Serious The Value of Video Games

[newtonja]

So for school I have been given a project that solves a problem has an audience, and has some sort of product to show(it doesn't have to be tangible though) and for mine I want to do a series of videos to show the importance of video games as an artistic medium and it's importance to us as people. So I thought it would be a good idea to start a discussion on what good video games can do.


For a start I thought what a better way to begin making a school project than to make a video on how good video games are at making us look at a problem and aproaches it creatively without the worry of punishment for failure. The game I want to use as an example would be the last of us, this game is brilliantly designed to make it so that there is a plethora of wayo to take on one situation, which can be seen most clearly in the react channels play through where they show every person's aproaches to the problem and they all do it so differently, which I think is amazing. Plus when they fail they are simply put right back in the action able to just restart until they figure out a solution and move right along.


So what values do you find in video games? This could be something as simple as a time that a video game touched you or it could be a time a video game completely changed your outlook on something in life, it just needs to be something worth while and substantive. So discuss away just keep in mind that if I find something I feel like I want to talk about too I might take the idea and use it in my video series.

 

[TheValkyries]

I've found that video games have helped me focus my thoughts and organize them coherently and neatly. Obviously others have different experiences.

 

[Cresselia~~]

First of all, most video games are fun, and if you have something to play, you are less likely to get bored.
Secondly, one may gain accomplishment by playing video games.
Thirdly, video games with mild violence, especially those with destruction (like Angry Bird and Tembo the Badass Elephant), does a great job to relief stress and helps control anger.

I personally like to watch people play Tembo the Badass Elephant because it's freaking funny, and it helps me control anger better.

 

[Ortheore]

Games are a medium with enormous potential. The experiences that can be crafted with games are mind-boggling in their power and variation. Think about it, how many other things can be a powerful artistic experience (Journey, The Stanley Parable), a sport that withstands play at the highest level (LoL, Starcraft, Pokemon?) or serve as a medium for players' creativity (Minecraft)? Games have a lot of potential still untapped, both in terms of what is technically possible, and also the ideas driving the games we play.

I'm going to return to The Stanley Parable again because I love this game. Think about how the concepts this game explores, and how it explores them. Free will and determinism are obviously the major themes and it explores them in such a fun engaging way that no other artistic medium could ever replicate. The power of interactivity is a unique tool that we can use to explore ideas that are intrinsic to being human in a completely novel way. Of course there's more to it than that. Interactivity is another tool with which we can engage with characters, breaking down barriers to being affected by what occurs in a game. The Last of Us is a prime example of this, by the time I was halfway through I thought it was totally overrated, but the second half of the game revealed that I'd begun to care deeply about Ellie and thus it had a powerful impact on me. Spec Ops: the Line is another example- this isn't some made-up person doing these things- you are the one responsible for all that transpires in the game.

As you can see I'm very passionate about games as an art-form, but I'm equally passionate about games as a sport (hi competitive pokemon site, how r u?), but there are still so many different experiences out there to be had. For instance I remember hearing about a game called Cloud Chamber that consisted of players gradually receiving video clips and then working together to piece together the narrative of what happened- that's an incredible idea that I never would've thought of, and is just another example of how there's still plenty of ground to be explored.

Personally, in the past I've always craved narrative experiences that have a powerful emotional aspect to them or have some degree of intellectual depth. However, between uni, work and pokemon I'm finding I've got less and less time for games altogether. Even with pokemon, I spend a lot of time browsing and posting here, on PO and on Pokemon Perfect, probably way more time than I actually spend playing. So you could say I've gone from emotive/intellectual narrative experiences, to competitive strategic experiences to being part of a community.

Edit: Also forgot to mention that the variety of possible gaming experiences diminishes their perception as having artistic value. I can imagine people looking at shit like Angry Birds, or even e-sports like LoL and dismissing the idea of games as an artform. It may be a little silly to argue that one medium has more value than another, but I think games hold their own, if not surpass the vast majority of other mediums. This is especially the case since they readily draw from other artforms such as music, visual art and film.

 

[Squarewalker]

Nothing has quite yet been even close to being able to replicate the emotional impact To The Moon had on me. I like to mention To The Moon whenever people are arguing that games cannot truly be considered a form of art.

 

[HelenTheHero]

I've found games like Flower and Journey to spark something in me. When I played Journey, I gave my own names to the cloth creatures... like paper dolphins. Flower I imagine them being dragons, just wonderful dragons made of flowers. Games with no narrative, but such a great story I love. Which is why I will buy Abzu when it comes out. And playing Story of Seasons, for some weird reason, made me realize how quickly time passes. I sat there, my 3DS in hand, and I thought. There are only 12 months in a year. 12 is not very big. A year passes so fast, i'm going to be 18 before I know it. I'll be leaving my home, going to college, who knows where. In a game with just four seasons, 124 days in a year, I realized that 365 isn't that much. I'm not sure whether I should be scared or excited that time is passing that fast. I feel like August only just started, but soon i'll be back in school again. How is it almost fall? Well, might as well enjoy the time I have... and grind for more materials in SoS.

