Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Content for Later

I see people stumble on this page occasionally, so I want to try to put at least a little something on here every so often.

I came across this awesome video on Penny Arcade TV that I wanted to discuss in the future.  I'm saving my full thoughts on it for later when I'm not defending my dissertation proposal and programming experiments, but I'm excited to share.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/beyond-fun

The long and short of it is that video games are being bogged down by this idea that they have to be "fun," when really we need to be thinking about how they can be engaging.  Fun is part of that, but not the necessary component of a game.

I couldn't agree more, but at the same time question the whole "treating video games like other art forms" premise.  Yes, video games can vary in genres like books and movies, but they also require a degree of interaction you don't see in those media.  Video games are kind of their own monster that doesn't follow a lot of the rules and conventions you can get away with in a purely aesthetic entertainment experience.

Anyway, food for thought.

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