It might be a case of two different firms handling the game and the marketing, respectively. It's a catch-22: in order to sell this violence-cum-nonviolence game, it must be portrayed as a fun excursion [into violence].

Perhaps the only way a game can make a statement is if it is free for purchace, because at that point, the player doesn't have to justify their expenditure. Players can be honest with themselves in such a situation.

Totally agree. I've never played the game, but I doubt the moral implications were accidental.

He probably shouldn't be criticizing a game he admitted he's not very far through. *Especially* if he's going to complain about the ethical dilemma which runs through the entire game.

hummm,. "I felt strange about that, but so far I don’t see how this game puts an ethical dilemma in front of me."

Well, I don't think the game (SotC) claimed to be an ethical dilemma,. just a game. As it happens many ppl have talked about it,. I thought it was creative and more interesting than most of the midless crap we get,.
This type of pretentious navalgazing has it's place I suppose., however calling some of this stuff with no gameplay a 'game' is a bit of a stretch,. Passage say,. more of lo-fi digital painting with mild interactivity,. perhaps.

Why this quest for games to be a 'legitimate' medium? I think if you look at the numbers, units or dollars,. games kill books and any other media actually,. but who cares? Art is all subjective and remains, like all of reality, unique to each audiance participant,. . truth is in the eye of the beholder. I'll take a game with some game please.

What? This is ridiculous. Rohrer should try finishing the game (or at least getting past the first half hour!) before making such sweeping comments. *spoilers* The whole point is that the killing of the colossi begins seeming more and more senseless as the game goes on, and as the player encounters colossi that defy one's expectations of a "boss character" (gentle and self-defending, rather than malignant). The ending really drives the point home. Rohrer's "art games" are interesting, but their pseudo-meaningful themes have nothing on SotC's.

In case anyone is unclear on the definition of dilemma, it's a situation where you have a real choice to make, and all the options are unappealing in some way. SotC doesn't present a dilemma other than "play the game or don't". I like the game and don't think that takes away from some other good things about it. But call a spade a spade, and if we're that desperate to trot out SotC as a strong dilemma, we're lowering the bar for what videogames should be in the future.

Ultima 4, now there's a game with some real dilemma.

P.S.
admittedly I did not read the full article, only the excerpt. not sure if my point was addressed or not.

His comments are perhaps premature, but that's what happens when somebody's interviewing you and they ask you about a game you haven't finished playing yet. If you just grunt "eh can't say much ask me later", it really kind of seems like you're just blowing the interviewer off.

But yes, saying SotC involves a "dilemma" is a misuse of the term. It might be more appropriate to call it morally ambivalent, or something.

The most gut-wrenching case of moral dilemma I've ever experienced in a game was at the ending of an obscure Mac RPG called "Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis". (Pretty terrible name, I know.) It's available as freeware at http://www.paranoidproductions.com/odyssey/ and should be really, really easy to handle for any Mac emulator; it is oooold.

wow, he's wrong.

"Why this quest for games to be a 'legitimate' medium? I think if you look at the numbers, units or dollars,. games kill books and any other media actually,. but who cares? Art is all subjective and remains, like all of reality, unique to each audiance participant,. . truth is in the eye of the beholder. I'll take a game with some game please."

I agree with jph - if your chosen artistic medium is interactive media then nobody can tell you that it is not art. People make art from anything, and 'recognition' is for the fakers and idiots.

Make your art, be proud of it.

I think if you read everything Rohrer has to say about his thoughts on game design, you might understand why he feels this way.

Wow, I'm actually going to defend Rohrer even though 1)I don't care at all for his games, and 2) I was perfectly happy with the way games were 10 years ago (not to say I don't like anything new).

What he says about SotC is just the plain truth. You don't have a choice in the matter of whether or not to kill the creatures. You either kill them or don't play at all.

And he also makes a great point about cut scenes in games. The game designer should let the player do the acting instead of making him watch a movie -- EVEN IF the outcome is predetermined. The game can trick the player into thinking he's in control even when he's just playing a part.

Deus Ex is a great example of a game that gives the player real choices, both tactically and ethically. Its presentation isn't all that polished (especially compared to Metal Gear Solid) but it offers real substance without resorting to boring cut scenes.

So what does one do in SoTC if not kill monsters?

It's not like if there is gombas to step on in the map, it's empty.

I love SoTC and all, but I finished it way before I read about the "dilemma" thing, and it didn't feel like one at all.

