[An editorial I wrote for my gaming site that sat ignored by an editor, so I place it here]
If someone were to ask you who the most important entertainer of the year was, whom would you single out? There are many possible answers depending on your consumption of various forms of media, but in my mind there really is no story that has a greater reach and realm of influence (games, television, film, music, print) then that of Kanye West.
All right, have I lost everyone who was expecting something relevant to their interests? Sweet. Moving beyond the superficial argument that Kanye is stupid and has no bearing on any realm beyond hip-hop sits if not the best, surely the most interesting musical album of the year. Everything that happened in the run up to the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy makes just as compelling of a story as any other media, and acts as a model relevant in any artistic yet consumer reliant medium (music, television, film, video games) to the perils of public image, transparency, and what happens when an artist just doesn’t care about what anyone else thinks is cool.
Following the release of his 2008 auto-tune heavy release, 808s and Heartbreak, critics and fans alike were perplexed as to the predominant artistic direction that Kanye would finally settle on. While there was no doubt that everyone in America had at least heard of the artist after criticizing
President Bush’s handling (or lack there of) of Hurricane Katrina, it was ultimately the interruption of an awards speech by Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards that even got President Obama to call him a jackass.
Coincidentally, the incident at the VMAs echoed a similar scene that took place at the 2007 Spike Video Game Awards, in which a group from Gamecock interrupted Ken Levine before being able to accept the rightly deserved Game of the Year award for BioShock. Be it shameless self promotion (as the case with Gamecock) or picking the wrong place at the wrong time to voice a selfless opinion, Kanye has had an uphill battle against a country that wanted nothing to do with him.
And let's level for a minute here, Single Ladies > Anything that Taylor Swift will ever create.
Like any individual or entity that had suffered a crippling PR disaster (or series of disasters, as is the case with Kanye), questions arose if it would be better to fade away into oblivion then to try and reconcile with a jaded and hostile American public. After furiously apologizing and briefly vanishing from the public view, Kanye emerged on a platform where he could speak candidly and uninterrupted.
Twitter, especially in such a technology-focused industry, has provided the ultimate connection between an individual and the public. One of the best and most recent examples was when Epic employee and Gears of War creator Cliff Blezinski confirmed that Gears 3 would not utilize Kinect after reports had come out saying that it would. While still constrained by media blackouts that are focused on hiding projects from prying eyes, Twitter still provides a veiled sense of ambiguity as to the interest and actions of these individuals.
The resurrection of Kanye’s career can be somewhat attributed to his adoption of this public transparency, which in addition to humanizing himself also offered glimpses of his creative process. Would John Romero be relevant in this industry had Twitter been around in 1997? My guess, although completely speculative in nature, would be a resounding yes.
Another portion of Kanye’s plan to climb out from under the weight of his poor decision-making was G.O.O.D. Fridays. Starting on August 20th, Kanye released a free song every Friday in a program that was intended to run up until the release of his album, but has now been extended through the month of January. While it was unknown at the time, the tracks given away actually ended up comprising over half of the final track listing, essentially giving away half of the final retail product.
It’s been an argument for years that the Internet is responsible for the death of the music, film and video game industries through illegal downloading, but this isn’t true in the least. The Internet has simply provided a means of resetting the typical norms of consumer tastes and preferences by allowing for a far broader library of content to choose from. I hesitate to make the comparison to the creation of a communist state, but the redistribution of dollars spent away from larger corporate entities and back into the pocket of the creative individual is pretty much just that.
I find it funny that small development teams like Amarita Design (Machinarium), Frictional Games (Amnesia: The Dark Descent), and GSC Gameworld (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series) all come out and complain about piracy; certainly it doesn’t seem a best-case scenario as far as the bottom line goes, but it is inherent to the creation of a game in the Internet age. What these small teams have to really look at and realize is that in the days of old their games would barely garner a blurb in the back pages of a video game magazine. Piracy is simply a less then desirable form of advertising. No matter what, pirates will grow a product's relevance to the point that it will push legitimate paying consumers to purchase it.
In addition to this free song program, came the ultimate in self-promotion with the release of a film directed and starred in by the artist himself. Taking the form of a music video for the single Runaway, but also encompassing many other songs included with the album, the 35 minute short film completed a comeback that ensured My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy couldn’t, and shouldn’t be ignored. Although there is almost always pre-release coverage, be it trailers, singles or screen shots, Kanye had hit on a potent combination that has propelled his piece of work from probable obscurity to media experience of the year.
While all of the above is well and good, in theory it all relies on the final execution and quality of the product itself. Although it is simply my opinion at this point (You probably wouldn’t still be reading if you hadn’t at least bought into part of my argument) My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy succeeds on every level. It has mass-market appeal without making that outcome the focus; it instead relies on the narrative that Kanye set out to tell, a lesson that some game creators and the suits at the companies who employ them should take to heart. Focus testing is all well and good, but tailoring the entirety of a product to suit consumer wishes and expectations cheapens an experience to the point where it becomes irrelevant.
I guess in the end I have entered the whole "games as art debate," which is a can of worms I have no desire to dive in to. Creative people are at their best when they are not hindered by anything besides themselves, a lesson that Kanye's album illustrated better then any product released this year. Even if you don't like hip-hop or the man behind it, I urge you to have a listen to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy if simply for the statement that it makes about the current shortfalls of consumer centric design philosophies and the joy and diverse creations that can be forged when it is abandoned.
