Will Wright - Sims, Spore, Proxi, and how should the world treat digital arts?

[Melooon]

I'm not sure if this is a well thought out discussion but its one that's been hovering in the back of my mind for a long time, and that's the subject of Will Wright, the creator of SimCity, The Sims, Spore, SimAnt, SimEarth and the latter vaporware Proxi.

When you follow the history of his works you realize they all end up in scuzzy hands; Maxis (the Sims company that admittedly didn't always run things very well), was purchased by EA (the famous jerks) who mostly drove the series into the ground in later years, and EA was just purchased by a group of financiers from Saudi Arabia with sketchy connections to the current US president.

Its been a while since Will Wright produced anything that's culturally relevant, and so much of his legacy seems to have been churned over and chewed up by a mindless mix of financiers and entertainment industry managers.

I personally feel that Will Wright helped create some of the most important artworks of the late-20th century, although I don't think he would look at himself as an artist in the way. However all of that leads me to look at how we as a global culture treat and value digital arts. Perhaps he's done his part, and perhaps he's perfectly happy with his life's work as it is. I also think its fair to say that perhaps Will played his part in allowing his work to be seen as financial and disposable; maybe it was a choice, or a choice he never thought he had.

All that aside, what if in the 1980s instead of being a a software novelty, SimCity had been treated as a true cultural artifact? What if Spore had received the kind of support, investment and maintenance as an opera house or a museum? What if these digital spaces and worlds had been created and cherished as art and intrinsic to the digital experience of everyone?

Of course that's naive, and of course its easier to see the value of something in retrospect; but I cant help but think that people looking back on us, generations from now will be baffled at the way we miss-treated early pioneers of digital world building.

Will we learn to stop treating virtual spaces as disposable cash grabs and start treating them as multi-generational constructions that deserve the same consistency and development as a city or a forest? Can we learn that, and is it even possible?

For my own part I'd like to think it is, I think there's an inevitability to it; we cant go on trashing past works and starting over every 10 years

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

A core reason I see for the commodification of video games is that they are a medium essentially established on the (arguably still lasting) peak of the power of the ideology of the free market, and built upon media that was inherently capitalist in their design. If both the zeitgeist and the underlying technology (and many of the people involved in it) are inclined to turn objects into goods, it is not easy to guess how video games (and software in general) ended up as being seen as pure products.

Yet, the power of capitalism is - and always will be - limited, and the way people interact with video games is often not the kind of relation you have with your pack of paper handkerchiefs or your bottle of dish soap (even though, both examples can be seen as "art" in their way) - they connect with them on an emotional level, connect them with their own memories and stories; I've certain places in the games I think back to in a way similar to how former generations remembered the forests or creeks of their youth, and I'm sure that I'm not alone in that regard.

At the same time, I think that the problem is more fundamental; digital "goods" were just the spearhead - for literature, art, movies, food, - and even more complex and abstract concepts (such as nature), and basically everything are also more and more seen as a temporary experience that can be sold and bought. I believe that non-commercial art can be a tool to work against this development, and the easy spreadability of digital objects (that enabled their super-commodification) might come in handy in that regard.

[Melooon]

peak of the power of the ideology of the free market, and built upon media that was inherently capitalist in their design

So for other readers following along but also for my own logic; I'm just gonna add some history here - firstly I don't know exactly what media your referring to, but it is a really worthwhile point to dig into their history and answer my own question "what if in the 1980s instead of being a software novelty".

So in the 19th and early 20th centuries fairgrounds where a really common form of mass entertainment; they'd have clowns and shows and animals etc, but they also increasingly had automatons, ball games and fairground game machines (early pinball machines essentially). Those machines continued and often were collected into amusement arcades, particularly in the 50s-70s.

Video games started in the 70s as electronic arcade machines, and most peoples first experience of them would have been at an amusement arcade - they followed the older model of taking a few of your coins for a few minuets of novelty entertainment.

Here's a tour of working ones preserved today in San Francisco!

When home video games were created, that core fairground mentality was still deeply baked into games and peoples views around them. So it would have essentially been impossible for someone in the 1980s to perceive a video game without having that association.

Its only now, another 40 years later that peoples perception and emotional relationship with games has changed so much that its becoming possible (and important) to understand them as something more than a novelty. So the core question here is that it could never have been any other way, but can be now!

