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The Gamer's Quarter A quarterly publication
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Ketch .
Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 420
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:56 am Post subject: Looking for spiritual development? |
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It seems to me that many of us (well at least me) are kind of looking for games which are spiritualy uplifting. / Ie. 'artistic'. I've come to realise that this is pretty much out of place, and if this is what you are after then we've probably come to the wrong place. There is very little to be found in games. Which isn't to say that they can't be just that such content is in the minority of a games content. |
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simplicio .
Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:39 am Post subject: |
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Well yes, which is why we fret so.
We have a vision for the future, you see. |
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Toto 4th Man
Joined: 21 Mar 2006 Posts: 122
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:08 am Post subject: |
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Channeling what I assume dhex would say itt.
Videogames are an opulent way of passing the time with minimal boredom, like wanking. Sometimes I get emotionally attached (in one way or another) to porn stars, and hell sometimes porn is art, but at the end of the day it is there to keep you occupied, wanking is.
Videogames are like this to me. |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:17 am Post subject: |
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Toto wrote: | Videogames are an opulent way of passing the time with minimal boredom, like wanking. |
I never play games in this way. I've got better stuff I could be doing. A videogame had better go out of its way to give me a reason to play it, or it doesn't happen.
Ketch wrote: | It seems to me that many of us (well at least me) are kind of looking for games which are spiritualy uplifting. / Ie. 'artistic'. I've come to realise that this is pretty much out of place, and if this is what you are after then we've probably come to the wrong place. There is very little to be found in games. Which isn't to say that they can't be just that such content is in the minority of a games content. |
[Ok I've restructured this post so all the pontificating about Shadow of The Colossus is now at the end and can be read as an optional extra.]
Yo if most games don't give you the uplifting experience you're after, don't play most games. That's the simple answer.
The other answer is to start making your own games.
[Optional extras begin now.]
Replace 'games' with 'cinema' in your above statement and we're in the 1920's.
I think about the potential of videogames a lot, and as such the only games I really go out of my way to play are the ones which seem like the rungs on the ladder to games becoming a legitimate artform. Shadow of the Colossus is halfway there already, but also stuff like Seiklus, Knytt (because they're designed to provoke the emotions associated with exploring and getting lost, not because they are TEH LONELYS) right the way back to Zelda and Super Mario Bros. which started the ball rolling are on the list.
Shadow of the Colossus is the best example we have right now of games as art and the best pointer to where this medium should be heading if it wants to be taken seriously. Like the best modern art or cinema it's a machine designed by its creator to produce certain types of emotions in the participant. Importantly, it does this through the gameplay, so the emotional content of the story is generated entirely by you. For example, the game gives you infinite freedom to explore just so you can discover there's nothing to find. Someone made that conscious decision to let you do that and not include any reward for the player at all. Why? Because they want you to feel powerless and bound to your task. Emotional content is generated through the player's actions.
Obviously Wii Tennis, Warioware, Rhythm Tengoku, Tetris etc. - games that are just games are hott too. But they give me back what I put in and I play them for like 20 minutes at a time, so although it's opulent it's not opulent to chinese man with a droopy moustache smoking a big long pipe standards. |
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Nana Komatsu weak sauce
Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:26 am Post subject: |
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I've found that we sometimes outgrow our hobbies and yet because we feel attachment to them we try to find things that are not there.
Also, I haven't played a video game in two weeks and I feel great.
Also, the last real spiritual experience I had was a Flaming Lips concert so I don't think I'm qualified to talk about this sort of thing. _________________ resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people
Last edited by Nana Komatsu on Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:28 am Post subject: |
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I can do a really great impression of Wayne Coyne. If I ever get to do a cartoon show I'm going to have Wayne Coyne be a recurring character, rolling around in his plastic ball talking in his bizarre voice. |
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kirkjerk .
Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:40 am Post subject: |
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There are many legitimate reasons for liking video games, some more intellectually hefty than others.
