That said, Assassin’s Creed was a massive disappointment to me strictly because of political correctness. I didn’t feel as if their meaning or message was compromised because the message was never meant to be make a game that is somewhat historically realistic and factual, it was meant to be a sci-fi game set in an alternate reality. If only they advertised the game as such, but I do not ever recall a single commercial mentioning any of those sci-fi elements before the game itself actually came out. So they lied.

It’s a shame that political correctness has infested it’s tendrils into our industry as well. I had high hopes AoC would break this, but even now I am seeing more and more doubts. I guess creative freedom (not art) is not really free anymore because unfortunately, soccer moms, radicals, and victimized minorities (which I am part of one) believe that their opinion, their way of looking at things, is the ONLY way.

Political Correctness starts with people, not companies, not production houses not studios. The moment people would stop being afraid to criticize another race, or another culture, or sex, is the moment racism as we know it shall no longer exist. We all are human, we all have different cultures, and all cultures are flawed and subject to criticism. The more you ignore these flaws, the more they become negative stereotypes, and the more other people, cultures, and or races, would frown upon you. It Are a Fact.

TV and Movies (which most people also do not consider art) have much more gumption when dealing with possibly insulting or offensive content than the cowardly video game industry. They’re risk a LOT more money, too, and for slimmer margins. For the game industry, Assassin’s Creed was the perfect opportunity to show that they do indeed have balls; it’s a sure-fire best seller, regardless of the controversy, due to the gameplay, setting, and marketing blitz. It’s been enormously hyped and anticipated. This is one of the very few games that they could not have screwed up if they tried. And they shyed away from something that wouldn’t have made NBC nervous.

I don’t know why anyone would defend this action, from a financial or artistic viewpoint. It’s not good business for an entertainment industry to be risk-averse. The music industry isn’t. Television and film are both head and shoulders above video games in both artistic merit and testicular fortitude. Book publishers absolutely are not. Video Games are, and very much so. That’s the measure of their immaturity as a medium. Risk gets people interested and spreads word-of-mouth (the absolute best marketing). It gets attention and admiration from the press. It makes the goddamn work stand out. It isn’t just money you throw away to please a pompous director. In a medium with so many derivative and similar (and very expensive) titles, risk is downright logical, not naive.

My friend Alex’s Grandfather was a German Mechanic in Stalingrad. He received two Iron Crosses (1st and 2nd class) for his heroic actions under fire, taking injured soliders, putting them in trucks, fixing the trucks, and then successfully driving them out of the combat zone to an aid station. During the action he was shot twice in the arm, three times in the leg, before he even started fixing the trucks.

If you can explain to me what political issues this would cause, I’d like to know. Being some German farmer who was drafted to defend Germany itself, or some shoemaker who joins the army in the early 30’s because the deutschmark is worth nothing, and he needs any money he can get is hardly being a NAZI. It would be quite easy to have a single player game, hell even Call of Duty style, where you’re some German private in the army. Not all Germans are NAZI’s – it could be combat just as dry as the entire CoD series. It doesn’t tackle any huge issues.

I think the problem here is that everyone wants to be the hero who, well, heroically defends freedom or whatever trite crap. War is hell, and trying to pretty it up with various heroic falsehoods is hardly breaking any ground.

also who wants to get killed for a fucking game? i mean, it did wonders for theo van gogh’s career but the downside is you don’t actually get to enjoy said career upswing.

i second dracko’s good nazi bit, since we already got a shot at stalingrad from the russian side, i think it would be interesting to see it from the german side. probably not going to happen but you take what you can get so cue up the aga khan that’s really more chaka khan and let’s get it on.

While I agree with the notion that videogames should aspire to art, I would also argue that–like film–the constraints of capitalism make the process more difficult. The reason that books and visual art (paintings, sculpture, etc.) are so commonly accepted and found as “art” are because they’re so damnably cheap to produce: the only things you really need are a few tools and a vision, and one man (or woman) can make it happen without compromising a thing. Granted, that vision may not make it further than the creator can throw it, but at least it gets made. With a videogame or a movie, the costs of realizing any vision, no matter how phenomenal, are staggering. That’s why you get things like Derek Smart’s Battlecruiser series, which (for better or for worse) was basically the work of one guy over the course of many, many years.

