Category Archives: First Readers

The Limits of Videogames of the Oppressed

At the beginning of Frasca’s article, he asks some rather conceptual questions:

Is it possible to design videogames that deal with social and political issues? Could videogames be used as a tool for encouraging critical thinking? Do videogames offer an alternative way of understanding reality?

After reading Bogost’s book, we all know that the answers to these questions is yes.  As I’ve said before, it’s much harder to find things that you can’t do with videogames.  It’s more interesting to ask the quantitative versions of these questions.  In other words, how useful are games that deal with political or social issues?

The answer to this question is “not very useful.”  I come to this answer by looking at the asymmetry of people who play videogames and people who care about social and political issues.  Other than Professor Sample, what cultured, intelligent adult that you know plays videogames?  (Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an attack on Prof. Sample; it’d be pretty chill if my Dad liked COD as much as I do.)  Furthermore, what 12 to 22-year-olds (outside of the GMU Honors College of course) develop imformed opinions about social and political issues?  These questions make it clear that games of a socially critical nature have a very limited audience.

My overall point of this post is this: non-entertaining and non-educating videogames are only made to show that videogames don’t have to entertain or educate. Other than that, they’re pretty useless.

I don’t like Gonzalo.

I wasn’t very fond of Gonzalo’s analyses, especially the part about simulation and representation. I think that videogames can very well be narratives. According to dictionary.com, the definition of narrative is:

  1. a story or account of events, experiences, or the like,whether true or fictitious.
  2. a book, literary work, etc., containing such a story.

Notice that it has “etc. containing such a story”, which means that it is not confined to printed, non-technology texts. If it were, wouldn’t it be improper to call a story written on a computer a narrative? A vast number of videogames have narratives that support the purpose for the game and the goals of the game. Take gameboy pokemon games, for example, as you play, you meet people, battle, proceed to the next level, etc., and each time you do so, you are presented with texts to read. Regardless of whether you read them or simply press “A” to get past the texts, it tells the audience a story, or a narrative. You could, essentially, say it is a computerized picture book. In order to understand a children’s level picture book, one must interpret it and “access its content”. He doesn’t go into any depth about what he means by that, so I’m going to say he’s talking about accessing certain objects/levels/clues/whatever within the game. However, you find the same things in a lot of children’s books. For example, pop-up books or hidden pictures or texts underneath a flap are both examples of needing to “access its content”.

The other thing that I didn’t agree with was Gonzalo wrote, “narrative is based on semiotic representation, while videogames also rely on simulation”. Representation and Simulation are not opposites, so it’s not one or the other. Videogames are both representations and simulations. When playing games, we interpret (Gonzalo also said we use interpretation with games) representations of actual things which allow us to get the feeling of the simulation. Ergo, his claim that videogames are only simulations and not representations is incorrect.

Monotony as a form of Meditation

In Tuesday’s class we obviously focused extensively on the Relaxation chapter of Ian Bogost’s book. Part of the discussion that caught my ear was the way monotonous tasks can induce relaxation along with the introduction of “meditation” games into the videogame genre. The article I found talks briefly about how monotonous tasks increase the alpha activity of the brain. This phenomenon of increased alpha activity has also been seen in the early stages of meditation. Essentially, this means that simple monotonous tasks, such as clicking a mouse repeatedly, can in some way induce a state of relaxation or even meditation.

Let’s Talk About Porn

Today in class, Cole brought up the point that no one had talked about the “Titillation” chapter from Ian Bogost’s book, and that only several (I believe 20 or so) video games have ever attained the ‘Adults Only’ rating from the MSRP.  More importantly, he raised the question as to whether or not video games will ever get to the point of other pornography medias (such as movies and the internet), or will video game industries continue to strive for the coveted M rating system for their games.  I found this point interesting since pornography is prevalent in all other media types, with the exception of video games.  It makes sense that major video game industries would want to not release any titles with an ‘Adults Only’ rating, as it may sway loyal buyers, especially parents, away from the brand.  However, with pornography being a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States, it is interesting that video games haven’t tried to cash in.

One reason that video games may not have tried to release a pornographic game is that making a video game is much more complicated than making a real life pornographic movie in that it requires much more effort and programming; something that perhaps a whole team of developers would not want to be associated with, especially if they are established.  Also, putting money into a game that may or may not be a success, or rather not even be allowed to be sold, is another inherent risk of making a risqué video game.  However, I believe that pornography will start to spill over into video games (not that I am petitioning for it).  With the vast market of pornographic material already available in other media outlets, it’s hard to believe that video games will not soon be next.  It will take a ‘special’ group of developers, programmers, and a morally loose company to allow such a thing, but pornography will soon be available to play on your home consoles, so make sure to look out for your kids!

