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电子游戏能否成为官方认可的文化表达形式?

发布时间:2013-04-23 16:58:25 Tags:,,,

作者:Brandon Sheffield

在上周于波兰克拉科夫举办的Digital Dragons游戏大会上,Quantic Dream(游戏邦注:《骤雨》和《超凡双生》的开发商)的联合首席执行官Guillaume de Fondaumiere仍旧在努力解决一个多年来反复出现的问题。

他向欧洲委员会提出将游戏当成一种文化表达形式的请愿。

他说道:“我认为很多人不理解电子游戏到底是什么,当我们在谈论电子游戏或在网上进行研究时,这种困惑便会出现。人们会认为电子游戏是暴力的,上瘾的,但是大多数情况下它们都未能以文化表达形式呈现出来。”

Two-Souls(from onlysp.com)

Two-Souls(from onlysp.com)

他补充道:“我认为这与该产业的发展初期有关。一开始游戏便只是作为一种玩具。它们是瞄准孩子和青少年。所以在社会中人们还会保留着这种想法,即认为电子游戏也是只针对于儿童,对于成年人来说并没有意义。”

早期的游戏只能触发一些简单的情感。他认为,那时候的游戏太过简单,除了本能反应外便不足以触动玩家的其它情感,如害怕,兴奋或者激动。

不过de Fondaumiere说道,在过去几年里游戏发生了很大的改变。“除了游戏开发者在日益成熟,我们也瞄准了不同的群体。那些伴随着游戏长大的孩子如今也长大成人了,并希望能够玩一些不同的内容。”

所以游戏便开始激发开发者去寻找新的灵感与新游戏模式。他列举了《最终幻想7》,《Ico》,《骤雨》,《御神》,《The Unfinished Swan》以及《旅程》等游戏。这些都属于“全新体验类型,即通过全新的方法去传达游戏,并吸引各种类型的用户。”

“所有游戏都是一种文化表达形式”

说到艺术形式,我们联想到的便是建筑,雕塑,视觉艺术,音乐,文学,戏剧,电影,媒体艺术(如电视,广播和摄影等)以及漫画。而游戏是否能成为第10种官方认可的艺术形式呢?这是de Fondaumiere需要解决的问题。

他说道:“对于我来说,所有游戏都是一种文化表达形式。我找不到任何原因去将游戏与各种文学或电影形式区别开来。我认为越来越多电子游戏更加趋于艺术化,并且也逐渐变成一种与其它艺术相类似的形式。”

他的论据便是游戏中不断增加的成人数量。很多人都能在此传达自己的创造性,如须田刚一,上田文人,Michel Ancel以及陈星汉等等。如果游戏不是艺术的话那又是什么?

他问道:“这是否真的重要?我们是否真的在意?我们是否非要被当成一种艺术?我认为这真的很重要。这种认知能够带来全新的商业机遇,当20年前我开始创造电子游戏时,我从不会在街上大声跟别人说‘我在制作电子游戏。’”

de Fondaumiere肯定地说:“但是今天我会很自豪地说,我是一名游戏制作人。这种自豪感非常重要,因为我们需要诱惑更多人进入这一产业。在过去15年来我一直尝试着想与好莱坞的人才进行合作。但是直到最近,每次当我与代理商或人才谈论起此事时,它们变会说‘对不起,我们并不打算制作游戏。你必须理解,因为游戏代表暴力与上瘾,这对我们的形象并不利。”

就像莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥一直都很想与Quantic Dream在游戏上展开合作,但是却有人跟他说这会对其公众形象造成不利影响。

“我们必须勇敢地发挥创造性”

de Fondaumiere认为将游戏归类到艺术行列将从税收激励等方法带动游戏业务的发展,同时也将让更多成人担负起额外的责任。

他说道:“我当然不赞同以暴力行为或上瘾现象为由将电子游戏排除在艺术行列之外,但此外我们也应该更谨慎地面对这份工作。我们必须意识到,有越来越多人在体验我们的创造性。特别是小孩。当然了,我们也拥有非常棒的评级系统,但是我们也清楚有一些低于预期年龄的玩家也在玩游戏。所以我们必须更加谨慎地做好每一步。”

他也发出警告:“另一方面,我们不能来者不拒。因为游戏一直都被当成是一种游戏而非文化表达,所以游戏总是带着种种限制,像暴力,性别歧视以及情色内容等等。可以说我们受到的约束远远大于电影。”

而最后,便只能等待游戏开发者们从内部去改变这种观点。他总结道:“我们必须勇敢地发挥创造性。将我们自己的作品当成一种文化表达形式或者艺术形式便意味着我们需要发展一个更具创造性的产业。我们必须停止反复创造相同的内容。具有创造性的新IP便意味着发行商需要为此冒风险,但同时玩家也需要冒风险。用户们都是根据自己想要尝试哪些类型的游戏而决定是否为此掏腰包。”

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Video games are a legitimate form of cultural expression… right?

