MMPGs as Art Development Plaforms

Intervention aux ICSSEA 2006. 19th International Conference, Software & Systems Engineering and their Applications. Paris, Cnam 5-7 December

MMPGs as Art Development Platforms

Pierre R. Berger

Digital artist. Chair “Les Algoristes”

2A, impasse Marie-Louise.

78600 Maisons-Laffitte, France

Tel: +33 662 605 439 – e-mail: pmberger@orange.fr

Stéphane Natkin

Directeur de l’ENJMIN (École Nationale des Jeux et des Médias Interactifs Numériques)

Professeur titulaire de la Chaire “Systèmes Multimédia” du Cnam

292, rue Saint-Martin, 75003 Paris, France

Tel.: +33140272296 – e-mail: natkin@cnam.fr

Abstract: Digital Art could break new ground through cooperation. MMPGs (Massively MultiPlayer Games) would afford a vast and powerful support, as well for technical and legal standards as for communication, marketing, and interactive creativity.

Key words: Art, development, cooperation, games, platforms, MMPG, property rights, users.

1. INTRODUCTION

The reflections presented here stemmed from very practical issues emerging from the development of Roxame [1], a "painter system". Started in 2001, this system has met today its primary objectives: prove that a computer program may create, without human intervention during the process, pleasant and original works of art (The pioneer in the field is Harold Cohen, with his Aaron program [2], which inspired Roxame).

Though still comparatively small (15000 C++ lines of code), the project seems today outgrow the competencies and time of an isolated artist, and cooperation is looked for. That raises various issues, technical as well as legal and communication/commercial. It may be hoped that a recent and rapidly expanding field could bring answers to all these issues: the Massively MultiPlayer Games (MMPGs).

2. MMPGs AS A COOPERATIVE WORLDS

Computer Graphics is today a vastly cooperating field. Movies and games [3][4], with budgets in ten million dollars, are developed by teams, which are at times counted by hundreds, including a high number of "artists", grouped in complex organizations described for instance by Phil Co [5].

This working environment is certainly far from the romantic image of true "artists". We see the great painter (and he sees himself) more as a Van Gogh in his miserable hotel room than as a employee in his cubicle deep buried in a corporate building!

Individualism may foster genius, but also imprison in mediocrity and lack of true innovation. That is perhaps why the general public does rarely finds happiness in the world of contemporary art, where authentically provoking art is often difficult to distinguish from hoax or commercial hype. It may also justify the fact that digital art is so poorly represented in the main art Shows of Basel, Miami or Paris, as shows for instance James Faure Walker [6].

MMPGs could open the way beyond and forward. As explains Cory Ondrejka in [7], these games need a considerable amount of content to attract and still more to retain players month after month. The key answer is "user creation" by the players.

That begins with mere parameterization of the game, for instance the attributes of avatars representing the users: gender, body size, clothing, fighting capacities ("crafting"). A lot of games encourage the users to build their own private spaces inside the global game universe. It may be done individually or by group of players ("guilds"). Installation of art works, of various kinds, seems natural in these spaces. At a higher level, some players create animation movies from the game (called Machinima) or develop modified versions of the game ("mods"), with or without the blessing of the original developing team [4).

Then, cooperative work of artists in MMPGs would be nothing but a further step in creation, and bring the answer to digital art progress. But, even with motivated artists, how to manage such a collective action?

3. COOPERATION IN MMPGs: TECHNICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES

Ideally, cooperative artists could design, implement, and negotiate specific standards, practices, and legal frameworks to support their collective creation and protect their individual property rights. A lot of professions have built such tools, with EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), syndication tools (RSS) and more recently with Web services [8]. But these constructions are technically difficult. Worse: standards elaboration is costly as well as boring but for dedicated professionals of the specialty.

Then, why could not artists build partnerships with game publishers? These business corporations have the tools, teams, and know-how to manage large and complex workflow [4]). Even after delivery, the MMPGs, a shortening for massively multiplayer games, have to lead and drive large and complex communities of user-players, in strong but supple coordination with their development teams (see several papers in Alexander [7]). One may argue that the goal of a MMPG publisher may be in strong opposition with the aesthetic point of view of the artists[11]. This is probably true in most of the cases, but this type of cooperation has already been experimented informally in open virtual worlds like Habbo Hotel or Second life [12], [13], which economy relies on the user’s creation.

Then, the cooperating digital artists could focus on their irreplaceable role of creation. Among the artistic community, this form of partnership could be pertinent in particular for the "algorists", i.e. artists using their own algorithms as the core of their creations. They would in these worlds fulfil the daring motto of Schoeffer: "The artist's role is no longer to create a work of art, but to create creation" [10]. MMPGs would bring them the engineering platform, the quality assurance, the presentation to the public... and even a rich feedback to push their ideas further.

The chief remaining issue will be to design an appropriate type of contract between artists and publishers. The global legal environment of MMPGs is far from being stabilized. The publishing firms would like to keep control of the whole process. They try to constrain their users by EULA's (End User License Agreements). But the trend goes to a more and more diversified set of roles.

MMPGs are "spaces" if not "universes", and not simply "games" in the traditional meaning. In these New Worlds, social structures progressively integrate structures inspired by the classical ones, public as well as private. The artists, after their ancillary role under princes and churches, then their romantic role devoted to (and more or less stochastically supported by) the "collectors", are here in position to redefine their position and responsibilities, both as individuals and as groups ("studios", "schools", "collectives"...) .

References

[1] See http://www.roxame.com

[2] Pamela McCorduck: Aaron's code. Meta-Art, Artificial Intelligence and the Work of Harold Cohen; W. H. Freeman 1991.

[3] Stéphane Natkin: Jeux vidéo et médias du XXI^e siècle : Quels modèles pour les nouveaux loisirs numériques, Vuibert, Paris, 2004

[4] Stéphane Natkin: Video games and Interactive Media: A Glimpse at New Digital Entertainment; A K Peters Ltd, 2006.

[5] Phil Co: Level Design for Games. Creative Compelling Game Experiences; New Riders, Berkeley CA. 2006

[6] James Faure Walker: Painting the Digital River: How an Artist Learned to Love the Computer; Prentice-Hall, 2006

[7] Thor Alexander (ed.): Massively Multiplayer Game Development 2; Charles River Media, Hingham, MS, 2003.

[8] Jean-Marie Chauvet: Services web avec Soap, WSDL, UDDI, ebXML; Eyrolles, Paris, 2002.

[9] Ron Brinkman: The Art and Science of Digital Compositing; Morgan Kaufman 1999.

[10] Nicolas Schoeffer: Le nouvel esprit artistique; Denoël, Paris 1970.

[11] Stéphane Natkin, Les jeux de demain : télévision ou cinéma interactif ? , in Le game design de jeux vidéo,Approches de l'expression vidéoludique, L’Harmattan Ed, Paris 2006.
[12] See http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/

[13] Rachel Gene, Internet Art, Thames an Hudson ed, 2004 (French version 2005)