Playing with Fire: The Little Game That Could - Gonzalo Frasca
“That TV ad lacks deep, developed characters as well as a consistent third act.” We do not hear claims like that very often. The reason is simple. We know that TV ads are very limited in time (20 or 30 seconds) so we do not expect them to be like a feature film. Similarly, it doesn’t make much sense to compare a knock-knock joke with an hour long stage comedy. We also know that a film like Titanic will provide quite a different kind of experience than, say, the weather forecast. Even though we can have our favorite genres, it’s clear that no one is necessarily better than the other; they are just different. We know all these things because we grew up in a rich, diverse media ecological system. What we still haven’t figured out is how to judge video games. When it comes to game criticism, we keep throwing apples and oranges into the same bag. For historical reasons, we tend to see AAA video games as the golden standard by which all games should be judged. AAA PC and console games are “real” video games. The rest are simply dismissed as “casual” or “niche” games. And, of course, with the sole exception of America’s Army, so-called serious games are never seen as “real” games. Certainly, this doesn’t make any sense. It’s the equivalent of arguing that only Hollywood blockbusters are “real” films while dismissing all the other genres (documentaries, newscasts, advertising, talk shows, music clips, game shows, independent films, etc.) Obviously, there is nothing wrong with Hollywood blockbusters, and they do indeed represent the pinnacle of filmmaking in terms of budget and technical features. Still, our world would be way too boring if that was the only available genre. Let’s analyze just one example of a “non-real” video game. On July 9th, 2006, France and Italy played against each other for the final match of the FIFA World Cup. As you may remember, French soccer player Zinedine Zidane violently head-butted an Italian player. It was a shocking event, not only because of the importance of the match but also because it was Zidane’s farewell to soccer. Not only did he lose the match but also he had to end his career as a sore loser.
One or two days later, the Zidane Head Butt Game was launched by a developer Alberto Zanot. It was a very crude Flash game with basic graphics and minimal gameplay (which was later enhanced with a timer and score when it was re-launched on AddictingGames.com). Visually, the game was as ugly as a game can be. Its replayability was close to zero: you were likely to only play it once, unless you wanted to show it to the guys at the office. The gameplay was minimal (particularly on the original version, which lacked any form of score). Nevertheless, it spread like fire among soccer fans. I do not have actual figures, but based on my experience as a webgame developer, I think that assuming that 3 million people played the game is a conservative estimate. It’s a successful example of a “newsgame”: a game that not only wants to entertain but also seeks to comment on a news event.
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