Even beyond the mediocre showings from the platform holders, this year’s E3 was bad. It’s the first time in many years that I’ve come away from the show without a single new game added to my wish list for the year, and although my preorder list for the rest of 2011 is impressive, they’re all in the September-November window and are never going to command my full attention with that much competition. We’re now more or less halfway through the year and I’ve bought one new retail game.

Without a gaming PC to take advantage of the resurgence there I’m in a console generation that feels like it’s running on fumes when the last one was producing some of its best stuff, and we’re firmly in the transitional period between the introduction of new hardware, which seems to be getting a tepid reaction so far, and unwanted attempts to keep the older systems on life support. Announcements that would have had me dancing in the streets a few years ago now barely register, and a big number on the gaming folder in my RSS reader will have me reaching for the ‘mark all as read’ button rather than settling down to pore over what’s new.

As silly as it sounds when games like Uncharted 3, Skyrim and Dark Souls will soon be upon us, I really feel like I’m falling out of love with gaming. It’s something that’s been an important part of my life for a couple of decades and it just seems to slowly be slipping away with barely a whimper.

Those certain classics might salvage something for this year, but it feels like papering over the cracks. It’s like Transformers 3, ending with something spectacular to make people forget the shitfest they just sat through and leave with a smile on their face.

Is it just me, or is something broken? Maybe I’m just too close to things now and I liked it better when I was on the outside looking in? Maybe everyone’s decided to write this generation off and try harder next time? It certainly feels that way when well over half of my purchases so far in 2011 have been bargain-priced games from the last few years that I missed out on when they came out. I like Civilization V, Undead Nightmare, Heavy Rain and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, but they’re not going to fill up my GOTY list come December and they certainly what I was expecting to be filling my gaming time with at the turn of the year.

I hope I’m just being dramatic, but still, the next generation can’t come soon enough.

Now this is a one-time-only thing, because although this is an important argument in a sense, it’s one that I’m sick to death of hearing about. Someone says otherwise, gamers variously trumpet the likes of Ico or flame the person in question, and then we repeat the whole thing again a few weeks later. Roger Ebert has done it again, with the prominent movie critic reiterating his stance that games can never be art. Some points I agree with, some I disagree with, and some of his statements are factually wrong; gamers’ responses have ranged from decent to predictably defensive and/or vitriolic.

So, are games art?

Yes.

Any creative product is art, be it a film, a game, a painting, a sculpture, a novel, a poem, a play, or anything else. As far as I’m concerned, this is indisputably true, and if I could quite happily leave the argument there.

The difference comes in artistic merit. The Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David and the doodle on the back of my notebook are all art, but no one’s going to argue that the former two are worth far more, both monetarily and in every other sense. Likewise, Citizen Kane and 2001: A Space Odyssey are both far more worthy than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but all three are art in some sense. Creating art is one of the primary motivating factors to all but the most commercial of filmmakers, and as a result there are a lot of films with artistic merit.

Artistic merit is where gaming can fall short, because it’s still treated as a commodity, an industry driven by sequels and following the leader. Shadow of the Colossus, Katamari Damacy, Okami, BioShock and Grim Fandango are examples of games that I would consider to be artistically important for various reasons, while I couldn’t say the same for FIFA or the latest movie-licensed game. FIFA is art, but I’d never show it to someone to show them what the medium can do beyond be a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

My personal opinion is that part of the problem is that there aren’t enough gaming auteurs. Too many are designed by committee and marketing departments, and while I could reel off dozens of great directors, authors or musicians from the last 30 years who have created true art within their media, there still aren’t that many in gaming. Miyamoto and Kojima are two who can be assured top billing and have the clout to get their pet projects made on their name alone, but beyond them you’re probably going to be struggling already, and knowledge of them outside those who follow the industry is almost nil. There’s also very little opportunity for people with big ideas to get their game through development and then into gamers’ hands through commercial channels, with the indie art project games usually either curiosities on the PC or, at best, a sleeper hit on the iPhone.

