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Self-esteem is a tricky thing for game designers to hold onto.  In a cultural landscape where video games are often second-class citizens, it’s easy for developers to exalt existing media giants like Hollywood while minimizing the virtues of their own art form.  Take Heavy Rain, for example.  By all rights it’s set to be a PS3 magnum opus–a killer app reminiscent of the days of Shenmue.  Quantic Dream’s intricate plots and innovative gameplay devices should add up to a unique and memorable title.  But, for some reason, Quantic Dream–or at least, its PR folks–can’t stop pretending that Heavy Rain, a jewel in the crown of interactive entertainment, is actually a movie.  It’s a pretty canny strategy–but what insecurities does it conceal?  Destructoid’s Jim Sterling is here today to kick these preconceptions to the curb:

You’ve doubtless heard game director David Cage talking about his “interactive drama,” likening it to movies and almost distancing it from videogames, trying to make out that it’s something more than a mere game. I would like to direct you to the aforementioned promo material I received, and two statements that really stuck out for me. They are as follows:

“Film Quality Narrative — Heavy Rain brings a high-quality story filled with tension, emotion, intrigue, and dramatic sequences.”
“Hollywood Production Values — From the length of the script, to the musical core, to the number of hours of motion capture, Heavy Rain is a vast and ambitious project that delivered a true film noir feel as well as production values that rival a cinematic experience.

Spotted the problem yet? If you haven’t, let me make it clear — Quantic Dream is not in the movie business. It’s in the videogame business, and it should be comparing itself to the best of its medium, not the best of other mediums. When I see a game promoting itself by saying it’s “movie quality,” do you know what that says to me? It says that videogames are not as good as movies. It says that the more gaming emulates film, the better videogames will be.

It’s a disservice to videogames to claim that your title is good because it’s as entertaining as a movie. That essentially discredits the hard work of game writers and directors, who have a hard enough job as it is in trying to convince people that games are a legitimate work of creative entertainment. The last thing they need are having members of their own industry implying that credibility comes from a direct comparison to other mediums.

There’s a real problem in the games business of people latching onto more established forms of entertainment instead of trying to establish gaming itself. It all goes back to that ludicrous Citizen Kane argument. People need to stop asking when gaming will get its Citizen Kane. They need to ask when gaming will get another Super Mario Bros. They need to ask when gaming will get another Shadow of the Colossus. Videogames should be compared to videogames, because they are an artistic and creative medium in their own right, and deserve to be treated as such.

Sterling’s analysis progresses to its logical conclusion:  if Hollywood producers and game publishers could get this bizarre hierarchy out of their heads, we wouldn’t have to deal with atrocious game-to-movie crossovers.  More importantly, we could start getting cultural literati on board with the idea that video games are here to stay–and just as legitimate a cultural medium as film and TV.  Mass media television has only twenty or thirty years’ seniority over interactive entertainment–and the gap between the two narrows with every new console generation.  I agree with Mr. Sterling: those involved with the publication of new games should recognize and cultivate the oft-ignored area of cultural discourse dominated by video games, instead of mining more established and pervasive areas for validation.

[Via Destructoid]

[Image Source:  Gamescast Live]

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