all relay the journalist's error. The first Youtube video is edited and remixed.

The traditional media have not yet seized the strength of this movement. France Télévision stood silent on Twitter. Journalist de Rincquesen has not yet realized his name is now attached to MEUPORG. The program forum thread is burning and the journalist's Facebook page is filled with ironical comments. Certainly, one might bet this buzz is nothing more than another flash in the pan which the Internet is used to. However, the movement is much deeper. It is not a riot, it is a revolution sign. For those who would not take seriously the puerile lol machine, maybe the Union pour un Meuporg Populaire (translates as Union for a Popular Meuporg, a parody of the UMP French political party name) will provide fuel for thoughts. Gamers are not teenagers entrenched in their bedrooms and isolated from the outside world. Most of them are young adults, aware of what happens in their society. And they know how to make themselves heard.

The media side

The TV channel is living what Mc Luhan coined as the medium is the message: the shockwave has hit it so strongly that it is as if it were anesthetized. France 2 strikes one as being unable to take measures and handle the crisis. However, no doubt about it: crises like this one will multiply and grow in intensity. They do not only concern TV channels. Currently, Nestlé is the target of such an attack on Facebook. Online places are places not only to gather a passive audience but also to question and protest. Some end up finding themselves among wolves when they thought they could shear sheep. Internet will be one of the places where our societies' malaise will seep out.

Every morning, 1.4 million people in average watch Télé Matin. That means the first video posted on Youtube has generated 54% (760.000 views as of August 2010) of their audience. Obviously, this video was not watched 760.000 times in one day - but the 1.4 million do watch the program every day. Anyway, such an increase in the awareness of the TV program or channel among Internet inhabitants would be most welcome if it were positively conveyed. Unfortunately, it is more about destroying the image of the journalist, the TV program, the TV channel and mainstream media in general. The community managers of the TV channel would be expected to intervene and help get out of the crisis. Some are missing the opportunity to show how useful they can be in such undesirable times.

[Literature] Characterizing and Understanding Game Reviews

In Characterizing and Understanding Game Reviews, Zagal et al. give the most salient features and qualities that game reviews have. See the table below for the feature list. They analyzed 120 reviews from 2006 on IGN and Gamespot.

Theme	Description
Description	What you need to do to play this game as well as its features, modes, and characteristics.
Personal Experience	Emotions felt due to the game (during or after play. Also includes technical problems experienced.
Reader Advice	Recommendations, strategies for success and enjoyment of game as well as discussion of the skills or abilities necessary to play this game.
Design Suggestions	Discussion of features that are missing or lacking or suggestions for future improvement of game.
Media Context	Contextualization of game with respect to non-game media properties from film, books, TV shows, comic books, and so on.
Game Context	Contextualization of the game with respect to other games, game genres and their conventions as well as the history of games in general.
Technology	Affordances and role of hardware on which game runs. Includes discussion of the controllers used or other capabilities.
Design Hypotheses	Design Goals that developers/designers had for the game
Industry	Discussion of state, issues, or trends of the games industry as a whole.

Zagal et al. also identified other interesting facts about game reviews. For instance, game journalists assumed game developers read their reviews because they sometimes were directly addressing the creators of the game. Maybe reviewers realize they arguably played many more games than most game developers and may thus know more about the medium. Some reviews also commented on company business models.
Reviews also help preserve videogame history because they embed the historical context during which the game was published.

However, reviews had certain flaws. First, discussions pertaining to the methods and means through which game reviews are conducted were missing from reviews. Second, Zagal argued that students taking videogame-related classes might have difficulties expressing ideas about gameplay or articulating their experience with games because most of what students read about games are videogame reviews, and that they are thus generally lacking in models of what in-depth analysis or critique about games look like. Third, reviews commonly assume that the reader is familiar with other videogames and their genre conventions, but they were not providing details as to what those conventions refer to or mean. This could make game reviews inaccessible to the most casual readers. Should game reviews be targeted to fans only? Or could they actually be helping the inexperienced readers in providing references to other video games? Fourth, Dang argued reviewers focus too much on the (lack of) innovation of a game compared to other games (Dang, A. (2006). "The 5 Problems with Videogame Journalism." Retrieved Dec 11, 2008, from http://firingsquad.com/features/problems_with_video_game_journalism/). Zagal thinks the innovation bias is rather a feature of the medium of videogames. Movie sequels don't "improve" on the original. Games do, for the most part.

