How to Undermine Your Message with Meta

[This is a piece I wrote for IGDA Perspectives magazine. The theme of the call for submissions was "Games About Games." Merry Christmas!]

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There's a long history of meta-art in the older media – songs about music, books about writing, movies about movies, etc. These works might be further classified as either explicitly instructional (e.g. Stephen King's On Writing), or metafictive, (e.g. the film Adaptation).

The inherent problem of any work in the latter category is that it's cannibalistic. Worse than cannibalistic, it's a snake eating his own tail. While such works can provide profound insight, they are necessarily derivative. Of course, with satire (metafiction is the essence of all satire) it's a direct dependency; but in a larger sense, the message of any metafictive piece depends upon the established conventions of the medium it assaults. The fourth wall must first be built up before it can be torn down.

Successful management of this paradox is what separates the wheat from the chaff. At its worst, metafiction is just laziness – personally, I've come to react with instant disdain to the clichéd premise of a writer struggling with writer's block. At best, however, metafiction triumphs over itself by fully embodying the medium that it simultaneously rips to shreds. The key to Shaun of the Dead, for instance, is that it's both (a) a really solid zombie movie, and (b) a ruthless send-up of zombie movies.

That is to say, metafictive deconstruction cannot be successful (in an artistic sense) when the meta is simply a mask for flawed execution. Being meta is, in itself, not clever enough to serve as an excuse for a movie being a bad movie, or a book being a bad book, or a song being a bad song, etc. Quite the reverse, meta ironically demands respect for and competent adherence to the form.

Leaving aside the question of whether games can be considered "art," this same principle applies in our medium, and as designers we do well to maintain awareness of it. I was willing to forgive Alan Wake for its narrative premise because it's a really good game. Metal Gear Solid 4 cuts no corners in terms of quality of gameplay and execution, and the meta bits are sublimely hilarious as a result. Earth Defense Force dives headlong into self-awareness – it is a joyful celebration of video game-ness for anyone who truly loves video games.

I went meta in my own work with Super Elk Murder, a satirical hunting game for Flash Player, iOS, and Android. I wanted to make a statement about violence in games (a tired issue, but one which can never be escaped, since violence lies at the core of every competitive human pursuit). Rather than try to convince gamers to take a sudden, about-face interest in non-violent games, I believe we as developers can accomplish more with respect to questioning games' violent aspect by deconstructing it and/or pushing it past the point of absurdity. That's my statement, anyway.

Of course, I wouldn't (and probably couldn't) have made Elk Murder if I didn't also adore shooters, or have such fond childhood memories of Duck Hunt and The Oregon Trail. Not to mention, most of my downloads have come from fellow hunting-game enthusiasts. I target them with my keywords.

I've become a drug pusher, a peddler of vicious fantasies. I wanted to stand for peace, yet the blood of millions of murdered (virtual) elk is now on my hands. My game is its own toughest critic. All of this irony is the inevitable meta of the meta, the meta-meta, echoing infinitely upon itself as it dismantles even its own absurdity into über-meaninglessness... it's a maddening position to be in.

At any rate, the takeaway is this: if you want your creative output to do more than merely entertain, if you want to actually communicate something, and you're thinking about using meta as a means to do it – tread carefully. The validity of your endeavor depends upon its integrity, and yet in the end it cannot help but betray and destroy that integrity.

You've been warned. Good hunting!

On Games, Violence & Censorship

True to form, Congress has reacted to the recent horror at Sandy Hook Elementary School with a moral panic, spearheaded by Senator Jay Rockefeller, seeking to blame video games for the massacre.

I worry that we game developers shoot ourselves in the collective foot (pun intended) when we engage would-be government censors on their own terms. Our argument, "You can't prove a causal link between our art and our audience's behavior, so we're safe!" essentially invites censorship as soon as such a link can be established.

Censors almost always justify their bans on the basis of public safety, stability, harmony, etc. The idea behind a free society with a free press is that we sacrifice those conveniences for the sake of individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is, we believe that the free flow of information, the ability to discuss ideas (and to disagree) is better than any tyranny, no matter how benevolent.

Even though a work of art cannot directly cause behavior, certainly it can promote an idea. For example, reading the Bible doesn't make one a Christian; an individual bears the full responsibility of choosing whether or not to be a Christian, even in countries where the Bible is against the law.

While I am opposed to censorship in all its forms, I would also advocate for any artist to maintain a mature awareness of the ideas and values promoted by his or her work.

My own game, Elk Murder, uses humor and cognitive dissonance to convey an anti-hunting message. Gameplay-wise, it's an arcade-style shooting gallery replete with all the zoom animations, flashing lights, and floating digits gamers have grown accustomed to over the years. The surrounding narrative, however (particularly the deliberate substitution of the word "murder" for "hunting" throughout) continually reminds the player of the darker elements behind the game's commonly-accepted overt premise.

Free (ad-supported) versions are now available for iOS devices (in the iTunes Store) and Android 2.2+ devices (in the Google Play Store and Amazon App Store).

Rather than try to convince gamers to take a sudden, about-face interest in non-violent games, I believe we as developers can accomplish more with respect to unmasking the violent aspect of games through deconstruction and reduction to absurdity.

News and Entertainment

So I'm a member of the IGDA's Writers' SIG email list. (That is, an email list for the International [Video] Game Developers Association's Special Interest Group for Writers. It's basically a forum that invades your inbox every day).

Recently, an e-debate has been raging over the validity and relevance of game journalism websites/blogs. One guy thinks they're completely pointless, inane, and badly written; another guy says this is because "The priority of a games journalist, like any other journalist, is to produce something which people want to consume. That’s the harsh reality. News is an entertainment product."

Here's where I had to chime in:

The mentality that "news is merely a form of entertainment and always has been" is not only wrong, it's dangerous on multiple levels.

First, with regard to news: Freedom of information is the single most vital, most basic element of a free society. Real, truthful news is what separates us from the Fascists and the Communists. When journalists (Fox) lose sight of this, they commit a despicable evil.

Second, with regard to art: the notion of separating what's "True" from what's "entertainment" implicitly and unfairly denigrates our profession. Knowledge and wisdom come in many forms. Creative expression is no less important than factual information. A world without art is no better off than a world without news. Both news and entertainment media are (and should be) vehicles for Truth.

The idea that art /entertainment is somehow frivolous, fluff, or a luxury commodity makes me sick. If that's your attitude, please go do something else with your life, because you'll only get in the way while the rest of us are busy creating something meaningful.