Comments on: The Sunday Papers

By: Janise Vogds

Janise Vogds — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:20:09 +0000

Awesome short article, well written I must say.

By: Pod

Pod — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:07:28 +0000

a) I completely agreed. I despise the constant over use of “meta” attributes. Most of the time you’re simply talknig about attribute, and not the meta-attribute.

b) your definition of meta is completely wrong

meta-

1. a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, with the meanings “after,” “along with,” “beyond,” “among,” “behind,” and productive in English on the Greek model: metacarpus; metagenesis; metalinguistics.

The most famous use was meta-physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics_(Aristotle)#Title.2C_date.2C_and_the_arrangement_of_the_treatises

By: Pseudonym

Pseudonym — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:38:10 +0000

EZ Streets was brilliant though.

By: Dracko

Dracko — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:01:02 +0000

Paul Haggis was a Scilon? Probably explains why his movies are such crap, then,

By: GibletHead2000

GibletHead2000 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:32:31 +0000

I work for a software company, with a bunch of other programmers. All we talk about is computer games. ;-)

Oh, and poo.

By: Gundrea

Gundrea — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:06:38 +0000

Kommissar Nicko cancelled diatribe on art: interrupted by carp.

By: Kommissar Nicko

Kommissar Nicko — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:25:32 +0000

Oh, also Dwarf Fortress.

By: Kommissar Nicko

Kommissar Nicko — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:24:19 +0000

Interestingly enough, I’d say this ties into Rossignol’s discussion of “artificial beings.” Games haven’t quite figured out yet what they’re actually “good” at doing, in the way that TV, movies, and porn have. It’s been said before that games have not quite realized they’re not goddamn movies, but really, the design hasn’t moved much beyond exploring the synergy between player choice, procedural generation, and simulacra. I would say that the hidden but powerful desire of AAA-game-developers to be novelists and Hollywood blockbuster directors is the lodestone around the neck of the game industry as a whole, and the development of the medium: there is no way to fully explore a player’s choice options while at the same time maintaining a photorealistic level of content and strict narrative control. The things games of the future ought to be exploring and capitalizing is the potential for infinite player choice and infinite generation of content. However, whether or not you want to call that “art” is something for the people of the future to decide, when those things exist.

By: LewieP

LewieP — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:35:39 +0000

Was when we spoke on Saturday, so ner!

By: invisiblejesus

invisiblejesus — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:30:47 +0000

“No popular games achive anything at all in the artistic direction available exclusively to interactive media”

Y’know, I keep reading comments like this about the possibilities of interactive media. And I like the idea, I want to believe that there’s something to it. But thus far, I see almost nothing in the way of explanation as to what exactly interactive media offers. A lot of talk about the artistic and storytelling possibilities of interactive media, but talk seems to be all it amounts to. Anyone want to cowboy up and offer a perspective on the possibilities of interactive media, beyond complaining that games haven’t reached them yet? Actual personal thoughts, not a link to someone else’s blog.

By: DMcCool

DMcCool — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:14:19 +0000

What amazes me in the whole games-in-mainstream-journalism debate, in ALL of those articles and ALL the comments (yes I did read them all) not one person actually put their finger on the real problem here.

Computer Games simply aren’t that good. Even looking past the oh-so-tedious subject matter we see in all the most high profile games, they really aren’t that good. They are addictive, but so is stratching an itch. No popular games achive anything at all in the artistic direction available exclusively to interactive media, which deprives us of the support of the intellectuals, even in the most critically acclaimed games the writing is inferior to the similiarly acclaimed television series and, yeah, the subject matter of space marines and what not is unbeliavely unappealing to most humans.

Right now, as a whole, games get exactly as much respect in the mainstream media as they deserve. Ok, TV gets far far too much as does Hollywood, but gaming is inferior in almost every way besides and has earnt its derison.

Your average game is an escapist power-fantasy or an idle time consumer. Thats not to say they are not entertaining – they are! But so is pornography. Right now, thats where gaming sits, somewhere between TV and Pornography. So many of us consume it, but we are loathe to talk about it in public.

That said, I’m no cynic. I think it’ll change in time, it may only take one mainstream leap of faith from a major publisher or an indie gem to somehow break into the public conciousness, but I think it’ll happen. In the meantime I’ll settle for Beatles Rock Band being the most high-profile game around – its actually rather good.

By: Muzman

Muzman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:29:45 +0000

Yeah, it was fairly ok-but-meh. Thief: The Dark Project hit all the same marks (or meta marks) 11 years ago. But I guess you write about what’s around. Some might think Thief‘s lack of an overt controlling influence, its freedom v linearity aspects being differently weighted in the design and wrapping it up in a hero narrative, puts that meta-narrative at too much of a remove for the terms of this article. Which is probably fair. I reckon it’s all there though.
Indeed, between Thief, System Shock 2 and Bioshock you’d have to say Ken Levine is trying to sew up that theme (although he’s shifting it very much from subtext to text).