[Literature] On virtual economies

On Virtual Economies by Castronova in 2003 points at the growing importance of VW on real-life society. Similarly to real-life, people live, consume and generate profit in VW. However, the software nature of VW means controlling the market is much more efficient for the regulating authorities. In cyberspace, the coding authority does indeed have the power to create and destroy any amount of any good, at virtually zero cost. What are the possible evolutions for these VW economies? How do VW economies influence RL economies?

Establishing an economic model of VW

Economists are forced to recognize that VW are not only mere entertainment, they also have a RL impact on people. Indeed, economists do not make any difference between real and virtual items or properties: if people are willing to incur large time and money costs to live in a virtual world, economists will judge that location to be lucrative real estate, regardless of the fact that it exists only in cyberspace. For economists, our behaviors follow constraints: we cannot have everything we want. The tighter these constraints are, the less choice we have. Presumably, people feel happier when they are less constrained. However, a MMOG providing too little challenge is not constraining enough, and people get bored quickly. Example/comparison: people prefer a 100-piece puzzle than a 2-piece puzzle. Castronova deduces a function regulating hours of game time for gamers based on the 3 following assumptions:

• People do things that make them feel happier
• confronting and overcoming challenges makes people happy
• higher rewards is preferred, holding challenge levels equal

This function shows several particularities. Gamer can be willing to pay for tougher constraints. Rich people can play because they can afford it. Poor people can play because they are not sacrificing very much income to do so. However, those not rich nor poor may be very sensitive to the impact of gaming time. Some people make money from their virtual activities: there is a substitution between Earth work and game time that depends, to some extent, on the financial rewards available in each. The economic phenomenon emerging is: Game time is a substitute for other consumption goods, and it is also a substitute for work time.

Many actors in the VW market of the future

The development of VW companies of the future can be classified in three domains: connections (Internet, wireless), interfaces (voice chat, body-motion detection) and content (media delivery services, game retailers). A monopoly may emerge because our time in virtual worlds is more valuable if everyone we know is in the same world [see Facebook...] and the more players a VW has, the more attractive it is. However, several reasons limit the possibility of a monopoly:

• People have different tastes, and they go in VW that fulfill their needs. A VW so big it would satisfy everyone would be too expensive to build and maintain.
• Congestion in a VW limits its number of simultaneous users
• It seems players get attached to their avatars as they get stronger and build their stories. However, incentives could be given to switch from a VW to another: in Ultima, you can directly buy your levels; in Camelot, you can start a new avatar at level 20 if you have already gotten one to level 50.
• the star phenomenon widespread in artistic markets: If a company designs a better game, it will attract players

The impact of VW on RL societies

The fact that labour hours that were once producing automobiles are now producing avatars does not mean anything about the level of wealth in society. Online economies do not belong to any country. Hence if economic activities move from RL to VW, countries would seem to be in recessions or depressions because state taxes would not bring as much as they did, and people would still use public infrastructures (roads, social welfare). Poor people may find VW attractive because they could earn more money in them than IRL. It would cost nothing to rich people to travel between RL and VW. New statistics and economic management policies may have to be developed

Who regulates VW economies? At the moment, game companies are not taken as legally responsible by RL law for what happens in their worlds - video games are speech. The EULA and ToS restrict users' rights, and profits drive the company. Hence, some players complain (more or less uselessly) on forum boards after patches and updates. RMT is another governance issue in which companies are the only ones to decide. Buying avatars or items from other players with real money frustrates the players who do not spend money in RMT. But players are not serfs. They have both voice and exit as options for resistance.

Bonus: differences between RL and VW economies

Unlike IRL, in VW ...

• It may make sense to control some prices.
• Players must have something to do or they will be bored: Work is good.
• increases in per-capita wealth [...] will lower the challenge level of the game: Growth can be bad.
• Avatars' abilities can change a lot over time and the number of connected avatars fluctuates.

Comparing video games to films - 4/4

You can read the first, second, third and fourth parts of this article.

TL;DR. There is no sense pursuing the Citizen Kane of games. Video games are a promising medium as diverse as films. Like other recent entertainments/media/arts/disciplines, it is trying to find its place in society.

