This year I have had a revelation as a video game critic. The games that I play don’t have to be fun. This revelation came up after I had reviewed two very different games: Actual Sunlight, and Beyond Eyes. Actual Sunlight is a text-heavy game dealing with the effects of depression, while Beyond Eyes demonstrates the journey of a young blind girl.
I think both titles are absolutely must plays, yet I wouldn’t categorize either game as fun. In fact, Actual Sunlight was one of the most uncomfortable games I’ve ever played. I never felt happy, but it managed to tell a powerful story. Similarly, Beyond Eyes is not a fun game to play. The movement is awkward, and getting from one area to the next is a chore. It made me realize how much I take something like sight for granted.
Judging games by whether they are fun or not is doing a disservice to the medium of video games. In fact, it astonishes me that ‘fun’ used to be a proper grading scale in publications, and that I never had an issue with it. It made sense to me, but gaming is changing. Gaming is evolving as a medium, and games can bring out so many more emotions than just fun.
Recently, I talked to Actual Sunlight creator Will O’Neill about a variety of topics. I asked him point blank if games need to be fun? Here was his response:
“I wouldn’t say that games have to be ‘fun’, but I do think that any good piece of art is at least engaging. Making something that isn’t fun shouldn’t give a creator license to be dull or devoid of craft, but I also think you have to be prepared to approach a work on its own terms rather than your own wishes or expectations. I like a lot of games, movies and television shows that are a lot of fun – I also like a lot of those things that aren’t fun at all. How can you take in the fullness of what art has to offer if you can’t be open-minded about both the good and the bad that people go through?”
Will makes some great points. There will always be a place for mindless fun. In fact, some of my favorite games are based on just having a blast with friends. But there is also a place for games that are an absolute bummer, or aim to make the player uncomfortable.
You may be wondering why someone would want to make a game about depression? I asked Will O’Neill that exact question to better understand the goals he was trying to achieve with Actual Sunlight.
“My goal was simply to be truthful about what the experience of depression and my own life was like, and in a way that was as raw and unvarnished as possible. I didn’t feel like a realistic depiction of it was something that you often saw in any popular media, which struck me as a stupid and dangerous thing.”
Actual Sunlight is a personal tale, a tale that managed to hit myself very hard. As someone who has struggled with depression in the past, I could relate to the story that was told, and it ended up being one of the most memorable games I’ve played.
While many gamers may think that games being experimental is a new trend, Will O’Neill actually argues otherwise. He believes that games had regressed, and are now coming back to the same level of creativity.
“Gaming was actually as evolved or even more evolved in the 1990s, I think. There was certainly more of a focus on quality narrative and overall experimentation in design. The first generation of PlayStation and Xbox consoles fostered a massive regression in the medium. Genres and franchises stabilized, risk aversion rose, and the effects of that remain with us today. I think we’ll continue to see some experimentation in the indie space, but the kind of money that can sustain people making a living doing this will probably remain with those who put out the same basic games over and over again.”
Whether or not you completely agree with O’Neill’s assertion, there is no arguing the fact that risk aversion has risen. Games are increasingly more expensive to make, and publishers are less likely to take the risk on something that has a lower ceiling. This is what makes indie games so important in today’s gaming landscape. While a big publisher won’t publish anything like Actual Sunlight in the current climate, it can find an audience thanks to indie-friendly services.
While it’s understandable that some gamers don’t want to use gaming to experience an uncomfortable tale about depression. This exists in other established mediums such as films and books. Nobody will deny the genius of a book like Lolita despite it being an uncomfortable read. It may not have the appeal of a summer blockbuster, but there is absolutely a place for serious topics to be broached in gaming.
So why is there such a visible backlash towards these games when they can clearly coexist with AAA first-person shooters, and Ubisoft’s yearly installment of Assassin’s Creed?
I asked the question to Will and his answer was enlightening.
“I don’t think that most of the people who are actively antagonistic towards it read books or see movies, or at least not any that serve any function beyond sheer entertainment. I imagine their viewpoint would be that art in general should be primarily used for recreational escapism – it simply centers around games because that is the medium they consider themselves to be a part of. I think they are missing out tremendously, but why they feel that way isn’t any of my business.”
Some might be wondering why these experiences should be video games. What possible advantages could there be to making an uncomfortable or sad experience an interactive one instead of something passive like a film?
“In addition to the mechanical empathy I think you form by inhabiting a character in-game, the medium also centers around agency in a way that I was able to make use of in Actual Sunlight by taking it away,” answers Actual Sunlight creator Will O’Neill. “The diminishing of this control allowed me to express the myopia and narrowing viewpoint of a character like Evan that I think was powerful, and was something that couldn’t have been done in any other medium. Actual Sunlight would’ve made a decent short film or comic, but I think it is at its absolute best as a game.”
Games can do something that no other medium is able to do, and that is making them feel like they are the character on-screen. A good example of this is the established genre of horror games. Horror games have the capability to scare players to a higher degree than in a film. This expands into other more experimental games, as well. Beyond Eyes isn’t fun to play, but it absolutely succeeds in showing off how a blind person sees the world.
It’s far past time that the gaming community as a whole starts respecting video games as an art form. You don’t have to play these types of games if they don’t interest you, but you have to respect that they can coexist.
Because video games don’t have to be fun.