Notgames Forum

Why is there no Citizen Kane of videogames? Because there is no Orson Welles of videogames. There is no Eisenstein or Griffith either. There is no Truffaut, no Goddard, no Hitchcock.

We're still going for the Godard nomination! ;D But we probably lack the talent. :'(

Maybe we can settle for being the Akerman or Breillat of videogames. Though god knows I really want to be the Sofia Coppola!

I am more interested in Schindler's List of video games. A video game about a serious subjects which is meant to be engaging while not being fun and which is also a huge commercial hit.

You could argue that Schindler's List is entertainment in a perverse hollywood-esque way (unfortunately). I can't remember a commercial successful movie, which was not entertaining ("fun") at the same time. I know many not-entertaining, but serious movies which were not successful, though. But I understand what your point is... maybe looking for commercial success for serious work is too much to ask for...

Games are collaborative works, like movies. But still, why is there no Orson Welles? We have Will Wright, Miyamoto and Molyneux. I think they had very different goals...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQCnrPr3qIA

"...where did you get the confidence from to make a film with such..."

"Ignorance! Ignorance! Sheer ignorance, you know, there's no confidence to equal it. It's only when you know something about a profession, I think, that you're timid, or careful."

maybe the question should be why is there no Orson Welles in videogames? This brings back the discussion, that there are not good enough tools to make games for artists to use... coding is so tedious and inconvenient...

The times are different too. I don't think things evolve as linearly any more as they did in the past. Plus the internet has fragmented the audience. Global massive success is not as important any more as it used to be. Maybe there will never be an Orson Welles of anything any more.

I think this is the wrong question. You're assuming they don't already exist or that there is a problem with games. I don't think the problem is games, the problem is a failure of imagination for other uses of the technology. And again, the term "games" will continue to be a problem.

And you know, no one hyped Orson Welles' genius more than Welles himself.

Think about the situation in which Citizen Kane was developed:

A production crew of expert craftsmen eager to try out innovative new techniques teams up with an accomplished auteur and his skilled theatre company, both completely new to the medium of film. This group is given $16 million (2012 dollars) and 100% creative control. They won't even show the film to the funders at all until it is completely finished.

If you can recreate that situation, there's a chance.

Sure. But who cares about Welles? Pasolini and Paradjanov are far more interesting as filmmakers and they had no money for their work.

also, where is the Bunuel of games when you need him??

I wonder if in the late 1930's, the likes of Welles, Mankiewicz and friends spent their spare time asking one another which was the "Beethoven's 9th" of cinema, or who was the Rubens of film directing.

Where is the Shakespeare of cinema you mean?

Or the Homer of script writing. Or the Bernini of film editing. There are none. And it is even questionable whether "Citizen Kane" is the "Citizen Kane of Cinema". These parallels, as amusing as they may be to some, simply do not exist in a degree of accuracy that makes them worthy of being pursued. Each author's contribution is unique and derives from very specific circumstances which can never be repeated.

In addition, Cinema accomplished more as an artistic medium in the first few years of its history than games have in four decades as an entertainment business. As we know, "Citizen Kane" represented a sizable advancement in film, in story-telling, photography, and so many other aspects of art and human creation in a far broader sense. No single video game has ever - or, the way I see it, could ever - have a comparable cultural impact.

Sounds like exactly what happened to Warren Spector with Deus Ex: http://www.users.on.net/~hindes/spector.mp3 (http://www.users.on.net/~hindes/spector.mp3). Heard Deus Ex called the Citizen Kane of video games quite a few times!

Something I've been thinking about because Michael says on his Patreon he is grateful to be liberated from himself, his own feeling that he has to make "fun" games to be relevant. Also in a Time magazine I read today the Nintendo president (Iwata?) was eulogized and his quote was all games must be one thing: [paraphrasing] "fun".

I've never once thought of games as fun. Not even Nintendo's games. And a lot of older games are anything but fun. But I think we should be careful about language, and instead of fun we should say "entertaining", which I am sticking in here because a post up above says fun and entertaining in the same breath, but I am not sure if they are supposed to be interchangeable or not, but I don't think they are.

When I read entertaining, or entertainment, I think like a someone entertaining someone else in an intimate or social setting. It isn't fun per se, although it might be. It can be really anything. And most of all we prize the entertainer for their intelligence. But intelligence too comes in many forms. Let's just say entertaining instead of "fun". It will make us think differently. If you are not entertained you just want to get away... that's what we really mean right?

(what is fun then? Stupid childish entertainment? I don't know. I think fun is at least as elusive as beauty.)