The CKoG Chimera

A gamer wrote that no game deserves a comparison to any movie any more than any movie deserves a comparison to any game. Leigh Alexander wanted the comparison with Citizen Kane to stop. So did game publisher Boesky when he wondered how long a medium can survive if it measures its success primarily against another media.

One can not ask a whole industry (and many of its consumers) to stop talking about "the Citizen Kane of games". The game industry, gamer culture, and society more broadly, are more or less unconsciously waiting for the perfect artistic game example that will legitimize the medium. Let us call this game CKoG and suppose it could exist. Before CKoG, video games were basic geek hacks, just "for fun". In the popular mind, CKoG would demarcate the "art" era from the "hack" era.

But legitimacy has become distributed... So maybe we should stop pursuing the CKoG chimera. Maybe video games should not "compare to" films, but rather simply "look at" them. I explain below why it should be done, and how.

A promising medium as diverse as films

In comparing their stories to film or book stories, video games set the highest possible standard. Lafarge already believed in 2000 that the stories found in games were evolving: the fact that games are moving beyond simple happy endings is another signal of emerging maturity in the form. Lafarge actually stated that the stories found in Myst or Dungeons and Dragons are as complex and detailed as the book or film stories. Borut Pfeifer, a game developer, mentioned in February 2008 that games still have much more to achieve as a medium.

How emotions are conveyed in games could be improved in looking at how movies do it. Game publisher Boesky noted that The Citizen Kane reference is interpreted to apply only to emotional aspects, and not the unique attributes of our medium. Obviously, games are not movies, and trying the exact same approach as movies does not always work. I rather suggest comparing games to movies at least for the way movies convey emotions. Many other aspects of video games could be improved when put in parallel with proven film techniques such as lightings, shots and special effects. Copying movies for what they are only leads to interactive movies, which is not what video games want to be.

Jane Pinckard, a game businesswoman, said in April 2010 that other movies than Citizen Kane convey emotions better: I really don’t care about the Citizen Kane of games I want the Pride and Prejudice of games!. A blogger (gamer?) posted: Citizen Kane [...] is by no means the most important movie to define cinema. Birth of a Nation defined the epic. Metropolis might be the first sci-fi/dystopian vision. Safety Last could be the first high-concept comedy. Seeking the “Citizen Kane” of games is a silly endeavor because you should be seeking not one but several video games that redefined the genre in some manner.

There are maybe as many video game genres as film genres. Action, adventure and sport are genres shared by the two media, but certainly horror movies have been inspiring survival/horror games. Certainly interesting new game genres could emerge from film genres, and vice-versa. Can you imagine strategy movies? If yes, then Seven Samurai by Kurosawa might be a precursor. Were they inspired by the family film genre, game designers could open up a huge casual game market.

Trying to find its place in society

Game designer Steve Gaynor wrote in September 2008 that great games are almost always hidden under the juvenile veneer of big guns, tanks, zombies, robots and so forth. He stated that games and comics both remain marginalized, infantilized media and he bet that fifty years from now they'll be just as mature and well-respected as comic books are today (that is to say, not much). Iroquois Pliskin considered this to be the Nightmare scenario: Games are a young medium with a lot of potential-- maybe even a greater porential [sic] than comics-- but they've been shoehorned into catering into the narrative and experiential needs of the teenage male. But like many gamers of my age and tastes, I hope for a future where video games break out of the historical path laid out by comics. Chris Hecker's talk at MIGS in November 2009 relayed this issue to the industry when he envisioned three futures to games: respected like movies, "ghettoized" like comics, or "something different" that the industry still has to determine/build.

Games are not the only discipline looking for its place in society. Software engineering researchers are also trying to define what "designing software" exactly means. In The once and future focus of software engineering (2007), Taylor and Van der Hoek compared software design to civil engineering: Bridge design as it is today would not be as advanced without the careful study of past structural failures [...] How do we perform in software in this regard?. See also the whole section titled Directions From Looking Outside of CS. In A Future for Software Engineering? (2007), Osterweil stated The future of software engineering is in our hands, advocating for curiosity-driven rather than problem-solving-oriented software engineering research. As a game developer, are you being curious or are you just following trends? Are you innovative, or are you copying designs who have been proven to work? Do you want to increase your market share, gain public recognition or advance the state of the art?

Meshing?