By Brandon Sheffield

Speaking at the Digital Dragons game conference in Krakow, Poland last week, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, co-CEO at Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls developer Quantic Dream addressed that perennial question.

While the discussion may seem overdone, it’s one he has to have constantly, as he petitions the European Commission to register games, officially, as a form of cultural expression.

“I think there’s a big confusion about what video games are,” he says, “and usually when we talk about video games and do research on the internet, this is what usually comes up. Video games are violent, they’re addictive, but most of the time they’re not branded as being cultural, or being a form of cultural expression.

“I think that has to do with the infancy of this industry,” he adds. “Games really started as toys. They were very much targeting children and teenagers. And I think there is still this perception in society that video games are still for children, that they’re not necessarily for adults.”

In the early days of games, they could only trigger simple emotions. They weren’t sophisticated enough, he says, to provoke more than primitive responses, like fear, adrenaline, or the simple release of dopamine. “It’s much harder to provoke anything more complex than that,” he says.

But there’s been an evolution in games in the last few years, says de Fondaumiere. “Not only did game developers themselves age, but we’re also targeting different demographics now. People who grew up playing games, became adults, and wanted to play something else.”

Games have started to inspire new forms of interaction, and new gameplay paradigms. Examples he gave include Final Fantasy VII, Ico, Heavy Rain, Okami, The Unfinished Swan, and Journey. These are “new types of experiences that offered a totally new approach to what games could be, and the types of audiences it could attract,” he says.

“All games are a form of cultural expression”

The current institutionalized art forms are architecture, sculpture, visual arts, music, literature, stage, cinema, media arts (tv, radio, photography), and comics. Do games fit as the 10th officially recognized art form? This is the question de Fondaumiere has had to address officially.

“To me, all games are a form of cultural expression,” he says. “I see no reason why games should be treated differently than any type of literature or any type of movie. I think that more and more video games are becoming artful, and are becoming a form of art that should be recognized next to the others.”

And his proof is the increased proliferation of authors in games. People who express themselves creatively, and individually, such as Goichi Suda, Fumito Ueda, Michel Ancel, and Jenova Chen. What is that if not art?

“But does it really matter,” he asks? “Do we really care? Do we need to be formally recognized as art? I think it matters. I think this recognition also brings to a certain degree new business opportunities, and when I started in video games 20 years ago I didn’t shout it in the street. ‘Oh, what do you do?’ ‘Uhhhh it’s new media, it’s *cough cough* video games.’

“Today I can say I’m a game producer,” asserts de Fondaumiere. “This sense of pride is important because we need to lure new people to this industry. I’ve been trying to work with Hollywood talent for years now, probably about 15 years. Up until recently, each time I was talking to agents or talents, they would say, ‘We don’t do games, sorry. You have to understand – violence, addiction – it’s bad for our image.’”

Leonardo DiCaprio, for example, was interested in working with Quantic Dream on games, but someone years ago told him that from an image perspective it wasn’t possible.

“We need to dare to be creative”

While de Fondaumiere feels that getting games categorized as art will help inspire business through tax incentives and such, making more adult games comes with additional responsibility.

“I don’t think of course that video games are the reason for violent behaviors, or are responsible for addictive behavior,” he says,” but we need to be careful of what we’re doing. We need to be aware that our creations are being played by more and more people. Especially children. Of course we have our nice rating systems, but we know that our games are played by a younger audience than we intend. So we have to be a little more responsible with what we’re doing.

“On the other hand, we shouldn’t accept everything,” he cautioned. “Because games have been viewed as toys, not cultural expression, there has been a lot of restriction in terms of what level of violence, sex, eroticism we can have in our games. We are much more restricted than film, for example.”

Ultimately, it’s up to game developers to change this perspective from the inside, he says. “We need to dare to be creative,” concluded de Fondaumiere. “Seeing ourselves as a cultural form of expression, or even an art form, means we need as an industry to be more creative. We need to stop creating every year the same games over again. Create new IPs, which means publishers have to take a risk, but also players have to take a risk. The audience votes with their wallet in terms of what kinds of games they want to play.” (source:gamasutra)


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