So Long Orson Welles

“Where is gaming’s Citizen Kane?” is a stupid question.

To me it is a question that reflects the endless insecurities that seem to plague our young media enterprise as we search for a sense of belonging among an old guard that considers us with jealous eyes and yellow teeth. As the burgeoning games industry clamors for a seat at the dusty table where the dying media empires scheme and connive, I suspect that we ought to be grateful for every second we are not counted on their ledgers.

With the toothless, worn out whore – the games as art debate – dragged again into the town square to be publicly flogged, I find myself driven to reject any response at all. To answer the question is to miss the point entirely, because any answer validates what I think is a fundamentally flawed concept, as though art were some quantifiable, describable thing. You might as well ask if games are love.

I say, in my most haughty voice possible, let high minded fools pass down their judgments on what is or is not allowed to be art. I didn’t really want to play the Mona Lisa anyway. I have a better question – Where is video gaming’s Chess?

I am not some kind of Chess snob. I enjoy the challenge of playing people who think about the game more as a passing fancy rather than as a life choice or a religion. I have no archaic knowledge of openings. I have never studied at length a king and pawn endgame. I can name at least 10 times more professional golfers than I could Chess Grandmasters.

And yet, I respect Chess in a way that I do no other game. I have no trouble recognizing the monumental genius of its construction, the staggering elegance of its craft. When I think about this game in the terms that I usually reserve for video games, I keep looking for the subtle flaw in its design that can ultimately be exploited and destroy the underlying fabric of its tenuous structure, and yet I realize that millions of man hours have been exhausted doing exactly the same with fruitless results.

That this game can be so simple — my six year old understands the rules without any difficulty — and yet so staggeringly complex at once is amazing to me. Certainly we have video games that amateurishly mimic this kind of “easy to play, impossible to master” mentality, but ultimately they require house rules, patches for refinement or the understanding that somehow one structure, one plan is slightly superior to all others if played correctly.

Chess does not appear to have any such flaw.

This isn’t an article about how awesome Chess is though. It’s more about how we perceive ourselves as gamers, and how we think about what our ideals are. I freely admit that I am at times absorbed into the siren’s song of cuddling with cinema, and when Uncharted 2 licks my eyeballs I am as seduced as the next gamer. No question there is a place for great visual storytelling in games, but when I think about the games that will last, that will be our grand paragons placed high on a gilded pedestal I find my love for games like Uncharted 2 may be much more superficial than I first suspect.

It is a date with a super model, a test drive in a Ferrari, an improptu hook-up with a visiting foreigner. It is a nice memory that is best not looked at too closely. What it is not is the game you will settle down with for years to come. And, hey I'm not denigrating the value of a flashy, if transitory, experience. If we're looking at games that way, who wants to sleep with a grumpy old man like Citizen Kane anyway? If we're going to make that the gold standard then the better question is "Where is our Avatar?"

But, when I think of the kinds of games that orbit in the distant penumbra of mastery demonstrated by Chess, that begin to approach this new vision for a perfect quality, I think games like Civilization 4, Rise of Nations, Team Fortress 2. These are games that continue to stand not only as great games for their times, but games that hold up years or potentially decades later. Cinematic experiences in games last only as long as the makeup and technology hold. I may love Wing Commander IV for what it accomplished at the time, but do I really want to go back and play it still? Does the game itself actually hold up?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a broad spectrum of games that approach the medium from countless angles. That’s part of the flexibility of the platform, and a concept I champion, but I also think we lose too much time trying to be something we are not. The further I get from Heavy Rain, for example, the more I realize that much of what ultimately holds it back from being a good game are exactly the things for which it was so heavily lauded.

In the long run, it has always been the games that unapologetically embraced the idea of truly being a game that seemed to last. Maybe that tells us something.

Comments

grobstein wrote:

Chess rules are fairly simple, but not that simple. The complexity of chess comes from the fact that 1) there are always many possible moves, and 2) a given game will contain a lot of tough decision points, i.e., points at which there are several possible moves and no efficient way to eliminate alternatives.

I agree with this, and that's what I meant to say. There is a threshold of system complexity below which a competition will not be very interesting (Pong/Tic-Tac-Toe).

ChrisLTD wrote:
gore wrote:

From that perspective, it seems as if any symmetrical competitive multiplayer game would pretty much fit the bill.

So, you agree with Jonman that Pong fits the bill.

In a sense, yes. It's based on quick response rather than deliberate actions, so it relies on a different sort of skill set, but as a framework for pure human competition I think it's a success.

It's too simple a system to generate the same strategic options as chess, though. I should qualify my original statement with "of sufficient complexity."

Jonman wrote:

Who is beat poetry's Orson Welles?