I love the community for every game also, it's really what makes me play. Not just Smogon, but everywhere. I'm only social because I have some great friends in Minecraft, and ARK Survival Evolved. Those moments you get when playing with your group of friends are amazing, and I remember them dearly. Recently I had to try to hard not to crack up in ARK, for a friend of mine came over to me and another friend, and they started shooting at each other because men are like that sometimes. The answer? Knock them out with a trang arrow and watch continue taming the ptera. In the word's of Grizzly, "Wait... Annie narced me. Your a monster too!" I love games when interactions like this happen. Would we have enjoyed things like COD or Halo as much without a friend to play with?

And of course watching people play games and seeing their reactions. I often check in on the REACT channel and Markipiler because I enjoy all the personalities we get to watch. There's nothing like giggling at Mark's face when he reacts to something in one of his games.

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I love his reaction here so much. He was silent for an entire minute, just staring.

I'm very excited to see where games will be taking us in the future, as we're seeing the growing trend of just exploring, besides just shooting, catching, or building everything. We have VR coming to the everyday consumer on the horizon, we're getting games like Adrift and Firewatch, and we still get to enjoy the games we've come to grow to live with as well. This is a golden age for gamers, and i'm so happy to be living in this time.

 

[Jellicent]

Games can stimulate people in a variety of ways, which is fantastic. Mentally speaking, they can increase logical reasoning, puzzle games like Hexcells or Prof. Layton being the best examples. Add to that problem solving, whether it's finding the most efficient way to take out your target in Hitman or figuring out how to clear a dungeon in Legend of Zelda. Throw in tactical / strategic thinking from games like Civ or even Pokemon, and you can start to see how games can force you to think in ways that other media can't. That's not even touching on more basic ideas like learning languages, typing skills, etc. that many games aimed at younger audiences aim to do.

It's also a very artistic medium. You'll often find yourself emotionally stimulated, whether it's joy, excitement, frustration, fear, sadness, or anything else on the spectrum. For some games, like To the Moon or Among the Sleep, that emotional connection is the game's main appeal. But there's more than just emotional response to the artform. Whether it's aesthetically pleasing or just mechanically creatively, games offer a variety of ways for the people who make them to show off their imaginative side. Hell, games like Minecraft and RPG Maker take it a step further and give the player the ability to showcase their creativity.

You could even touch on a more physical level. Improved reflexes is probably the most obvious example there, which is often found in RTS, racing, shooter, platform, and other games. More recently, with things like the Wii and Kinect, games have gone so far as to be a part of people's daily exercise as opposed to the usual sedentariness they're often associated with.

Even all of that is just scratching the surface of everything games do and can do. It's a medium that just continues to find new ways to express itself, stimulate people, and integrate itself with forms of art. Plus, best of all, games are fun ^.^

 

[Kurona]

I think one of the most integral parts to Video Games as an Art Medium; one that's probably already been touched on here is the fact that you have choice. In many games you're given many paths and you never have to go with a specific one; unlike say a book or a movie where the path is unvarying and set in stone. This allows for a ton of different options - the most extreme would be altering the storyline significantly which if done well can be an excellent aid to the storytelling; see for instance Ortheore 's example of The Stanley Parable. There's also the likes of, say, Xenoblade Chronicles; personally one of my favourite games. You can very easily go through the game on a simple linear path; following the story and not doing much else. But at the same time, one of the features Xenoblade is lauded for is it's pure exploration. The sheer amount of traversal landscape in the game's world is equivalent to the landmass of Japan - I'm not sure I need to explain just how big this game is and how many options it allows for. There's a ton of places you can just go to without never actually being demanded to by the story - you're even encouraged to do so by the RPG rewarding you with EXP for finding certain locations and landmarks which is a brilliant idea in itself. Xenoblade is chock-full of not only beautiful scenery, but very complex; I dare say somewhat realistically complex geography and many places from which you can simply admire the view - without draw distance issues.
And beyond that Xenoblade has around 500 sidequests to it's name - okay, admittedly some of those can be generic "go kill that monster; go find this item" quests, but on the other hand there's also a lot which do wonders for worldbuilding, do wonders for character-building of certain NPCs, and they're all 100% optional. Giving the player the option to experience storylines without forcing them to and shoving it in their face is one of many things a Video Game can do right.
There's also Pokémon which allows the player to build their own team unique to them - unless doing some sort of speed or efficiency run, your endgame Pokemon team will likely be very different to your friend's. Pokémon as a game probably has a lot of problems, but this is certainly one thing it does very well.
The point I'm getting at is of course that the big advantage Video Games have over any other art medium is that the player has choice. For it to succeed as an art medium it must take full advantage of that rather than just being some sort of interactable movie. That said... like any other art medium there's no reason you can't have a few mindless ones thrown in their too. Movies and Books have a ton of kak you probably couldn't get any sort of artistic meaning or interpretation from, and video games are much the same. Allow them to flourish and we'll get a ton more MGS2s and Stanley Parables in the future.