One-Play Stand?

After having a long class discussion on the use of casual games and its particular definition, reading Bogost’s Throwaways chapter may have finally put a firm grasp on what we had been exploring, yet at the same time it helped me realize that the lines between these definitions in reality tend to be very blurred. He does this by offering a new perspective on casual games: the one-play stand. These are games, also called “Newsgames,” that have enough content to be thought-provoking, but are fleeting and temporal in nature. You don’t return to them as you do with other games, but rather you linger on them for a matter of minutes and then throw them away, much as you would with a newspaper. This kind of definition gives a new angle into the world of casual gaming and I appreciated it for the mere fact that he accepts the fact that casual is indeed such a widely sweeping word that there really is no way of pinpointing down what it includes and does not include.  For example, he points out that casual games (“as in Friday”) often cause the players to return to them over and over again, despite the fact that the level of gameplay and time commitment in the moment is minimal. Others, given their price, appear to be relatively casual in the sense that they are “easy to learn, difficult to master.” The time commitment on these types of “casual games” ends up being astronomical and costly. It is when we see stories like these that we begin to wonder when games that are “casual” really do fall under the definition. They’re meant to be quick, easy, and made for people who don’t particularly care, yet still they end up using up more time and energy than they realize. Newsgames, such as Airport Security, give a fresh perspective on the definition on casual games (“as in sex”), and how we can often enjoy the moment, then forget it.

Relaxation in Games

Chapter 13 of Bogost’s How to Do Things with Videogames talks about “Relaxation.” Bogost concludes the chapter by asserting that for relaxation, “designers and players… must reject the principle of engagement,” and that “Relaxation and reflection arise from constrained environments in which the senses are de-emphasized and focused rather than escalated and expanded.”

While I agree that a kind of “constrained environment” is required for a game to actually be relaxing, I don’t think it’s necessary to “reject the principle of engagement,” or even to “de-emphasize” the senses.

For me, walking outdoors is probably, aside from sleeping, the single most relaxing act I can commit. But —aside from the element of exercise— it relaxes me not because my environment is not engaging, but largely because it is a “constrained environment” in that the scene is familiar and seems safe. I don’t normally have to expect an enemy to jump out at me (and if I did I certainly wouldn’t be relaxed). I have not played Bogost’s Meditation Guru, but it seems to me that the only reason the Atari platform might be more conducive to relaxation than another platform in this instance is simply because the player is aware of the extreme limits of the technology and would not expect a major curveball in terms of what they will have to do. I don’t think the lack of graphical sensuality has much to do with it at all.

It seems to me, then, that the greatest obstacle to creating a relaxing game is not an sensually engaging diegetic environment, but an unpredictable one. Simply doing nothing does not produce calm; it is freedom from uncertainty that allows a player to truly relax.

texture of games

While reading Ian Bogost’s chapter on texture in videogames, I was trying to think of ways that texture has not yet been incorporated in games.  Bogost outlines the basics of game texture:

What I’ll call visual texture is the texture mapping in the programming of a game to make surfaces look as though they’re more than just television screen.  In any game, different pieces will show different textures, in an effort to either depict the game world as close to reality as possible or just to differentiate between elements.  Hair is different from wooden floorboards is different from that leather pouch your hero carries.

Then there’s “simulated properties,” like traction, friction, and the way a character struggles to move through a swamp (these are just a few properties mentioned by Bogost).  It seems to me that this all contributes to the realism of a game, but doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with texture.

Although I see how Bogost relates these things to the overall texture of the game world- the look and feel, if you will- that’s just the thing.  To me, texture means touch. Whether it’s at our fingertips or in our mouth, a texture is something for which we don’t need our eyes to sense it. And in these games, every sensory input is coming from our eyes and occasionally ears.  The closest games get to the touch version of texture is the rumble- but even that is just a substitute for the ‘real’ thing, an abstraction away from what the character is supposed to be feeling.

Can we someday create a video game that effectively communicates texture as touch sense, without leaving behind the video aspect and returning to classic games? Should we bother trying? Perhaps it would be better to embrace that video games are VIDEO games.  And with the increasing presence of the touch screen over the last couple of years: these screens have their own texture, but is there a way to incorporate different textures into the games we play on our phones and tablets? I guess I’ll leave it to the programmers and engineers.

