Video game canons and flesh colored band-aids

I was obviously asleep when the announcement was made that this stab at a video game canon was announced last year:

Mr. Lowood and the four members of his committee — the game designers Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky; Matteo Bittanti, an academic researcher; and Christopher Grant, a game journalist — announced their list of the 10 most important video games of all time:

Okay, I can pick at the list. Anybody can pick out a list. Did they screw up? Sure. Where's KABOOM!? (kidding on that one -- for now)

What concerns me is that these guys are, well, just that. All white guys. Sure, it's a pretty good crosssection of dark haired white guys. There's a short one. One that's not ashamed of his poor vision. Two -- no, on second glance, three -- major facial hair decisions. Still, as humans go, it's a pretty diversity challenged group on its face, har har.

What else unites the Superfriends of Ludological Canonization? That they all decided not to make their rationalizations for picking these ten easily Googleable [by me].

In any event, even if white guys too largely made the games and white guys too largely play/ed the games, is that really a good reason that white guys should pick the games? I imagine these guys would likely find my dimestore critique here uncontroverstial, but then why not branch out before announcing your list at the Game Developers' Conference and posing for the NY Freakin' Register of the US Times?

Insert smilie.

Labels: classic, culture, ethics, hype, marketing, peer pressure, pretension, retro

--ruffin at 11:46

link

Comment [ 6 ]

What will the normals think?

How do normal people even begin to understand videogame titles? I just saw that there is going to be a new Rainbow Six game from Ubisoft and the title is this:

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2

I'm sure there are worse names, but this one struck me this morning as ridiculous. The only thing recognizable to an average person there is Tom Clancy. Most will have no idea what Rainbow Six means. (My recollection of the original PC game was that Rainbow referred to the nationalities of the team members.) The connection to Las Vegas isn't much of a help. And it's a sequel. Yuck.

Anyway, all this makes me wonder what soccer moms think when a kid says they want a game whose title seems so random.

Then again, over 20 years ago Mom did buy me Zork II and Zork III without really asking many questions.

Labels: business, marketing, media

--jvm at 12:51

link

Comment [ 5 ]