Unless of course this is another Hollywood like "I didn't kill the crook who killed my uncle" dilemma.

What a terrible interview. I like Jason Rohrer, I think he makes interesting games (not fun in the classical sense except for his game "Idealism", but interesting, and worth playing), but I think this interviewer didn't even know what questions to ask in order to produce an interesting interview. But I feel bad for complaining about this because I'm fully capable of interviewing people myself and posting it up here (as I did with MDickie) but am feeling too lazy and lethargic recently. Hopefully I'll get over it soon and get a bunch of new interesting interviews up (such as one with jph I've been writing questions for for over 7 months! Sorry jph, if you read this).

I also think jph's comment is kind of ironic considering how many of his games have political messages. They're very, very fun games, very full of gameplay, but they often have political messages -- often messages I agree with, but it's weird to have someone whose games have meaning outside of gameplay saying that games should just be about gameplay. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, games can be great fun and have great meaning, at once.

So what is this big deal about a 'dilema', moral or otherwise? Haveing a choice is no criteria for making good art. In films, books, or any story telling medium, the audiance is not required to make a choice in the outcome of the story,. Just a choice in how they feel about the story that is presented to them, much like life again! Some times in life (or a game), you do get to make a choice in a specific matter and often times you do not. It is no great deciding factor in what constitutes good, valid, or enjoyable art. It is the same with cut-scenes, they are a design decision, and fully subjective, either you enjoy them or not,. but it is like saying you didn't like the costumes or the shape of the charecters heads,. who really cares. You either like an art work or you don't it usely a gut reaction based on multiple very subjective criteria,. I just find this art school pattering on to attempt to justifiy ones subjective opinions rather pretentious. But hay I am sure many ppl don't like my games, and the things I have to say about everything as well,. I just take offence when someone belittles a great work like SotC while admitting they didn't even play past the first encounter,. weak.

Although Jason did manage to get in some interesting things despite the questions being generic, so I'm not saying the interview isn't worth reading, just that it could have been better. Really, what kind of question is "Is there a time when playing compex [sic] video games will be as common as reading?" -- it already is!

Oh, and I agree jph, he shouldn't have criticized it without playing it first, definitely. But as someone else noted, if you're in an interview and someone asks you about it, saying "I haven't yet played it enough to say" is difficult. But he still should have said that.

I also agree about the dilemma thing. I don't see it as a problem. But I do think he's correct to point out that it isn't a dilemma. It doesn't need to be a dilemma in order to be a good game, and it might even be a worse game if you had a choice not to kill the giants. It's hard to say. I do think Ico was a much better game than SoTC though, by far.

I also think we tend to be a bit too defensive about our favorite games, which is bad when it leads to putting other people down as being pretentious and such.

Every game has good parts and bad parts. SoTC had a lot of great parts, but I do think the cutscenes were too long and that Ico was both more meaningful and more fun. I don't think it's pretentious to point out the bad parts of it. It has some bad parts, just like every other game. It may be overly critical to talk more about the bad than the good, but that's a different thing than pretentiousness.

"I think people who are making games with long cut scenes, like Metal Gear Solid, I think they don’t really understand what they are doing, or how to make a compelling game"
...christ. I can understand not liking cutscenes (and I agree in like 90% of the games they are useally both bad and unnecessary) but saying that Hideo Kojima doesent know what he is doing or how to make a compelling game is just absurd.
I also think it's ironic how he mentions gameplay and choises when his own games are pretty lacking in both.

Well, Kojima can make some compelling stories, but games? I never finished MGS1 out of boredom.

I think MGS is a compelling game DESPITE the cut scenes, not because of them. I wish Kojima would take his hands off and let the player enjoy a bit more freedom. The AI and gameplay are a lot of fun but they never reach their full potential because that would require letting the player "break" the game by throwing away the script.*

Compare Kojima's approach to a game like Thief: The Dark Project. In Thief, you lockpick your way into a bedroom and read someone's diary. Then you listen to the guards gossiping about their boss. You get the story, if you're interested, by playing the game. It's fully immersive. The game doesn't smack you over the head with a story, and doesn't have to.

*Haven't played MGS4 so I'm not commenting on that one.

I found the gameplay in some of the MGS games to be fun. Particularly some of the boss battles. But I agree that it's the story that is great about them, the gameplay is just kind of there. I want to play MGS4 for the story, not for the gameplay.

