The Story of PlayStation

THE STORY OF PLAYSTATION

(PlayStation. Image from wikimedia commons)

In the last instalment we saw how Sony intended the PlayStation to break into the mainstream entertainment sector. In this episode, we look into the problems involved in doing so...

History has shown that the games most closely associated with their host hardware somehow reflect the corporate image. Sony targeted the youth market, placing machines in top nightclubs, sponsoring popular sports like skateboarding and snowboarding and handed out flyers at festivals. David Wilson says "WipEout personified much of these ambitions. It was a game with a massive following amongst the clubbing community, it featured the first named artist soundtrack- with artists such as Leftfield, Prodigy etc offering creditability and an endorsement that made videogaming acceptable".

If one was looking for statistics to prove that e-entertainment is well on the way to becoming embraced as a part of popular culture, Tomb Raider alone could provide a few. The franchise has sold 28 million copies worldwide and it has been estimated that the gaming community has collectively spent 340 billion hours in the company of the game’s central character, Lara Croft. As for the adventuress herself, she has enjoyed a life in the public eye that is quite exceptional for a videogame character. The fact is that there are plenty of female game characters such as Joanna Dark, Chun Li and Nina Williams, but it’s doubtful that these names mean anything outside of the gaming community. But Lara Croft somehow managed to enter mainstream consciousness. She has appeared on the cover of The Face and other lifestyle magazines, either as her digital self or a human representation of her. Countless articles have been written about her and she is even used to sell products that have nothing to do with videogames- witness her starring role in the Lucozade commercials. If videogaming was more akin to trainspotting than film going, Eidos’s game could hardly shift 28 million units. The statistics derive one conclusion: Videogaming is as popular as music and Film. Actually, statistics prove that e-entertainment is more popular than Film. A ‘Video and PC Game Industry Trends Survey ‘ conducted in 1998 showed that the British market sold 60% more than all box office receipts in this country.

(Lara Croft. Image from gaming.wikia)

But, judging by the way it treats e-entertainment, these facts seem lost on the mainstream press. The general opinion seems to be that, while videogames are currently popular, they aren’t particularly important. In an interview with Edge magazine, Alison Beasly (who works for games PR agency Lincoln Beasly) said "the Sunday supplements have huge sections for magazines, books etc…We’re a higher growth sector than all of them put together but they all look down on games". It’s not difficult to find evidence that backs up the theory that the tabloids and broadsheets pay scant regard to videogames. An article in the Daily Mail attacked a company called Rockstar over a game called State Of Emergency. The reporter in question described the violent nature of the game before adding and it is aimed at children. Now, this game is clearly labelled with an 18 certificate which suggests two things: The reporter held the tired old view that if it’s a videogame it must be kid’s stuff and that it wasn’t worth her while conducting even a cursory amount of research to ascertain the actual target audience of the game. After all, how much effort would it take to check out the age restriction? A better angle might have been to go undercover and expose stores who sell these age-restricted games to minors. Sadly, though, the article was littered with stereotypical views and ‘evidence’ that has been dismissed time and again.

This is hardly a one off. Lazy journalism, basic factual errors and a refusal to give games the same regard as literature, music and other arts is par for the course in the mainstream press. Even worse, high scores are often dished out to anything with a license or as the result of favouritism between certain journalists and Public Relations. To be fair, a few reporters at least attempt to give videogames a better deal, but their colleagues often thwart them. Nick Gillett wrote a better than average videogame guide in The Guardian and pointed out that "there's almost a pride in not knowing about videogames. Even though there's some interesting stuff going on in that area, people tend to sideline the whole thing as a minority interest". Evidence that e-entertainment is being sidelined can be found in the fact that, when it is covered in lifestyle magazines, it will be targeted at young men: Things like FHM, Loaded and T3. It is very rare for a women’s magazine to cover videogames in any way shape or form, despite the definite existence of girl gamers and females in the industry.