That one's easy. Allen Ginsberg.

Now: What's the chess of Tic-Tac-Toe? What's the Go of Tetris?

Clemenstation wrote:

Huh.

That's the best response to this discussion I can think of, and you beat me to it.

Elysium wrote:

Where is video gaming’s Chess?

Being the literal guy I am, my first thought was Archon, which I played a lot of on the C64. Good times.

Jonman wrote:

How many of today's moviegoers have seen Citizen Kane?

I just turned 40 and I've never seen it. Don't have any desire to either.

Bozzley wrote:
Where is video gaming’s Chess?

Tetris.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with this.

With the toothless, worn out whore – the games as art debate – dragged again into the town square to be publicly flogged, I find myself driven to reject any response at all. To answer the question is to miss the point entirely, because any answer validates what I think is a fundamentally flawed concept, as though art were some quantifiable, describable thing. You might as well ask if games are love.

IMAGE(http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8894/kaneklapqo6.gif)

To a degree the question 'what is gaming's Citizen Kane?' is asking what, if anything, will people still go back and play in 150 year's time. Is there anything sufficiently genre defining and also of sufficient quality that it is timeless? There are good reasons that people have played Backgammon, Bridge and Go for the last 200 years with few changes in much the same way that there are good reasons that people go back and read Frankenstein, Twelfth Night and David Copperfield. If you seriously look around at gaming today is there anything people will play in 100 year's time for any reason other than historical interest? Broadly I'd say probably not, the 2D Mario platformers perhaps

Not to be a spelling jerk, but it's "WellEs." Silent E. Unless that title was some kind of pun about wells that I'm not getting.

Jayhawker wrote:
Article referencing "the Citizen Kane of video games"

[clip from Citizen Kane]

Nicely done, Jayhawker.

Not to be a spelling jerk, but it's "WellEs." Silent E. Unless that title was some kind of pun about wells that I'm not getting.

Nope, just a boring old mistake. Thanks for the catch.

Why does Kane look at me with that come-hither look?

wordsmythe wrote:
Gravey wrote:
Jonman wrote:

All of these questions are equally as ludicrous. Perhaps a more valid question might be:

"Is Citizen Kane even relevant to the discussion anymore?"

Broadly, yes, but it's become so muddled that yeah it's basically useless now. How did it even come about? I can't remember how or when

The question was doomed from the start because it uses "Citizen Kane" as a signifier without a clear signified. The answer to the question depends entirely on one's view of what it means to be "gaming's Citizen Kane," which depends on what Citizen Kane meant.

You know what bringing up "gaming's Citizen Kane" means? It means you want a mortician! You want a mortician! You want a mortician!

Interesting article!

It obviously all comes down to personal opinion. While Citizen Kane is good I could argue all day about how The Dark Knight is better. I think games are a much more complex medium than movies. I'm sure a lot of people believe Final Fantasy 7 is the Citizen Kane of games, but to others who can't stand the slow methodical gameplay FF7 features might believe otherwise. Instead of worrying about what the game equivalent of Citizen Kane is we should just keep playing and enjoying them.

I quote a twitter collaboration of Wordsmythe and myself.

This has become a klein-bottle ouroboros of navel gazing

Boogle/Wordy,

[ ] Thank you!

[ ] I am offended!

[ ] Well that explains the sucking sound!

Please check which box should be my response.

With the toothless, worn out whore – the games as art debate – dragged again into the town square to be publicly flogged, I find myself driven to reject any response at all. To answer the question is to miss the point entirely, because any answer validates what I think is a fundamentally flawed concept, as though art were some quantifiable, describable thing. You might as well ask if games are love.

The question only makes sense if we have an agreed-upon definition of what exactly constitutes art. Smarter people than any of us have spent centuries trying to figure out exactly what that definition is, and no one's nailed it yet.

[x] Please notify me when Citizen Kane: The Game is released. Yes, I would like to receive your monthly Picasso Levine newsletter at no extra charge!

The question only makes sense if we have an agreed-upon definition of what exactly constitutes art. Smarter people than any of us have spent centuries trying to figure out exactly what that definition is, and no one's nailed it yet.

So Art is the Chess of Concepts!

Phew. Problem solved.

Could you have chosen a picture of Joe Kucan that doesn't stare directly into your soul?

Comparing a game (Chess) with a work of art (Citizen Kane) does not really equate to me. Chess is just 32 wooden pieces, 64 squares and some rules. There are specific games of chess that might qualify as "art," just as there are some players who might be called "artists."

Here is a chess game that might qualify as art. It is one of the most complex and brilliant games ever played. People still analyze this game and find new possibilities over 10 years later.