I’d almost say that the early arcade games did a better job of being artistic in their own right, because they were gaming in its purest form – interactive art, often made by a handful of people. Things like Electroplankton are their direct descendants.

I’m sorry if this seems like doom and gloom, but we have to remember that gaming is a young medium. It’s only 15 years or so that it’s been able to tackle the bigger issues by presenting us with something beyond bleeps and bloops – although my previous point on the artistic merit of those stands – and those gaming auteurs are starting to emerge, however slowly. Film wasn’t taken seriously as anything more than a technical gimmick at the beginning, and rock music was once the downfall of civilisation that games now are.

When today’s gamers are tomorrow’s art critics and we have more developers whose body of work is big and pretentious enough to be called an oeuvre, and maybe when you can make a go at getting an independent game on the shelf next to the new Call of Duty, then we’ll be the ones complaining that this new-fangled holographic VR nonsense isn’t art. That’ll show ‘em.

Just a quick post, really, to say that I’m still around and this site isn’t dead, and with any luck I should be back to business as usual before too long. A mixture of moving house and having to get Internet access sorted, deadlines at work, and not actually playing that many games for a combination of the aforementioned reasons has conspired to keep me away, and the relative dearth of news hasn’t helped. But with a return for a series that I have an affinity for next week – I’ve already been through the demo several times, and I’m chomping at the bit to get my hands on the full thing – as well as some potentially interesting developments, I foresee plenty to talk about.

In other words, reports of my disappearance were an exaggeration. More soon.

Independent publishers are something of a rarity these days, what with them generally either going under or being absorbed into one of the big guys, and some are better than others. This is a love letter to one in particular, which has constantly impressed me over the last few years and doesn’t seem to get nearly enough credit.

I’ve steadily built up a library of RPGs from Atlus over the past couple of generations, mainly in the Shin Megami Tensei series, and they’re universally excellent, challenging and fun, and the publisher is one of the best in the world when it comes to quality of its translations. Taking the very Japanese Persona series as an example, they were lovingly translated while keeping the original spirit without being obtrusive (1UP has a good interview on the methodology behind the localisation of Persona 4 here) and given great dubs, which could only really have been improved by the inclusion of the original voiceovers.

Also, special editions, limited editions, whatever you call them, most publishers’ are usually neither. Atlus’s, on the other hand, are frequently both. A soundtrack CD is the least that can be expected, up to lavish art books, guides, slipcases, and the rest. It’s a good reason to be cynical about £10 extra for a tin and download code, and it takes something special from anyone else for me to care any more. Only the late Working Designs was better for its treatment of obscure games.

And given that these editions are actually limited, they’re invariably good investments. The Demon’s Souls Deluxe Edition only came out in October and is already comfortably topping £150 on eBay. And while I might suspect certain studios of holding back copies of their out-of-print games and leaking them onto auction websites when they’re selling for hundreds – I have no evidence to support that accusation, I hasten to add – Atlus isn’t averse to running normal-price reprints of its rarest games. It might disappoint the hawks on eBay, but it’s a nice feeling to get a brand new sealed copy of a rare game like Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne or Digital Devil Saga – both superb, by the way – without paying over the odds for them.

The brilliant Demon’s Souls currently has me in thrall – seriously, either import it or hope for a European release – and I’ll be rekindling my relationship with the Persona series now that Persona 3 Portable is confirmed for an English-language bow. I make no secret of the fact that prefer RPGs on a portable system and so that represents my best chance to actually put in the 100-odd hours required to finish it. Port the superior Persona 4 and I’ll be yours forever.

Atlus is part of a rare breed these days, not only as a Japanese company that’s successfully doing its thing on the current generation but as a studio that treats its games and its fans right. How many of those are there? Valve maybe? This is one endangered species that I’d love to keep around.

I adored BioShock, and while it lost some of its lustre and great ideas once it reached a certain point, one thing that I couldn’t criticise it on was the lack of multiplayer. It was never an issue as the actual FPS mechanics weren’t anything special, and it was the isolation and the experience of exploring this strange world on your own that really drove me forwards.

