My forthcoming game A Slow Year is on exhibit at a show curated by Lara Sánchez Coterón, Playful & Playable: Critica y Experimentacion con Videojuegos. It runs until September 15 at Sala Amarica, in Vitoria Gasteiz (in northern Spain). Here’s a description of the exhibition, which also includes work by Eastwood – Real Time Strategy Group, Anita Fontaine y Mike Pelletier, Molleindustria, Derivart, David Pello, Terry Cavanagh and Stephen Lavelle, Robert Yang, Carbon Defense League, Tale of Tales, Martin le Chevallier, Copenhagen Game Collective:
PLAYFUL & Playable is a program of activities addressing the new relationships between the field of video games and contemporary culture, from the position of independent authors, creators and groups.
In these developments outside mainstream and commercial trends, the gaming experience goes beyond the playful subject to settle in the territory of the critical and creative activity.
The program, which will run throughout the second half of 2010 with meetings, workshops, live acts and projections, is looking for prospecting and analyzing videogames as a cultural process, and begins with an exhibition of projects that address the dialogical relationship between player and author- designer-developer on a different perspective.
I know that most of you won’t get to Basque country, so I’ll take the opportunity to offer an update on the progress of A Slow Year. A few of you have emailed me expressing impatience, and indeed I’d hoped to have released the game by now. But I promise the wait will be worthwhile, not to mention thematic!
The game is done, and the Atari boards are ready (thanks to Corey Koltz for his help). The PC/Mac version is also done, although some tweaks to the Windows build are still needed. Mostly, I’ve spent the last month focusing on the framing and packaging of the game. This has turned out to be very, very important, since the game is a challenging one to jump right into. The limited edition Atari set was always going to be special, with a great deal of print matter accompanying the game. But after some considerable debate with myself over manufacturing costs, I’ve settled a way to extend that specialness to the PC/Mac edition. The result is taking a bit longer, but I think it will be worth it.
I’m currently planning to start taking orders next month.
Comments
Bill thinksmartgames.com
Ian,
Have you considered, at all, going a Kalup Linzy or Tino Seghal route? I know these aren’t the best examples, but I’m not as versed in the art world as I am the video game.
I mean to say: limit the number of times you sell Slow, draw up a contact between yourself and your buyers to agree to never “release” the game to the wider world. Turn it into an artificially limited consumable product, fund further projects based on the money earned from treating as salable art?
Although it doesn’t much look like you’re pressing for cash. 🙂
Asking more about your theory. You seem to be about open source, but sell a number of intellectual properties on your sidebar, here.
Ian Bogost
Bill, I’m doing exactly this, actually. There will be a numbered, limited edition that won’t be reproducible, as well as a more general but still naturally limited edition.
As for your question about open source, I participate in several projects whereby benefit, but I also partake of closed things. I do not believe selling wares is evil and thus I partake of such efforts.
Bill thinksmartgames.com
I apologize, I didn’t mean to imply that open source is an all-or-nothing venture. As a wage slave myself, I’m also not one to throw darts – except in some manner I can’t or won’t help or recognize – at people who’ve discovered a “3rd place” in the pursuit of a living.
I’m curious about how you feel, however, about commodifying something that seems destined for widespread dissemination over the internet. Or, if you plan on releasing the software to internet, but selling the tangible copies of the game as the “art”?
Also: as conceptual art is often a hard sell, and buyers often insist on being shown the entirety of a work before sinking in an investment, will you be “showing” the game to prospective buyers online? Or do you feel like what you have up now is enough? Are you planning on showing it in other museums or other forums?
In my head, this seems difficult. Does the game lose value if you allow people to play it first? Why would it? If they can come online and play the game whenever they like, why would they buy it? Those sorts of questions. I think I’m circling something but I can’t name it – the nature of digital art VS the Intertubes or something.
I feel like I had more questions. Oh well.
Ian Bogost
It’s a puzzle isn’t it. Does one choose the influence and potential impact, financial or otherwise, of widespread online distribution, or does one withhold it, in the interest of niche commercial success?
There’s no one answer. One has to think about issues of reception and one’s own goals and figure out a path forward. In the case of A Slow Year, I’m preferring the tangible method, for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is to create a situation in which playing online is simply not an available option. I wouldn’t do that with everything, but with this piece, i think it’s the right answer.