The Video Game Changer

It was pouring rain—the kind of day where you just want to pull the covers over your head and play video games. So I was surprised to see hundreds of people actually leave their console to show up at the first ever Tribeca video games festival.

Billed as a “festival within a festival,” the legendary Tribeca Film Festival launched a games fest for the first time ever.

Some may consider video games the most fun thing in his or her repetitive, mundane life, while others may think they are an addictive waste of time. Either way, the intellectuals and artists who run the Tribeca Film Festival think that video games are the latest and greatest art form.

While the term “video game festival” evokes a bunch of nerds gawking at new games and consoles, this video games festival was far from what you may have envisioned.

Just one hour was devoted to the actual playing of video games, and many were unknown titles that have yet to be released. The lines were so long that most people didn’t even get a chance to play.

The focus of the festival, rather, is the process of creating games from an intellectual standpoint—an opportunity to see into the brain of game creators, game writers, and game directors—and find out what inspired them.

The giant conference room was actually a large sound stage used for filming movies and commercials in Soho. They put a thousand folding chairs in and a portable stage with some indoor palm trees, converting into a functional space for an eager video game audience.

They were not too many teens. It was mostly people in their 20s and 30s who must have been very, very serious about video games as a new emerging kind of interactive film. After all, they gave up a perfectly good Saturday to see the legends of game creation lecture.

There was a cappuccino bar with free nutella crepes where everybody, especially people dressed in hip, black film director outfits, could opine about videos. You could tell I was the only high school student because I was the only one stuffing the free nutella candy bars into my pockets.

One fellow named Michael Swayner of Brooklyn and his posse of two guys were dressed as if they were attending a networking event for artsy professionals. I asked them why they made time in their schedule to purchase some pricey tickets for the event, and they told me that they thought it was time that video games got the respect they deserved.

I asked Michael what his favorite game was and he said that it was family time around Super Mario when he was a kid. His siblings were very competitive and the fun they had trying to outdo each other is the gaming adventure that mattered the most. This wasn’t a response that reflected the supposed serious nature of video game creation that he had come to the festival to experience. However, it was a response that I could relate to.

Another guy named Juan, from Queens and in his early college years, told us that video games were most important for their magic stress-reducing properties. He said you should start playing because you forget your troubles for a while. He also felt it was a world he could control when he was younger—the only thing he felt he had some control over back then.

We all rushed into the stage area to take our seats for the biggest draw of the festival.

Hideo Kojima is the creator of “Metal Gear” and “Silent Hill,” games that changed the industry since they were the first to use live actors instead of 3D models. This gave all games a much more realistic feel. When he took the stage, the audience members leapt to their feet with a standing ovation. I was excited to see him in person. He talked to the crowd through an interpreter about how his childhood was marked by the mandatory viewing of films: his parents refused to let him go to bed until he had screened several a day.

Kojima also told us that he was allowed to take a bus from his village to the city when he was only three years old to see a movie while his parents were at work. That fueled a lifelong obsession with films.

By his teen years, Kojima said he was binging on films like “Taxi Driver,” watching them seven times each, for a different creative focus each time. It soon became clear that he would do whatever it takes to become a film director. And he told the crowd that he was particularly obsessed with Robert DeNiro. Deniro founded the Tribeca Film Festival, which is why Kojima agreed to fly in all the way from Tokyo.

We have the high cost of film production to thank for Kojima’s transformation into video game design. He couldn’t afford to make a two-hour film, so he used his ideas, complete with film actors, to create games.

That made him the very first game designer to use actors as the models for game characters. As he gained more success, he started using famous actors in the games.

Kojima also had the vision to turn the industry from games like “pong” to games with powerful and complex storylines, Metal Gear being an early example.

The audience asked a lot of questions about this, particularly about why he spent big money on actor Kiefer Sutherland instead of using 3D models.

Kojima said that actors bring their own interpretation to a role, thereby adding an extra layer of creativity and realism—something he just couldn’t get from a 3D model.

The audience was heavily into the corporate politics of game creation, and the huge news in this world was Kojima’s acrimonious split after 30 years with game company Konami, after much turmoil between him and the organization. This became a big deal around the world because Kojima kept winning awards but was not allowed to go up to the podium and accept them—Konami was portrayed as a group of corporate bad guys. Fans and gaming companies joined in the protest against Konami.

Some members of the audience told me that they were annoyed to see that this was not addressed on the podium—I learned later that the legal resolution required Kojima to keep his mouth shut regarding those events.

Kojima finally broke away from that oppressive work situation and he will be releasing his first ever game created by his new indie gaming design group. He toyed with us by saying that he will now reveal something about the new game.

But all he’d say was: it will have characters and a plot. The audience laughed at the ongoing secrecy. We are all rooting for him and hope the game smashes records and crushes Konami.

The second big panel, which drove the crowd back from the free snack area and into their seats, featured Ken Levine, writer and director of BioShock, a first-person shooter series set in an underwater dystopia.

He was paired with action movie director Doug Limon for a compare-and-contrast discussion of movie-making with game creation. Limon is the producer and director of “Edge of Tomorrow” and the “Bourne Identity” franchise. It was exciting to see giants of their perspective industries paired together to talk about the differences in game creation and movie-making.

Levine told the crowd that the main difference between game creation and movie-making is the lack of glamour.

Levine said that after a star-studded premiere, everyone kisses up to the director. But for a game writer, the end of the production process is only heralded by a bunch of bloggers going online and making fun of your new game.

Limon countered that screening a film at a premiere with an unhappy star is no picnic. Angelina Jolie, he said, was so unhappy with footage from a scene of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” that she burst into tears while sitting next to him.

As we left the festival, Michael Swayner felt that “it’s time that gaming got more respect as an art form.” He followed up by saying this should be so “because everyone who plays video games is part of the creation process.”

Our ability to participate and manipulate the storyline of a video game is, indeed, a game changer for the industry that our generation has shaped. And if it really morphs into an enhanced art form of interactive films, we will all have had a hand—not to mention a thumb—in that transformation.