Also, I don’t ever think it was Ubisoft Montreal’s intention to make any sort of “Statement” with the game. Neither Prince of Persia nor Splinter Cell had any aspirations to make you think about the World at Large and none of the advertisements or mountains of Pre-Release Press really even mentioned the scenario at all. It was always “Cool Dude. Crazy Big Old School City. Swords. Assassin. Sweet!”

It’s pretty humorous and extremely post-modern that a game is being criticized and looked down upon because it ISN’T making a statement about something (in my mind) it never had any intentions too in the first place. It’s a freaking game! You are a dude in a Cool Costume, You kill Bad Dudes!!

I have never come close to me mentally or philophically “challenged” by a game before. Not even close. Video game writers have never been as good as the Sci-Fi greats they so often attempt to emulate, or even modern comic authors. Also, in a videogame I will always choose whatever I think will be the most “fun.” That isn’t particularly conducive to mind-blowing moral ambiguity!

So, in short, I don’t see what any of the fuss is about. Are We so conditioned to find Conflict and Controversy in any setting related to religious or modern issues, that when we don’t see it we cry foul? And what Amazing Statement could even be made? Oh!! X Group is like Y group in the present, maybe Z are really the bad guys?!!1 WOW MY MIND IS BLOWN!! IT WAS SO OBVIOUS AND UNINSPIRED AND I AM SO GLAD THEY PRESENTED IT TO ME!! THANK GOD THEY DIDN’T JUST AVOID PRETENTIOUS CRAP AND TRY AND MAKE A GOOD ACTION GAME!!!

Also, the entire Is A Game Art argument is an offshoot of What Is Art which is an idiotic discussion based largely on semantics. So Shut up about that too lol.

Space, Out!

This is actually part of the criticism of the industry presented in Uplink (the hacker game, the one by Introversion. It’s definitely a criticism of the games industry; read Chris Delay talk about his experience as an intern and then him talking about Uplink. It’s obvious): aside from the whole dehumanization thing and the not knowing why you’re preforming whatever specific task you’ve been assigned there is this concept of risk. You can do all sorts of cool stuff, but the penalties for failure are so high that any sense will tell you it’s not worth it.

Thanks for the recommendation, it’s noted and I’ll be sure to check it out when i can. Might I also suggest the adaptation of Stephen King’s Apt Pupil, starring the inimitable Ian McKellen as an ex-concentration camp runner blackmailed by a sharp high school kid into revealing his experience? Far, far better than the original source material, it must be said (Which is still entertaining stuff).

I think better questions to ask regarding this article and perhaps games in general might be; what is meaningful art? Do games extend beyond the simple aesthetics and enjoyment, and try to make some comment on society in some way? Or are they designed with entertainment as their primary function?

I certainly am not willing to state that games are not art and I didn’t try to in my post but it is something that is under scrutiny. I think a very strong argument can be made, that games are primarily concerned with entertainment and are still viewed by the majority of people as such.

This raises certain issues when tackling difficult subject within the context of a game. You need to be able to prove your intent when doing so and without being an established art form, it is difficult to justify the use of such topics when criticised. Games have yet to establish themselves in this way, they are still young in comparison to other forms of art and are arguably limited by the way they are produced. Also they have no real body of criticism (in the academic sense) behind them, it is something that is still being developed, which makes arguing for challenging content more difficult.

These things will change in time I am sure, but right now it is a huge gamble for a big budget game, with a long development time, like Assassin’s Creed to risk sales, or even release by being too challenging. The developers may have wished for more freedom but at the end of the day, in order to exist they cannot afford to take some risks.

That kind of character might be interesting to play — indirectly implicating a player in evil acts might be the only credible way to handle some of things we’re talking about without descending into Manhunt-style torture porn or Fable-style caricatures. (Fahrenheit, for all its flaws, might have struck the right balance by letting you play opposing characters through interwoven and simultaneous plotlines — consider a game in which you play a Nazi fugitive and a Mossad agent sent to bring him back to justice.)