Evan Prodromou3d ago

Are games important?

#EvanPoll #poll #games

Yes
77.2%
Yes, but...
12.6%
No, but...
4.5%
No
5.6%
Poll ended at .
Show threadJames M.2d ago

@evan "important" is relative, of course, but I said "yes" because play is an important part of any young mammal's development, and maybe other animals too. Also, enjoyment is an important part of anyone's life, young or old.

That said, I still have a hard time imagining a game as emotionally rich as a book or even a good movie. I don't see how it could be. Am I missing something?

Show threadShifting Sand, Sandwich Fumbler 2d ago
@jamesmarshall @evan As a game enjoyer, I think the missing ingredient is how affecting interactivity can be. Games have the power to stretch the audience's perception of time in a way that other media are limited in, except highly interactive forms of experimental theatre, or LARPing, or communal storytelling experiences like tabletop games. Games have the advantage over the last two in that they're highly multimodal experiences as well, with the capacity for synchronised music and visuals in the manner of cinema.

Some concrete examples of my favourite moments:

In a very old game called Ys II, a villain announces that he's about to execute one of your companions, with a bell chiming some number of times before the execution takes place. It's only a short walk from where the villain makes the announcement to where the execution takes place, but every ringing of the bell stretches that time out in an agonising way that isn't available to passively watching a sequence. Hands on the controller, the experience of time stretching out is much more raw due to the contrast between agency and disempowerment.

In Ys VIII, there is a sequence where you climb a mountain that has been looming in your vision for some time now, to reunite with a friend who was been distant in time and space for some time now. Fighting your way to the top, you catch a glimpse of the ruins she's been sleeping in, before descending through a network of caves, the ruins dipping in and out of sight. Same sense of the elasticity of time again. The game's writing is clever too, as your other non-player character companions will remark on the journey and how they feel about meeting the waiting friend.

On the other side of things, there's a sequence in Final Fantasy XI where you have to traverse some repositories of memory that are breaking down and being unmade by a curse. Being immersed in a deeply reflective state as you wander broken down buildings, giant animal skeletons, a graveyard is a kind of very harrowing walking meditation. In this case time slows down and the subjective experience of the decay of time seeped into me in a way I haven't experienced from other media.

--

Another different example, the director Hideo Kojima is fascinated by the nexus of cinema, games, and their communal nature. The fact that games as a medium are capable of creating a shared, interactive experience of something filmic is really interesting.

Anyway, very long writeup, that's some of my take on how games are incredibly rich as a medium.
Show threadJames M.
@sandriver @evan but can a game really give you the insight about life, love, humanity, philosophy, and whatever else a good book or movie can inspire in you? Can a game make you restructure the way you think about all those things, and bring the kind of wisdom that a well-written movie or book can? Can it take you through that kind of emotional experience? I'm not talking about action movies or special effects.
Mar 26 at 1:54amWeb
Show threadShifting Sand, Sandwich Fumbler 2d ago
@jamesmarshall @evan absolutely! Why would there be anything inherent to the medium that should preclude that? Cinema has given us lay theologians like Tarkovsky and lay philosophers like Mamoru Oshii; games have attracted the likes of Tetsuya Takahashi who has brought spirituality and the philosophy of Erich Fromm to games, and cultivated a generation of writers drawing from his same inspirations as well as Bertolt Brecht. Yaeko Sato has written brilliant narratives about found family and pan-spiritual notions of repentance and love. Masato Kato is famous for his Balzac-light cast of thousands worldbuilding and richly interwoven narratives.

The high standard of writing in literature and theatre is just as present in games, just games facilitate unique experiences through their inherent capacity for real-time collaboration between audience members, and the unique nature of their interactivity.