Two weeks ago the British Academy of Film and Television Arts hosted a glitzy awards ceremony in North London. Around the dining tables, the dinner-suited nominees sipped their wines anxiously as they waited to discover whether they would be leaving with one of the coveted Bafta masks.
But this gathering had nothing to do with film, and little with television. This, the fourth annual presentation of awards for video games, was the centrepiece of the first London Games Festival, an event designed to stake out London’s position as the centre of European games-playing.
With Bafta recognition and a festival all of its own, the games industry was clearly out to proclaim itself as, finally, respectable. Last year in the UK — the world’s third biggest market for games after America and Japan — video games provided a living for nearly 20,000 people and exported £451 million of products. Video game retail sales totalled £1.25 billion, trouncing cinema box office (£0.76bn).
About time, you might think, for it to be considered a “proper”, mainstream industry.
And yet . . .
Those Bafta awards neatly encapsulated the problems that the industry cannot shake off.
The presenter, Vernon Kay, was unable to stop making jokes about games fuelling the masturbatory fantasies of young boys in their bedrooms. The silence that greeted these jokes spoke volumes, but if the industry’s chosen mouthpieces don’t believe in its maturity, what hope is there for the rest of us? “I love games,” says the industry expert Iain Simons, “but I find it frustrating that the industry does not have the confidence to proclaim its own importance. It’s always cosying up to Hollywood, trying to present itself as the poor cousin of film.”
Simons is the driving force behind what he hopes will become a new type of annual festival devoted to games-playing. Game City, which starts on Wednesday, runs across a variety of venues in Nottingham. Is it going to be another trade show populated by games fans desperate for a peek at the future? Simons hopes not.
“Our aim,” he says, “is to have a games festival in much the same way as any other arts festival. Historically, the games industry has always been very bad at promoting itself to people who aren’t already interested. If I wasn’t into games I wouldn’t know where to go to find out about them. At the same time, there’s a lot of rhetoric about games being important, overtaking Hollywood and so on. Yet they don’t seem to be taken with any more gravitas. We wanted to put things in a broader context.”
Over the five days of Game City there will be around 40 games-related events. People will not only have the chance to play classic arcade games, but will, among other things, be able to meet games producers, have a birthday tea party with Sonic the Hedgehog, and attend seminars about finding work in the games industry. There will be games-related art, dance and film on show, too, in what promises to be the most inventively programmed new arts festival of the year.
“We have some good partners in the local educational institutions here,” says Simons, “but the games industry itself may not be ready for this. It’s geared to big trade events. The industry never celebrates things that have already happened.”
It’s a point that’s slightly undermined by goings-on at the Science Museum in London, where Game On, an exhibition devoted to the history of the video game, opens today (Saturday). Game On was first seen in London four years ago, but has been updated to reflect industry changes and developments.
“What we’re trying to show,” says the museum’s spokesman Stephen Bromberg, “is how games have permeated all our lives without us realising. It’s not widely known, for instance, that many of the developments in computer graphics and sound were driven by the demands of people who play games.”
The show occupies two large halls in the museum, one of which has a specially commissioned game time-line mural running along its 130ft (40m)length. Game On also celebrates the way films and games have worked together, with each successful film now spawning a (frequently quite good) game, and many games inspiring (invariably appalling) films.
It all sounds very thought-provoking, but the star attraction, one suspects, will be the scores of classic games that are available to play for free, from Donkey Kong and Space Invaders on the arcade side, to early domestic console titles from the likes of Magnavox, Atari and, of course, Nintendo, the exhibition’s main sponsor.
“I remember when I was a kid,” says Bromberg, “that many of these games seemed to be moving too fast for me to keep up. It will be fascinating to see how today’s youngsters react. I imagine that they’ll find them slow and boring. Or will they be as transfixed as I was?” The exhibition also aims to address the concerns of parents who believe that playing games is less worthy an occupation than reading books or playing with friends.
“There is an image of gaming as a solitary pastime,” says Bromberg. “But if you look at the latest games, where there are online communities such as Second Life forming, you could make a strong argument for the opposite being the case. It’s very social, and it transcends national barriers. We will try and present a balanced argument.”
The unbalanced among you, meanwhile, may like to know that the Science Museum is currently trying to persuade Nintendo to release an early preview of its next-generation console, the Wii, for public play. Just don’t expect to get a go during the half-term holiday.
Game City, Nottingham, Oct 25-29 (www.gamecity.org). Game On runs until Feb 25 at the Science Museum, London (www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/gameon). Admission £8.50 (£6.50 concs)