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

firstly I don't know exactly what media your referring to

Media was meant in the plural form here: First computer technology, deeply influenced by the modern hegemony of the economic world-view and vastly designed around Luhmanns systemic and the later cybernetic ideas (there is a great book titled "Code" about the development and creation of computer systems, but I forgot the name of the author), then Software (which is a beast of its own; German philosopher Kittler argued that it is a mere construction, to disguise the fact that it is a set of instructions for a machine given by somebody else, inherently limiting the "users" freedom - I don't fully subscribe to this, but think its worthwhile).

I trace video games back to Tennis for Two, rather than to the amusement machines (like Pinball) that you cite (yet I would agree that their is a overlap between the two media). I'd however, argue, that all of these "amusement machines" were perceived as more by their players (or at least, some of them) - just think about people dedicating their life to playing pinball (and these people almost certainly also manifested in front of Pac-Man-Machines).

[Melooon]

I'm gonna go on a tangent here because I'm enjoying it; but movies in the 80s and 90s totally predict the changing atmosphere surrounding games.

Big from 1988 with Tom Hanks, centers around an amusement arcade machine that grants a kid a wish to be a grown up, where he goes on to get a job at a toy company making a series of modular video games; it also features him playing a game on an IBM at key moments of transition, first as a kid, and then later as an adult and the game acts as a liminal zone where he is both his adult and kid self. It captures the trendy connection between games being childish, but it also uses them as life defining magic tools that quite literally define the future of the main character

I trace video games back to Tennis for Two, rather than to the amusement machines

Tennis for Two really is an amusement machine though; it was created to entertain visitors on open days at a atomic development facility. It was admittedly not attempting to extract coins from people, but it was attempting to extract good will for the facility

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

I'm gonna go on a tangent here because I'm enjoying it; but movies in the 80s and 90s totally predict the changing atmosphere surrounding games.

I was indeed thinking about "The Last Starfighter" when writing about people who basically sink their life into amusement machines!
Ralph Bakshi was a master when it came to pointing out the ephemeral aesthetic qualities of these lower-class coin-eater games: Both the depiction of the dying billiard player in Fritz the Cat (Warning: Depiction of police brutality, use of the N-Word) and the opening of Heavy Traffic are ingenious in that regard.

Tennis for Two really is an amusement machine though; it was created to entertain visitors on open days at a atomic development facility. It was admittedly not attempting to extract coins from people, but it was attempting to extract good will for the facility

I should have said "Mechanical Amusement Machine"
As said, there is an overlap - but the tradition these media are coming from are somewhat different. This shows in the fact that home video games emerged rather early (up from the early 70s), while home Pinball machines remained an exception to the rule. I'd also assume that the carneys (who often operated mechanical entertainment machines like mechanical theaters over generations - I recently read a interesting little text about these) that set up the fairgrounds initially lacked the skill to deal with the mostly electronic machines - from my knowledge, video game machines had their rise rather in the 80s. So it seems to me that the mechanical machines are a relict of a communal pastime activity (fairs, public spaces like pubs), while video games were initially designed with the nuclear family in mind - the "arcade hall" as a social field might be a result of these two traditions merging. But I could be dead off here.

Still, you are right about it being an entertainment machine - and it also illustrates how strongly video games were linked to the military-industrial complex right from the beginning.

[MediocreMetastasis]

A core reason I see for the commodification of video games is that they are a medium essentially established on the (arguably still lasting) peak of the power of the ideology of the free market, and built upon media that was inherently capitalist in their design.

Couldn't you say the same for films/movies? Getting to watch a film was a novelty in the early 1900s or an attraction.

Video Games were advertised as a toy and still are considered merely a toy by some people. Which is why it can't really be seen as art at the moment.

Video Games will probably be considered an art form in about 20 years. People are already making essays about videogames. Though talking about the visual and written modes instead of the interactive mode (But interactive conventions would literally just be talking about game feel and how "Mario jump height varies depending on how long you hold the jump button to give the player more freedom").