For video games to become recognized in our society as art pieces, they need to be related (and compared) to other artistic media. Bogost went in this direction: video games will only be important when — and if — others can point to our medium — to particular examples of it — and locate moments of individual insight that mattered in their lives. Even Boesky recognized that: Rather than asking our students [in game developer school] whether the Citizen of Kane has been created, let's see the film school ask whether the Mario of film has been achieved.

The previous paragraph reveals how efficient Ebert's strategy can (involuntary?) be. In rejecting video games as less artistic than films, the famous film critique reduces their integration in society. Stating video games are not art is more efficient to limit their recognition than just not mentioning them. However, some game critiques are actually going in the opposite direction: they compare games to movies. Eric Swain identified that the story of Brutal Legend lacked one part (the Return) of the traditional three-part hero's journey.

Finally, gamers are also changing society from the inside. The former generation Y kids are now grown-ups. Some WoW players such as Larisa or Tobold recognized in April 2010 that middle-aged geeks are an increasingly important demographic for MMORPGs. Obviously, not everyone plays video games. But with gaming becoming more and more casual, an increasingly broader audience is being reached every day. Five years ago, I could find at least one person in any friend party who was playing video games. Nowadays, it is hard for me to find friends who do not play any video game. What will it be in 20 years?

Comparing video games to films - 3/4

You can read the first, second, third and fourth parts of this article.

Findings

During my research on the respective histories of early Gothic horror movies and early video games, I have noted several similarities and differences between the two media.

The earliest film of Human history was Roundhay Garden Scene in 1888. The earliest video game was the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device in 1947. Both have the same nanoscopic size in today's cultural literacy: aside from field experts or historians, no one knows about them. In 1902, ie 14 years after the first movie, Le Voyage dans la Lune was realized by Méliès. The movie stays notable and even praised in our modern society. More than a century after its release, Ebert even wrote the movie had artistry and imagination. Surprisingly, the video game released fourteen year after the first video game was ... Spacewar!. Some mention modern video games owe a lot to Spacewar!.

However, Steve Russell is much less famous than Georges Méliès. Ebert considers games are not art because Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control. Could video games be more artistic if their authorial intentionality was stronger and more obvious? The Civilization series have not (yet) been considered artistic by Ebert, although the name of their designer, Sid Meier, is clearly associated to the title. The same way James Cameron (and not the actors) is mentioned on Avatar's poster.

The early video game industry seems to have been much more competitive and business-oriented than the film industry. For example, Atari and other companies were "inspired" by the Odissey to make their own home console. Hence in 1975, Magnavox started filling lawsuits against everyone. I do not think such a hard competition happened between early film makers.

Moreover, while the first movies were not much more than recorded theater plays, the first video games were geeky electronic hacks. Tennis for two had been created to attract people to the exposition. It seems many console companies jumped at the chance of copying Odissey just to make money. Moreover, computer game developers of the 1970's such as Don Daglow were just writing games for each other for fun. These approaches differed a lot from the clearly artistic approaches taken by the early movies of the 10's or 20's.

Video games are seeking legitimacy

In September 2008, Steve Gaynor, a game designer, formulated what legitimacy was: a broad cultural relevance to the lives of the general population. In other words, it is not exactly whether video games as a whole have an impact on society at large (financially and so forth) but whether content of the medium itself is relevant to, say, your grandmother. Did Battlezone or Centipede speak to her personal experience?. He gave another illustration when he mentioned that a senator villifying [sic] video games to get his name on people's lips means that the medium is divisive. It also means that the works themselves are completely irrelevant to the senator as pieces of entertainment or expression, or else he'd be enjoying and defending them.

Leigh Alexander asked in April 2009: aren't the cultural and practical differences between film and games so broad that it's useless to analogize? Later in November, she detailed her point: repeatedly raising Kane is amateurish and useless. It's self-defeating shorthand for what Bogost and Wasteland correctly identify as the real desire: legitimacy for games. Matthew Wasteland (a gamer/game critique) formulated the real issue behind the Citizen Kane effigy: people want games that will artistically legitimize them to everyone who doesn’t play them. Eric Swain paraphrased that the "Citizen Kane of games" buzz is about gamer's insecurities and wanting a title to point to that everyone [society] will recognize, though may not have played, as art like Citizen Kane. They [gamers] want that so they wont feel insecure when they talk about thier [sic] hobby. The whole question has nothing to do with intellectual stimulation.

