T w e n t y S i d e d

Here is Steven’s definition of art:

This makes me think of a scene near the beginning of Dead Poets Society where John Keating (Robin Williams) begins a lesson on how to judge the merit of a poem by placing within a two-axis grid. I can’t recall what the two axis stood for, but they were not unlike the three-dimensional system Steven gives us above. The movie then mocks the idea that you can clearly define the merits of art this way and Keating has the students tear these pages out of their books. But I like what Steven has up there: A thing Is what it Does. Yeah, yeah. I know: Engineers and their confounded desire to quantify every dang thing. Sue me.

Later he says:

Let’s drag this topic over to my favorite dead horse – videogames as art – and give it a few more good thumps. It’s interesting to note that for an overwhelming number of games – first-person games in particular – the message is something along the lines of “You are a hero”, or perhaps better, “Heroes are good”. Hero stories are the landscape paintings of videogames. They’re an easy target to hit. Most of us have a built-in appreciation of heroism just like our appreciation of mountain vistas, so the creator just needs to connect with the audience enough to tap into that.

(Futile attempt to intercept nitpickery: Of course there are also games which aren’t trying to communicate anything. The Sim series of games is a good example of this. Will Wright calls these “software toys”. It’s not a chess set, it’s a box of Legos. They aren’t games in the sense that you have to “win” and they are not designed to communicate ideas or evoke emotions.)

Now, hopefully that isn’t all the game has to say, or it’s going to be very dull. Letting you knock down bad guys for its own sake is an empty sort of self-gratification. Hopefully the game uses the hero concept as a starting point for bigger questions. “What is a hero?” or “What can change the nature of a man?“.

Okay, this is the eighth post on videogames in a week. Man, I really need to get our D&D group going again.

UPDATE: Jennifer Snow makes a pretty interesting counter-argument in the comments.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Several people have been nudging me to get Portal, so I thought I’d note here that I have already devoured the game. I’m just waiting until I get the Episode One writing out of my system before I start in on reviewing Portal.

Wait. Reviewing? I suppose that’s the correct word, but I don’t review stuff in the typical sense of talking about a product and then assigining some sort of numeric (number of stars) or boolean (thumbs up / down) value that’s supposed to guide your purchasing decisions. That’s not really why I write. I just enjoy talking about games and I’m always pleased when people join in. Really, my tastes can be quite peculiar and my opinions often border on heresy (I loved Serious Sam and hated Far Cry, for example) so I can’t imagine someone buying a game just because I say it’s good.

I actually wish game review sites would go more in this direction: Turn down the self-aggrandizing, ease off on the hype, don’t encourage the jabbering fanbois, and just talk about your experience playing a game. What worked, what didn’t, what could have been better? Stop talking about the games coming out next month and talk about what games you played this month, and why you’re still playing them. I itch for this sort of writing, but it’s rare. I feel like most gaming sites are geared towards semiliterate teens. Maybe that’s where the money is, but I can’t help thinking that a site talking about games, aimed squarely at grownups wouldn’t fill a need for a lot of neglected gamers out there. I can’t be the only one who’d prefer literacy and personality over big screenshots and verbal intensity.

“Games for Grownups”. Aspiring games journalists: This is your big chance.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.