[Melooon]

interactive conventions would just be [] about game feel and how "Mario jump height varies depending on how long you hold the jump button

I really disagree there! A true discussion of interaction with game is an analysis of the complete interaction:

• That complete interaction starts with the games visuals
• it moves into its story
• then into how the player perceives those visuals and story
• first with their eyes, then with their memories
• and how those visuals and story emotionally effect and change the player
• then how those emotional effects physically influence the player
• and how those physical influences are converted into movements on a controller
• then how those controller inputs are converted back into the game world
• and how the game world reacts and loops back around to morph its visuals and story to those reactions

The art of games is not in any of those steps, its the complete outcome of all of them; it other words it is the loop of interaction that exists between the game and the player.

I also think its quite a bit closer than 20 years away, its already here creeping in at the corners.

illustrates how strongly video games were linked to the military-industrial complex

You can say the same for roads or towns built by the Romans or Celtic broaches intended to denote kings or status. At a certain point the line between origin and art and power and technology all blurs into the messy white noise of humanity - you can be aware of an origin, but meanings change; there are a lot of war games, but there's also a lot of Harvest Moons now!

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Couldn't you say the same for films/movies? Getting to watch a film was a novelty in the early 1900s or an attraction.

When movies had their rise, the gripe of (back then often still monarchic) states, religion, and "moral" codes were still much stronger; they are essentially a medium of the modernity (where the markets were liberated, but still much more under control than today) and its topics, while video games started in the post-modern era, and gained most of their traction with the end of the ideological competition between West and East.

@Melooon The connections between roads and military is an utmost interesting field - I'm somewhat of an road connoisseur, and walked along the Via Amerina, an ancient roman street this May. The roman streets were indeed a military construct; they are usually nearly exactly directed towards a long-distance target, while many of the "natural" paths went from village to village. Their inherent aptitude for troop-transports at least accelerated the fall of the Roman Empire: The "barbarians" used them for their invasion. When times got a bit more peaceful, they largely went out of use - normal people and especially pack animals couldn't deal well with the cobblestones that were used for paving - at most places, they were used to store fieldstones that were removed from the surrounding fields by plowing farmers (removing the cobblestones was next to impossible before motorized machinery was available - so the farmers couldn't use these parts of their fields in any better way) - at these places, you can recognize ancient roman streets as thick scrubland that runs in a straight line. But the civil paths that were established next to them still largely went along the former military roads - and as such, were vastly influenced by their design ;). I could write much more about roads, but I'm afraid this is going OT - but the "white noise" can often be decoded, even millenniums later - and doing so might help us to understand both ourself and the world we live in better.

[star dreams]

Want to hop in and say this has been a very interesting read. Now for my unsolicited thoughts

(But interactive conventions would literally just be talking about game feel and how "Mario jump height varies depending on how long you hold the jump button to give the player more freedom").

You'd be surprised how much there is to discuss about the paradigms in video game interfaces. I think Sonic games are some of the most mechanically picked apart I've seen. I saw a video talking about the storytelling in Sonic 3 through its mechanics but I can't find it rn. There are also anti-genre games like *coughs* Undertale and deltarune that put more effort into using these interactive aspects in their narrative.

(though that example is very upfront about their subversion, not all games are. Before the Green Moon is one I'd like to recommend if you're curious on the potential of using gameplay itself as a narrative driver rather than just the interface you parse to receive one. Ok, tangent over.)

Like Melon pointed out, you are actually passing through many layers of interaction when pressing a button and watching what happens on screen. But you are right in pointing out this often isn't a focus in some video game analysis, it's a shame!

More focused on the topic at hand, this has sort of been pointed out but the question on the value of digital art is very much a capitalist one, and this isn't just limited to games! The line between a digital illustrator and an online fan artist is an arbitrary one, as much as the difference between labels like "game" and "interactive art". ThunderPerfectWitchcraft already pointed this out, the appreciation of digital arts is one that eludes the arbitrary meritocracy of how much money it makes.

If we are talking about money though, I think a huge barrier is still the assumption that digital goods should always be free. It's the same reason why one is willing to buy a physical newspaper but resistant to paying for a digital article. Is it because a digital good isn't physical? Even if its impacts on use are just as tangible? I'm not quite sure on this one.

[bodypoetic]

I feel there’s two dichotomies at play in this thread: ‘digital worlds treated as novelties/respected as artworks’ and ‘digital worlds neglected/given support, investment, and maintenance’. These are getting conflated when they’re actually distinct issues, and it’s muddying the waters of the discussion.

