In the grand scheme of things, video games are but a baby in the world of entertainment. With video gaming only taking off commercially in the 1970s, with a few pioneering developers making groundbreaking work before then, it puts the life span of gaming at under 50 years. When compared to forms such as prose fiction, music, and film, video games are only a blink of an eye in the media world, developing strong gaming trends within that short period.
Within that time, certain video game creators have taken a self-reflexive and critical look at the entertainment form. With so many tropes set as solid foundations within the gaming world (including some we would like to see disappear), and solid expectations of what mechanics certain genres should hold, it’s no surprise to see the occasional adventurous developer playing with a gamer’s preconceptions of a title. Here’s our pick of some of the best meta gaming moments in video game history.
A brief warning before we start - the following choices inevitably include spoilers surrounding the games discussed. With that said, let's take a closer look at some major meta moments in gaming.
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Game Dev Tycoon
The mere concept of Game Dev Tycoon is so reflective of gaming that it nearly hurts. The title is a video game about creating video games, running a studio during the development process and trying to achieve success. Taking a tongue-in-cheek look at some of the problems within the development community as well as offering up a fun and engaging sim in its own right, the title has achieved a cult following.
Unfortunately, not everyone who played the game actually paid for it. According to developer Greenheart Games, after a day on sale 3104 of the 3318 copies being played were pirate versions. Greenheart Games built in a rather brilliant anti-piracy measure, however. In pirated copies of Game Dev Tycoon, the player’s video game will suffer from huge financial loss due to pirates, rendering financial success impossible.
It's too bad the message was lost on many pirates, who took to message boards and forums to ask about how to beat the in-game piracy mechanics. Ironically, many of the pirates asked about how to bring in unpopular anti-piracy measures such as DRM as a way to beat the game - a strategy partly to blame for the infamous Sim City launch. Greenheart Games remained surprisingly calm about the level of piracy Game Dev Tycoon faced, however, requesting that pirates who enjoyed their time with the game look to purchase the full release version.
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Up Next: Violent Critiques and Disturbing Truths
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Spec Ops: The Line
In the run-up to its release, Yager's Spec Ops: The Line received barely a second glance from the video gaming community. On the surface, the title looked like just another run-of-the-mill third-person shooter, complete with a gruff military hero posing awkwardly on the cover, a politically-charged setting, and cover-based combat mechanics. What’s more, the game’s marketing seemed to follow exactly the same, well-trodden path as many other games in the genre.
When the game was released, however, players were hit by a level of commentary rarely seen in the video game medium. The game’s story used the framework of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which was also the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, to follow a similar dark path through war and madness. Rather than simply including anti-war overtones, the shooter instead blurred the lines between hero and villain, casting a critical eye over the power fantasy of military shooters.
Nowhere is it more apparent than when Captain Walker, the player character, uses white phosphorous in the name of his mission, committing a war crime and accidentally murdering dozens of innocent people. Savagely attacking similar scenes in military shooter rivals such as Call of Duty, the true effect of the player’s actions is intensified by insulting loading screen messages. The game’s antagonist Konrad sums it up well, when he states that “you’re here because you wanted to be something you’re not – a hero,” and perhaps the only way to truly beat Spec Ops: The Line is to stop playing entirely.
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Manhunt
Rockstar is not a developer known for pulling punches, with the Grand Theft Auto series in particular facing the ire of the mainstream press for its graphic adult content. That said, 2003's Manhunt may well be the furthest that the studio has pushed the boundaries of violence in games. Criticized for a graphical style and violent content that seemed to emulate grindhouse and snuff films, Manhunt put players into the mind of James Earl Cash, a convict taken from death row and given the task of killing people on camera for the entertainment of others.
Chief amongst these is the 'Director', a character by the name of Lionel Starkweather. The main antagonist of the game, Starkweather was once an acclaimed movie director, but a series of box office flops forced him to move into underground, real-death films. Starkweather directs Cash through the events of Manhunt, having saved him from death row to make him the 'star' of Starkweather's next snuff film.
Although Starkweather may seem like the kind of megalomaniacal sleazeball that often appears in Rockstar games, the director may be a little too familiar to some of those playing Manhunt. The Director remains in his control room alone, watching the violence of Cash on a television screen, whilst directly controlling the former inmate. Starkweather is a bastardized version of the Manhunt player, making those scenes where the Director is enjoying himself a little too much all-the-more awkward.
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Up Next: Breaking the Fourth Wall Down
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Contact
Goichi Suda (aka Suda 51) has an army of well-loved games under his belt, including the likes of Killer7 and No More Heroes. Whilst many of his titles give a quirky look at the world of video games, one of his lesser-known titles may take the crown as Suda 51’s most self-reflexive game – and one where he only acted as a producer. The Grasshopper Manufacture-developed Contact was released in 2006 for the Nintendo DS, with a story of a mysterious professor who crash-lands on an unknown planet.
The player takes on the role of a boy called Terry, and is tasked with collecting power cells to help the professor fix his ship. Along the way, the player follows the standard video game fare of fighting monsters and collecting objects, all the while looking out for the villainous CosmoNOT gang, who forced the professor to crash land in the first place. At the end of the game, however, the Suda 51 title turns the entire game on its head.
The professor, when given all the cells by Terry, abandons him and proclaims to the player directly that he knows he is a character in a video game. Soon after, the player is then confronted by Terry, criticizing the player for his actions in controlling him, resulting in a fight between the player and the previously player-controlled character. In the end, Contact points a finger at gamers, criticizing their role in controlling characters against their wishes, particularly through a scathing after-credits message.
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Bioshock Infinite
The Bioshock series has always played around with player conceptions. The original famously asked the question of why player characters obediently follow the instructions of external voices, explaining through a shocking twist that Jack was actually under the control of Frank Fontaine the entire time, acting as his puppet through the use of key phrases such as “would you kindly.” Bioshock Infinite, however, takes the prize as being the most self-reflexive game in the franchise’s history, providing a in-depth critique of linear storytelling in gaming.
The story itself involves Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth, as they attempt to escape from the jingoistic sky city of Columbia. Eventually, the duo make their way out of Columbia via a portal, taking them to a place called the Sea of Lighthouses - a world where every possible universe can be can be found through a seemingly endless number of doors. As Elizabeth says, "there are a million, million worlds - all different and all similar." In the end, however, every Bioshock Infinite playthrough has the same finale, with the developers making a statement about supposed free will in video games.
Bioshock Infinite asks a very important question - with strict pathways to adhere to, just how much control does player urgency have within a game? These "all different and all similar" worlds that Elizabeth mentions are the playthroughs of every player, determined by the slight differences in combat scenes rather than by larger narrative changes in a story where the player has a fixed route to take. Although Infinite has its share of critics, in particular over the clash between DeWitt’s violent actions and the game's narrative, in the end Bioshock Infinite's nod to player choice in gaming may well be its lasting legacy.
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So there we have it - our pick of some of the most interesting meta moments in gaming history. Do you agree with our choices? Are there any more meta and self-reflexive games you would like to discuss? Let us know in the comments below!