So yesterday, I wrote about this -thing- being released on Steam. However, I was tired when I wrote that, and looking back on it, I feel like I come across as a twit. I complain about it, but don't really do a good job of conveying why I complain about it. So that's why I'm doing a follow-up to it.

I dislike everything about the game being on Steam. I strongly believe in video games as art, and I see this game as a slap in the face to everything games in art can be. While I have not played it, I had seen a lot of material on the game as I formed this opinion. I won't complain about something without knowing what it is I'm complaining about.

The game tries to sell itself as an art piece, but as one, it fails. First, I must get this out of the way since it's the butt of many jokes: They didn't bother double-checking the listing of the system requirements, and under the Mac RAM requirements, it says 3 MB, where it should say 3 GB. Making jokes about that is too easy, so I won't do it.

So, I'm going to pick apart the way they describe the game, and chime in on things I think are wrong.

Bientôt l’été is a videogame for two players. Two players who pretend

to be lovers. They pretend to be lovers separated from each other by

lightyears of deep space. They have lonely walks along the shore of a

simulated ocean, thinking wistful thoughts of each other. Thoughts from

ancient Earth literature by Marguerite Duras. [This seems like a rather odd way to say

this. It would be like if Donkey Kong Country said "This is a game where

you play as two monkeys. Two monkeys who have to save their bananas.

Separated by hordes of Kremlings". It comes across to me as the writer

"Filling in the blanks" by telling you information that you should learn

throughout the progression of the game. Think back to NES games where

they dumped the entire plot on the back of the game and then never

referenced it again. This is 2013. We shouldn't be doing this anymore.]

 

 

 

The empty beach, the strong wind, the gentle music and a small colony

of electric seagulls are their only companions. Yet their heart is full

and their mind confused. Walk along the shore, until they meet the

emptiness. [At this point, I'm imagining this read in monotone by a guy with a deadpan expression on his face while another guy taps a bongo and blows into a jug. And it's all a metaphor for "The man" or something, somehow.]

 

 

When it all becomes too much, they run towards each other. Enabled by

intergalactic networks, they touch each other’s holographic bodies in

cyberspace. A surreal game of chess becomes the apparatus through which

they, man and woman, can talk. The words they have were given to them,

as they have always been to lovers everywhere. [More of the same. This goes beyond description text to pique interest. This is like if a novel had 75% of the book printed on the front sleeve. This is a bad thing.]

 

 

The sea remains, tugging at their hearts when not at their hairs and

clothes, as it itself is tugged by the virtual moon. And as great as the

desire for the other may be, they cannot stay away from the wind and

the waves and the sand. Every time they find a new treasure. An

abandoned tennis field. An heap of coal. A dead dog. Ordinary. Absurd.

Meaningless. Yet comforting. [smells of faux-artsyness. I can do it too. "A bat. A vertebrae. A Pacific Sideband snail. Salame." Am I avant-garde, mysterious and edgy yet? Even more of what I am now dubbing "Novel-on-the-cover-syndrome".]

 

Enter a café, exit a villa, enter a casino, exit the ruin of an

ancient colonial mansion. We know this is not real. So it doesn’t

surprise us. Nothing surprises us. It doesn’t matter when you feel the

pain of love. Of being in love, of falling in love, of leaving in love.

There is no such thing as time. There is only love. And it never stops.

No matter how much it hurts. [it sets these things up as if we are supposed to be interested, but it doesn't give us a reason to be. You can list as many things as you want, but they won't be interesting unless the viewer has been given a reason to see them as such.]

 

[The irony of this lengthy description is that it manages to be long and verbose without getting much information across.]

The game is hardly visually interesting. You can find your own screenshots. Everything is given a washed-out look with effects that, honestly, kind of gives me a dull headache if I stare at them for more than a few seconds. It looks like Gears of War, no offense to fans of the series. An artistic game shouldn't look like that unless it is given an interesting twist and is visually pleasing to look at. For example, LIMBO, an example of games as art done right, is in black and white, but it has its own look to it which is aesthetically pleasing and helps give the game an excellent atmosphere. Bientôt l'été just looks like your graphics card is failing.

The way I see it is: (no offense to those who may have enjoyed this game) This is to video games what things like people gluing a live bat to their nose, photographing peoples' responses and making paper mache goats out of the polaroids are to actual art.

Bizarreness can make good art. But just being bizarre doesn't instantly make something art. You have to have some conventional aspects to something for it to be art, at least if you want it to be successful on a platform such as Steam. For example: Bastion, an indie game, is extremely bizarre when you think of its setting, plot and creature designs. But the reason players don't go "This is just weird. I'm out!" is because it sets up reasons, and it doesn't jump out at you and scream "Look at me! I'm mysterious and avant-garde!". It succeeds at bringing the player into a world where these concepts make sense. It doesn't just throw a floating bag of gas with a face at you. It sets up a world where that Gasbag is a creature in it.

I also must comment in how putting this game on Steam probably wasn't exactly a wise business move for Valve. I mean, I understand it's on Steam because Valve offered contracts to all IGF finalists, but even considering that, there are far more interesting games with a far wider appeal on Greenlight. This game is, well, very specific in its (possibly nonexistent) audience. It seems like a very poorly planned business move by Valve to put this game on Steam. How do they expect to profit much from it? I don't know, I guess you could say this is a silly argument, but I kind of see it as a slap to the face to indie developers who have to struggle through Greenlight and gain the attention of potential buyers while this one indie game with little to offer gets to skip all that and get on Steam despite the fact the audience for it is microscopic. It's reminiscent of those times in our childhoods where our sibling gets something that we want dearly and would work ourselves to the bone to get, then they just go "meh" and throw it away.

I will conclude this like I concluded the much shorter precursor to it: I just don't know anymore.