agree 100% with film and graphic novels. not convinced on video games but am open to it - ThreadSky

fleerultra.bsky.social • 2 days ago

agree 100% with film and graphic novels. not convinced on video games but am open to it

I am disinterested in venturing into these waters except to say that the canon should now include film, graphic novels, and select video games.

I left grad school with the tools necessary to spot quality literature but I didn’t know good cinematography or immersive storytelling at 25.

Comments

marshallplexi.bsky.social•2 days ago

imo one of the great artists of the last century

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto

rimidar.bsky.social•2 days ago

Hideo Kojima

martin509.bsky.social•2 days ago

honestly just being able to read the text of a movie gets you 90% of the way to making the same leap for 98% of video games

martin509.bsky.social•2 days ago

I do highly recommend this video for anyone unconvinced of the 'games as art' argument, it gets at the core of how games as a mediu, differ from film and books and etc, but for the most part interpreting games as art is ~75% the same skillset as film/books
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx4eSkMBx-U

kipoca.bsky.social•1 day ago

I feel like you haven’t played Half Life 2

boredompeejeterson.bsky.social•2 days ago

I think it's totally fine to stick to one medium.

generalgoodsman.bsky.social•2 days ago

A lot of people are saying Outer Wilds and they're correct

jtsdmpk.bsky.social•2 days ago

I think the problem there is really one of logistics.

Is there a "language" of gaming that can be used to the same ends? Yes, absolutely.

But it requires so much talk about game mechanics and player reward systems as prerequisites.

martin509.bsky.social•2 days ago

Also just in general the list of games that properly leverage interactivity and aren't just either long movies or interactive books is about as long as, say, the list of comic books that actually *do* play with the medium's ability to warp time

martin509.bsky.social•2 days ago

So like, if you can already read the text of movies and books, it is *really* hard to not instinctually make that leap for 95% of video games, and reading the text of the remainder is a very very involved process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx4eSkMBx-U

peark.es•2 days ago

Fascinated in the post you’re quoting because it was pretty hard to avoid at least some exposure to high cinema in my undergrad. Existential Cinema was a particular favorite of mine.

jordantcarlson.bsky.social•2 days ago

get a bunch of under-25s to read the classics and then play Metal Gear Solid and see if they finally understand that Kojima's entire point is "war is bad, nukes are insane"

if not, we need to reevaluate

james-reckons.bsky.social•1 day ago

Niche example but the multiplayer shooter Hell Let Loose, where you can be killed with a single bullet from across the map, manages to convey how much 'walking across a road' in wartime was chancy. Unlike a book or film I have to decide to take the risk and suffer the consequence. Feels arty to me.

worldofcardboard.bsky.social•2 days ago

No disrespect to the show and it's immense creative passion, but I doubt they will be able to capture the exhaustion of various characters in TLOU2 the same way the game does by just having the player grind through encounters without a break.

Games definitely have their own language.

slothropsmap.bsky.social•2 days ago

Games that have achieved literary status is a short list, which is why I said “select games.” Requires leveraging mechanics unique to the medium to innovate narratologically AND writing well. So far that’s:

Fallout: New Vegas
Disco Elysium
Undertale
Games by Hidetaka Miyazaki (Souls, Elden Ring)

connorlynch.bsky.social•2 days ago

Death stranding was pretty solid

mosheroperandi.bsky.social•2 days ago

F:NV fails the curriculum test of "must be able to digest in a reasonable amount of time". Or even an unreasonable amount of time.

So many students failed because they went too deep on mods and spent hours debugging crash launches, or got distracted trying to collect every unique weapon.

mosheroperandi.bsky.social•2 days ago

Actually, one of the issues I see with this list, that might contribute to the argument for a VG canon, is how many of these are genre subversive.

Disco Elysium and especially Undertale gain so much from how they're in dialogue with genre conventions. Though both are strong enough on their own.

mosheroperandi.bsky.social•2 days ago

For games-that-could-only-be-games I also rank The Stanley Parable highly.

Though, I'd probably assign The Corridor, which plays in the same space in a smaller, tighter way.

Not the least for its "content creator mode" setting that adds a plea to buy the game in the middle (link to timestamp)

mosheroperandi.bsky.social•2 days ago

I, who had kind of randomly stumbled onto said let's play while bordely poking at the TV, immediately went and bought the game for its very affordable $2 price as a bravo for that.

First time I've seen a dev go "game streaming is also now a medium that my art can fuck around in"

slothropsmap.bsky.social•2 days ago

I would’ve put The Stanley Parable on the list but I ran out of characters lol

slothropsmap.bsky.social•2 days ago

I sincerely think the problem with video games is that for about thirty years they wasted their narrative potential.

On the other hand, there aren’t many canon-worthy films from the 1890s - 1910s either.

slothropsmap.bsky.social•2 days ago

I asked Michael to watch this and I think you should too. It’s quite good on this exact topic. Probably my favorite video essay ever.

plainsdriftwood.bsky.social•1 day ago

📌

mosheroperandi.bsky.social•2 days ago

It has been so long since I watched a Yahtzee video. IDK why I stopped.

exgnome.bsky.social•2 days ago

Most films from that time period have been lost though. If you want a glimpse into the Dawson City: Frozen Time is a fantastic little journey.

slothropsmap.bsky.social•2 days ago

I do not fault Moby-Dick for failing the curriculum test, but yes. Infinite caps at the casino would keep me up all night before an exam.

dara-the-explara.bsky.social•2 days ago

Imaging high-schoolers complaining about having to play Getting Over it with Bennet Foddy the way they complain about having to read The Scarlet Letter.

