Busy again
Sorry, taking another break from blogging.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-02-14 | Filed under: Site News | 2 responses
Should video games be considered an art form?
I’ve been meaning to write an article on this subject for a while now, but when I started to write I realized I wasn’t exactly sure where I stood on the issue. So, I decided to take a different approach when writing this post: I wrote a draft of it off the top of my head, in a free-associative sort of way, and then cleaned it up to be more coherent and readable. Writing like this helped me understand the issue and form an opinion and I think my thought process is well represented in the article (deductive reasoning ftw). I re-wrote some of it so that it will make sense even to readers who haven’t played the games I’m talking about.
The one aspect to this problem that I’ve never seen anyone adequately address is: how do you define a video game? Now, bear with me here. Is it just the sum of its parts (ie: the graphics, the music, the gameplay, etc), or is it something more? Personally, I define it to include the overall experience of the player. The Longest Journey has extremely dated graphics and simplistic gameplay by today’s standards, but in terms of experience I (and many others) consider it one of the best video games ever made thanks to its wonderfully immersive, complex, and deep storyline, dialog, and characters. Conversely, Crysis has stunning graphics and evolved, modern gameplay, yet you’ll have to search far and wide to find someone who considers it a work of art. That isn’t to say that the graphics aren’t important, but I think the overall experience is the best objective criteria because it is essentially the sum total of all a game has to offer (ie: Bioshock’s amazing graphics are a central part to its overall immersive experience, but only because they help to elevate the wonderfully crafted atmosphere and ground-breaking storytelling).
Even more difficult to define is art itself. Art could be defined by all the arbitrary rules one would learn when studying art, but that would exclude most of modern art. You could look it up in a dictionary, but then you’d just get something like: “human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature,” which sounds cool but doesn’t really help us. So, for the purpose of this article, I’m going to say that art can be defined as something that expresses a feeling, idea, or truth in an aesthetic manner. I know this isn’t perfect, because “aesthetic” implies beauty and art doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful, but let’s live with it for now.
I mentioned modern art above, and I think I should elaborate: some would say that you have to be knowledgeable about traditional art to understand and appreciate modern art. To the average Joe, it may look like some dude wearing a beret just flung paint at a canvas, but to an art critic it is a work of genius. Similarly, I think you need to be a gamer to understand the artistic nature of many games. The first example that popped into my head was Half Life 2. To truly appreciate how polished the gameplay is, you need to have played all the Quakes and Dooms and Unreals. A gamer that has played FPS games for years can see Half Life 2 as the product of game design evolution, where the best aspects of all previous games were combined, distilled, and worked to perfection. To someone playing an FPS for the first time, it will just seem like a mindless game where you shoot things and solve simple puzzles.
One idea that’s often brought up is whether a video game can make you cry. Critics claim they can’t, but I disagree. I remember crying my eyes out during Final Fantasy 7 when I was maybe 12 or 13, and looking back on it I can understand why I was so upset by Aeris’s death. She didn’t dramatically sacrifice herself to save someone; she didn’t mumble a 20 minute clichéd speech while on the ground dying. Her death struck a chord because it was realistic. In the real world, people don’t die dramatically like they do in Hollywood movies. They die of accident, of disease, suddenly and for no reason, no great act of altruism or message of love. They die and they disappear, and all that’s left is emptiness.
And FF7 certainly isn’t the only game that’s known for being emotional. Ico is famous for bringing a tear to even the most macho gamer’s eye. The problem isn’t that games cannot make gamers cry, but rather that most gamers don’t play the sort of games that do. The perception of games as mindless entertainment is based on the most popular and best-selling games. Counterstrike and Madden are not particularly innovative or creative, yet they are practically synonymous with pc and console gaming, respectively. Psychonauts, on the other hand, is an amazingly creative and fun game that sold less than 100,000 copies the year it was released (a very low number for a major multi-platform release). In this sense, games mimic Hollywood; big companies like EA just pump out the same stuff every year, and all the innovative stuff comes from the little guys. No one would argue that cinema isn’t an art form, however, so I don’t think this should preclude games from being considered art.
