I Feel Like I've Done This Before

The funny thing about the “younger generation is lazy and lacks morals/virtue” is that they were saying that shit in socrates’ time

(via monetizeyourcat)

Some Mental Vomit about Video Games as Art

To be honest, I’ve always been surprised that this was ever a topic of debate. Mostly, I think it’s sort of a straw man argument that gamers make to justify spending hella time playing computer games. “MOM. I’m NOT WASTING TIME. I’M APPRECIATING ART.”

You can spend hella time watching movies, and it’s still wasting time. But the question kind of does touch for me that age-old question, “what makes art?” So, in asking “Are videogames art?” you kind of get a backdoor on that whole conversation. So I’m tackling it because, hell, why not.

Short answer: Yes, of course.

Long Answer: I think most approaches to the “are video games art” that try to examine the so-called “artistic elements” of a video game are sort of inherently flawed, though. You don’t watch a movie for the writing necessarily. You don’t even watch it for the visuals or special effects. What makes a movie good or bad isn’t its component parts, its how a cinematographer and a director, and a whole team of artists work together to create a finished film.

Looking at the quality of the writing in a video game seems, if you’ll permit me a straw man, like examining the riveting-work on the Statue of Liberty. Sure, it’s important, and sure, without it the whole thing falls apart, but if the riveting alone, or the size alone, or the shape alone is what becomes for a viewer the definition of the Statue of Liberty as a monument, then I think there might have been a fundamental point missed.

Good writing, good gameplay design, and good visual elements are components that make a good game. Of course, there’s a tremendous technical side underlying the presentation of the game, but pretty much every medium that doesn’t involve rubbing charcoal on a cave wall requires some level of technical know-how in order to be achieved.

Ceramicists need to know how a kiln works so their pots don’t blow up. Someone needs to mix paints and understand how pigments work. Photography is entirely premised on the construction of a machine that exposes light for a fraction of a second on a specially treated plastic surface that is then enlarged onto a piece of paper that can be chemically altered to reproduce an image. So video games require nerds with keyboards. So it requires specialized hardware to enjoy.

A medium doesn’t cease being art because it utilizes science. In fact, the precise opposite is true: art is art because it is the truest expression of a technology.

hi i just got home so this is hella late but i think a far better and more interesting question than “are video games art” is “why is the writing in video games almost universally so poor” because its pretty hard to disagree with the premise and you can usually have a better discussion

3liza:

traversefamilypicnic:

because all video games are genre fiction. because “gameplay” entails either violence or something that nobody will buy, or something (like tennis? the sims?) that doesn’t require writing to begin with.

because good writing has never outsold satisfying headshots or (for jrpgs) progressive numerical advancement.

because good writing, like antistropic filtering, is something that most gamers don’t quite understand, but realize that there should be more of. more is better, but you that could do without, should the headshots or the numbers be satisfying enough.

or maybe just because good writing is hard to quantify and video games are a brave new world. i think Hotline Miami was well written but not by the same standards that I would apply to a book or play or movie or whatever.

MAYbe the answer lies SOMEwhere in the MIDDLE     

counterpoint to the assertion that good writing does not outsell headshots: Valve

Counter-counterpoint: Their games are still centered around really good mechanics. The writing and art are really just window dressing to the activity the player is actively doing. It’s like, the difference between a carnival ride and a bike ride. A carnival ride takes you on a fixed path to see a bunch of things that are neat. A bike ride takes you pretty much anywhere you need to go, and you’re probably biking for biking’s sake. But it’s nicer to bike on a pretty trail than an ugly one.

Note to Self:

Write an article about addressing anti-Americanism and Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. Title it “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Muhammad?”