I’ve gone through a few different titles for my essay. Now the theme seems to be evolving into a discussion on immersion, including:
- How technology helps with immersion, both by affording realistic simulation and affording opportunity for innovative and engrossing narrative (see how I recycled my first 3500 words there?)
- Huizinga’s Magic Circle
- How Janet Murray’s discussion of immersion describes its role in games as a form of art
- Richard Bartle’s recent discussion with the community about torture in games: managing players’ expectations to preserve the immersion
The list is neither ordered nor complete, but it’s where I’m at right now. *sigh*
I don’t think Janet Murray, or anyone in her field, appreciates games for what they really are.
When we were in school, and we’d be studying poets, I always put myself in the poets position. Did he/she write this poem, to be torn to pieces and analysed by a bunch of students a few years later? No. They wrote it to express their thoughts, feelings, or some great idea they had. Poems written solely to portray some tortured soul are a recent, emo developement.
In roughly the same vein, I don’t believe games aren’t designed or written to appeal to some particular emotions in the player. Immersion follows suit.
I thoroughly enjoy Red Alert 3, and I feel totally immersed in a game, as a Soviet commander trying to defend the motherland. Others don’t like it at all, and can’t get into it. So you can’t really place games as having immersion or not based on design or content.
I’d love to see what Janet Murray has to say on Unreal Tournament and it’s ilk. Some of the best games of all time, which I would call art, but I bet she wouldn’t.
You mean artistic interpretation of games is missing the point entirely?
I think some people look for deeper meaning where there isn’t any.
Isn’t that saying that games aren’t a medium capable of artistic expression? Whether or not your understanding of a game is what the designer wanted to express isn’t the point, it’s about appreciating that a designer can use the medium to express him/herself, and that a player can use the medium to take away a personal message.
There are lots of songs I like because they make me feel things or think of things in my life that the artist could never have thought of. Last month my wallpaper was a Tokyo cityscape. Whether or not the artist or anyone else sees what I see, doesn’t matter. But when I look at it I can remember exactly how walking down those streets felt.
If you agree that games can be used for artistic expression, you can’t deny that there’s no deeper meaning there. There’s always something there to be found, and that’s what makes games so culturally significant.
I was really drunk when I wrote that first post.
Ok, you’re off the hook then