Bogost argued that the artistry of a media can not be established as it used to be half a century ago: Legitimacy has become distributed, a mesh. Indeed, video games are not movies, and the social context has changed a lot between the establishment of film legitimacy and video games birth. With the recent social changes in mind, Lafarge gave in the second paragraph of WINSIDE OUT several areas of change that she thought made games metamorphosing into a richly expressive medium:

• the convergence of games with fiction and art
• shifts in representation and the deployment of information in games
• the assimilation of a filmic first-person point of view
• the growth of a culture of cheating and hacking
• rethinking of the win-lose dichotomy
• the development of immersive role-playing and emergence of cooperative relationships as central to game play

Read the fourth part.

Comparing video games to films - 1/4

You can read the first, second, third and fourth parts of this article.

Roger Ebert

In November 2005, Roger Ebert, a movie critique, wrote: I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control. several reations of video games websites followed.

During a conference in late June 2007, Clive Barker, an English artist criticized Ebert's position of 2005. Ebert answered to Barker in July 2007. More reactions of video games websites and journalists followed.

Some days ago, in a response to a TED talk by Kellee Santiago, Ebert defended his point again: Video games can never be art. Very very many reactions followed on video games news websites and blogs (see also this google search). [Certainly off-topic, but worthy of interest: these different reaction magnitudes (2005 < 2007 << 2010) show how much video games communities have sprouted in the last few years.]

Citizen Kane

According to Keith Boesky, the "Citizen Kane of games" buzz started when Trip Hawkins first ran EA ads asking whether a computer can make you cry. This morphed into the question of when we would see the "Citizen Kane" of games. I could not find any source confirming that the actual source of the buzz was Trip Hawkins or EA. No date either. Anyway, Citizen Kane has been mentioned regularly since 2004.

• January 2004: Shayne Guiliano, a video game industry member, first mentioned Citizen Kane in a response to Ernest Adams about the visual impacts of video games.It is a misconception to say that visuals are not an excellent way of illustrating the internal states on mind. This problem was first solved in the film "Citizen Kane".
• October 2006: John Gaeta, a visual effects designer mentioned the Citizen Kane of gaming.
• March 2005: Warren Spector wondered how the video game industry could implement better stories: Citizen Kane was not a particularly successful movie… but RKO was willing to take a chance. We need to get to that point.

In February 2009, Boesky wrote that the "Citizen Kane of games" idea is poisoning young developers' minds. In April 2009, the topic was discussed between Bogost and Alexander, and some game critique reactions followed. Guillermo del Toro said in May 2009: In the next 10 years, there will be an earthshaking Citizen Kane of games.

In October 2009, Michael Thomsen, an IGN video game expert, mentioned during an ABC podcast that Citizen Kane has been hailed by film critics for decades as one of the best movies in history. And if Kane had a symbiotic partner in the world of video games, it would be the Metroid Prime trilogy. Eric Swain, a game critique, objected: Saying that this movie revolutionized the populous into thinking films were important, saying that before it they weren’t thought of as art and afterwards they were, well there’s no other way to put it, it is a lie. It is an artificial pinpoint created by its almost universal placement on top 10 lists and because of it has had its own mythos inflated beyond the reality of the film. Others have also reacted.

Nowadays, many critics, game journalists and developers use the reference recurrently.

Stating the problem

Given their very different histories, how can these two media/domains/arts be compared? (this is not a rhetorical question!) Clive Barker said in June 2007 that video games is a medium that’s barely 2 decades old, and he (Ebert) is saying oh, there’s no 'War And Peace' yet – of course there isn’t! When asked by Alexander about Why Raising 'Kane' Won't Help Games' Legitimacy, Bogost explained: It's a red herring, because we think that having a Citizen Kane will prove our artistic legitimacy, but masterworks are not how artistic legitimacy is proven anymore. This series of posts (kind of) aims at contributing to Bogost's point in comparing the early history of films and games.

While I am not a film expert/critique and I do not know anything about film theory, I can read wikipedia: the first movie was realized in the late 1880s. Judging from the content, it was more a technological proof of concept than anything art-related. I give a short history of cinema as an art, focusing arbitrarily on (vampire/zombie) gothic horror movies. Focusing on a particular genre makes it shorter and easier to analyze unknown materials, and I guess the same conclusions apply for other film genres as well (eg epic, adventure or Westerns).

Read the second part.