It reminds me of Metroid Prime, where a fantastic sort-of FPS that was about exploring a strange new world by yourself was met with criticism for its lack of multiplayer. And sure enough, where Metroid Prime 2 came with a half-baked multiplayer, BioShock 2 is set to come with its own effort.

Back when Metroid did it, I can remember making the argument that multiplayer is completely at odds with what makes both Metroid Prime and the Metroid series as a whole great. The games, up until then, were all about being isolated on a hostile alien world, exploring while hunting and being hunted, and even when it moved into the first-person perspective those were still the ideas that carried it. It was never a shooter, in other words, and therefore didn’t need deathmatch, and that description pretty much entirely applies to BioShock as well.

Just look at where Metroid has ended up. Hunters and Prime 3 aren’t bad, but Samus and her bounty hunter friends don’t feel like Metroid to me.

I hate this need to clamour for the bullet point on the back of the box. It’s disrespectful to the effort that goes into crafting a rewarding single player, and while I could understand it if, say, a Call of Duty came without multiplayer, it’s wrong to say that every game needs it. Complaining that a story-led FPS doesn’t come with multiplayer is devaluing a great work in order to appeal to people who don’t appreciate the work that went into the game anyway, like criticising Schindler’s List for not having enough action scenes.

I don’t like to sound like a pretentious twat, which I think is somewhere that this argument comes dangerously close to taking me, but I really think there’s a point here. Starbreeze makes fantastic first-person adventures and has had a great reputation for this since the first Riddick game on the Xbox, and both subsequent releases in this vein, The Darkness and Assault on Dark Athena, have had, respectively, shockingly bad and mediocre multiplayer modes that nobody plays anyway. The people who appreciate the games have no interest in the multiplayer, and the people who would whine about the exclusion have games that they’d rather play in Call of Duty and Halo. Developers should save the money and make an even better story.

To me, this is another example of why games aren’t taken seriously, and it doesn’t help when the gaming media is often guilty of marking games down for not coming with multiplayer, continuing to mix up objective consumer advice and a review, because they’re not the same thing. Games are art, are they? Well then we’d better mark down Hamlet for not having any musical numbers.

I had to shake my head when I saw that MadWorld didn’t even manage to chart in the latest NPDs, although it wasn’t exactly an unexpected event given the underperformance of No More Heroes, which seems aimed at a similar – apparently non-existent – demographic. Sad, but like I said, not unexpected. You can make your game as violent and funny as you like, but some are just too artsy for their own good.

What should be worrying for fans of more traditional games on Nintendo platforms, however, is how Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars appears to have flopped massively, selling 89,000 units against analysts’ predictions of anywhere from 200,000 to several million. If a game with a score of 94 on Metacritic and, oh yeah, a title containing the little-known words Grand Theft Auto can sell that badly, it doesn’t bode well for more mature titles on the platform. As much as I love my Ouendan and Phoenix Wright, I’m only human and would like to deal some heroin on my lunch break when that itch needs scratching.

Some blame piracy, and anecdotally I know of a lot of people who downloaded it, but R4 carts can’t be that prevalent. The fact is that Nintendo hasn’t been what it used to be for a lot of fans, myself included, since the disappointment of the GameCube, and I know many for whom the great library on the DS is the only thing keeping Nintendo from being written off as a lost cause. If that dries up completely you can see why Nintendo domination is a scary thought for some.

I’m not one of those who’s ready to cut Nintendo adrift, because I still see flashes of brilliance in games like Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3 to make me forgive Wii Music or Wii Play, but if decent adult games aren’t going to do anything on the Nintendo platforms I think it’s time to admit that, as some have suspected since the GameCube, Nintendo machines are for Nintendo games. The Wii is a great secondary console to play that odd gem that won’t show up anywhere else, but I think most hardcore gamers will agree when I say that the lion’s share of modern gaming will be done on the HD options.

And if you own Nintendo’s consoles and haven’t bought MadWorld or Chinatown Wars, congratulations. You’ve forfeited the right to complain when all Nintendo gives you at E3 is crushing disappointment.