Computer Game Culture: Hey don’t I know that guy

The secret stars of videogames

Sid Meyers, Peter Molyneux, Gabe Newell, Tim Schafer. We know these names because we care about videogames. And to a degree we have been damaged by our field of study.

We have been forced to become videogames nerds if we weren’t before. This is another way that, for better or worse, the videogame industry has been co-opted by Hollywood and has become more like the movie industry (in a commercial sense).

They sell us the games using stars. using recognition.

The names I mentioned above will probably not be recognizable by all that play videogames. But most know EA, Ubisoft, Valve, Blizzard and Rockstar. They on the box. It is Sid Meyer’s Civilization.

Not just civilization. This is mostly for the initiated I guess, like film buffs talking about Auteurs[1] like Hitchcock, Kurosawa and Welles. But it can help in selling game as a product. Just look at Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Kickstarter story[2]. They used their fame to make the games they want, and to not be beholden to a big company or studio.

Like the famous directors that get finance from Hollywood to make what they want. Hollywood trust us to pay to see the next Christopher Nolan film no matter what crazy, amazing, convoluted and pretty film he makes. Because he made one of the most successful and highest grossing movies of all time[3].

Stars

Back to games. Now some games try to use the same tactic as Hollywood to reel us in, Stars.

Netflix also did this with House of Cards[4]. Get a famous actor and director and people will come. Make a good show and people will stay.

Now Activision just need to make you buy their product not hang around for multiple seasons. So they give you a dead-eyed Kevin Spacey playing almost the same guy as in House of Cards. This seems like a blatant attempt to get more people to buy the game.

Call of Duty have done this before, in Black Ops they had Ed Harris, Gary Oldman and Ice Cube playing pivotal characters.

It goes back to the beginning also. Using real actors in cut-scenes like the command and conquer series or Jedi knight.

In Toonstruck from 96’ we saw Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future fame in a cartoon world with a cartoon side-kick voiced by Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson)

And in Red Alert 3 they tried to entice us with pop culture icons George Takei and J.K. Simmons.

But now the technology has become so advances that we can make carbon copies of real actors and put them into games.

Like they did with Kevin Spacey.

Or in games that try to be cinematic or story telling games, like Beyond two Souls starring digitally copies of Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. All done with performance captures as is the norm in triple A games.

There is nothing wrong with that, but having a famous actor doesn’t make a game better and won’t make me more likely to buy it. Though it might work for some, otherwise why go through the trouble?

There are great actors in games already giving voices and personalities to all our favorite game characters. The last of us and all the Telltale games will be remembered more for its great moments than any Call of Duty story. But you probably can’t name any of any actors of those games.

Unknown stars

Here are some more names

Talion, Joel, Booker DeWitt, Joker and Jack Mitchell. You know these people I think, some of them at least. They all have something in common. They are all videogame characters. But they share something else, Troy Baker.

This guy:

The voice and body behind them all.

I’m playing the new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Jack Mitchell, the playable character, takes of his breather mask and looks at me. I’m like, hey don’t I know you? And sure enough it is a perfect digital copy of the actor Troy Baker.

I do know that guy. First from cartoons. But after BioShock Infinite and Booker DeWitt I noticed he popped up in all the videogames I looked forward too. Turning up in some of the best games of the last 2 years (or ever: Last of Us, BioShock Infinite). Joel in Last of Us and Booker, Ok now he is going to do The Joker instead of Mark Hamill. Hmmm, all right. So finishing Shadow of Mordor I try Advanced Warfare and there he is again.

He is also one of the main characters in Tales from the Borderlands.

The newest Telltale game.

Now I’m sounding like a total fanboy and a big dork. Well that might very well be true but not the point. My point is that acting and thereby actors has become a big part of games and we beginning to get videogame specific celebrities. And the videogame industry is becoming more like Hollywood.

Many of these actors comes from voice acting not from “real” acting. Meaning cartoons not stage or film. And as with cartoon celebrities you would never recognize these people on the street, unless of course you happen to be a total fanboy or a big dork. Or maybe just academically damaged.

The point is: let’s not be enticed by big Hollywood names in games. Let’s acknowledge the unknown stars that already exist.

The ones that gave us the voices for Joel (Troy Baker), Nathan Drake (Nolan North), Desmond Miles (Nolan North), Commander Shepard (Jennifer Hale) and the countless other characters that have become so important in mainstream games.