Can video games tell important stories?
Not just serious ones, but important stories.
The first ever video game was created by Physicist William Higinbotham in 1958. At this point it was merely a scientist attempting to draw attention to his exhibits. But video games truly rolled around in the 1970/80’s. With the introduction of arcades, the phenomenon swept the country, leading to millions of kids spending countless fun days quickly gathering quarters, and spending them even quicker. However, now it was just seen as a different kind of carnival, entertainment aimed at kids with no real value for adults. Home consoles were introduced in 1975 (technically 1972 but that doesn’t count), but that did little to change public opinion. The idea that video games were strictly for kids remained firmly in the general conscious until the 2000’s. Largely thanks to the Sony PlayStation consoles, the industry moved past being a form of junior entertainment, and became entertainment . But at this point it was still just entertainment, and many even saw it as a negative influence on American culture. Really, only one thing had changed. Video games had started to tell stories.
As soon as video games stopped being mindless fun, and became coherent fun stories, the question quickly arose, could someone make a serious video game? This was answered fairly fast with the introduction of countless Silent Hill, Zelda, or Tomb Raider games, whichever you prefer. While none of these games were necessarily rooted in reality, they still told serious stories. Throughout these games the tone was primarily rather stern, many of the stories determining the “Fate of the world”. This in itself was a big step forward for games, but now a new question is being asked, can video games tell IMPORTANT stories.
First we need to define exactly what important is. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the literary and commercial fiction concepts, and to make it as simple as possible for those of you, by important we mean the video game equivalent of literary fiction. If you understand that, you can go ahead and skip to the bolded now. Otherwise, to explain in further detail, the question is can a video game tell a story with lessons and truths that apply to real life. For example, one of my favorite books, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley tells a science fiction story on the dangers of rapid industrialization and the loss of individuality. I am not asking if video games can be rooted in reality, but whether or not they can tell a story that reveals a truth about our life. Going back to our example, Brave New World reveals the truth of mankind’s individuality being crucial to what mankind is, and shows us that in advocating strictly for efficiency we may lose our very selves. Now that we are all on the same page, I believe there are two games (both written by Ken Levine) that show us that video games CAN in fact tell important stories.
The first of these games is Bioshock. Those of you that are familiar with the video game world, are almost certainly familiar with this game, but for those of you that aren’t watch this video . Now that all of you have at least a base understanding of this game, allow me to explain why this story is important. Rapture, the underwater city in the game, is an extremely capitalist society, in which mankind is deprived of every crutch. When I say every crutch, I really mean EVERY crutch, religion included. You are given nothing that you haven’t earned, and the idea of any kind of collective is hypocrisy. The city itself is decorated with advertisements and plenty of Ayn Rand references. Quickly you find out that this city collapsed from within, due to what are essentially super PED’s, giving anyone who injects them incredible abilities. Naturally, in a society that relies on competition, everyone within it is looking for even the slightest advantage, and again this being an exclusively capitalist society, the producer of these “Plasmids” is obviously quite thrilled with the return on investment, and the obvious harm it causes the society is not exactly his primary worry. The writer of this story, Ken Levine, does an amazing job warning us of the perils that extreme capitalism presents. In offering nearly unquantifiable luxuries, man can very easily lose humanity. All too often we underestimate human selfishness and think “no man could do that”, and for the most part that is very true most men would never do that, except for those who can see a mountain of money, just barely out of their reach. In a capitalist society like Rapture, we put the value of an individual in to his financial state. Quite simply, you are either rich, not rich, or poor, and none of those are equal. So, is it really so surprising that a man would go to such lengths just to prove his worth. I’m not even going to go into Bioshock’s commentary on the illusion of free will, because I want to refrain from going on and on for too long, but this societal warning reveals an ever important truth, especially in one of, if not the, most successful capitalist society in history. Man will go to extreme lengths to prove his worth, if he is made to feel worthless.
The second game I would like to talk about is Bioshock Infinite. Ya ya, I know that’s kind of cheating, but this is my article and I love these games so please, indulge me. Again, for those of you unfamiliar with the game watch this video. Bioshock Infinite, while similar to it’s predecessor, touches on some entirely different themes. Colombia is a complete contrast of rapture, which sounds promising at first, and frankly even looks so when you see it. But, ultimately this society turns out to be just as flawed. A staunchly communist society, ruled by a self declared prophet, this game shows the dangers of making an entire people feel entirely replaceable, and simply robotic. One of the higher ups in the story routinely praises the bee for never needing a vacation or a rest. But the true point of this story is the antagonist, Comstock. A self righteous “prophet”, Comstock rules this racist corrupt city, and hides behind the excuse of divine will. Now, many have taken this as a slight against religion… which it is, But it is not a condemnation of religion. In this story, Levine is not telling us that Religion is inherently wrong, but has a rather large potential for harm if taken to its extreme. Regardless, the game ends with the revelation that Comstock is merely a version of the main character, Booker DeWitt, in an alternate reality. When faced with his sins, DeWitt has the option to either “hand them off to God” or keep the blood on his hands. If he chooses to kneel to God, he becomes Comstock, if not, he remains DeWitt. Now, by no means is Booker DeWitt a wonderful man, in fact the reason this game began is because of a debt he built up while gambling. But, Levine shows us that he is a better man than Comstock because he chooses to bear his own burdens. He allows the weight of what he has done to weigh him down (granted a little too much), therefore not allowing him to see himself as above all those around him. He is aware of his own faults, and ultimately decides to sacrifice himself to ensure Comstock will not exist. Now I know I hardly said anything about Elizabeth, but again I don’t want to make this an unbearably long article. BUT, I can’t help but talk about one scene. Elizabeth up until this point has been a perfectly well behaved woman, dancing on beaches, and being kind and hospitable, but she is faced with a decision to kill one individual to save many more, and she does it. She kill’s a woman named Daisy Fitzroy, and then runs away with blood on her hands. She runs into a changing room distressed and when she emerges, her hair is cut short, and her corset has been removed. She has removed the perception that this society applied to her, she will no longer be a “Perfect Girl”.
I know I somewhat went off on a tangent there, but allow me to re-center myself. This game shows us the importance of living with our decisions, and not running from the, warns us of how important individuality is to each man, and the dangers of a society that strips that from them. I have to be honest, I barely scratched the surface of these two stories, but nonetheless I think they proved my point. Video games CAN tell literary stories. Both of these games drew our attention to specific truths, some hard to swallow as most important ones are. In only two games, Ken Levine told stories that touched on two polar opposite ways to govern a people, and how to govern yourself, and warned us of the dangers of all of them. Again, honestly, I hardly scratched the surface of what these games have to offer, but I promise you that video games can be fun, while being more than merely fun.
