Game Patch - the Son of Scratch?

//    CRACKING THE MAZE
//   "Game Plug-ins and Patches as Hacker Art"
//    version 1.0 July 16, 1999


#include <curators_note.h> // curators note by Anne-Marie Schleiner
#include <game_patches.h> // the game patches
#include <article_huhtamo.h> // Game Patch - the Son of Scratch? by Erkki Huhtamo
#include <article_trippi.h> // Deep Patch by Laura Trippi
#include <switch.h> // the 'Art & Games' issue of Switch
#include <credits.h> // credits and contact information


//    Game Patch - the Son of Scratch?                                       
//    by Erkki Huhtamo                                                                                                                                                                                                            
//                                                                           
//    When I first became aware of the game patch phenomenon, not such a long
//    time ago, it felt almost preordained - it just had to happen. Not      
//    because of the will of some transcendental "dungeon master", presiding 
//    over the gaming arena that is the contemporary world, but rather       
//    because of the logic of media. In the 90's, electronic games have grown
//    Big. From a slightly suspicious intruder and a challenger to mainstream
//    media, like the cinema and broadcast television, the game industry has 
//    developed into a full-blown sector of today's commercial media         
//    landscape, constantly conquering new territory.                        
//                                                                           
//    Not only have electronic games gained popularity among new age groups -
//    their breakthrough in the old people's home seems only a matter of time
//    - they have also become an internalized model for an interactive       
//    relationship with the media, influencing other forms of computerized   
//    and computer-mediated communication. Although they will not (at least  
//    in the foreseeable future) have enough power to render traditional     
//    one-way media totally obsolete, their very ubiquity is having a        
//    powerful effect on the cultural imaginaries of the late 20th century.  
//                                                                           
//    On the other hand, drawing a sharp distinction between the kind of new 
//    media relationship represented by computer gaming and the "passive"    
//    experiences provided by cinema and television would mean overstating   
//    the issue. After all, electronic gaming may have been invented by      
//    computer hackers, technical whiz-kids and hippie entrepreneurs, but    
//    especially in the 90's it has been absorbed by the worlds of big       
//    business and venture capitalism. Integration, consolidation, expansion 
//    - these are the magic formulas today's game producers and distributors 
//    invoke.                                                                
//                                                                           
//    Although the game industry tries hard to maintain the impression that  
//    computer gaming constitutes "a people's technology which encourages and
//    enables participation by all who wish to participate" (to quote Gillian
//    Skirrow's words from her pioneering study "Hellivision: an analysis of 
//    video games", 1986), it is becoming more and more evident that such a  
//    position constitutes a fabrication and, above all, an ideology. Playing
//    a computer game may involve the player differently than watching a     
//    movie or a television program, but seeing it automatically as more     
//    empowering, liberating - or addictive - could hardly be accepted       
//    without qualifications.                                                
//                                                                           
//    Perhaps some forms of networked multiuser role-playing games           
//    notwithstanding, the game-playing experience is irrevocably linked to  
//    an "apparatus", a pre-fabricated system regulating the relationship(s) 
//    between the player(s) and the system (including both the game software 
//    and the hardware) and, above all, defining the limits of the           
//    interaction. The game playing experience may allow for considerable    
//    liberties to explore virtual worlds, adopt different personalities,    
//    make decisions and discover secrets, but in the end these are just     
//    carefully tested and calculated parameters, the main criteria of which 
//    are economical.                                                        
//                                                                           
//    If a game is too simple, it may not create a sufficiently strong bond  
//    with the player, risking to fail on the marketplace. If it is extremely
//    difficult, it may fail as well, although it probably sells longer as   
//    the buzz around it spreads and also provides possibilities for the     
//    secondary marketplace of gaming guides, fan magazines and other kinds  
//    of paraphernalia. It is essential that the player is made to feel part 
//    of a network which is both internal (the ties with the world of the    
//    game) and external (the ties with other players, newsgroups, helplines,
//    fan-clubs, secondary texts).                                           
//                                                                           
//    The game patch phenomenon might be easily interpreted as a highly      
//    heterogeneous body of reactions against the growing uniformity and     
//    calculation that have come to dominate the industrial game culture in  
//    recent years. Although most players are and will be satisfied if the   
//    supply of commercially available software and hardware meet their needs
//    for fast diversion, action, romance and fantasy, and even occasional   
//    intellectual challenges, there are those who seem to be harking back to
//    the days when gaming with some justification could be labelled a       
//    "people's technology". This goes hand in hand with the growing         
//    awareness of gaming history, as evidenced by the popularity of         
//    emulators of many forgotten games, future classics, perhaps.           
//                                                                           
//    Yet, at best, this is only a partial explanation. The reality is much  
//    more complex. The game patch phenomenon cannot simply be dispensed with
//    as being a nostalgic and, in the end, a Quixotian attempt to revive a  
//    mythical "golden age" when gaming was spontaneous and social and the   
//    games were designed and modified by the gamers themselves, rather than 
//    faceless corporations. Although some game patch artists show signs of  
//    such a consciousness, incorporating references to cherished early      
//    classics, such as Space Invaders or Pac-Man, into their creations,     
//    there are others for whom history hardly matters, at least on a        
//    conscious level.                                                       
//                                                                           
//    Another way of assessing the game patch is too see it as the latest    
//    manifestation of "tactical media", a new way of "talking back to the   
//    media", of engaging in a creative/destructive conversation with the    
//    activities and the products of industrial media culture. Tactical media
//    has a long history going back to John Heartfield's political           
