The Independent ModeA Functionalist Account of Independent Games and Game History
Abstract Which is more important: the business of games, the design of a game, or the way players play a game? Unfortunately, we face the problem that our answers tend to depend on our disciplinary background. As an example, what kind of thing are independent video games? Do independent video games even exist, or is "independent" just a vague label applied to a range of unrelated games? Is independence a financial arrangement or a style? In fact, we can ask similar questions about labels commonly employed to distinguish games: casual, hypercasual, core, mobile, AAA, live games. Taking a cue from film studies, this paper argues for seeing independent games - and other game types - as modes of game practice: as specific historical arrangements of production methods, design conventions, distribution, business, and reception practices (i.e. ways of playing). This approach has several advantages over previous work: It does not privilege any given perspective on independent games, and it allows us to think more broadly about how a game type consists of many interlocking parts, where minute design decisions serve concrete functions in the business and cultural context around them. The paper exemplifies this through an analysis of how the playing practices encouraged by the design of independent video games also support the cultural context around independent games. Finally, the paper extends this to a more general view of game history as a gradual shift of modes. KEYWORDS Independent games, video game history, live games, AAA games, modes of game practice 1 Introduction The term independent game has become popular during the last 20 years, used both by developers as self-identification, by reviewers, and by game console manufacturers in their online stores. In addition, independent games have become institutionalized in university game development programs and game festivals such as A Maze (Berlin), IndieCade (Los Angeles), or BitSummit (Kyoto). Independent video games represent a Cambrian explosion of video game forms and themes, including what is known as "alt", "art", and queer games. There are now independent video games about being a soon-to-be-replaced cab driver [6], about being an elderly woman visiting a cemetery [20], about being a poor street vendor [10], to name a few. In this short paper, I will not be defining independent games, but rather analyze the function of dominant characteristics of games promoted or discussed as independent, or promoted through independent game festivals [12]. By doing this I'd like to sketch a new account of independent games, not as a financial arrangement, or as a type of design, but more holistically as a mode: In Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson's study The Classical Hollywood Model, the authors analyze the studio system under the concept of a mode of film practice, "a set of widely held stylistic norms sustained by and sustaining an integral mode of film production" [3]. This concept has recently been applied to experimental film movements [23] [2]. Using this outlook, I examine the appearance of independent games as a mode; a system that combines ways of designing, producing, promoting, and playing video games. The point is not simply that all games exist in a larger context, but that we can make a functional analysis, looking in detail at how small design choices interact with an industrial context, and with ways of playing and appreciating each game. In a 2012 discussion of independent cinema, Janet Staiger list three aspects to mode of practice: 1. "A definite historical existence, including specific political, economic, cultural, and aesthetic contexts; 2. A set of conventions, including form of narrative, style of narration, and subject matter; and 3. Implicit viewing procedures." [18]
In this multi-faceted approach, a given mode (such as classical Hollywood, art cinema, independent cinema, or avant-garde) has multiple mutually reinforcing components. In Staiger's example, classical Hollywood cinema has a historical existence, formal and stylistic conventions (generic formulas, often using heterosexual romance), and "implicit viewing procedures" based on the audience being emotionally involved with the narrative [18]. Viewing procedures means what the audience knows about how to approach a given film, which is typically prefigured by reviews and commentary. For example, Bordwell argues that art cinema is less driven by narrative causality than is classical Hollywood cinema, and art cinema is also registered by viewer as a deviation from the norms of classical Hollywood [2]. This outlook gives us a new way to consider independent games in and of themselves, and alongside other modes of game production. Table 1 provides such as comparison of the single-purchase AAA game, the modern continually updated "live" casual game, and independent games that make claims for being culturally important [12]. I leave it to the reader to apply this perspective to other modes (such as arcade games, hypercasual games, subscription-based games, free-to-play AAA games). This gives us a view of game history as a set of ongoing and parallel changes that sometimes gel in a specific mode. Some historical changes transcend genres and audiences, such as the growth of "games as a service", or "live games" where a game ceases to be a bounded "work", but rather become an evolving platform. This is shared in games as different as Candy Crush, Fortnite, and Grand Theft Auto V. Table 1: Three modes of game production
2 The independent mode Today, the majority of video game revenue is derived through non-physical means [19] though a mix of sources from purchases to subscription to advertising. Thus, we can retroactively identify a single-purchase AAA mode of video games, whose historical existence was dominant from the waning of the arcades around 1980 to the appearance of digital distribution in the mid-aughts, but which even after the shift to downloads continued to be a unit purchased for an upfront price. Part of the context of this single-purchase mode was that video game consoles have traditionally been promoted with the idea of video game history as a forward march towards greater and greater visual realism [11], which in turn led to continually increased development budgets. In terms of conventions, the single-purchase AAA mode is generally promoted with a heroic narrative, where the player's role is presented as overcoming a challenge - because the game actually is challenging and/or because the player's actions are presented as leading to grand effects in the fictional world of the game, as is the case in heavily scripted games like the Uncharted [14] series. The implicit viewing procedure then is to accept such games as the player/player character's personal journey of betterment, both in single and multiplayer, all the while evaluating the game on the technical merits of its visuals. As a first sketch, Independent games are broadly speaking a flip side of big-budget AAA games, by being associated with formal and thematic experiments, quality criteria more attuned to traditional art forms, as well as with calls for increased diversity in game development [1]. Yet, there is wide disagreement about what an independent game is. As a solution, Juul distinguishes between different types of independence in video games: financial (developed independent of outside financial interests), aesthetic (new types of design), and cultural (making cultural or political claims) [12]. Like the example of art cinema, aesthetically and culturally independent games are often presented as a reaction against traditional, big-budget video games.
