I got to the end of XCOM: Enemy Unknown on Ironman mode over the weekend. For those who don’t know, Ironman saves every action to which you commit. There are no backup saves or restarting a mission if one of your soldiers die. All moves are final.
Category: Essays
Things that don’t fit anywhere else.
All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades,
When the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.Isaiah 40
Have you been to ComicCon? How about GenCon, DragonCon, or Pax East? I experienced a Christmas event that reminded me of such experiences, but it wasn’t the Christmas Comic Con held in Windsor, Ontario. With all the running and craziness going on around Christmas, I hope you find time to consider the Christ.
Video Games, Art, and Objective Standards is an exhaustive look at video games, the ambiguities of art, and how they come to rest on objective standards – though maybe not in the way you were thinking. This series intends to show video games are a unique medium that deserves a special criteria and methodological examination. This is part and parcel of my theology as well. I invite you to leave comments on any section below!
- Introduction
- Preliminary Objections (2)
- (Preliminary Assumptions) Defining the Video Game
- Game Studies – Ludology
- Game Studies – Narratology
- Dewey – Understanding the “Live Creature”
- Dewey – Avoiding Abstractions
- Dewey – Video Games as Pragmatic Experiences (2)
- Judging Video Games as “Art” (2) (3)
- Addressing the Critics and Game Studies
- Conclusions
If video games are not art, then they are something better.
– Richard Terrell, Critical Gaming Network
From an exclusivist view on any side, video games are misrepresented in both their content and their essential elements. The idea of video games as “an experience” solves the problems of both sides. Instead of isolation, narratives and rules exist in collaboration to create a unique “experience” within a particular work, both with the artistic intent of the developers and the reception of the players.