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I’m not really much of a PC gamer. I was crazy into Apple ][ software and its vibrant acres of pirated, paper-punch-modded truly floppy discs, and I downloaded lots of Apogee stuff at 1200 baud in the late eighties, but when I think about it, the only computer game I’ve actually bought since leaving the nest was the legendary Homeworld. Oh wait, no, that was a crack too. OK, I did actually buy the brilliant and disasterously underrated Moonbase Commander, which is SO overdue for a release onto Wiiware it hurts.

I do remember playing Doom for the first time at a campus computing lab and getting almost violently sick whilst wondering who still thought that space demons were a neat idea. I also used to play Rise of The Triad when I was a retail store designer at the now-defunct VideoWatch against my slightly odiferous and despiseable colleague; which I think is a key to why shooters have just not ever taken hold of my interest: there just isn’t anybody (except that guy) I’d like to pretend to shoot in the head. I guess that ‘no gun toys’ rule worked, thanks Mom and Dad! As someone who doesn’t like shooters, I’ve had no use for the Xbox and thus no exposure to the Halo menace; in fact, when I played Halo 2 for the first time at the first Sandbox Symposium in 2006, I was very interested in the story and the atmosphere but just had no interest in all the running and shooting. It would be a great game if it wasn’t for the need to essentially move through the entire game sideways to avoid incoming fire.

I realize it’s perverse for someone who likes videogames and immersive experiences as much as I do to dislike first-person shooters, an influential sector of the market and a cornerstone of the industry. However, I do think that my distaste for the tropes of the FPS world allow me to see lost potential in these games abilities to appeal outside of the 14-34 year old boy twitch world. Which brings us to Bioshock. The demo has recently become available in the PlayStation Store (officially no longer the PLAYSTATION Store, in case you missed that very important press release this week), and I had been fascinated with the story, the graphic design, and the atmosphere since the game’s PC release almost a year ago. I even read through the whole plot on wikipedia assuming I would never play through the game. So, I downloaded the demo, and after explaining to Nemo that I could only play this game after he was safely in bed (he is not accustomed to me showing interest in titles that are rated M, and I had to explain that there are some games that just aren’t for kids) I fired up the demo and tried to set my expectations aside.

At first, it worked. I was transfixed by the first-person perspective of the airplane crash and sinking in the water, sitting there looking at the burning wreckage until the game reminded me that I could actually, you know, push the stick and move. Looking up at the tower, the artful and engrossing environment, the fortunate calm seas and sinking tailfin… I was a fool to have discarded this genre, and that sensation lasted until the game actually started. Enter the dehumanized monster one can safely kill legions of, the flickering lights, hooks for hands, the friendly voice actor on the radio dedicated to “keeping you alive”, and the reveal of the friendly voice’s wife and kids who he needs you to save just in case you weren’t emotionally invested enough yet. Gah. Even a unique story, gorgeous set dressing, brilliant audio work, the introduction of ethical repercussions and a healthy dollop of Ayn Rand fanservice can’t disguise that this game isn’t really different than the 100 other mild permutations of the same idea that a profitable corner of the industry has pumped out over the past 15 years to snare the interest of a certain segment of gamers.

I did give it a chance; I played through the whole demo, experienced heart palpitations at the entrance of the first Big Daddy, felt relief that I didn’t have to fight him yet, marvelled at the breakthrough and highly effective use of old music to set the atmosphere instead of just another bad game soundtrack, and stood around corners to hear the mutant folks mutter to themselves to see how much content was there. And there was a lot! This game is so clearly a labor of love, and a masterwork of the genre, and it’s deserves every accolade it’s received, most of which came from people who love this kind of game. Then, the demo ended, and I was wondering if I should consider actually buying this excellent title to experience the rest, even though it was not my thing. Fortunately, I was then treated to a 2 minute video, obviously put together by a marketing department with a very narrow view of its customer, that attempted to entice me with the delights that awaited me in the rest of the game. Oh god, why would I want to do any of that? It was 20 or so 8-second excerpts from the most violent and frenetic moments of fights yet to come in the full version, shrieking, flopping zombies being electrocuted and blown up. Simply put, that did not look like fun to me, it looked like agonizing, unpleasant work. I’m glad they put it all out there, as I just saved $60. I guess I can’t shake the feeling that this product, and others like it, are restraining themselves to appeal to a narrow but fervent, fickle, and pissy audience (see the collossal fuss over making Diablo III actually be visible), and I would have enjoyed this game much more if there wasn’t always a bloody carcass waving in my face. I’m not disputing that there are people who like this kind of entertainment, and that’s fine with me; I know horror films continue to be big at the box office for similar reasons; but I’m not interested in the ideas those stories are putting forward, even though there may be someone who knows what I did last summer. It just disappoints me to see such a cool idea as the city of Rapture get the fangoria treatment in pursuit of a narrow market. I’d love to see a prequel get further into the story but without so many scary scary zombies.

This is just a tip of a big iceberg that the game industry is going to have to grapple with seriously over the next few decades. Up until the mid aughts, gamers were a safe, definable subset of the population that could be easily targeted, developed for, and marketed to. As ‘gamer’ reaches the level of ubiquity across our society that ‘tv watcher’ has and ceases to be a monolithic stack of wallets, game developers are going to have to decide who they’re going to pander to, and how much money they’re leaving on the table when they do. Sure, SAW and other violent films are big business and have their place in the content ecology, but as they say at Pixar, G-Rated equals G-money. The decision for developers and for the publishers who finance their projects is going to be who does your game include, and who does it exclude? Profitability lies in many locations across that spectrum, but you can bet that the wide-ranging appeal and greater market of games that appeal outside the hardcore is going to lead to publishers and other suited types putting pressure on developers to make titles that are accessible to more casual players.

We’re seeing this already with Fable II, Gaming Legend Peter Molyneux’s latest adventure title, which is being killed in early previews because hardcore players don’t like it. Molyneux is beseeching these foul-tempered pad-grippers to find a nongamer and try the demo with them, as a gamer clearly wouldn’t appreciate the accessible direction this title has taken. This is essentially the Jersey Girl defense, if someone doesn’t like your work, just say “well, it’s not for you.” That’s not going over very well with gamers, but Molyneux is at least trying to get ahead of what is going to be a very different curve for the game development industry to negotiate. He’s trying to make a game that has a broader appeal to reach more customers (and their wallets), but the success of the title is threatened by the hardcore’s response to his choices, which impacts all-important review scores and undermines the title’s base sales. If this direction results in a commercially unsuccessful title, the industry is going to be scared off this tack for a while until the indie scene beats them to it and they have to scramble to catch up. That said, I can’t understand how Molyneux can insist that an Xbox 360 title is intended to appeal to new gamers…. that’s akin to equipping a chopper with training wheels.