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I've been on a kick lately of playing DOOM mods, something I hadn't really gotten around to doing yet in my gaming journey, because of the perceived complexity in their setup. Once I steeled myself, and looked into it beyond the very basics, however, I realized it was a pretty easy process, just slightly different than what I was used to, certainly easier than installing skyrim or fallout mods. It's now become a bit of a hyperfixation, with my collection of mods, map packs, and total conversions, steadily growing (now somewhere in the region of 30GB).
It was while playing one of these mods, Brutal Wolfenstein if I recall correctly, that I realized something. Playing these often low fidelity, buggy, but undeniably high effort mods, had reignited my passion for gaming in a way that recent release AAA games had failed to in so many ways. I've since put more time into Brutal Doom and its variations than into Tears of the Kingdom, still languishing on my Nintendo Switch somewhere after the second region. So I had to ask myself why, and it's certainly not as simple as a matter of genre preference, I played Breath of the Wild on release, probably put close to 100 hours into it, and I genuinely feel like Tears improved on the formula in a significant way.
So there I was, having the best time gaming that I've had in years, and I couldn't figure out why, until it clicked. The gaming industry has a problem with profitability. Most AAA and even AA games are being made simply to get as many people to spend money on them as possible. While there might be a few creative standouts, on the whole, it's the same old same old with more money thrown at it. Now, for those of you thinking how games are a business, and of course they need to be profitable or else we won't get more of the stuff we like, well, that's kinda the point I'm making, give me a minute to state my case, will you?
When we look back on older games, and remember them fondly as landmark experiences that have stood the test of time, or even as household names, even if they aren't considered “good” anymore, are by and large, a product of one singular thought. “Wouldn't it be cool if?” Now that might not be the EXACT wording of the thought, but there is one of two end goals in sight. The first is innovation, whether it be in technology, game design, or both. The second is simply creativity, the desire to make the idea within your head, even if it doesn't push the boundaries of the medium. More often than not, the two will coincide and one will naturally lead to the other, but everything starts with taking that little thought, “What if XYZ?”, and running with it. A quick sidenote, I'll mostly be referring to both of these impulses simply as “creation” going forward, for simplicity's sake.
When Tarn & Zach Adams sat down to make Dwarf fortress, when John Carmack used his workplace's computers to write the sidescrolling engine that would eventually become Commander Keen (a decision which directly lead to ID being created), or when Notch decided to code a small voxel-based world generation engine that would later evolve into Minecraft, they don't seem to have been motivated primarily by profit. There may have been an offhand or background thought about it, but the foremost motivation was purely creation. Now, that's not to say that profit focused studios CAN'T create and innovate, but even in those instances, there's usually a person behind the scenes, who had that exact same impulse, and then actually managed to convince the suits funding the show that it was a good and profitable idea.
Now, you might say, well, the indie sphere is coming out with innovative and creative experiences every day, and you wouldn't be wrong, there's a lot more playful creativity there, but it's sometimes overshadowed by the 20th PSX style horror game, or Five Nights at a Pizza Parlor clone. Nevertheless, give a decent scroll through itch.io, or gamejolt, and you'll find plenty of fascinating games and experiences. So what's the problem? Well, the problem is that these don't get anywhere NEAR enough attention as they should. where's the love for Pagan: Autogeny, .Dungeon, and even the entire emerging genre of Interface Drama (such as Emily is Away & Kingsway), rather than the instead of the nth military shooter, the umpteenth FIFA, etc.
I'm sure we could sit here and argue which of these is most derivative, or which came first, what inspired what, but the fact remains that the indie gaming sphere is where the most innovation is happening. Of course, all of these have a right to exist, and what's popular is popular for a reason, people enjoy it, and I don't intend to invalidate their enjoyment of those things. Hell, I have my own favorites in the "mainstream". What I AM saying, is that we should seek novel experiences, and support them, even if they are often a little clumsy in their interpretation.