So, basically my position is this: most games aren’t art, but some are. My personal criteria for judging the artistic qualities of a game is based mainly on the experience, which includes visuals, sound, gameplay, story, etc, but also includes something more abstract that is exclusive to interactive media. And, by my definition of artwork, video games are perhaps the most expressive form of art available today, though they rarely reach their potential.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-02-09 | Filed under: Noteworthy, Tech and games | 9 responses
First time voting
My 18th birthday was just last month, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to vote in the California primary. Luckily, it all went smoothly. I took my passport, since I have no other photo ID (no driver’s license), signed in, filled in the circle next to Obama’s name, then put the completed ballot in the appropriate slot. Hooray democracy!
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-02-05 | Filed under: Current events, Other | 5 responses
Stop blaming the Internet
I recently watched a Frontline episode with my parents that discussed the danger of young people’s increased use of the Internet, and they were amused that I spent much of the time yelling back at the television. While overall the episode was excellent and did a commendable job showing multiple sides to a complicated issue, some of the interviewees espoused the popular yet flawed view that the Internet is a dark and dangerous place that gobbles up innocent children. Sexual predators and serial killers lurk everywhere in the shadows, waiting until the one time your children mentions his full name and age on MySpace. Otherwise moral and polite children attack and threaten each-other with broken English. Kids replace “real” friends with “MySpace friends.” Etcetera, etcetera. I have quite a bit of experience dealing with this fearful perspective, considering it is the view my parents used to hold.
My argument is that these people’s problems with the Internet all stem from a single misconception: they see the Internet as something foreign and unknown, and therefore they see everything on it as a product of the Internet itself, rather than a product of the people who uploaded it.
A perfect example from the Frontline episode is how the concept of “cyber-bullying” was portrayed. Commentators talked about it as if it were separate from regular bullying, when basically the main difference is that it involves IM, social networking sites, and such, which can reach a larger audience more quickly than traditional gossip. In my mind, that doesn’t make it a completely separate issue. The producers of the show were absolutely right that cyber-bullying is a serious problem, but that’s because regular bullying is a serious problem; the former is just an extension of the latter.
The “cyber-bullying” portrayed in the episode involved a student’s classmates bullying him both in school and out of school via the Internet. Some of the commentators pointed out that much of what was said online might not have been said in a real-life conversation, because in an IM chat you don’t “talk face-to-face.” From this, they implied that the Internet itself is partially to blame for the bullying, and that the fact that it enables non “face-to-face” conversation makes it bad. Quite simply, the Internet didn’t turn that student’s classmates into bullies. The problem hasn’t changed because modern technology was involved. All that’s really changed is that there’s a new platform of communication that is open to the free exchange of thoughts and ideas, and this platform can be used for whatever anyone wants; from blogging to bullying. Blaming the Internet because it allows assholes to communicate is a little bit silly.
One thing that the episode captured wonderfully is the generation gap. Parents really don’t understand what their children do on the computer all day. And, IMO, that’s exactly how it should be. Parents never understand what their children are in to. Before it was rock music and long hair, now it’s computers and technology. It’s all to be expected. Children need an opportunity to distance themselves from their parents and develop their own individuality, and in this day and age there’s no better way to do that than using the Internet.
One story in the Frontline episode that supports my theory is a story of a high schooler who became a famous goth idol on MySpace. Her parents, seeing this, were outraged. They forced her to delete all her photos. After a while, however, they came around — they realized how important it was to the self-confidence of their otherwise-introverted daughter, and when she re-opened her MySpace profile she had the support of her parents.
Now, I don’t mean to say that there’s no legitimate fear of children accessing the Internet. According to recent statistics, 36% of teenagers had met in real life with someone they had met online. Though the danger is greatly exaggerated, there is a danger of children being abducted due to giving out large amounts of personal information online. Like I said above, however, it is silly to blame the Internet for this.
The Internet is an extension of reality, and it should be treated as such. Giving out personal information to strangers is a bad idea all around — rather than warning us no to do it online, it would be better to tell us never to do it. Children are in just as much danger of abduction when they go to the park as they are when they go online. The only thing the Internet really changes is the size and reach of the community. The pseudo-anonymity and impersonal nature of conversations online with strangers should be taken with a grain of salt, just as a conversation with a stranger on the street should be. A random drunk guy on the sidewalk that calls you a fag is really no different than a /b/tard. Read more…
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-02-04 | Filed under: Noteworthy, Opinion, Tech and games | 10 responses