It's interesting that the author's first idea was a combat-based game. For some reason, the world of game development has to a large degree becomes fixated on the idea of combat and violence. So games that don't necessarily need it have it anyway, even when it doesn't make sense (see Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock). Always picking violence as the go-to gameplay mechanic is so limiting, and it's exciting to see games that avoid it and go for something more appropriate to the concept.
It's fun. I like to shoot things and blow shit up and hit people with swords.
Very rarely do I find the story in a game good enough to care about some neologism like "ludonarrative dissonance".
I find these "important" games like Bioshock to be pretty embarrassing and childish in the story department. Ken Levine is not the first person to take on Ayn Rand. That's like shooting fish in a barrel. The pretentiousness of that game is just over the top. But it's a lot of fun, because they nailed the blowing shit up part.
I'm not suggesting that combat-based games aren't fun. I've spent countless hours playing first-person shooters and the like, and they can be absolutely wonderful. However, I am also interested in video games as an artistic (not -commercial) medium, and I think that going to combat as the core mechanic just by reflex can limit games in that respect.
As far as Bioshock is concerned, I think it does a decent job with the story, but more importantly I think it represented just another step forward for video games as an artistic medium. It showed that games with a concept or philosophical point could have market appeal, and it paved the way for greater interest in such games down the road. There are stories and ideas that video games, through their interactivity, are uniquely suited to tell, and as a relatively new medium people are still figuring out what its strengths are, and how to make real art with it.
You may not care for video games as an art form. You may only be interested in them as a source of entertainment. That's fine! That's wonderful! We can have both! I am simply happy to see increased interest in video games as art, and I think that something as simple as moving beyond the idea of combat as the core mechanic is an important step toward realizing all that video games can be.
I am interested in games as an art form. But a lot of these "artistic" darlings strike me as pretentious drivel. To me, Portal was much more successful than Bioshock as an art piece. It wasn't dancing around trying to tell me how important it is.
I also happen to think the mechanics of a shooter can be art.
I also think that. The problem is that most people focus on the "meaning", "emotion", "philosofical" aspect when making these "art games". That mostly involves the game's story and narrative, and that is only a subset of game design/development.
I consider something artistic when it displays the creator's mastery of the craft. So yeah, Portal is art. Dear Esther? Pretentious drivel, without a doubt!
If you want a great art game, that was made to BE an art game and is not a deep philosofical piece try The Marriage [1]. This game actually disturbed me, as I considered Rod Humble to have achieved IT, to have created the first PURE videogame. Give it a try.
If you thought Bioshock or infinite were simply indictments on Ayn Rand or American Exceptionalism, then you must've also thought Grapes of Wrath was just about a family's migration from the dustbowl to California.
Bioshock frames its story with the ideas of Ayn Rand, but is actually a story about objective goodness, family and love.
Infinite is a story about stories and about the cyclical nature of everything.
I'm not sure Bioshock Infinite was really about one thing. Only about 5% of the game is a story about stories. Most of it is a story about a woman learning to be her own agent rather than a means to other people's ends, and after that it's about the question of self-determination versus fate (this is pretty much the Lutece Twins' entire role). It begins and ends on the note you're talking about here, but those themes don't really seem to be as pervasive as the themes of The Grapes of Wrath.
That's fair. Both games were a bit ephemeral regarding their themes (which were numerous), but it certainly isn't fair to say they're derivative because they "tackled Ayn Rand".
There are plenty of games out there that aren't fixated on combat and violence. Strategy games like the Civ series or EU IV have very abstracted combat, and are better described as conflict or competition (combat isn't core gameplay). Strategy games like Spacechem have nil violence. Then there are endless builder games like minecraft, where combat very much takes a back seat, and you can avoid it if you like. There are lots of platformers with no combat - 'running' games, where you avoid obstacles (a category the game in the article falls into). Three are more than a few horror games where you have no combat ability, like Slenderman. There's investigative or story games that have little or no combat in them, like say LA Noir, or most point-n-click adventures. There's also unusual games like Rocksmith where you plug your guitar into the PC. Just now, I've been playing Waking Mars, a game that is basically a gardening sim (oh, and there's gardening sims like Farmville). Then there are the sports and other sims - Steam just had a sale on a 'car mechanic simulator', and I'm not really sure it's reasonable to call things like NBA 2014 a 'combat-based' game. Driving and flying sims are also popular, and the queen of sims is the 'generic human sim' Sims 3, which is combatless. Then there's logic games like Tetris or 2048.
If you think that the idea of a game without violence is worth noting, then you're really not bothering to look at what games are out there.
Violence is accessible. Tom and Jerry could have a nice philosophical dialog in the park, but that would put Tom and Jerry beyond it's target audience. Instead, they smack each other around with frying pans.
Even shows that shoot for the more pacifist/philosophical angle tend to prominently feature violence (Doctor Who seems like an obvious example).
Because combat is inherently exciting in a way that most things are not. Combat naturally engages the mind, it changes the world in a visceral and immediate and often flashy way, and it ties in neatly with the narrative concepts of conflict and struggle. Video games are uniquely well-suited for combat. It isn't the only thing they can do, certainly, but I don't think it's fair to suggest that having combat in a video game is a failure of creativity. Combat just takes up a really large portion of the creative space there. Similarly, dramatic films have a strong tendency to focus on humans despite the fact that there are narratives that could be constructed around non-human entities.
