The Merchant of Video Games: Adapting the Merchant of Venice into an Adventure Game

De Kluiver, Sjobbe

Dr. Dannie Leigh Chalk

Shakespeare (ENG 388a)

20-12-2015

The Merchant of Video Games: Adapting The Merchant of Venice into an Adventure Game

With the current state of the video game industry and the current popularity around Shakespeare’s works, there is no better time to release a video game that will introduce the public to a play that is not often performed. The Merchant of Venice is a play which shows how people, in that time, thought about Jews in Europe, which will give the players a different view of Europe in that time, but also on how we interact with people of different religions and race. Performing this play as a comedy is difficult in today’s worlds, due to the political pressure that is felt in almost all aspects of society; similarly it is difficult to stage Othello without the audience feeling uncomfortable during particular scenes. However, video games can be made to educate people on these ideas, while still having a “light” feel to them, simply by indicating that they are simply role-playing as someone in that time. There is currently only one game which is a direct adaptation of a Shakespeare play: Hamlet or the Last Game without MMORPG Features, Shaders and Product Placement, It is a simple point and click adventure game with the plot bearing little to no resemblance to that of the original play. The only real similarity between the play and the game are the names of the characters and the setting (mif2000, 2010). By adapting The Merchant of Venice into a roleplaying adventure game, players will be introduced to a relatively unknown play, will be stimulated to think about the themes within the play, such as anti-Semitism and gambling.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted into television-series, live-action movies, plays, as well as non-performance pieces such as a comic books, animated movies and story books. Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted into different plays throughout history includiong West Side Story, Do Your Own Thing and Two Gentlemen of Verona (Abele, 2004, p.3). These adaptations all had specific audiences but especially the non-performance pieces were created to educate people about Shakespeare and his plays. The idea that the messages that Shakespeare weaved into his plays are important and “good” messages for children is not a new one: “In light of Ariès’s thesis, it is no surprise that by the late eighteenth century, children’s grammar books cited the Bard’s words as examples of good speech and good morals” (Gearhart, 2007, p.46). Ariès’s thesis references to Philippe Ariès book, L’enfant et la vie familiale sous l’ancien regime, published in 1960, which argued that childhood was not seen as a period of someone’s life until the idea was introduced in the mid-eighteenth century (p. 46). This theory has continued into modern times with Neil Gaiman’s comic book series Sandman, in which the protagonist “Dream” (also called Morpheus) interacts with different beings; humans, gods, demons and other life forms. The emphasis of this comic book series does not lie in the adventures of the protagonist, in which the world is clear cut into good and evil. Instead the series takes a more meditative approach, with several issues containing no definitive villain and focussing on the nature of reality and responsibility (Castaldo, 2004, p. 98).

Shakespeare appears in only three issues, but two are wholly devoted to his plays and his life, and the second of these holds price of place as the final episode of the entire series. Gaiman does use quotes from popular Shakespeare plays, in the way popular culture often does to give an institutional culture sheen to its creation, but Gaiman’s main interest is not in the plays, but the character of Shakespeare himself. For Gaiman, Shakespeare is a human parallel to Dream, an embodiment of something far greater than a single person, the bearer of something vital to humanity, and because of that, a person weighed down and rules by responsibilities far greater than usual. (p. 99)

Gaiman uses his graphic novel to show how Shakespeare came from humble beginnings to become one of the greatest writers of all time. Several have argued that Shakespeare did not actually write the plays; a glover’s son from Stratford could not possibly be considered the greatest writer of all time (pg. 109). Gaiman suggests the idea that Shakespeare had talent but that he became such a great writer because he made a bargain with Dream; this bargain is only made because Dream sees that Shakespeare wanted it so much. Gaiman presents Shakespeare not as someone with great writing talent, but someone who works incredibly hard to turn this talent into a legacy (pg. 109). By placing this message into a graphic novel series, traditionally a format popular amongst children and teenagers, Gaiman highlights how important it is to work hard to achieve ones goals.

According to Kristie Jolley, junior high school students are more driven to read about video-games that they have played, and she uses this theory to get “reluctant readers” interested in reading, progressing from texts about the video games to texts which deal with either similar settings or themes as the video games (p. 81).

“Games do not exist in a vacuum … They often draw upon or produce material that has social, cultural or ideological resonances, whether these are explicit or implicit and whether they can be understood as reinforcing, negotiating or challenging meanings or assumptions generated elsewhere in society” (King & Krzywinska, 2006, p. 168)

Jolley found that there were many books that were based on video games, and that students assume that once a video game has been released there will be a book and movie to go along with it (p. 85). An observation that Jolley made is that there are many video games based on successful book and/or films, such as Harry Potter, Star Wars,  Lord of the Rings, and James Bond (p. 85).

Within the gaming scene there are many different genres, but one of the earliest to emerge was the adventure game. These are single-player games which focus heavily on story to draw the player in and often have an aspect of puzzle solving to serve as challenges. Adventure games are built around the idea that the player is fully in control, and can get the character they are playing as to do almost anything. As mentioned before, adventure games are storyline driven, with the player role-playing as the protagonist. The player, usually, only gets the information that the protagonist receives, meaning that the whole story must revolve around one character in order for it to be compelling to the player, since the story revolving around a different character than the one that the player is in control of simply turns the game into a movie in which you are a bystander, having little to no effect on the environment. This last idea contradicts the fundamental idea of video games, and interactive media as a whole, it becomes non-interactive. By using the “interactability” of video games, one can give a unique insight into a characters mind, without making the scene feel unrealistic by having asides. In addition, it is the nature of adventure games, with players having complete control and the story being about a singular person’s adventures to be suitable for the creators of the video game to include a moral message in the storyline. As Gearhart says, good morals can be found in Shakespeare’s plays and have been used for centuries to introduce these morals to children (p. 47). The more complex issues of race, gender and class (especially in Shakespeare’s time) are not so suited for children, they cannot see these issues in the world because they live a sheltered life. Teenagers however are much aware of what is happening in the world around them, especially in modern times with the internet giving them access to news sources from around the world. Because teenagers are more aware of the world around them, they are much more able to place the more complex issues of race, gender and class into context. These issues and adventure games seem like a match made in heaven in terms of message and means of communicating this message. Not only does the storyline lend itself to modern media, the themes which are brought up are timeless (in a sense). The theme of anti-Semitism can be transformed into the theme of racism if necessary, in a similar way in which it was done in Yale in 1928 by Gene Tunney (Bruster, 2000, p. 11). The theme of gambling which is discussed in the play is also one which fits the modern world, especially with the recent discussions about fantasy sports sites and whether or not these are considered gambling activities (Wagner, 2015).