Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

I’m an avid gamer myself, but for some reason I haven’t really touched upon the subject here, so I’m definitely due. Three recent game titles I plowed through inspired this post. I had noticed that pop culture references have become a staple for video games. But where as in movies and TV shows pop culture references and homages have to be done with taste and with a very deft touch (usually the more obscure ones are the most satisfying), but with games, there seems to be far less need for subtlety for them to work. In fact, they can be quite blatant and even outright copying the original works.

The first game I played was the sci-fi RPG-shooter Mass Effect 2. In this game the references aren’t direct, but rather the plot and the surrounding world are a pastiche of previous sci-fi works. I don’t think I encountered a single original element in the universe or plot development that I hadn’t seen or heard in sci-fi movies or TV shows before. The plot drew especially from Babylon 5 at more than one stage.

The second game was Alan Wake, the much-anticipated psychological thriller from Remedy (from Finland!). In terms of pop culture references, the game is completely unapologetic and definitely tongue-in-cheek in how it treats its references. My favorite was probably when FBI agent Nightingale is described as not being fond of the pine trees of Bright Falls and especially hating the local coffee. This is of course a direct reference to Twin Peaks’ main character FBI agent Dale Cooper, who could not stop gushing about the pine trees in Twin Peaks and whose catchphrase of sorts was “Damn good coffee! And hot!” It doesn’t stop there. Alan Wake’s plot borrows heavily from the Johnny Depp movie Secret Window (2004), the game’s physical surroundings are directly copied from Twin Peaks, the “villain” that is the dark presence was inspired by Lost’s smoke monster, the upcoming event in the game “Deerfest” is borrowed from Northern Exposure’s “Moosefest”, the axe scene as well as the maze from “the Shining” are there, the hooded raincoat killer from “I Know What You Did Last Summer” makes a cameo, references to “the Outer Limits”… The list just goes on and on.

The third game is “Red Dead Redemption“. This game is more akin to Mass Effect 2, but with only a single source of inspiration. The game feels like an unauthorized game version of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. Even the score is so much like Enrico Morricone’s classic compositions that I was surprised to learn that the score is an original (or rather, “original”) work. All the characters and plot turns are familiar from Leone’s films. The main protagonist is of course not unlike Clint Eastwood’s lone gunman character.

If these games had been made as movies, they would be probably regarded as complete hack jobs and outrageously unoriginal. But in video game format, they work remarkably well. I personally enjoyed all three games immensely and was very much absorbed in their plots. Spotting the pop culture references and in many cases “acting them out” was probably the biggest thrill in all of the games. And this is what really interests me: what is it about video games that lends itself for this type of very obvious intertextuality? I guess it has to do with the player (you) assuming the role of the protagonist and thus allowing for better immersion in what’s happening. The game doesn’t have to “convince” you into emphasizing the lead protagonist as much as with other cultural products. If anyone out there has any good references for why this is, please let me know.

Video games have been criticized for unoriginality for ages now, the favorite gripe being that “every other video game is about bald space marines”, which really is a pretty apt description, but for some reason these types of games still seem to top sales charts. But I don’t know if this is something that will last or is it just something borne out of lack of alternatives. Maybe video game literacy is still developing and in time these too-obvious references will become less appealing. But for time being, game designers probably should raid the treasure chest that is pop culture with abandon.

Continuing on a theme I wrote about earlier regarding t-shirts that raid pop culture with savvy and disregard to copyright. What intrigued me about the t-shirts was how they they went around copyright laws by referencing bits about movies that were juuuuuuuust out of copyright, sort of speak. I also appreciated the obscurity of the pop culture references, it makes for very fun “reading”.

Lately I’ve stumbled upon two similar examples, which further highlight this trend, but in different ways. The first is an example of just plain ignoring copyright. The way the Internet has opened up commerce is that there’s now a supplier for pretty much everything you could wish for. Take this Ironman sticker I just ordered for my laptop from China. There’s no possibility that a company like Marvel (which holds Ironman’s property rights) could keep track of all of these sellers to shut them down (especially since it’s in China), and the thing is, small retailers like this usually have these great niche ideas such as this that probably wouldn’t make out of the corporate boardroom. They’re creating a unique product that I feel benefits Marvel and Ironman more than it hurts them in lost revenue. (Hat tip to /Film, again).

The second example is closer to the t-shirt example: going around copyright by obscuring your references and use of intellectual property. A graphic designer called Albert Exergian has created some really cool minimalistic movie posters for TV shows. Again, he’s not using anything that could compromise him for legal action (save for the trademarks) so he’s flying under the radar in that sense. But I can really appreciate the creativity that came from these legal constraints. He’s given all these TV shows a unique twist, sort of riddling them.

I think we’ll be seeing more of ventures like these that both challenge copyright but also challenge the consumers’ levels of cultural knowledge. I guess you could call it “piracy done with style”? Or something.