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God damn it, James, you beat me to the Ecchi Attack! link.

The other thing this reminds me of is a recent update Jeremy Parish made on his website. No, wait, get a hold on your trolling reflex; the Bastard Sons of Insert Credit may have a history of rumblin' with Parish and affiliates, but this history is without merit. It's not useful, necessary, or entertaining. So!

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The "pedophiles on wikipedia" topic is a distraction; ignore it. They may be an unfortunate inevitability of natural selection. They may be choking our prison system and likely to offend again. Whatever. The subject is "moe's prevalence in games", and the implications thereof.

Art is successful when it is unconventional. An artist working from a formula or template should look for ways to break that template. If only part of a work is formulaic, then that part must not be what the artist considered important.

So, doujin games using the moe style are lopsided experiments in gameplay. Likewise their counterparts in the commercial sector! Smething asymmetrical like Disgaea is more like a short story, while something symmetrical like Cave Story is more like a novel. Notice that length isn't the determining factor: whether the asymmetrical game is made by one person or a hundred--whether it lasts fifteen minutes or fifty hours--it's distinct from the symmetrical experience.
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Thanks for responding, Maxson and Triton. Despite taking different approaches, I think you share a common point: that the abundance of moe elements in doujin games is a convenient shorthand that allows said games to exist in the quantities that they do; that at worst, such elements are a harmless eccentricity. Am I interpreting correctly?

It seems like a safe attitude to maintain. It was the attitude I held toward the moe phenomenon for a long time, anyway. I'm beginning to feel otherwise.

The more you democratize a given artform, the less you'll find exemplary work in that form. This seems counterintuitive, but it's been happening for literature over the last half of the 20th century. I see two reasons why this should be the case.

The first issue is one of craftsmanship. The more time educators spend making the form accessible, the less time they have to pass on the lessons of mastery. The importance of this issue increases proportionally to the complexity of the craft, so this idea is very important for programmers.

The second issue is the interaction between art and design space. As Delany wrote, the quality of art is a function of its originality. The more artists you have working in a field, then, the faster they cover the available design space. I can hear the complaints now--"There's nothing truly new under the sun," and "there will always be revolutions in the way art is made." Still, the problem is intensified when you've got a higher density of artists working in the form: what's new becomes old much faster, the novel rapidly becomes formulaic, and the audience at large begins to look outside the artform for new entertainments.
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This link may be irrelevent. Then again, it may be illuminating.
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Also, I've never seen a furry claim to be a character from Gundam Wing in a previous life.

EDIT: The previous link--that's an article about otakukin. The otherkin bit at the beginning's just by way of introduction.
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Well, right. Artistic superiority is the result of a work standing apart from the field. In that sense, it runs counter to the business instinct of going with what's been proven--the Halo clones, the GTA clones. This is just another example of that instinct, and that's why it's important for me to see it documented: I like knowing where ordinary is. Asking why the ordinary should be what it is--that's just me being curious.
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It strikes me that wish fulfillment is the underlying shortcut, here--the unifying principle of making games cheaply that will make mad profits.

So, here's a question: how do you make the alternative appealing?
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It's true! Maxson's observations have been even-handed and level-headed! If we had a karma system installed, I'd have been giving him karma left and right.
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There's a disagreement here that I think may not actually exist. I want to try paraphrasing the relevant bits of conversation:

Klikbeep: Wish-fulfillment is the only viable model, currently. Which sucks.
Mister Toups: It's not that bad. We need a game that's wish-fulfillment as well as independent excellence. Like HL2 and SOTC but moreso.
Klikbeep: Except there's too much pressure to make profit. Games right now are just a goofy consumer commodity.
Mister Toups: Well, this kind of transcendant game would change that.
Klikbeep: Not really. Your game would just be fuel for the engines of commerce. Rather than breaking the system, you'd be perpetuating it, and your flawless game would be ruined by its very success.

Have I summarized your positions accurately? Because if so, I agree with you both.

Toups, I said it in the other thread and I'll say it again, here: nothing survives in the end, except for brilliant execution. If gaming's critics are going to give it legitemate accord, we first need to see a game which merits that accord. (I'd like to point out that the critics I'm referring to here are the people on this message board.)

Klikbeep, you're right that even the flawless game that Toups describes is just more meat for the grinder. Profiteers looking for a template to exploit will be with us as long as games cost money to make. I'm curious to see what games could accomplish if they didn't have to worry about profitability, and I'm not sure that we'll ever find out.



I did notice something curious, though.