I don't think I know a single gamer that doesn't have some kind of backlog, some stack of games they want to play but have yet to do so.  I only half-joke about wondering why I'd buy any new game anymore, as I know at this point I will never actually play through every game I once intended to.  Strangely, I'm fine with that;  I'm pretty quick to move on to the next game if I'm not getting anything out of what I'm playing at the moment.  Trophies, Achievements, Leaderboards, and other virtual accruements hold no interest to me; I'm blessedly liquid in my gaming interests and can jump from one game to the next without getting caught in anything but interest or entertainment.

That being said, another recent development has made me very glad to be "behind" most of the time when it comes to playing modern games.





I finished Prey (PS4) this week.  Superb game!  I highly recommend it... now.  In fact a buddy of mine also finished it about the same time, despite having played it several months before me.  He got stuck in a progress-locking bug that was just patched recently, allowing him to finally continue.

The same guy picked up and enjoys Injustice 2, and wants me to grab it so we can play online together.  I will... once the "complete" edition comes out with all of the additional characters for the same price or cheaper.

Meanwhile, I've considered starting another file on No Man's Sky.  I sank quite a few hours into the game when it first released and really enjoyed it, but now I hear it is practically a different game, with more story elements, fast-travel, base-building, and a mission structure added over the last few patches.

Why do we buy games on release day again?

We all know games come down in price if we're patient.  On top of that, even Nintendo now updates and patches their games, fixing bugs and issues weeks or months after release.  Not to mention we get lots of "GOTY" or "Complete" editions one or two years out that has more content and is often cheaper than the first release.  Digital releases go on sale even more frequently than their physical counterparts, often bundled with other games.

Oh, I know I'm mostly preaching to the choir here; many at RFG have mentioned staying one or more hardware generations behind if for no other reason than simple economics.  By the time the new hotness is replaced in stores with something newer and hotter, the last few links in the chain get heavily discounted and can be picked up for a fraction of the original price.  I remember getting a Super Nintendo while some friends were just beginning to collect Atari, since the games for the 2600 were readily available and a couple of bucks apiece.  They bought a whole library of games for the same $70 my new copy of Axelay set me back.  (Kaybee Toys.  Only place I could find it.  Yeah, even then I knew I was being gouged.  Still love that game!)

To me, just as important as the economics is the "completeness" of a game.  Day One patches are now so common it's actually notable when a new game doesn't have one.  Performance and bug fixes, not to mention entire chunks of content are now added throughout the first year or more a game is released, coined as a "service" instead of a product.  This will naturally only get worse as the current generation of hardware is further split with higher performance machines like the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X One Xbox.  Box.  One.  X. 

Ahem.

Which is still all fine and good to those patient/broke gamers who know good things and cheaper goodies will come to those who wait.  But there is another angle to this I haven't heard much about, one that concerns me as a gamer who also considers his favorite medium to be as much a compilation of artistic and cultural expression as it is an entertainment industry.  If we want to call a video game "art," is that pre- or post-patch?

When George Lucas continued to alter the original Star Wars trilogy, many fans argued (and still do) that the first versions were the purest, and should be considered the "actual" or "real" versions.  Many of us agreed, many of us didn't care, and at least two of us were amazed Wilford Brimley played a sci-fi Gandalf and fought an original Planet of the Apes villain in The Battle For Endor.  Either way, most film buffs would agree that the first three Star Wars movies deserve some artistic merit for the medium, and that the Ewok movies were actually fever-dreams.

Now we have the same dilemma in gaming.  For example, let's take a classic that many who call video games art would hold up as a fine exhibit; Shadow of the Colossus.  But are we going to use the original PS2 version, the remastered and smoother PS3 version, or the upcoming PS4 version?  The latter undoubtedly perform better and have higher graphical fidelity.  And yet, it has been argued that the PS2 original, even though clunky by comparison, had more passion and creativity in finding methods to get the game to actually do everything it does on the PS2 hardware at all.  Is the later versions truer to the artists' intention because in some ways it is more fully realized, or the earlier because the constraints led to the original design?  Is an artistic expression diluted with tampering and reworking, or is art by nature fluid and in constant progression?  Is a snapshot of a moment the point of nostalgia and reflection, or is all creativity a process best unfettered by a static implementation?  And who is the arbiter of such decisions, the creator or the audience?



I don't hear much about the debate over "games as art" anymore.  It could be argued that is a positive, as if it is now more obvious video games are as valid as an artistic medium as film, music, prose, and other forms.  But I'm concerned the real reason is because so many games are no longer a static, observable, interactive expression, but instead a consumption service.  The painting on the wall is now a never-finished canvas where the artist is constantly updating the picture.  The movie stops, retcons characters and events, and then continues as it insists the current film is the better version.  The book updates the raw edge and unrefined emotion and rewrites itself as more plain and cohesive.  The song's artist decides from now on an extra bass line and guitar needs to be added every time the song is played.

Hey, nobody wants a broken game.  As mentioned before, my friend couldn't even finish the one he bought new until it was fixed several months later.  But when we allow the backdoor of our games to be left open for developers to continue tweaking, the economics can eventually overtake the artistic integrity and a 'finished' game is only a placeholder.  Our future interactive video game museum has a version number attached to it.

Perhaps that is how all art will develop.  The ubiquity of gamification results in everything being quantified and tracked, measured and scored.  If numbers aren't going up, there is an assumption of failure, and therefore a constant pressure for forward movement is always looming.  Perhaps the rest of media will slowly integrate into this system, and in a hundred years there will be little difference between film, music, prose, color, line.  Will they all be interactive, all in flux, all assumed to be progressing because they are always moving?  Will everyone be considered an artist refining another's sandbox?

Video games are now more notable as an art form beyond their uniquely common trait of interactivity.  Now, it is the first medium to truly embrace consumption as its means, as opposed to finding value in its own completeness as a thing to be appreciated.  The process is now the point, instead of the product.  As in all art, whether this is a positive or a negative is in the eye of the beholder.  Much could be said in defense of either.

I for one lament what is at the expense of what was, but then I'm also just getting old, and my kids will experience wonders I can only imagine.  Our past games forged the bedrock for these future experiences, and there is inherent value in being a building block.  What is eventually built, and its value, that is beyond our immediate scope.  Perhaps all we can do in the meantime is hold up that which is beautiful, valuable, and worthy to be experienced in our time.  What is art, if not sharing an experience?

In the meantime, I've got a few hundred games left to share with my kids before we're all putting in contacts with microchips and making Mario jump with our thoughts.

Which is so much better than the last version that required you to actually use your hands.

Patching...

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