Over the summer, I finally succumbed to peer pressure and got myself an iPhone.
As a game platform, I find it interesting not for the high-budget games like Super Monkey Ball (disappointing) or Hero of Sparta (yawn), but for the strange off-beat games.
Take, for example, Enviro-Bear. You have forgotten to prepare for winter and must collect food and get back to your cave before winter comes. In a car. Avoiding the other cars, also driven by bears.
There is something to be said for the pairing of the slick hardware of the iPhone with the crude graphics of a game like this. Nintendo probably wouldn’t have approved this on the DS.
The app store is great in making such content accessible on your phone, but it has two major issues:
1) Organization: The in-phone app store remains pretty crude by being organized around top seller lists. This strongly favors hits, pushes prices to the bottom, and makes it harder to sell niche content. A simple fix would be to integrate an Amazon-style recommendation system. Then I could be recommended games that I would actually enjoy rather than forking out money for the next Hero of Sparta.
2) Fear of Objectionable Content: A string of app rejections. For example, Trent Reznor’s app rejected due to “objectionable content” (the F-word as they say here). Of course, you can buy “objectionable” songs (the same song in fact) on iTunes, so this is a simple double standard.
Why assume that games (and applications) should never be objectionable?
We understand, and Apple understands, that media may have content that is objectionable to some people. In music. In books. In art. Film. But video games are still being hampered by the strange idea that they, somehow, should be the only clean and non-objectionable art form in existence. This shows up in Apple’s rejections. It shows up in the fact that the platform holders continue to decide what is published. It shows up in the fact that Australia does not have a mature rating for video games.
And yes, I do think it is holding video games back, as an art form.
Jesper, I agree with you entirely here. Living in Australia, I have an insider’s view on the lack of an R18 rating here, and its simply deplorable. I’m glad you’ve mentioned it here, actually, so I can cite the international attention our backward little classifications board is acquiring.
Cheers, and happy gaming,
Adam.
Well, good luck!
What, blowing up hundreds of virtual people doesn’t count as objectionable? I’d say games have their own uncleanliness, no problem.
Although I’m curious as to who makes the case for video games as art. I know that might sound unnecessarily stupid, but my background is in art and much less so in games. Are we talking video games as an art form in the sense of a craft, in which case it’s on par with the art of advertising, hollywood films, as well as painting? Or are we talking about art in the sense of critical activity? And if so, where can I find such a game?