Posted May 30, 2018
The game Agony is the latest to bring up thi subject. (For those not already up to speed: Agony is a game set in Hell of sorts. It has promised explicit sexual content and explicit violent and gory content since it's announcement. And then on release day? just before release day? it was announced that some pieces of explicit content were cut in order to release in more countries? regions? on more selling platforms? This was predictably met with calls of censorship (!) and a violation of the developers' original intent or vision.)
I'm going to opine here about all that. And I am a song wrier - published. And I have played in and led bands that played for pay. So there. No, really, that's my qualifications for my opinions. I have some real-life experience to back them up. Doesn't mean I'm right, but it does mean that I'm not just talking from my ass.
First point - I think "original vision" is a misleading term. There isn't really an "original" vision. There is a first idea - which may actually make it through intact to the final product. But that is rare, actually. Usually there is just a hint, a whiff of the first idea left in the final product. I would say that the first idea is not actually all that important in the end. I would pay more attention to the final vision. That is, what does the artist come to finally after all the working out of puzzles, the throwing away of badly implemented ideas, the self-editing, the hours of work, the living with an idea for a while so that it grows into something more. Now, in Agony's case, it is indeed this final vision that got cut at the last minute. So, right there I actually agree with the bitchers - I just want to clarify our terms. Because, sometimes people bitch about a lost or censored or cut "original vision" that I would say was actually just an "early vision."
Second point - There is a big difference in work that is the product of an individual and work that is the product of a team. And the larger the team, the more difference there is. Take, for example, Skyrim. I hear people all the time say that they will never mod Skyrim because they want to experience the game as the developers' intended it. In that case, I say, "bollocks." Skyrim was a slightly different game every day of it's development, right up to the moment of release. And then it was a slightly different game every time a patch was released, or an integrated DLC was released. A big sprawling project like Skyrim (or like the TV series Game of Thrones) is amorphous throughout its development. The only time a piece of it is frozen into a final form is when it is released. And we constantly violate that final form. In software, with patches. In TV and movies with alternate endings, deleted scenes and the like. It would be better if we all accepted that art is only finished in the sense that we stop working on it. There is no inherent finished state that is inviolable. Bob Dylan continues to change his songs even now when he performs them. And other people change them when they perform them. Art is a lot less holy and abstract than we sometimes acknowledge. It is a lot more incarnate and changable and temporary.
Third point - There are different kinds and different degrees of censorship. And the word censorship doesn't fit them all equally well. The best fit is when the word is applied to a power structure who interferes in a work of art against the wishes of the artist(s). Think of Hitler burning books, or the US government seizing shipments of Tropic of Cancer at the ports, or of the studio recutting Terry Gilliam's Brazil without his participation. Another kind of censorship I think is better thought of as pressure. Think Valve refusing to carry a game unless certain cuts are made. Valve doesn't have the power to come and take your game and make their own changes to it against your will. But the pressure they exert is powerful, and many companies will acquiesce unhappily because they need the money and don't see another way. Another kind of censorship is one where I think the word should be dropped entirely, just for the sake of clarity and to stay away from unhelpful hyperbole. This is the case when someone intimately connected with the production of the work of the art strongly suggests a change - perhaps even under the ultimatum of leaving if their demand is not met. Think of any band member who was fired or who quit over "creative differences." What happened there was there was a conflict of "vision." And it was solved by the silencing of one voice. Take it one step further. One person is writing a song, and there are two written verses, each takes the song in a very different direction. The writer chooses one and "censors" himself by discarding the other. It's a choice. Sometimes a difficult choice. But choices about waht to cut and what to keep are all throughout the creative process. I think it's only censorship when it does against the will of the artist.
Fourth point - I do not think censorship is always a bad thing. Take the case of G.G. Allin. The man did things like defecate on stage. You can look him up. I am in favor of using the law to prevent defecation on stage. I know there are people who disagree with me. I think where we draw the line at what to use the law to prevent and what to use the law to protect is the responsible practice of politics. I don't think this or even most political problems are solved by putting abstract absolute rules in place. I think most things are worked out in compromise, in many changes, some big, some small, over time. And many things are never entirely settled but shift back and forth over time.
Applying my own thoughts to the Agony case... First, here are the relevant facts and quotes:
"Please bear in mind that leaving this content uncensored would result in the game being banned and us, Madmind Studio, being sued," the message says. "That would simply lead to the studio being closed. Obviously, we don’t want this to happen and we hope that you understand it."
Instead, it will publish a "comparison video" on May 30, "so you will not miss out [on] anything," a statement that, intentional or not, really highlights where much of the interest in Agony really lies.
