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I was listening to a great episode of this podcast called "Shall We Play a Game?" and they had game critic/developer/academic Ian Bogost on to talk about his new book, "How to Talk About Video Games." Over the course of the interview, Bogost discussed the current state of games criticism, specifically the focus many critics seem to put on games as a narrative medium analogous to film and literature. Bogost argues that games are "a kind of encounter that we have, that sits uncomfortably - but delightfully - between the domain of art and the domain of appliance." He draws a comparison between a game and a toaster, in that both serve a similarly absurd purpose (the toasts exists solely to brown bread, and games exist to fill similarly specific niches in our lives), and both involve familiar interactions that we return to again and again. This isn't to say that being "toaster-like" is an inherently bad thing; part of the whole draw of sports is watching a set of very familiar rules play out again and again, hoping that a particular game will bring about an exciting break from the repetition. This idea of games as part-art and part-appliance is an incredibly interesting perspective to me, since it seems a large number of games critics and players seem to hold well-executed narrative as some kind of holy grail for games as a medium of art. If games exist in this limbo between form and function, between art and product, where does that leave critical discourse? How can we embrace the "in-between"-ness of video games in their criticism?
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May 16, 2016 06:03
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To be honest, despite this being a Games sub-forum, this sort of question might be better suited to the Debate & Discussion sub-forum. Might generate more interest there too.
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May 16, 2016 06:28
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That Bogost guy sounds like a shitlord. Toast is anything but absurd.
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May 16, 2016 06:32
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TomViolence posted:To be honest, despite this being a Games sub-forum, this sort of question might be better suited to the Debate & Discussion sub-forum. Might generate more interest there too. Thanks for the advice! I'll try crossposting over there.
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May 16, 2016 06:33
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