//    photomontages of the 1920's and 30's, to the actions and the           
//    "detournement" cultivated by the Situationists in the 1960's and the   
//    70's, to the various forms of "public art" and "appropriation art" in  
//    the 1970's and 80's, to Web "hacktivism" in the 90's.                  
//                                                                           
//    In spite of obvious differences in approach, all these movements have  
//    sought out ways of penetrating the dominant forms of media culture,    
//    appropriating its tools and its products, modifying its output and     
//    hurling the mut(il)ated creations back onto the public arena of        
//    mainstream media. The seams are left visible - instead of beating an   
//    illusion with another illusion, the aim is to make the cracks in the   
//    facade visible, to focus attention on the manifold processes looking   
//    for an outlet behind the ideologies of uniformity.                     
//                                                                           
//    The tidal wave of "scratch video", particularly in the UK in the early 
//    80's, provides a useful case study. Inspired by access to new tools, as
//    well as by a strained cultural atmosphere, the early years of the      
//    Thatcher-Reagan era, young videomakers began to "scratch" the surface  
//    of broadcast television, trying to reveal those discourses which had   
//    been hidden behind the media coverage, but were, nevertheless, an      
//    essential part of the overall picture. Groups like Gorilla Tapes and   
//    Duvet Brothers grabbed the recently introduced possibility of taping TV
//    programs with a VCR, and manipulated them in the editing studio        
//    (usually a public access video workshop).                              
//                                                                           
//    The scratch video makers used the "repeat-edit" and other video tricks 
//    to turn Reagan's and Thatcher's media images into stuttering           
//    marionettes that acted like aliens or lunatics and said things which   
//    were the opposite of the official protocol, but close, so one          
//    suspected, to the thoughts that really crossed their minds. Scratch    
//    video was simultaneously a reaction to the ubiquitous television       
//    environment, a tactical attack against its role as the mouthpiece of   
//    conservative politics, and a new way of personal expression, of        
//    asserting one presence in the egotistic world of media.                
//                                                                           
//    Of course, it all ended up in a failure. The main problem was access.  
//    Broadcast television ignored scratch video until it had been cleaned   
//    off its political content and turned into a new "refreshing" stylistic 
//    formula for music videos, comedy programs and hamburger commercials.   
//    After this had happened, which did not take long, scratch video makers 
//    began to receive commissions and their style was adopted (as one style 
//    among many) by TV professionals. Scratch video was co-opted by the very
//    institution it had attempted to undermine. Scratch features also       
//    survived in video art, but neutralized and "sublimated" by museum and  
//    gallery walls.                                                         
//                                                                           
//    Does this "instructive" example increase our understanding of the game 
//    patch phenomenon? There are both similarities and differences. Both    
//    scratch and patch have to do with access to new tools (video recording 
//    and editing; computer programming) by outsiders (TV spectators; game   
//    players) with the aim of subverting the existing relationship between  
//    subjects and media. Where scratch video attacked the false transparency
//    of broadcast television, its pretented but not actual openness, the    
//    imbalance between the spectators and the world of TV, the motives of   
//    the game patch artists are more subtle and varied; there is no game    
//    patch movement, only individuals. The situation is less clearly        
//    polarized. After all, electronic games may be ubiquitous, but they     
//    never purported to be a broadcast (mass) medium.                       
//                                                                           
//    A game patch artist may be motivated by ideological concerns, an urge  
//    to re-assert the role of the player as a (co)creator, or to subvert the
//    prevailing gender relations, particularly the depiction of women as    
//    game characters. Yet the political determination should not be         
//    overemphasized. Humour and parody are important motives; the game patch
//    artists don't seem to believe in the politically correct position of   
//    suppressing pleasure (neither did the scratch video makers!).          
//    Demonstrating a sense of mastery by being able to dabble creatively    
//    with the source code is an important aspect of the game patch          
//    experience as well, providing a link with the hacker mentality which   
//    has, in one form or another, been a part and a companion of the history
//    of electronic gaming from the outset.                                  
//                                                                           
//    This observation points out another difference between the cultural    
//    roles of broadcast television and electronic gaming in relation to     
//    their subjects. Television has been a distant medium from the          
//    beginning; its familiarity and spontaneity were simulated even during  
//    its early "live" years. The home audience was always watching something
//    from a distance; you could not really have a conversation with your    
//    favourite TV star. Games have never been distant in the same sense;    
//    they became known as a form of pastime, essentially as technological   
//    toys. The contact with games has been tactile, familiar, informal.     
//    Instead of attacking a frightening monstrous alien, the game patch     
//    artist is really playing a(nother) game with a partner s/he knows,     
//    loves and, perhaps, hates.                                             
//                                                                           
//    The position of game patch art is not without its contradictions.      
//    Unlike scratch video, it has a promising channel of distribution at its
//    disposal, the Internet (already used by game companies to distribute   
//    "patches" to their officially released games). Yet, as any form of     
//    appropriation art, game patch art will have to deal with issues of     
//    copyright and intellectual property on its way to wider attention. How 
//    will it react? Will it develop into a kind of media guerrilla activity,
//    operating on the terrain between the legal and the illegal, or will it 
//    become a "civilized", law-abiding genre, perhaps sponsored by major    
//    game companies, and contributing to future game development? Will it   
//    change our notion of art?                                              
//                                                                           
//    It is too early to tell. Yet having said this much, the game patch     
//    phenomenon still feels almost preordained to me - somehow it just had  
//    to happen.                                                             
//                                                                           
//    � Erkki Huhtamo 1999