Games * Design * Art * Culture

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Maverick Acceptance Speech

So at the Game Developer's Choice Awards at the Game Developers Conference, I received the Maverick Award. Here's the speech I gave:

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I'm of course delighted, gratified, and terrified to be here... Terrified because I'm self-effacing enough to feel that my modest accomplishments hardly qualify me for so august an honor, but delighted also that the development community so clearly sees that we we're trying to accomplish is important.

A dozen years ago, in an article in Chris Crawford's Journal of Computer Game Design, I asked whether the new interactive medium of games would ultimately become, like the written word, one that illuminates and helps us understand our world, or like television, one of deratiocinated pabulum, to the detriment of our culture and intellectual life.

So far, we're not doing so hot. The game industry's relentlessly hit-driven mentality has led us straight to the lowest common denominator, and to a sameness of deadening repitition.

Yet outside the industry's mainstream, the signs are hopeful--in the increasing attention paid to independent games as a means of sustaining our heritage of creativity; in the serious games and "games for change" movements; in the growing acceptance and study of games by the academy.

I want you to imagine with me a game industry that would make us proud to belong to.. I want you to imagine a 21st century in which games are the predominant artform of the age, as film was of the 20th, and the novel of the 19th; in which the best games are correctly lauded as sublime products of the human soul. I want you to imagine an educational system in which games are integrated into every aspect of the curriculum, in which everyone understands that games can illuminate things in ways that are complementary to but different from text. I want you to imagine a world in which games dare to tackle the most knotty, controversial, and difficult issues our society faces--and are not condemned but praised for doing so. I want you to imagine a world in which the common person is no longer ignorant of economics, physics and the functioning of the environment--things which are themselves interactive systems --because they have interacted with them in the form of games. I want you to imagine a world where it us understood that continuing to play into adulthood is not failing to grow up, but rather preserving the flexibility and ability to learn that is essential in an era of rapid technological change. I want you to imagine a world in which the enormous expressive potential of our medium is no longer potential, but reality.

Software is an infinitely plastic medium; so are games. If we can imagine it, we can make it happen.

Let's begin.

posted by Greg at 8:09 PM 40 comments

40 Comments:

Congratulations, Greg.
I'll be looking forward to seeing you in the awards avi.

By Ramification, at 8:55 PM

Beautiful. :)

By kaolin fire, at 9:12 PM

Congratulations, Greg, and a great speech.

By Chris Charabaruk, at 11:36 PM

Truly, a verbiage of epicurean narcissism.

By Anonymous, at 6:56 AM

The Maverick award could go to nobody else. Despite what many say, the things you do are very important to the industry.

It's been an honor to know you (and the rest of the "Manifestations") on both a personal and professional level. Congratulations, Greg!

-Dave

By Dave Gilbert, at 12:35 PM

And with the release of tilelander on manifesto games, the dream has been realized. KUDOS! KUDOS!

By Anonymous, at 5:46 PM

Also congrats on your too-brief NPR "appearance."

The fact that a national outlet does a story on indie games is encouraging.

Stefan

By Stefan Jones, at 11:48 PM

Greg,

Watching the GDC 2007 conference on GameSpot.com allowed me to "discover" you and your work. Your profound and enlightening speech led me here, and I have and will continue to share it with others.

I've only just begun browsing your site, and I was wondering how far along your "300 games every developer and gamer should know" idea has come. I would've commented under that entry but it seems to be closed.

Anyway, congratulations on your award! Thanks for your "maverick" work in this industry and for challenging me to think differently about games.

By KirinLime, at 10:10 PM

Wonderfully stated. You have the ability to state clearly and eloquently what I wish I could say, and therefore, I simply have the duty of sharing your words and ideas with others, particularly the detractors of our art.

By Peter, at 10:49 PM

Hey Greg, I've not read blogs in sometime, but I'm glad I read this ... I think it is deserving of the bullet format - FACT: It should be your 'about'!

Not sure what the Maverick award entails but will check it out.

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