Certainly this kind of "uplift" is a worth goal, and Gaming might be able to give Art opportunities in using the second person voice that it didn't have before. (i.e. most other genres get into trouble when they start telling the viewer/reader what they're feeling, what they're thinking; games are almost always fundamentally second person, "you can do this" "you can do that", even if a particular game relies on a first or third person perspective)
Certainly there are stumbling blocks: there's a conflict with "authorial intent" that has been crucial to art as we know it for so long, and then there are demands of gameplay mechanic, game conventions, and just plain fun that sometimes aren't in harmony with uplift intent.
I'm not even sure if it's the most promising avenue for games. Personally, I'm in it for what I call "novel interactions", show me a new world to play with, a microcosm, one that I can engage in ways not possible in the real one, and ways that I might not have thought of before. _________________ =/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com |
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kirkjerk .
Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:49 am Post subject: |
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Nana Komatsu wrote: | I've found that we sometimes outgrow our hobbies and yet because we feel attachment to them we try to find things that are not there. |
The attachment idea is interesting. Also, when that split happens, we may try to dig for justifications.
On the other hand, "outgrow" is a value judgement I don't quite share. I'm probably way too much of a relavist, but I figure you can get about as deep as you need to in almost pursuit; there's a "Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance" in almost any hobby, and drifting away from a hobby, or even being aware of its "boundaries" for you, doesn't imply transcendence.
Quote: | Also, I haven't played a video game in two weeks and I feel great. |
Heh. I play far fewer games than I... I dunno, mean to. A current deep game is such an investment of time. I keep up with the industry because... I guess I'm afraid I'll miss some interesting developments. And I've become more and more devoted to "party" style games, especially since coming 'round to the Wii.
Quote: | Also, the last real spiritual experience I had was a Flaming Lips concert so I don't think I'm qualified to talk about this sort of thing. |
A friend tried to turn me on to the Flaming Lips, lent me a CD, and I gotta say, I don't get it. Then again, I tend to be looking for certain shallow things in music and might inadvertantly have blinders to the rest. _________________ =/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:55 am Post subject: |
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kirkjerk wrote: |
Certainly there are stumbling blocks: there's a conflict with "authorial intent" that has been crucial to art as we know it for so long, and then there are demands of gameplay mechanic, game conventions, and just plain fun that sometimes aren't in harmony with uplift intent.
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Ebert can suck my dick with his authorial intent. Of course there are boundaries to what the player can do, and the results of the player's actions are decided by the game's author. If you believe that authorial control is limited to decided what events happened and in what order then yeah. But that's not the criteria we use to judge games.
Sim City 2000 cities run better if you use a lot of public transport because the author, Will Wright, likes public transport. |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:12 am Post subject: |
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i like to shoot shit, but i live in the communist capital of america and can't do so for real without spending thousands of dollars a year.
ultimately (and without derailing things with a discussion as to what "spiritually uplifiting" actually means in the popular lexicon beyond "absorption / peak experience") i don't understand why people want games to be all things - teacher, lover, mother, friend, etc - rather than just being what they are: a broad category of interactive media that includes tetris and half life 2 and all points in between.
now, this is probably a matter of taste more than anything else. i don't really see the revolutionary potential of the wii, as most of my fellow staff members do, and i can't really bring myself to care if other people play games or not. i have a very limited focus, which no doubt truly hinders my ability to see these implications, though i do enjoy reading about them. (i truly enjoy reading about the games people play - and their experiences - that i'd never want to play myself, like the dwarf fortress thread, or the bulk of tgq's issues. the shiren thread is another example.) _________________
Last edited by dhex on Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:30 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:21 am Post subject: |
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Join the army. |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:30 am Post subject: |
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dude, did you get dumped lately or something? you seem cranky. _________________
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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I'm sorry ;_;
I will feel better soon I'm sure. |
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