I think it's okay to make a game focus on the story, and it's okay to enjoy a game for its story. Just because it's a game doesn't mean it's only a game. Can't one like an opera or a musical for the story rather than for the singing? Or even like a movie for the story rather than for the cinematography and acting? Take what value you can get out of something.

Paul,

I actually enjoyed the sneaking aspect of MGS even more than the boss battles. A lot of fun can be had playing around with the AI and trying out your many gadgets. I almost wish the whole game was one long mission where you have to get from point A to point B, any way you can. Then the player's imagination steps in. You could try doing the whole thing without any combat, for instance. Or kill everyone. Whatever.

But I agree with you that it's okay for a game to focus on story. I just think there are often better ways to reveal a story in a game than cut scenes, especially long ones. A cut scene doesn't take advantage of the comparative strengths of an interactive medium. That's not to say cut scenes are always bad, in all cases. Sometimes they work quite well. I think in MGS they are used as a crutch, coming up too often and for too long at a time when some other means of conveying the story would have worked better.

I haven`t played SotC to completion more than once but I do recall that as the game goes on the bosses become more passive, oddly majestic, beautiful, and one with the earth. I was fully aware that I had to kill them to complete the game, however doing so did start to feel "wrong" and that I was the monster. No moral dilemma. It's just something you notice.

Having played through SotC, I don't buy the argument that one is forced to kill the colossi. More so than any other game I've ever played, SotC offered a compelling reason to just *explore* the environment. Kill lizards, climb trees, shoot fruit, stand up on your horse, climb the central palace walls, relive old boss battles in memory mode, walk the beaches... I could go on. The lonely landscape offers alternatives but eventually the game pulls you back into the main narrative.

I also think the creators of the game have made it clear that they didn't necessarily intend to make an 'art' game, just an emotive (and fun) one.

Reminds me, quite painfully, of how "Fine Art" students will tout the importance of an artists statement that 'sounds' deep, over any sort of actual attempt at creating a work that causes a real emotion or that people can relate to.

Not to offend Jason, as I do think his games are still 'art' and some are quite good, and do a good job of evoking responses. But his attitude here seems the same, as if these titles that purposefully masquerade as normal 'games' have become fluff simply by doing so.

Which I find ironic, that someone who makes such simple games, with messages splayed open like a cadaver, someone who's debut is still a recent memory, would look down his nose at Kojima or Ueda. That someone who's so far on the fringe, with games that could be easily swept aside by someone with a less than open mind, would try and sweep aside others works and degrade the position of 'gaming as art' by trying to tear down other people from the inside of the group.

I believe calling another work non-art, (and effectively calling your work more artistic, that you 'know better,' even if the words aren't there,) is kind of within the realm of pretension.

In any case, I won't go through the trouble of defending SotC or MGS, though I love both. I believe the games are secondary to the issue of a seeming lack of respect for how others build their experiences. Feel free to prove me wrong, but glass house, stones, all that.

Loud applause for PF's last post.

I think the problems with sotc is not the story but technical trouble, MAINLY the camera stink!.

Everyone seems to be glossing over the fact that Jason Rohr is a pretentious jerk. Really I hate him. His games manage to be both shallow and unfun, hurdles that Shadow of the Colossus managed to overcome.
Now, to be an indie art-film maker, you have to be pretty pretentious. To be an indie art-game maker is another thing entirely. You have to have your head shoved so far up your own ass that you can eat your heart. Wow Jason Rohr. I hate you.

Uh, I think it's a matter of a simple misunderstanding snowballing into wtf-dom.

There has never been a mandate that "presenting a moral dilemma" REQUIRES that dilemma to be interactive. Otherwise we could all just write off the moral dilemmas that are "presented" in movies as disappointing and irrelevant, when we all know that is not the case.

Sure, we're talking about games here, but again there's never been a mandate that player actions be inherently tied to the story. Such a link is generally considered optional by both developers and gamers alike.

In short, it sounds to me like this is just a case of Rohr's expectations being totally offbase. Collossus is a game with novel presentation (for its time), solid mechanics (albeit a twist on Ico's mechanics), and an interesting story. Are our standards so high now that that isn't good enough?

To be honest, Rohr comes off as being "contrary for the sake of being contrary". But because it's a text interview and I'm not familiar with his background (and I'll probably forget his name by tomorrow), I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here and drop it.