next »

[Jolli]

the beatles.. rock band

[Jolli]

just play a game stupid derek

[Paul Eres]

@aquin - they certainly don't drive them, but they have their place -- the academy awards for movies for instance, or the pulitizers for books. it's only a minority of people who go to movies wanting to be inspired rather than to be entertained, but it's still a much larger minority there than in games. there are also big-name directors, musicians, and novelists who focus on inspiration rather than just entertainment, like akira kurosawa or haruki murakami. just comparing japanese to japanese, to me, kojima and miyamoto aren't anywhere near to kurosawa and murakami in what they're going for, or in the impact their works have had on the fans of each. kojima tries a little of it by inserting generic stuff like 'we need to stop using nuclear weapons!' at the end of mgs1, but it's much more crude and obvious when he tries to do it. kojima and miyamoto are more on the level of hayao miyazaki, where the main purpose is entertainment, and other stuff comes second.

[Gimym TILBERT]

I'm taking the same road as you Derek i'm not willing to wait.

I'm actually actively doing something about it, but if there is something old video games mantra teach me:

until you win you are a loser, game over try again

@paul eres
You know i have read once how a soldier, after playing MGS3, realize how much he was just a political tools. There is this sad story with a son and his handicap mother connecting with animal crossing. Heck my own brother realize how war was badly terrible in the chaos celebration simulator modern warfare (especially the sequence with bombarding flashing light enable people). Game do affect people profoundly. Game can make them reflect themselves.
And heck the number of person populated this forum prove that game had a profound effect on a person world view. Mario even get more artistic citation than Beatles. Mario and sonic was more known by 90 kids than mickey the american and animation symbole. What the heck are you talking about!

Ninja sparring edit:

[Paul Eres]

yeah, i think mgs3 is probably the best of the kojima lot, and comes closest to being about things other than hiding and killing. so it doesn't surprise me that a soldier would have his view changed by it. but i'd doubt a significant number of soldiers would, if they played it.

[Aquin]

@Eres, first of all I'm willing to take Miyazaki over Kurosawa any day.  That's just personal preference though.  Don't confuse child-like with childish.

(Personally, I don't separate entertaining and inspirational.  I am rarely entertained if it doesn't make much of an impact on me.)

Back to it, yeah the Video Game Awards and other insipid outfits certainly aren't helping our case.  It's also a bit alarming that there isn't much else to elevate us.  It seems that even IGF is kinda getting a bit iffy.  I'm not sure what to suggest, but I suppose it has nothing to do with the current topic.

[Gimym TILBERT]

@paul eres
Well MGS one was more about identity and its relation to action using the motif of war, gene and nuclear weapon. The duality between solid and liquid is about how identification shape someone (liquid was trick into believing he get weaker gene). The theme of imagination and and identity is lightly brought up by otacon (became a war engineer because he likes mecha) but fully develop in the second game (about meme and cultural data in relation to shaping ones identity). The third is about context (scene) and how it shape identity.

I'm not sure it is as simple as you show it up.

[gunmaggot]

She also says:

But after thirty-five years rock & roll had Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Clash. After thirty-five years film had Fritz Lang, film noire, and was a few years away from Citizen Kane.

This part seems absolutely silly to me - we have Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Sid Meier, and Will Wright.  And Jon Blow and cactus and Jenova Chen.  And in the time it took Citizen Kane to get to Avatar we'll probably be playing in virtual realities dreamt of only in science fiction...

as much as i like the games of those folks, it's a bit of a joke to compare their works to the works of most of the people mentioned for rock & roll and movies. the games those people made wouldn't significantly improve or enrich anyone above the age of about 12. entertain, yeah, but that's different. this is not to disrespect those game devs, they've made amazing games. but the people in the first category are on a whole 'nother level, and equating the two groups is what seems absolutely silly to me. on the same level at skill, yes, but on the same level in terms of impact on someone's mind, in terms of lives and worldviews changed? not at all.

They have many equivalencies - you're trying to highlight their dissimilarities, holding up the political/social focus of one group, noting that the other group has less of that, then smuggling in the assertion that one is necessarily important and that the other is necessarily entertainment.  It is not possible to overestimate the importance of play in psychological development.  That said, it's also damnably hard to say exactly what it is.

[Derek]

half-real

lol.

Haha, thanks.  I knew you were an icycalm devotee.

Okay, so let me try again:  Anything that exists is reality.  Well, we now spend a lot of time staring at screens and interacting with simulations.  The simulations will become much more realistic and ubiquitous in our lives, to the point where we won't be able to easily tell a simulation from what is being simulated, and game developers will largely be responsible for that.

How's that?  Good enough for a C-, at least?

[Paul Eres]

that doesn't seem to be a particularly good future to be an ambassador of. i imagine there will be a 'real life is better' movement in response to it if it happens.

anyway, i wasn't saying that their works aren't as important as the others -- the issue wasn't cultural importance, but personal impact. which is hard to measure, but i think that provided someone has a lot of familiarity with the arts it can be gleaned when something has more impact on people and when something produces mainly entertainment. and even WoW might positively change people's lives, exceptions abound. but it's an issue of statistics and likeliness.

@ neoshaman - i know mgs is more complicated than i portrayed it, i've read through the mgs design docs too, and seen him blather on about dream, scene, and meme and whatever. so i don't dount that he has some thematic complexity in mind when making it. i just doubt whether it's effective; i don't think most people played mgs1, got to the end, and then went away from it with a new realization about identity. they just went away with it having had a lot of fun. and that's fine. but it can't realistically be compared with novels or movies etc. where most people who get to the end do come away with it with a new realization of identity.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

This part seems absolutely silly to me - we have Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Sid Meier, and Will Wright.  And Jon Blow and cactus and Jenova Chen.

That list is seriously missing some Miller brothers.

[Gimym TILBERT]

Maybe it depends on the public?

I get it from one play through (not like everything is hidden) and didn't have to read the additional docs (okay i was bored by the first one, memory and identity theme is overused in japanese culture, especially in video games).

But i don't see books or movie do that either UNLESS it have the public for. Your assumption may stand because video games public is inherently immature (or just uncaring nerd), not because of the potential. If the public doesn't care, nobody can force them (but at least it's there for those who do).

Sure mario doesn't have the same impact in term of reflection.

I don't buy your reflexion

EDIT: by the way, mgs is great mix of entertainment and subtext, you can appreciate one while skipping the other.

[moi]

The predominence of Male power fantasy in videogames depends entirely from the power fantasy of manipulating reality and bending rules at will, that derives from creating
virtual worlds.


The more iconified/itemized the game style, the more easier it is to apply power to the world at large.
Male power fantasy isn't based solely on the use of force, it is based on the predomiinence of work efficiency and progress over discussion or socialization.




People underestimate the importance of circle in old school arcade engines

[Derek]

That was a pretty awesome post, moi.

that doesn't seem to be a particularly good future to be an ambassador of. i imagine there will be a 'real life is better' movement in response to it if it happens.

I think that movement already exists.

But yeah, what I'm imagining would be a pretty weird and exciting future - whether that's good is subjective.  Maybe it will end up being like The Lawnmower Man... but it could also be like Avatar!  Maybe both.  Who the hell knows.

I realize I'm starting to go off the deep end, here.  It's been a long week.

[Aquin]

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?