scottmbruner
Watcher
- Joined
- December 15, 2013
- Messages
- 11
First of all, articles like this one are so...so...needed if we're to take games seriously.
Those who have complained about Mr. Yale-this-and-that or the intellectual nature of the work really grate on me. The last thing we need is to be dismissive of thoughful criticism of the genre. It basically verifies the non-gamer community's prejudices of gamers, and it also hold back the genre as a whole from advancing artistically. Quite frankly, I'm through with games being just "games" - I want new, challenging experiences and critical, rational criticism is key to that.
I have to applaud Mr. Saeedy's critical and contextual thought in this article - my problem is it's based on a few flawed premises. I'm posting the reply I posted to the site a few minutes ago.
To be honest, yeah, I had an emotional reaction to his article, so I had to write back quickly!
First of all, I'm always happy to see articles which take video games seriously in an artistic context - and especially articles like this one which are so informed on theory and literary context.
That being said, I have a few problems with the article's basic premise.
1. That a game has to be "fun" to have an artistic merit, or that any work has to have an enjoyment quotient to be seriously examined outside of being a historical curiosity. This is of course, patently absurd. Many of our greatest works, including a number that you mentioned from War and Peace or Heart of Darkness are written to be fun, or even necessarily enjoyable. They are written to provide a new critical perspective on our lives, often ask us to question our assumptions, or provide new illuminations about topics and subjects we can't relate to.
In other words, art doesn't need to be fun to be "good" (which again is a bit of a subjective nicety.
I appreciate you're not having fun with Baldur's Gate - and that your expectations of how to play/approach an RPG has been shaded by evolving technical/design changes (I won't even say improvements, as I easily prefer BG to 75% of this year's releases, still.) That's a relevant remark for a game reviewer who is reviewing it - AS A GAME. But it's not a valid criticism to make when analyzing it as an actual work of expression or art, because enjoyment has never been an intrinsic or necessary quality for a work of expression to be valid or valuable.
2. There are many, many, many games which fall under the umbrella of, what I term, "games as novelty," ie, games where it's not likely be to be that interesting because much of the game's appeal was its breaking new technical background. For instance, I'm currently playing Ultima IV and the amount of combat in the game (btw, this is even more true of the original Wasteland) was meant as a showcase of the game being able to replicate a tactical RPG and it's merely there for a fun level, which now that we can play games like Banner Saga or X-Com is no longer novel.
But I'm not playing U4 for fun, and I'm willing to look past an area of the game that is in there for commercial reasons - and also indicative of a time when games WERE NOT taking themselves seriously as expression. U4 wanted to be as close to tabletop RPG as possible, and very few people claim D&D as art (though I would beg to differ.)
However, I am playing U4 because I'm fascinated by the unconventional way it tells its story - its unconventional approach at interacting with the user - and Garriott's experimentation with morality within the context of a "non-serious" "game." As pop art, it's fascinating. But, I digress.
BG, I don't feel, is nearly as guilty of being game as novelty - sure, at the time, it was pushing boundaries, but perhaps its greatest strength is that to this day is that it offers a truly vivid, compelling recreation of a fantasy landscape sometimes thanks to, and sometimes in SPITE of being a computer game.
That being said, I actually BG1 better, because I still find the narrative in 2, and the lazy, Bioware fall-back of one evil villain that eventually needs to be defeated rather lazy. In fact, I would make the argument U4, despite tons of "game as novelty" features is a better work of art. (I actually found BG2 to be more fun - than artistically relevant.)
I'm not sure how much space I have left, so I'll end by saying that your article is welcome and necessary to advance a medium with so much potential but your assumptions about art and expression I find fault with. And finally - for @(*()* sake - give BG a little more chance. Cause, from a fun point, it really is one of the best experiences you can have.
Those who have complained about Mr. Yale-this-and-that or the intellectual nature of the work really grate on me. The last thing we need is to be dismissive of thoughful criticism of the genre. It basically verifies the non-gamer community's prejudices of gamers, and it also hold back the genre as a whole from advancing artistically. Quite frankly, I'm through with games being just "games" - I want new, challenging experiences and critical, rational criticism is key to that.
I have to applaud Mr. Saeedy's critical and contextual thought in this article - my problem is it's based on a few flawed premises. I'm posting the reply I posted to the site a few minutes ago.
To be honest, yeah, I had an emotional reaction to his article, so I had to write back quickly!
First of all, I'm always happy to see articles which take video games seriously in an artistic context - and especially articles like this one which are so informed on theory and literary context.
That being said, I have a few problems with the article's basic premise.
1. That a game has to be "fun" to have an artistic merit, or that any work has to have an enjoyment quotient to be seriously examined outside of being a historical curiosity. This is of course, patently absurd. Many of our greatest works, including a number that you mentioned from War and Peace or Heart of Darkness are written to be fun, or even necessarily enjoyable. They are written to provide a new critical perspective on our lives, often ask us to question our assumptions, or provide new illuminations about topics and subjects we can't relate to.
In other words, art doesn't need to be fun to be "good" (which again is a bit of a subjective nicety.
I appreciate you're not having fun with Baldur's Gate - and that your expectations of how to play/approach an RPG has been shaded by evolving technical/design changes (I won't even say improvements, as I easily prefer BG to 75% of this year's releases, still.) That's a relevant remark for a game reviewer who is reviewing it - AS A GAME. But it's not a valid criticism to make when analyzing it as an actual work of expression or art, because enjoyment has never been an intrinsic or necessary quality for a work of expression to be valid or valuable.
2. There are many, many, many games which fall under the umbrella of, what I term, "games as novelty," ie, games where it's not likely be to be that interesting because much of the game's appeal was its breaking new technical background. For instance, I'm currently playing Ultima IV and the amount of combat in the game (btw, this is even more true of the original Wasteland) was meant as a showcase of the game being able to replicate a tactical RPG and it's merely there for a fun level, which now that we can play games like Banner Saga or X-Com is no longer novel.
But I'm not playing U4 for fun, and I'm willing to look past an area of the game that is in there for commercial reasons - and also indicative of a time when games WERE NOT taking themselves seriously as expression. U4 wanted to be as close to tabletop RPG as possible, and very few people claim D&D as art (though I would beg to differ.)
However, I am playing U4 because I'm fascinated by the unconventional way it tells its story - its unconventional approach at interacting with the user - and Garriott's experimentation with morality within the context of a "non-serious" "game." As pop art, it's fascinating. But, I digress.
BG, I don't feel, is nearly as guilty of being game as novelty - sure, at the time, it was pushing boundaries, but perhaps its greatest strength is that to this day is that it offers a truly vivid, compelling recreation of a fantasy landscape sometimes thanks to, and sometimes in SPITE of being a computer game.
That being said, I actually BG1 better, because I still find the narrative in 2, and the lazy, Bioware fall-back of one evil villain that eventually needs to be defeated rather lazy. In fact, I would make the argument U4, despite tons of "game as novelty" features is a better work of art. (I actually found BG2 to be more fun - than artistically relevant.)
I'm not sure how much space I have left, so I'll end by saying that your article is welcome and necessary to advance a medium with so much potential but your assumptions about art and expression I find fault with. And finally - for @(*()* sake - give BG a little more chance. Cause, from a fun point, it really is one of the best experiences you can have.
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2013
- Messages
- 11