What if Spore had received the kind of support, investment and maintenance as an opera house or a museum? What if these digital spaces and worlds had been created and cherished as art and intrinsic to the digital experience of everyone?

Case in point: ‘created and cherished as art’ =/= ‘receiving maintenance’. We have something of a litmus test for this, because e-lit works like Michael Joyce’s afternoon and Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl very much were created and received as capital-h capital-a High Art. Both works are continually showered with critical attention and are regarded as foundational hypertext pieces. That didn’t save them from becoming increasingly incompatible with modern hardware, and therefore increasingly difficult to actually play.

(They are, at least, very well-documented – but arguably, so are the works of Will Wright. It’s just that said documentation takes a very different form and is happening in very different circles.)

A core reason I see for the commodification of video games is that they are a medium essentially established on the [...] peak of the power of the ideology of the free market, and built upon media that was inherently capitalist in their design.

...I cant help but think that [...] generations from now will be baffled at the way we miss-treated early pioneers of digital world building.

Agreed on both counts – but I do want to point out that (a) mistreating and neglecting the earliest versions of an art-form is not at all unique to the digital, and (b) these shifts in what’s artistically possible have always been bound up with economic pressures.

For example: we can trace novels written in English back to 1553’s ‘Beware the Cat’, but they didn’t really get codified as an art-form until the 1700s. Even then, they were largely considered lowbrow trash that Wasn’t Proper Literature. Ian Watt’s Rise of the Novel is a pretty good source on this, but the short version is that novels came about because of the emergence of a middle class that had both (a) enough leisure time to read and (b) enough disposable income to buy books. This led to a perceived ‘degeneration of taste’ - at least according to the upper classes, who didn’t like that they weren’t the only people who got to decide which books were good and which books were bad any more.

A new art-form, then, represents an expansion not just in what can be produced, but in what can be reasonably expected to make money and find an audience. I do think that late capitalism is having a distinct impact on artistic production, and especially on art being increasingly viewed as disposable. That said, artistic production cannot be separated from the material conditions it takes place in. You could argue that even the very earliest cave-paintings represented time that could have been spent finding food or firewood. I personally don’t believe any art-form will be immune to economic pressures until we live in a utopia where everybody’s basic needs are met by default, and possibly not even then. (This is not to downplay the importance of non-commercial art, which I agree is vital.)

Let’s stick with the novel analogy for a while. Nowadays, they’re pretty much synonymous with seriousness and respectability – if they’re the right kind of novel written by the right kind of person for the right kind of market, that is. Romance novels are still largely considered lowbrow trash. Genre fiction is having something of a moment, but a lot of critics still fundamentally do not grasp or respect the specific affordances of SFF. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find people who didn’t consider these works to be literature at all, though.

So there’s the distinction between art/not art, but also the distinction between high/low culture. Will Wright’s games largely exist in the ‘low culture’ category, and I suspect that this has had much more of an impact on their cultural legacy than the fact of them being video games.

To be clear: I’m not using ‘low culture’ as a synonym for ‘bad’. The most exciting and innovative digital works I’ve ever seen tend to come from that side of the fence. Over time, I think that a lot of these works will get enough recognition that they’ll be resituated in the ‘high culture’ category. That’s pretty much what happened to Shakespeare, although those categories don’t map straightforwardly onto early modern England.

I think it’s tempting to view the answers to ‘what gets remembered? What gets canonised? What gets respected?’ as a reflection of how much we value and care for a work of art. That’s not entirely false, but it’s not entirely true either. Often, the process of canonisation is pretty haphazard. ‘Macbeth’ is one of the most written-about texts of all time – but only because it’s one of a subset of Shakespeare plays that happened to make it to the present day. There’s so many others that just don’t exist any more; purely down to chance and what the editors of the First Folio wanted to include.

I ended up going on a bit of a tangent here (and also took so long to write this that a lot of people have made a lot of interesting points that I couldn’t respond to without throwing my entire line of argument off the rails, sorry about that) – hopefully it adds something and provokes some further thoughts!

[cyberfun1 (dizz)]

I think that people should focus on the making of the digital art rather than the monetary value
i think there are 2 parts to the making and sharing of digital art, the meaning the creator instills in the piece, and how much of that meaning is transferred over to the recipient.