By ham
A month has passed since I touched any of my projects. Isn’t it kind of ironic how the one guy who has never planned to work in the gaming industry and who is deriving almost no enjoyment from it was the one that ended up getting hired over what is likely to be thousands of other eager and qualified individuals who would have sacrificed body parts just for the slim chance of getting a foothold in the industry? But that aside, I’m missing the old days of working on my projects terribly. Since I was the lucky(?) bastard that got hired, I guess I can’t complain too much, no matter how grim and hopeless the situation becomes. Not only that, but financing a four month long foreign exchange to Japan will probably put me in debt for a considerable amount of time, so any source of income is necessary – no matter how miserable it is to get that extra penny.
But enough about that. Sadly, since I don’t quite have the time nowadays to work on my projects any more, I can’t bring you detailed reports on my day to day workings. I was kind of hoping that writing up frequent reports about the design process will help other people make their own projects. Since I can’t do that any more, I guess I’ll just talk about various issues about visual novels and reminisce about the good old days. (Considering that just a month ago, I wrote that visual novel development was a rocky road, and now it has become the “good old days,” I imagine that I would describe working for the gaming industry as being stuck on a paddle-less raft in the high seas, in the middle of a hurricane, with a kraken and a leviathan lurking underneath me.)
The first issue that I’ll talk about is controversy. One who is unfamiliar with the English visual novel community will be absolutely shocked at the level of partisanship that exists in the community about certain issues. I admit, I enjoy debates a lot. It’s interesting to see different perspectives clash – you could say one of the virtues of a writer is how well he presents character conflict, or how people with different personalities and beliefs clash with each other. The optimist in me says that since the visual novel community is composed primarily writers like myself, most of the people involved in the various controversies that have struck the community have only a modest interest in the actual substance of the arguments being presented and are arguing because of an interest in seeing character clash. Character conflict is the very stuff of an writer, so why not get into a lot of arguments in the Internet, where the likelihood of actual repercussions is slight and you get the benefit of getting to practice your art?
Of course, the pessimist in me fears that people actually care about the actual substance of the arguments. I would be kind of depressed if this were true… These are visual novels, we’re talking about. In the end, what difference does it make what style or belief somebody designs their game by? They’re making a blasted visual novel here, not formulating something important like national security policy.
For someone like me who enjoys participating and seeing clash, controversy can be interesting. It’s always fascinating seeing how different theories rise and fall and how different factions can arise. However, the controversy has had the unfortunate effect of causing people more adverse to clash to disappear. This is rather unfortunate, since that’s a lot of wasted talent that’s no longer here. I kind of want them to stay around, since having a group of people with different opinions is always necessary for any sort of debate, but alas, they have chosen to remain silent rather than face the clash.
Another problem is the rise of factionalism. This is a problem because the number of different opinions dwindles. An individual opinion that is no more flawed than any other opinion gets squashed not by the logic of a superior argument, but by the sheer force of numbers. What’s ironic here is that there are actually a large number of experienced individuals with different ideas in the community, but none of them speaks out. Perhaps this silence is traced to the two aforementioned problems: First, the fact that some individuals are adverse to clash, and second, that they fear their opinions will be destroyed by the force of numbers rather than through the force of persuasion.
What is to do be done about these problems? Well, I guess an optimist-idealist would lay out some bold plan and some call to action. Unfortunately, I was never known to be any such individual, since changing what has already happened is impossible and changing the massive opinions of the status quo is not much more likely.
The good news is that I don’t think much of these controversies really matter once you begin to work on a project and the ink begins to flow. Everybody can feel free to fight about various theories and beliefs, but all these ideas are simplifications of the actual practice of story writing. Theories are always interesting and accessible for arguments because they are parsimonious simplifications of a much more complicating process.
For example, the “Non-traditional Anime story set up vs. the traditional Anime story set up” is one such area of controversy. There is one camp that demands everything be original and accuse the other camp of being unoriginal, unimaginative, and copy cats. The other camp demands that visual novels reflect animes since that’s how they’re like in Japan and accuses the other camp of being stuffy, pseudo-intellectual, cold snobs. The theoretical clash going on here is both interesting and accessible for argumentation because it is a simplification of the real practice of story writing. In reality, a writer creates a story set up based on a thousand different factors, including and not limited to setting up the potential for character development, the relevance of the setting to the plot, in order to create a certain “mood,” to control the story pace, to create a cast of coherent characters, to appeal to a certain audience, to satisfied one’s own self motivation, etc. Anyone could be the greatest “non-traditionalist anime set up” theorist in the world and completely be capable of trashing anyone else who believes that visual novels should be like animes, but still write nothing but trash because he has no grasp of character creation or plot development.
A second example is the now infamous “effort” question. There is one camp that believes visual novels are to be judged on an objective scale of “good, bad, and ugly” and insist that creators should aim for next to perfect production quality. There is another camp that believes all visual novels are of equal quality regardless of the technical skills of the creator and insist that creators should create rather than perfect. Once again, the theoretical clash going on here is interesting and easy to argue, but it is a simplification of the actual practice and may not be applicable once the creator begins his craft. The technical quality of the visual novel is to be decided upon based on a large number of factors, including but not limited to the need of releasing the game in a reasonable time frame, the availability of labor and funds and the feasibility of acquiring them, the creative aspirations of the writer (meaning, “what is the deeper meaning of this story, or what am I trying to do here?”), the existence of a possible deadline, and the story premise. (A sweeping war epic about the intrigue of 80 characters needs a lot bigger budget and technical skills to pull off than a light hearted romance with two main characters.) Once again, somebody who is a master of arguing that all visual novels are of equal quality may in fact create nothing but trash all his life because he creates low budget games with ugly art when he has both the capability and the story need to create games with higher production quality.
What I’m trying to say here is that these controversies are interesting, but they are in the end, not entirely applicable to the practice of the creator. What is alarming is that these controversies, by their nature, give an air of importance to arguments that aren’t very important. The practice of the writer, artist, or creator, is a complicating one, and only through experience can one begin to grasp its many intricacies. Unfortunately, there is a lot less discussion about the other, bigger aspects of story (or art) creation, mostly because they are more complicating and thus more difficult and time consuming to argue, and because they are far less interesting.
There is actually nothing that has to be done about these controversies. People have been quick to lament that the community is going downhill and that we must all head for the hills. Perhaps this is more so a response caused by clash aversion and factionalism rather than the controversies themselves. Controversies prove to be a valuable asset, since they reveal common beliefs about the practice of visual novel creation. (But seldom the practice itself.) What is more important, however, is the actual task of creating. The various controversies are interesting, and I may choose to participate in some of them for the opportunity to attempt to back one set of values over another and see the interesting consequences of it, but it is imperative that creators focus on their practice rather than the simplifications reflected by the controversies. Creators must develop their own art – their own skills, and gain the capabilities to make reasoned judgments, both in these controversies and in the production of their projects.
