We ended last class discussing the parallels between well respected art vs kitsch and video games. Though no great conclusions were reached, some very interesting points were brought up. One such point was in the fact that there is no apparent equal in video games to fine art such as a Goya painting. Especially because a true Goya is valuable in its originality and authenticity. Even very convincing reproductions of it are still not as valuable. Fine art is not made to be mass produced. A large measure of the success of video game however, is how many copies are sold. The more the better. Mass production is desired. Art is valuable in a museum, video games are valuable in you home. I was wondering if this difference could be considered a barrier to video games being established as fine art. I was also wondering if people thought that, given there is a now a video game exhibit in Smithsonian American Art Museum, video games are overcoming that barrier. It is necessary to keep in mind that video games as a medium or art are still extremely young relative to things like painting or sculpture. Perhaps video games will never be totally excepted by the art community, but I believe it is still to early to tell for certain.
Author Archives: bbyrd1
A new focus in videogames: Seeker
All of our recent discussion of the usefulness of videogames is very interesting for me. I spent much of my childhood trying to justify my gaming addiction to my parents whose standard punishment was to ground me from playing my games that they claimed were rotting my brain. Even now, I look back and can’t help thinking of the “more useful” things that I could have spent my time doing. This issue however, may done away with in the near future. Not only are there the various uses for videogames that we have read about and discussed in class, but this article suggests that videogames may even be able to cure ADD. This is an especially interesting claim because of all of the time I have heard people argue that modern technology, especially videogames, are responsible for causing ADD through their quick paced overstimulation that causes people to demand immediate gratification and makes them unable to focus.
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/biofeedback/a/videoadd.htm
First Reader: The Blurring of Play
The readings this week, especially the Whalen piece, were very interesting and enjoyable for me. I have thought for a while that good movies and shows need to be supported by good music as well. The example that came to mind while doing the readings was my favorite childhood show, the Animaniacs. Not only were the movements of the characters in the show supported by many of the musical techniques discussed in the article, but the show was famous for the musical numbers that the characters themselves sang. This made me think of the various innovative ways that music has been used in video games as well.
Two obvious examples, mentioned in the Collins article, were Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Although their novelty has largely worn off by now, when they came out they were revolutionary games that blurred the lines between “playing” video games and “playing” an instrument. Of course, playing Rock Band is nothing like playing actual instruments, but the point is that it brought about a distinct change in the relationship between games and music. The immersion and flow of the video and games is accomplished by music in a very effective and unique way. Instead of deep music in minor keys denoting dangerous territory or pleasant chiming tones associated with gathering money though, familiar music is meant to transport us into the position of our favorite rock stars. It is a kind of play that includes playing instruments, playing video games, and to an extent, even playing make believe, like we discussed in the definitions of play at the beginning of class. In this case, music is not only important as a support to the game, the music is the game. It ought to be acknowledged that, as was discussed in the readings, that there have been Rhythm-Action games since the very early years of video games, but none had ever matched the popularity and depth of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series.
Making our own Narrative
After all the discussion brought up by Gabe’s post about narrative yesterday, I started thinking about more and more. Since it’s been such a prominent topic during class I figured I would post some more thoughts and questions about it and see what you all think.
First off, I think it’s important to remember, as Gabe pointed out, that video games were originally rooted in narrative. I don’t want to repeat all of Gabe’s examples, but I think it’s an important starting point. If games don’t have narrative now, where did they lose it?
Also, I was wondering what you all thought of games as creative space. This relates to games like minecraft and maybe even tetris. Even there is no express narrative, it could be the intent for us to create our own narrative. We already did this in class with tetris, and then we saw an example of someone else who put a very specific narrative to it (the creepy Brazilian version).
Finally, I was also wondering if you thought that maybe intelligence means that there is always some form of narrative in what we do.
Not-So-Pure Process
While reading Gaming earlier this week, and seeing the different categorizations for Gamic Action, I was immediately struck at how many of these lines are already being blurred. At the very start of the reading where Galloway was talking about Pure Process,and then later about the Dromenon, the first thing that popped into my head was reaction command cutscenes. These are cinematic sections of games that also contain (often unexpected) playable moments called reaction commands. I find reaction commends so interesting because (aside from being tons of fun) they are a remarkable step toward making gaming experiences more engaging and integrating the different aspects of video games. They have broken ground in gaining a previously unknown compromise of digetic human and machine action. They also make games more immersive by cutting back on non-digetic acts that call our attention to the fact that it is a game. With that said, I found two of my favorite reaction command sequences to share with you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlq8NRFE6KE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39HkecWiQUI