Figure 1: Neo Cab independent "emotional survival game" about being a near-future cab driver attending the emotional needs of passengers to maintain rating As a concrete example, the 2019 Neo Cab [6] (Figure 1) is billed as an "emotional survival game", developed by the Chance Agency studio, "A small, independent game studio based in San Francisco, California." [5]. With these cues in mind, we can identify several aspects of the mode of culturally independent games following Staiger: 2.1 The historical existence of independent games The label independent game became popular around 2000 [12], and institutionalized with festivals such as the Independent Game Festival, and later IndieCade and A MAZE. Independent games are characterized by smaller teams than the single-purchase AAA mode, smaller budgets, and independent game festivals have in practice never awarded microtransaction- or advertisement-based games. Most independent games (especially the aesthetically and cultural ones selected by festivals) are deliberately promoted as alternative to both big-budget and casual games, and exist alongside the development of a new review language[1]. 2.2 Independent conventions While it is the case that independent games - and even culturally independent games promoted by festivals - span a range of genres, we can still point to some meta-conventions of this mode. Encouraging new playing procedures: You can just play the 2005 Braid [15], but the promotion of the game and the reviews focused on Braid as a game that offered more than mere fun. "Braid is about rescuing a princess to the same extent that Kafka's Metamorphosis is about being a bug," wrote The Atlantic [7]. Interstitial text and the credits in the game provide ample opportunity for interpretation, replete with mysterious references to the Trinity test in 1945, supported by footnotes. In this way, the game and the reception of the game encourages player to interpret it, and to think of it as a statement, even while allowing players to play it as a more traditional game [12]. Braid elicits an intellectual response through such signposts. Similarly, Neo Cab can be played and completed, but the subject matter also encourages us to read it as a social and political commentary about precarity, the gig economy, automation, and the emotional labor of many service jobs. All video game-playing involves emotions, what stands out here is the presentation of everyday and un-heroic emotions, as well as the political themes employed. Denying traditional playing procedures: Some games require players to readjust existing habits. Walking simulator subgenre games such as Gone Home [21] can be completed, but do not offer players the opportunity to improve their skills. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK [13] presents challenges to players, but denies them the opportunity to develop consistent skills, or sometimes even to solve the challenges at all. 2.3 Playing procedures Clearly, the design choices of these games ask for a type of engagement markedly different from the engagement asked by the single purchase big-budget game or the casual live game. We can think of this as an elicitation of intellectual involvement, where part of the experience of such games is to note such deviations from game conventions, and where those deviations are exactly a point in themselves. This in turn requires players to accept the denial of game tradition as a commentary on games, and part of the history of games, mirroring the history of modern art [4]. Finally, independent games are generally promoted as personal expression, and through the story of their creation [12]. Compared to film, again, it's notable that many recent independent games such as Neo Cab are promoted as collective creations assigned to no single auteur [12], but to a studio, often including a story of the studio's fledgling beginnings. In Currid-Halkett's terms, independent games seem to involve a contemporary sense of conspicuous production [8], where part of the meaning of the final game is derived from the way it was created - much like it is the case with local food and craft items. This is also demonstrated in developer Rami Ismail's popular presskit() template [16], which encourages small developers to promote their game with a story of its creation. 3 Conclusions: An alternative View of Game History Modes of practice can be seen as a functionalist account, where the components of a system are assumed to support each other. One possible criticism is that this can become a circular argument, where components are simply assumed to be supporting each other [9]. It follows that research based on modes must actively look for breaking points, transitions, and counter-examples. I have showed here how independent games are new, but also traditional in being distributed as finished, singular works. This is not a random correlation, but serves the specific function that such independent games can be completed by the player, and interpreted in traditional ways as works with meaning, more so than ever-changing live games can. Similarly, when an experimental game breaks with conventions and denies players the expected playing procedures, that provides an opportunity for the player to reflect on the meaning of these departures from convention, and to demonstrate their cultural capital and appreciation of experimental cultural forms. In short, looking at game types, and game history, as modes of practice helps us escape some of our disciplinary prejudices. This lens does not replace concepts like genre and does not make video game history fall neatly into simple categories, but it allows us to identify game types hitherto unnamed due to their once-dominant positions (single-purchase games), and to view the history of video games more broadly, and openly. References
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[1] For example, the Wired review of Passage [17] states that "Passage hit me precisely the way, say, Percy Bysshe Shelley's 'Ozymandias' stunned me when I first read it." [22] |