So far, the blame has been squared at the mainstream press. But are they really the only culprit or should the games industry itself be held responsible too? Although the machines themselves have greatly increased in sophistication, the industry itself sometimes comes across as far less mature. A particular bugbear for committed gamers is slippage. This is when a game is due for release on a certain date, but fails to materialise when that day arrives. Sometimes, many months can pass until the game does become available and several false release dates will be issued in the meantime. Compare this situation with the Film industry. Try to think of a film that did not make it into the cinemas when promised. Not easy, is it? But if this situation is annoying for gamers, it’s annoying and frustrating for the small contingent of mainstream reviewers who try to take games seriously. Film critics see screenings in advance of the film’s release. This enables them to prepare a thorough review, comparing the movie with the genre’s best and highlighting the track record of the cast and crew responsible. The games industry makes this approach a lot harder. They often only give out games for review when the title is in the shops. They also sometimes hand out half-finished demos and insist the game be judged on that limited basis. Some companies brief their PR to only get good reviews. When a reporter writes an honest criticism, then according to Nick Gillett "they ring up and harangue you. One company seems to..specialise in bad games and getting them reviewed by people who don't know any better". If a company promises that a game will be available for review but doesn’t deliver, what is a reporter to do? Insist that the front page be held until the game is made available? More likely, they will just choose another game and review that instead. This goes some way to explaining the randomness inherent in mainstream coverage.

The games themselves can also cause problems. Every title released can usually fit comfortably into a pre-existing category and true originality is rare. Take the following list for example: Virtua Fighter, Way Of The Exploding Fist, Tekken, Double Dragon. All these games are Beat Em Ups and once you’ve described the objectives of one, you’ve basically described them all. As a result, it’s not very long before reviews start sounding similar, if one only concentrates on bare game mechanics. Now, this argument could also be applied to Cinema, where it’s just as hard to find a truly original concept. Consider a film released in the 90’s. It told the supposedly true story of some amateur film makers who went into some woods to document a local superstition. They were never seen again, but the footage they shot was later recovered. Sound familiar? No, it’s not The Blair Witch Project but an earlier film called The Lost Broadcast. Even that film was not the first to use allegedly authentic ‘lost’ footage. A 70’s splatter movie called Cannibal Holocaust used this trick some decades previously. It seems then, that there is just as much risk of exhausting all angles in reviewing films as there is in covering videogames. Why then, does the former industry get far more coverage? The reason is that it generates celebrity. Look at the way the press covers awards ceremonies like the Oscars. Nowadays, the technical and artistic excellence of the films is not as important as what the stars are wearing, who they are dating and other such trivial gossip. Award ceremonies are conducted to honour excellence in the field of videogames: BAFTA’s aren’t only for the performing arts and television. But this aspect of the ceremony is not covered because e-entertainment is a faceless industry. An unknown programmer doesn’t shift newspapers as well as Liz Hurley in that dress. Very occasionally, a game will create a digital celebrity like Lara Croft and find it gets more coverage than usual. But the distinct lack of celebrity in games means they don’t generate interest in the mainstream.

(A Beat-Em-Up. Image from Wikipedia)

Hang on, though, if there is nothing interesting to say about videogames, how do specialist magazines like Edge manage to devote themselves exclusively to the subject? Well, they can go into great detail regarding the technology behind the game, safe in the knowledge that their readership may well appreciate and understand the jargon. But if you’re writing for a general audience, what percentage of it would respond to a lengthy discussion of floating point units by yawning and turning the page? A big enough number to convince mainstream reviews that they must not use technical jargon for fear of losing their reader’s interest.

These are the problems that face those in the mainstream press who want to take videogames seriously. They have to struggle to obtain reviewable games, often to find it has been delayed yet again. If they tell the truth concerning the value of the game in question, the PR might shun them in the future. The lack of celebrity and the dearth of originality severely limits the amount of things they can say about the subject, but that’s all right because the games-hating editor only grants a matchbox-sized column to the subject anyway. Finally, the games industry does not generate sufficient revenue for the newspaper in terms of advertising and promotion. Adverts for games occasionally appear on and around the peak Christmas season, but in the main, newspapers don’t make enough money to make games coverage worth their while.

So, for a while at least, it would appear that videogames have to rely on specialised magazines for coverage. This could be a problem for those companies who are keen to see gaming embraced as part of the social fabric. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If something continues to be covered as a specialist subject, the implication is that there is only a marginalized interest in it. If the mainstream perceives the attitude that games are a marginalized pursuit, then they will leave games coverage to specialist magazines. Some people argue that the continued convergence of other arts such as Music and Film might break this cycle. As Loaded’s reviews editor, Piers Townley said, "games are overlapping more and more with films and music...It's inevitable that they will get more press attention as that process continues".

REFERENCES

The Ultimate History of Videogames by Steven L Kent

Revolutionaries At Sony by Reiji Asakura

Edge Magazine