Puerto Rico and The Fountainhead

My wife and I got back from Puerto Rico a few days ago. It was a fun trip, very relaxing, and much needed. Basically the only thing I did while in the Caribbean was sit by the pool and read (with some eating, drinking, and snorkeling thrown in).

In my pre-trip search for a book to read, I stumbled on an old copy of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand that I got from my father several years ago. It's hard to say what drew me to it, not knowing much about Rand or her books, except that I had never read it, and everybody says it's a classic. I'll forego a full review, but I will say that it started out really well, with interesting, complex, and often surprising characters. Unfortunately the story quickly took a back seat to a lot of preaching about the eternal struggle between society and the individual.

Any Ayn Rand critics who happen to be reading this, don't worry. I haven't turned into a raging Objectivist. Nevertheless, Rand's perspective (it's not hard to make a connection between the author's ideas and those of Howard Roark, the protagonist) did strike a chord with me. The notion of the self as humankind's quintessential trait and most valuable asset is hard to refute -- self-awareness being what separates us from the the animals, etc. But more than that, her portrayal of mass media and its influence on unthinking hordes of people was eerily reminiscent of today's reality TV culture.

The Banner (a newspaper in the book) used sex, violence, and gossip the same way CSI uses the shiny object effect ("it's...so...pretty") to draw millions of viewers, and ridiculous editorials in the book's fictional newspaper affected public opinion like today's 24-hour news stations, both of which spew nonsense because they know people just want to be told what to think. There's even a character who bears a healthy resemblance to Jerry Bruckheimer or Rupert Murdoch -- a media mogul who made his fortune by appealing to the lowest common denominator.

So what does any of this have to do with game development? Directly, nothing. But it's easy to make the same arguments about the money-grubbing and lack of originality in the video game industry as Rand made about architecture in The Fountainhead. Ultimately, I wonder if there's anything truly original to be gained from big studios whose collective goal is to rehash past success as quickly as possible. Rand places all her hope in lone, single-minded, and frequently outcast geniuses (Copernicus, Galileo, DaVinci) to move the human race toward a greater future.

Will some indie game developer take the industry in a whole new direction? With the ballooning budgets and shrinking quality of most games today (and art in general), it seems the indie scene is the only place left to look.