The videos have been posted from the very exciting Art History of Games Conference in Atlanta earlier this year.
Lots of interesting presentations by Bogost, Bolter, Brathwaite, Kluetsch, Lantz, Lowood, Nitsche, Paul, Pearce, Pozzi & Zimmerman, Rohrer, Romero, Schrank, Sharp, Harvey & Samyn.
A few notes on my talk, “The Pure Game: A Short History of Video Game Aesthetics”, viewable below.
I did the very academic thing of talking about history, about how in art history, the idea of identifying the pure essence of a medium and protecting it from alien influences has been common in the 20th century (painting, cinema), and how in video games we have often made similar claims about identifying a pure game that we wanted to protect from, say, narrative, or from undue emphasis on graphics.
I think some people were hoping for more of a manifesto-style talk, since many other speakers were doing just that. My talk is more of a meta-manifesto, where I say that although we are faced with the weight of history, and although history warns us against making sweeping statements about the properties of an art form, and although there is a current of thought that warns us against definitions and media essentialism, we nevertheless have to continue to make strong claims about our art form of choice, video games. The bold claims, though often proven wrong, drive us forward. We must dare to be wrong. We must continue making bold statements about video games, knowing that they can be wrong, and we must try to make statements that are so strong that they can be wrong.
Jesper, I totally agree with this sentiment. There seems to be some aversion to making bold and *new* claims about new things. As if newness is somehow inferior to re-interpretations of old theories/media/whatever. I’m personally tired of reading titles beginning with “Re” followed by readings, imagining, interpreting, purposing, mapping, configuring etc. What ever happened to originality?
Of course its ‘dangerous’ in that yes, you may very well be proven wrong. But without making statements, as you say, we won’t move forward. In all likelihood, at least part of a new statement will be right, which we can hold on to and learn from.
I watched your video yesterday. Thanks for putting all this together, but I would like to add my two cents here. I enjoy a lot of different kind of games which cover the whole spectrum you describe.
For me playing means to have fun, to be challenged, to enjoy the time I spend with the game.
If it is making me think about what I do and why I enjoyed it — even better!
One crucial point that sticks out to me is that I like those games the most which can be experienced and played in a lot of different ways which are enjoyable in their own way. These games feel like sandbox games, although they would normally not be classified as this. Think of Chess or M:tG as a start. Recently I returned to Etrian Odyssey (in its heart a dungeon crawl) and found myself playing it more like GTA – strolling around, leveling some new characters, fulfilling a side quest.
On the other hand, even completely linear games with storytelling can be interesting and offer quite a lot of replay value – think the GBA Castlevanias which offer more challenges after completion, where you can play as a different character with different abilities or do a Boss rush.
So from my point of view it can be deceiving to mark one end of the spectrum you describe as good and the other as bad or undesirable. It’s all in the way the elements are combined and offered to the player – and what she can do with this.
@kay
I agree that both very linear (games of progression) and very emergent or nonlinear games can be interesting.
I was simply pointing to the fact that within game design there is a common set of ideas (“good taste in game design”) that values highly emergent games over linear ones.