Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
Let me say this at the front end: I’m not an avid gamer in the traditional sense. I don’t need to pick up a Playstation controller every night. I could give a damn about earning trophies. I have absolutely zero interest in what Kotaku and IGN have to say about most games. But here’s the thing: I love great games. And when I find a truly fantastic, enchanting and smart game - I am obnoxious about it.
And so all of that pre-cursor had to be said because I am going to take this opportunity to say that people like me who have never played COD or God of War or anything of the tentpole games that eat up all the media’s attention need to start talking about truly wonderful games more. Why? Because honestly, gaming is an art form and it’s getting a bad rap.
Perfect example: Child of Light.
I went on a slight hunt to find the reviews of Child of Light and as I expected, the commentary on the quality of the game were middling at best. It’s humorous to me that as soon as a game shows any amount of artistic integrity or dares to stick to a narrative style - it becomes trite or too childish. Somehow, Madden games which seemingly never change and come out every year to my udder befuddlement manage to score near perfect reviews. It’s a strange dichotomy that I hate and that often causes me to just ignore gaming media altogether:
Standard issue games (shooters, sporting titles) that show any amount of technical or artistic prowess = INCREDIBLE GAME CHANGERSSSSSSS.
Versus:
Games driven by art and technique (Hohokum, Child of Light) that attempt to gamify emotion = Disappointing borefests that are super pretty, though.
I was sitting in a meeting the other day with a bunch of parents who were absolutely villainizing gaming. It’s too violent. It’s too addictive. It’s too grown up. It’s making our kids fat. It’s making our kid uncreative. I got fed up. It may have been unfair of me, but I told them quite plainly: you’re buying the wrong damn games for your kids. There are pockets of the industry that are doing beautiful things - but they aren’t the pockets with crazy advertising budgets. They aren’t buying billboards or commercials during Sunday Night Football. People, especially kids, are going to want to game in this culture. So make your kid the coolest damn kid and buy them the raddest games on the market. And guess what? Most of that shit NEEDS your support because it’s indie, indie, indie:
Similarly, if you are sitting around playing the same damn game over and over again (I see you Destiny. Don’t tell me you’re not Mass Effect, Jr.) - then maybe take the chance on the weird $9.99 game and then report back. I promise you’ll come out of some of these indie games more inspired and more excited by gaming than you have in a long time.
And let me just say this: if you want more games like this to be made, support them on Kickstarter, check out that Indie section on Steam and download the bundles, buy a great indie game for a friend. Maybe we can change the conversation about gaming, one beautiful art bomb of a game at a time.
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mattyxander reblogged this from beinggeekchic and added:Whilst I love the Madden/FIFA’s that get churned out & always will, I wholeheartedly agree with this. Take a swing at...
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