The Purpose of Kitsch Games

In chapter twelve, “Kitsch,” of How to Do Things with Videogames, Bogost compares the paintings of Thomas Kinkade to these games of kitsch – “art urging overt sentimentality, focused on the overt application of convention, without particular originality” (Bogost 83).  Bogost seems to suggest that the only purpose for these games is to acquire tens of millions of players as Kinkade’s pieces sell tens of millions of copies.

I wonder if, though, we could perhaps find another purpose for these games. Perhaps the creators of these kitsch games did truly have something else in mind when they created the games. Perhaps these games could be used for some sort of anti-depressant for younger children. The games are simple, bright, and cheery. This positive message could be used for children who tend towards depression and suicidal thoughts.

I wonder if these games could be used for art as well. Bogost explains that many of these games can be truly beautiful and focus on the music in the game quite a lot. The players could look at these games as pieces of art and/or pieces of music.

I guess my main question for this chapter would be questioning the purpose of kitsch games. Do they truly have a purpose? Are they just games to attract tens of millions of players? Is it all for money? Or did the creators of these games have an underlying purpose for their games such as the two listed above? Are there any other purposes for these games? Or are they stupid casual games that no one should truly care about?

Using Video Games to Socialize

Re-posted from earlier but to the right place this time.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/video?id=5826748

 

Much of the discussion in class has been about what video games can do for people.  When playing the game “Passage” in class, I found it interesting that if you picked up a wife it would then be more difficult to do more things in the game, such as navigate around different obstacles.  While we all made the obvious metaphor that having a wife can hold one back from fulfilling other goals in life, I looked more deeply into the thought that being entangled in video games lead to a less social aspect of life, or not picking up your wife to be able to navigate around more obstacles in this case.  However, contrary to the ‘stereotype’ of gamers, playing video games is a useful tool to socialize these days.  In fact, 97% of teenagers are considered gamers, whether it is casual or intense role-playing games that take up many hours.  So if you want to fit in, it seems that you need to play video games (not really).  But thinking as to how video games has been a topic of social discussion in my life, I have found more often than not that video games has been a social tool to not only meet, but further a relationship with other individuals.  A common example that many can relate to is Pokemon.  If you walk into a room and ask who likes/has played Pokemon Red or Blue as a child, the chances are most people have and you will immediately share something in common with that person.  I think it’s important to keep in mind that while we talk about how we can use video games for our individual gains, such as visual aesthetics, music or pranks, the interactive nature of video games be useful as well.

Art History’s Newest Chapter

Concerning the chapter on videogames as art, Bogost talks about proceduralism as a method of making videogames that are art, but this is not the only way they can be considered as art. Rather, I think he severely limits his discussion of art by merely focusing on the art of the last two centuries: the modern rejection of realism and beauty, attempting to make the artefact the purpose of art itself. However, he does not give fair attention to the other 6000 years of Art History. Ancient civilizations used art as a way of telling stories and teaching their mythology (Egyptian hieroglyphics, European cave paintings). Then, with the rise of Classical art (Greece and Rome) this religious/mythical aspect became imbued with an attempt at representing beauty and reality (some would argue they are the same). With the rise of Chrisitanity and the loss of Classical methods, art shifted its primary aim toward teaching the beliefs of the Christian faith. But in the Renaissance, there is a renewed attempt at capturing beauty and realism in art (Botticelli, Caravaggio). This later led to art bringing up other, non-religious themes (e.g. the plight of the proletariat with the Realist movement in the 19th century). Taken together, the Classical movement (400 BC – 300AD) and its rebirth (1400-1900 AD) represent over a millennium of art seeking beauty and a representation of reality. So, then, why does Bogost totally neglect the art of the beautiful? If one were to look at the current trend of videogames, this would appear to be the direction it is taking (think Skyrim). And, if we think of literature as the art of storytelling, videogames have taken an impressive step in that direction with epic series such as Mass Effect or Uncharted (both in their third installments).

While I agree with Bogost that videogames deserve a place in the world of art, I think he oversimplifies art and limits the place of videogames in that realm. “Artgames” notwithstanding, the Smithsonian American Art Museum has an exhibit devoted to “Video Games as Art” and is largely a history of the medium. Like Duchamp’s toilet, if for no other reason than being in an art gallery, videogames per se have become a legitimate form of artistic expression.