This seems like both the second and the first kind of censorshiop - both commercial pressure and the threat of legal action used to change a work of art against the will of its creator(s).
I'm going to opine here about all that. And I am a song wrier - published. And I have played in and led bands that played for pay. So there. No, really, that's my qualifications for my opinions. I have some real-life experience to back them up. Doesn't mean I'm right, but it does mean that I'm not just talking from my ass.
First point - I think "original vision" is a misleading term. There isn't really an "original" vision. There is a first idea - which may actually make it through intact to the final product. But that is rare, actually. Usually there is just a hint, a whiff of the first idea left in the final product. I would say that the first idea is not actually all that important in the end. I would pay more attention to the final vision. That is, what does the artist come to finally after all the working out of puzzles, the throwing away of badly implemented ideas, the self-editing, the hours of work, the living with an idea for a while so that it grows into something more. Now, in Agony's case, it is indeed this final vision that got cut at the last minute. So, right there I actually agree with the bitchers - I just want to clarify our terms. Because, sometimes people bitch about a lost or censored or cut "original vision" that I would say was actually just an "early vision."
Second point - There is a big difference in work that is the product of an individual and work that is the product of a team. And the larger the team, the more difference there is. Take, for example, Skyrim. I hear people all the time say that they will never mod Skyrim because they want to experience the game as the developers' intended it. In that case, I say, "bollocks." Skyrim was a slightly different game every day of it's development, right up to the moment of release. And then it was a slightly different game every time a patch was released, or an integrated DLC was released. A big sprawling project like Skyrim (or like the TV series Game of Thrones) is amorphous throughout its development. The only time a piece of it is frozen into a final form is when it is released. And we constantly violate that final form. In software, with patches. In TV and movies with alternate endings, deleted scenes and the like. It would be better if we all accepted that art is only finished in the sense that we stop working on it. There is no inherent finished state that is inviolable. Bob Dylan continues to change his songs even now when he performs them. And other people change them when they perform them. Art is a lot less holy and abstract than we sometimes acknowledge. It is a lot more incarnate and changable and temporary.
Third point - There are different kinds and different degrees of censorship. And the word censorship doesn't fit them all equally well. The best fit is when the word is applied to a power structure who interferes in a work of art against the wishes of the artist(s). Think of Hitler burning books, or the US government seizing shipments of Tropic of Cancer at the ports, or of the studio recutting Terry Gilliam's Brazil without his participation. Another kind of censorship I think is better thought of as pressure. Think Valve refusing to carry a game unless certain cuts are made. Valve doesn't have the power to come and take your game and make their own changes to it against your will. But the pressure they exert is powerful, and many companies will acquiesce unhappily because they need the money and don't see another way. Another kind of censorship is one where I think the word should be dropped entirely, just for the sake of clarity and to stay away from unhelpful hyperbole. This is the case when someone intimately connected with the production of the work of the art strongly suggests a change - perhaps even under the ultimatum of leaving if their demand is not met. Think of any band member who was fired or who quit over "creative differences." What happened there was there was a conflict of "vision." And it was solved by the silencing of one voice. Take it one step further. One person is writing a song, and there are two written verses, each takes the song in a very different direction. The writer chooses one and "censors" himself by discarding the other. It's a choice. Sometimes a difficult choice. But choices about waht to cut and what to keep are all throughout the creative process. I think it's only censorship when it does against the will of the artist.
Fourth point - I do not think censorship is always a bad thing. Take the case of G.G. Allin. The man did things like defecate on stage. You can look him up. I am in favor of using the law to prevent defecation on stage. I know there are people who disagree with me. I think where we draw the line at what to use the law to prevent and what to use the law to protect is the responsible practice of politics. I don't think this or even most political problems are solved by putting abstract absolute rules in place. I think most things are worked out in compromise, in many changes, some big, some small, over time. And many things are never entirely settled but shift back and forth over time.
Applying my own thoughts to the Agony case... First, here are the relevant facts and quotes:
"Please bear in mind that leaving this content uncensored would result in the game being banned and us, Madmind Studio, being sued," the message says. "That would simply lead to the studio being closed. Obviously, we don’t want this to happen and we hope that you understand it."
Instead, it will publish a "comparison video" on May 30, "so you will not miss out [on] anything," a statement that, intentional or not, really highlights where much of the interest in Agony really lies.
This seems like both the second and the first kind of censorshiop - both commercial pressure and the threat of legal action used to change a work of art against the will of its creator(s).