Often in life, and society, we are told that only the excellent are worth your time, and it can certainly feel that way, with ever-increasing cost of living, many of us barely manage to snatch an hour or two to ourselves. So why shouldn't we simply sit down and enjoy what we're playing, without having to fiddle around with load orders, and work around frustrating bugs, or sometimes obtuse gameplay mechanics?
Liam Hod, in his, admittedly rough and poorly structured, essay, “The Perfection of Imperfection” (the link to which I have since lost), writes.
“We have this perception that grace only operates in higher things, in the apex of culture, where talent is honed and finessed until the message is rendered into art that can be studied and taught to understand the source of its beauty. But look closely and it becomes clear that this has never been the case. Grace is always within reach, and for everybody. It is buried deep, yes, but we all have the tools to find it. The only thing to get straight is that these tools are in fact anti-tools. The skill is learning to drop whatever’s in our hands.“
What I think Liam is saying here, is that at its core, art (of note, he is speaking specifically about writing in this essay, however this is easily extrapolated to apply to all art) is about feeling, emotion, and expression. To express oneself is the ultimate goal of creation, and it is more important to create, than to create perfectly. Of course, the goal is to express yourself as well as possible, with as the best end product as you can, but to create, is ideal, rather than to not create because you do not believe you have the skill. To let go of your preconceptions and feelings of inadequacy.
When we think of art in this way, looking at the clumsy, often amateurish nature of the experimental, and creation for creation's sake, we find that the creator's IDEA is the part that speaks to us, not their execution of such. Bugging out and getting stuck, playing a section 20 times because of weird difficulty spikes & odd monster placement, or simply noticing weird out of place textures and funky animations, those are just part of the charm of somebody truly, earnestly, wanting to MAKE something, and putting themselves out there, even if it wasn't perfect.
The idea of a meritocracy within the industry, that only the best should rise to the top, and flourish is all well and good, but in the end all it comes down to is the silencing of voices, voices that have something to say, often something worthwhile, even if they say it poorly. Not to mention that many games get a bad rap, and end up panned and shoved under the carpet simply for being slightly less than perfect.
Youtuber JarektheGamingDragon has a fantastic point about this in his video “Is Legendary ACTUALLY Bad”, which I'll put a link to in the description, where he urges the viewer to try new things if they look interesting, rather than listening to reviews and critics, because his discovery was that he actually enjoyed the game far more than reviews would have you believe. So if a creator should be creating for creation's sake, then perhaps we should be gaming for gaming's sake, simply trying something because it exists and the concept is interesting, regardless of the execution.
Is Legendary ACTUALLY Bad - JarektheGamingDragon
Of course, none of this is intended to shield people from valid criticism, especially if it is constructive. Improvement should be the secondary goal, after creation, because the better you can express yourself, the more people will appreciate that expression. But to start, is better than to let your ideas rust, and to put something out there invites us to experience the world through the creator's vision, and it's saddening that so many of these attempts languish without encouragement.
Going back to my previous example of DOOM modding, while I've greatly enjoyed the more polished experiences of Brutal Doom, Abyssm, God Complex, Golden Souls and the like, it is the stranger, clunkier experiences of the likes of Goblin Doom, Diablo 3D Doom, the never completed Space Hulk mod, or even wow.wad, the strange map created by a 10 year old, that stick with me. Because of what the creator WANTED to accomplish, not because of what they actually ended up with, and I think there's something worth sharing there.
To quote Liam Hob once more.
“There is no more room to boast, to impress upon you my ability. I have my own song of course and that should be enough to make me sing.“
But where he is speaking to the aspiring creative, I am speaking now to you, the consumer. Give imperfection a chance, listen to the author's feelings and ideas, not just the execution. I think you'll find there's a wealth of experiences out there that are worth pursuing, regardless of quality. Or don't, I'm just some rando, throwing words into the ether.
I guess I might be preaching to the choir here, but thanks anyway, for reading my no doubt awful writing, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day!