snowden.st•2 days ago

needs Kojima, I’m fine with Death Stranding. What do I need to accentuate on the application for Outer Wilds to ensure a thorough look at its introduction to the Canon?

sensitivepapi.bsky.social•1 day ago

Elysium is the only one of those that hits on its own terms (as opposed to via manipulating the formal elements of gaming) imo

ernesto.bsky.social•2 days ago

mgs 1-3

unclecaviar.bsky.social•2 days ago

shadows of the colossus. So good they made Sandler play it in the 9/11 depression movie

horseknuckler.bsky.social•2 days ago

This is such a fascinating list.

fischer.bsky.social•2 days ago

if we’re specifically talking about disco elysium I’m in

various-threnodies.bsky.social•2 days ago

gotta have Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri too

keithmo.bsky.social•2 days ago

I wonder about games that can be or have been successfully adapted to other forms of media. This tells me that have real story telling potential. I haven’t read anything based on a game but I have watched and enjoyed a couple of shows.

unclecaviar.bsky.social•2 days ago

Almost have to now that the gamers are a political bloc

kja.bsky.social•2 days ago

Games def need to be in there. They're as important culturally as film was ~1930s.

unclecaviar.bsky.social•2 days ago

I’ve been looking for an excuse to put together an hour long talk on the history of multiplayer text adventures and their evolution into the modern MMO

pursuedbyabomb.bsky.social•2 days ago

I'm with you. I think it has more to do with how a medium does something that other mediums cannot do. I think video games are starting to get there, but it's still very young. Good examples: TLOU, Death Stranding, Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, Journey.

pursuedbyabomb.bsky.social•2 days ago

I think a lot of people mistake "Games as Art" as do they look pretty, have good writing etc etc. The question has to be "Could this story be told best with this impact, this tone and theme, as a game?"

ericafails.bsky.social•2 days ago

Something like Night in the Woods COULD be condensed into a book but forcing you to act out a character's self destructive choices is a big part of the impact and something you don't get from a more passive intake of the story

roxy-roller.bsky.social•1 day ago

don't agree with this framing at all. is a movie not art because it was a better written book first?

pursuedbyabomb.bsky.social•1 day ago

My response was framed around a standardized canon and video games being part of it, not necessarily on whether one can view games as art in and of itself.

roxy-roller.bsky.social•1 day ago

i think if the uniqueness of the medium is the primary gauge then it's inarguable that by nature of player interactivity that some stories can only be told best through video games (undertale, DE come to mind). but even that strikes me as pretty subjective. the artistic quality surely matters too

fleerultra.bsky.social•2 days ago

right, there has been some legitimately beautiful imagery and writing in games but i’m not sure they wouldn’t still be better stories in another medium. things like witcher 3’s multiple endings or open world world building might be the key to unlocking uniquely gaming artistic merit

dcsoda.bsky.social•2 days ago

Interesting though I think I’ve had much more impactful experiences with playing through stories compared to those other mediums. The ability to put yourself into the story or create your own is something that I think games far exceeds anything else.

slothropsmap.bsky.social•2 days ago

If you’re open to a six minute video essay on exactly this topic, this is the one for you.

It comes from the best voice in video game theory, @yahtzeecroshaw.bsky.social, and it delves into only the games that have leveraged medium-specific mechanics to tell medium-specific narrative.

fleerultra.bsky.social•2 days ago

i’ll watch!

slothropsmap.bsky.social•2 days ago

I sincerely appreciate that! It’s been a formative video in how I think about this topic.

yogabbagabagool.bsky.social•2 days ago

You got you rdr2 and your ghost of Tsushima where the act of making your pov character get into the dirt and be a part of reckoning with their and your sins that o don’t think is going to hit in any other medium. It’s a good lens on the medium to ask this question

nyxill.bsky.social•2 days ago

While medium specificity is definitely useful for both presenting a convincing argument for "games as art" and evaluating their most essential strengths, it's important to note that it is not a prerequisite for their status as art. If they are art, they are art regardless.

steampunk-willy.bsky.social•2 days ago

The Outer Wilds is a piece of cosmic existential literature that truly can only be experienced as a video game. You're basically a cosmic archaelogist caught in a time loop of the last 24 hrs before your sun goes supernova. You really have to play it as a game to get the full experience.

markpaglia.bsky.social•2 days ago

Speaking as someone whose M.A. was mostly built around Victorian novels, I'm quite insistent that video games are art. There's no shortage of genres and formats that used to be considered vulgar and commercial that we now accept as art.

fleerultra.bsky.social•2 days ago

i agree that at least some games are art, but i’m not convinced they belong in the new classics canon.

markpaglia.bsky.social•2 days ago

I get why people hesitate, but I just think we've had enough artful video games over several decades to view them as an artform.

gayarmada.bsky.social•2 days ago

elden ring dunks on anything charles dickens ever made other than tale of two cities

reyturner.bsky.social•2 days ago

Would a video game in the canon be there specifically because of its story? The vibe? Emergent stories? Only video games or could board games be included? Ttrpgs? Team sports?

cuddlessmash.bsky.social•2 days ago

I dont think there's a game that both stands up with strong narrative and is also generally fun as a game, doing well in one generally means concessions to the other.

I love Slay the Princess as an example for narrative reasons but think it's a bad choice for a vg classic.

cuddlessmash.bsky.social•2 days ago

Other games that i think dont compromise on are omnibus rpgs of games that do not fit in generalized literature classroom settings. I love the Xenoblade series but that will be awful in classrooms, full stop

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