Tuesday, November 14, 2006

This city, she surprises; some thoughts on Cleveland and video game development

Not literary, but about story telling all the same: I like to think I have at least a grasp of what's going on in Cleveland. I know at least that there's more going on in this area than is widely recognized (often even by us locals). Still, always interesting to see talk (and at least some action, looks like) about a subject I didn't expect to see getting buzz. Such is the case when I see a discussion over at BFD about creating video game development business in Cleveland. (More here, and more here.) Turns out there's actually an organization in place to address the issue; seems like a natural that I should have heard of the NEO Game Initiative before today, but I hadn't. Interesting stuff.

The discussion so far seems to be about the business level of things, to which I'll only add that, when it comes to the issue of attracting and retaining creative talent to the region--I don't know about attracting new talent, that I suspect might obviously depend on all the other usual factors falling into place. (Of course, I can't think of a scenario in which having an active video game development community in town would hurt our chances of attracting talent.) But, as far as helping to retain talent? I think this is a cinch. It would have been nice, back in my college days, to have been able to point to a flourishing video game development sector when people automatically assumed that me getting that English degree meant I was going to go, you know, teach.

I don't know that we necessarily even need local universities to offer "video game majors," so much as we need lots and lots of video game development companies that rely on a broad array of local creative and technical talents, which our universities are certainly providing. Though, I mean, if Case or JCU or whoever decided to start offering such a major, I would not object. That said, it would absofrigginlutely rule to have someone local win the Penny Arcade Scholarship, apply it to studies at a local university, and then spin that out into some kind of high profile local job. Or even use that early experience to create a new video game development company from scratch. Just a thought.

Now, business and education considerations aside--as an occasional video game player myself, it warms my heart to see people treating the subject of game development with respect and with a recognition of and feel for the field's positive side. A side far larger than rampant stories about destroyed morality and whatever lead us to believe. Cause, yeah, video game players don't all turn out to be mass murderers.

Like I hinted above, this to me is about story telling. I believe that we've barely begun to see the possibilities video games open up for new stories and new forms of story telling. I hesitate to say that video games have reached the status of art form just yet; that's a pretty loaded discussion topic, right there. Still, the potential is certainly there. Part of reaching that level depends of course on public perception, and I think (or would like to think) that a city like Cleveland throwing some economic weight behind the field would have to have some influence on that.

Thought: What if the region focused some efforts not just on the development end, but on the review end? Think there's a chance we could found a video game review journal in town, one willing to look at video games as a young but serious form of art, while examining the cultural and social and, hell, economic impact and implications of the field? Having read plenty of video game reviews, I can safely say that they can (generally) stand to be vastly improved, or at least diversified in terms of their intentions. I'm not entirely sure how much video game review material constitutes serious writing or serious thinking. There's probably more than I give credit for; though what is there, I at least suspect, could certainly stand to be made more visible.

My main point here ultimately being this: the benefits of turning Cleveland into a video game development mecca would flow both ways, between the city and the field. Which is, I think, for those in town thinking about these issues, worth keeping in mind. (It's a good thing.)

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