VIDEO GAME AUTEUR VIDEO GAME AUTEUR Yavuz Kerem DEMİRBAŞ 1st Edition, 2022 ISBN: 978-605-247-355-9 All rights reserved. In line with the provisions of Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of DORA Basım-Yayın Dağıtım Ltd. Şti Cover Deign : Dora Printing Publishing Distribution Ltd. Sti. Printing and Volume : Dora Printing Publishing Distribution Ltd. Sti. Certificate No : 44955 DORA Basım-Yayın Dağıtım Ltd. Şti Tel : +90 (224) 221 38 39 +90 (224) 225 37 46 Fax : +90 (224) 220 36 73 Altıparmak Mah. Bozkurt Cad. Avdan Apt. 10/1 Osmangazi / BURSA [email protected] [email protected] www.dorakitap.com www.dorayayincilik.com.tr VIDEO GAME AUTEUR Yavuz Kerem DEMİRBAŞ DORA 2022 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................... v FOREWORD .................................................................................................. vii INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 VIDEO GAMES, ART AND ARTIST ................................................................ 5 AUTEUR AND AUTHORSHIP ....................................................................... 23 VIDEO GAME AUTEUR ................................................................................ 43 GONZALO FRASCA: AUTEUR OF THE OPPRESSED ............................... 89 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 107 REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 111 FOREWORD This book, which has its origin in my master’s thesis, has a somewhat unfamiliar approach to video games and needs to put in context. Almost 20 years ago, at the end of my undergraduate study in Astronomy, I decided to change my field of study to media, video games specifically. In that time, studying video games in a serious fashion in Turkey was not common in academic circles. Game magazines were limited and game reviews were mostly tech oriented. There were no Youtube, twitch.tv, or social media present at that time. Video games were seen as a childish interest. There were no game studies or game design departments in universities. My experience in writing game reviews for magazines like Chip, PCWorld and Level, my love for video games, as well as my ambition to follow scholarly work brought me to a search for a way to combine these all. During my graduate study in Communication Studies Department in Marmara University, I applied to Erasmus Programme and found myself in the Game Center of IT University of Copenhagen. This center was one of the main hubs of the still developing field of game studies. It had faculty members and visiting scholars such as Espen Aarseth, Olli Tapio Leino, Gordon Calleja, Gonzalo Frasca. I started writing my dissertation in Copenhagen under the supervision of Olli Tapio Leino. Though I had solved the problem of finding the right resources, place and people for studying video games, I soon realized that my critical approach, with its strong emphasis on the artistic and political role of the game maker was an unfamiliar or even an undesired one. In that specific time, games with auteur designers were relatively unseen, the change of game scene with independent game titles with artistic ambitions and new distribution platforms had just begun. Even though there were some examples, the authoritarian connotation of the game auteur was a negative one. Still, it was a theory for the empowerment of players and game makers, at least from my perspective. The school of ludology was in search of new concepts for its formalist approach, yet using these to create a methodology for making or analyzing artistic, independent, critical games for social change was uncommon. An already established link between games, art, politics and culture in the literature was not a radical or strong one. I soon realized that although I was in the right place and with the right people to study video games, there were few precursors to what I was aiming to achieve. I completed my dissertation in English and successfully defended it as a part of my Erasmus requirements at the IT University of Copenhagen. When I returned to Turkey, I defended it again, this time in its Turkish version, for my home institution, Marmara University under supervision of Mukadder Çakır. The book which you hold in your hand is based on this thesis. As I started working again on this text, I realized that most of the claims, foresight, suggestions that I had, have stood the test of time. More serious matters for mature audiences became the subject of many games. Some games with a social critique and a distinct style won awards and were well received; Papers Please (2013) and Cart Life (2010) are just two examples from this domain. Molleindustria with their slogan ‚Radical Games Against the Tyranny of Entertainment‛ have many examples along this line. Modding communities grew, nowadays a game without mod support is hard to find. The existence of retro games and the retro-gaming scene can also be attributed to the growing discontent towards the polished but creatively lacking titles of the gaming industry. Games with auteur game makers exist and these are not only in independent production circles, but some in industry. Alexander Mosolov’s Starsector (2011), the auteur duo Enormous Elk and their games UnReal World (1992), Dean Hall and DayZ (2013), Tynan Sylvester and Rimworld (2013) are to name but a few. Should they really be considered as video game auteurs? As you will see in this book, that is not and has never been, the real importance of the auteur concept. The core idea and purpose of auteur is not to find one individual with total creative control, but to enlarge the space for creativity and social critique, to change the status quo of the studio system, to challenge mainstream ideas and the established industrial interests, and to redefine the understanding of the medium. Yet, there is no change in world history without human subjects. After a long period of devaluation of the subject, things like climate crisis, global poverty, proxy wars, rising right wing populism or other issues forced both new and old actors of history to rise up and spread their ideas. Yavuz Kerem Demirbaş