Chess is timeless because it provides near infinite possibilities for reasoning and logic, it is completely skill based (no element of luck or chance), it is low tech, portable, and at the highest levels, crystallizes logical thought in a form that might be considered beautiful. As the 6th world champion Mikhail Botvinnik said,"Chess is the art that expresses the science of logic." Find me a video game that captures this essence and you might be on to something.

jakeleg wrote:

Comparing a game (Chess) with a work of art (Citizen Kane) does not really equate to me. Chess is just 32 wooden pieces, 64 squares and some rules.

Well, I posted this in the games as art thread, where there was contention over the idea of chess as art, as well. My reasoning is that Project GIPF, a modern series of interconnected abstract board game designs by Kris Burm, strikes me as the work of art of an auteur. Given that, chess seems to fit the bill, too; it's just difficult to interpret as such since it predates the modern notion of game design.

Comparing a game (Chess) with a work of art (Citizen Kane) does not really equate to me.

Well, that's kind of my point.

This article was a pleasure. Thanks Elysium.

I wouldn't compare TF2 to chess at all. The fundamental nature of the game seems to change with each update lately.

Beautiful.

Games need to be appreciated in their own right. I'm tired of defending them to people as art, intellectually stimulating, or advanced storytelling mechanisms. Games should be appreciated in their own right -- if not by others, then at least by me.

So, where is gaming's Gigli?

Redwing wrote:

So, where is gaming's Gigli?

Flower

No game can compare with Chess because Chess is the product of hundreds of years of gameplay evolution. Not even Blizzard takes that long to iterate a game.

"Certainly we have video games that amateurishly mimic this kind of “easy to play, impossible to master” mentality-"

All video games are mimics of some sort of fantasy weather it be in 'real life'or just in your imagination. You cannot gain the achievement of a 'Citizen Kane' through mimicry. There will be no 'Citizen Kane' in videogames unless someone develops some neuro-transmitting s#it to a console.

"I suspect that we ought to be grateful for every second we are not counted on their ledgers."

Amen. The time is short though, remember Disney just bought Marvel!

"If we're looking at games that way, who wants to sleep with a grumpy old man like Citizen Kane anyway?"

I agree, the argument's moot. As I don't think many people are considering games in this manner, except for Ebert.

"I may love Wing Commander IV for what it accomplished at the time, but do I really want to go back and play it still? Does the game itself actually hold up?"

I know, nostalgia is a powerful force. If I may re-edit your sentence, I may love /Ultima 4/ for what it accomplished at the time, but do I really want to go back and play it still? Does the game itself actually hold up?

I'm with you there buddy, it's hard to let go.

Interesting to hear about your post game feelings toward Heavy Rain, I thought you were really into it from the podcast. I have not played it, but maybe it would be cool to write about your post-gameplay feelings and contrast them to your earlier enthusiastic takes on it.

BTW is that you in the picture?-?- 'cause I am a little out of date in pop culture and I have no idea who that is, so I am mentally registering that as Elysium.

To me it is a question that reflects the endless insecurities that seem to plague our young media enterprise as we search for a sense of belonging among an old guard that considers us with jealous eyes and yellow teeth.

This! THIS! A thousand times this!

Every time the games-are-art-no-they-aren't-you-suck-no-you-suck debate rears it's ugly head, I always have the same reaction:

Who cares?

The only reason I can think of for so many people to vehemently insist games are Art is so they can tell their parents that some ascetic chain smoker in a black turtleneck sitting in a french cafe says that their hobby is mature and grownup. (And even if he did, your father would still roll his eyes when you tell him about that awesome takedown you pulled off in Batman: Arkham Asylum)

They're the same people that get angry when you suggest that video games are toys, which they most certainly are in the same sense that any game is a toy, going by the most common definition of the word. (That is to say a plaything used to amuse). They're just specific kinds of toys, just like how squares are specific kinds of rectangles.

Heck, I still play with toys too. One of the highlights of my day is getting to play Mega-Blocks or Play-Doh with my daughter. Sometimes I play with them after she goes to bed.

Well games are childish, and that's okay. I'd rather feed and nurture my inner child with video games than live some joyless existence where I feel personally insulted if some self anointed expert passes down an unpleasant judgment on what I do with my spare time. I still eat ice cream and candy too, but I don't try to justify it to anyone by writing lengthy essays extolling the transcendental brilliance of nougat.

And I will go on not caring what Roger Ebert thinks. No critic is worth getting angry over, and there isn't much difference between trolling Ebert's "Games aren't art" editorial than writing angry letters to some game review site because they only gave Final Fantasy 13 a 9.6 instead of a 9.8. Someone is always wrong on the internet, and yet the world keeps turning.