A Fusion of Media Forms
April 26th, 2008 scarterb
I would like to write in response to Amy’s post, “Interactive Fiction as Literature.” I definitely agree that interactive fiction mirrors literature in several ways. In my first blog post, I talked about Pac-Man and its narrative components, including sensory imagery, foreshadowing and suspense. As Amy points out, The Baron uses the same narrative components. I remember calling The Baron a “dark, twisted mystery novel.” In her own blog post, Amy talks about setting up the scenery and dropping hints in The Baron. I would say this is imagery and foreshadowing at its best. I think the cool thing about The Baron is that the player can go back and uncover new bits and pieces that add both depth and meaning to the story. In this way, the player feels as though he or she has some control over the unraveling of the story. I think interactive fiction is more like literature than more conventional video games like Pac-Man or Passage, but I do think that almost all video games have narrative components. Video games are so intriguing because they seem to be fusions of different media forms. As a class, we have discussed the similarities between video games and narratives, video games and film, and even video games and new media forms.
However, you can’t deny the raw play aspect of video games. I think people have the tendency of brushing off video games as a waste of time and energy because they are considered mere toys that you play with. It’s a shame because video games like Super Columbine Massacre RPG! are worth studying, but many people find them offensive because their messages have come in the form of video games. Many people think that Danny Ledonne has trivialized the events at Columbine by creating the RPG. In my opinion, Danny Ledonne was smart in his decision to create a video game. Ledonne created a new medium through which he could reach young people and force them to think about the larger issues that surround school shootings. If anything, Ledonne is re-sparking the conversation and illuminating the events at Columbine.
Entry Filed under: Game Log
2 Comments
1. asgoodwin | April 27th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I fully agree that all games have narrative qualities. I’ve had games move me emotionally more than films or books.
I was sort of thinking of the written quality in my post. For example, if The Baron, with pretty much the same descriptions and wordings, were made into a short story, it could probably be published. But it isn’t a short story, it is a game, and so it is dismissed. In a way it reminds me of how in 1993, Neil Gaiman won the World Fantasy Award for short story with a comic. The rules were changed shortly after to say that other forms were not valid. What if someone had submitted an IF like the Baron to the awards? Would it have been taken seriously enough to be considered?
When playing IF, I have seen writers who were bad and writers who were good. The good writers were better at description, narrative, pacing, and characterization than Dan Brown could ever dream of being, and yet he is taken seriously as an author and they are seen as game writers.
2. Diane | April 27th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
I think one of the main reasons that games aren’t considered as literature is because it is a game. Other than an IF (and even then it still might not), most games are seen as a whole not as separate segments of arts (graphics, programming, gameplay, story, etc). A game is seen as a whole, because it is meant as to be a whole experience, rather than several.
And I think few people tend to see games as several different things, because often times if one is lacking the others get a beating too. Well for me, for example, I actually TRIED to play Final Fantasy VII and for the life of me, couldn’t, because of the out-of-date graphics (I tried to play it much later than its release and was actually spoiled by FFIX).
There is also the aura around gaming. I think Sarah touched on this a bit. The gaming "aura" so to speak has a completely different "aura" then literature. By "aura" I mean, the "feeling or sense that you draw from; the awareness of the elite and aesthetic classifications." (That’s my definition, by the way.) I think this has a lot to do with the age of each art as well as the critics and society.
The age, because literature is much older, has a lot of association with respect. We are taught to respect our elders; likewise, we respect the art of writing. Video games, in the form of literature, is only a baby compared to literature. It hasn’t been given enough time to flourish at all or grow into the respect and level of traditional literature.
This also ties in with each form’s critics and societal acceptance. Literature, since it has been around for so long, has PLENTY of critics. Not just the amount of critics but also the fact that these critics are somewhat well respected as much as literature is. Think about it, even in our society we are taught to critique literature in schools, in our entire academic careers! We feel that literature is the "high brow" just as much as we think art (Pollock, Monet, Renoir, Da Vinci…the list goes on forever…) is "high brow."
Now compared to the critics/reviewers for games…who are they? Often males…young males, who write for gaming magazines read by the younger generations. Or even online (my favorite has to be No Punctuation - this one is about Super Smash Bros Brawl, take mind before clicking though, it has unappropriate language) where the multitude of reviews by every single person imaginable reigns free, thus destroying the prestiege of "critic/reviewer." The lack of a line between the prestiege and non in the gaming world, I feel brings the "aura" of it lower, thus not taking very seriously.