"Video games more creative than reading"

[MammothBlade]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/video-game-news/9077458/Video-games-more-creative-than-reading.html

Lucy Prebble, who is best known for her financial satire Enron, attacked the popular stereotype of teenage gamers as "chubby automatons" who spend their days shooting virtual enemies and eating crisps.

The award-winning writer said playing video games requires more involvement and creative input than reading a book or watching a film - and also offers more opportunities to be active and sociable.

Rather than being vilified, video games should be recognised as an art form appreciated for the way they tugged at our emotions and stimulated creativity, Prebble said.

She warned that a "middle-class terror" of raising fat and idle children has led to an unfair perception of gamers as sedentary, adding that fears about the violent content of some games are patronising and misguided. She said gaming was similar to writing, in that both are private, creative activities very different to watching films or reading books, which involve less input.

Video games require the user to make decisions, giving them the chance to influence the story and even in part design the world in which the game is played out, she added.

Prebble said the influence of her IT professional father meant her siblings were trained in computer programming, and gaming became a shared activity for the whole family.

Hooray for some wholly positive media coverage for a change.

It can't be said that all games are creative or mentally engaging, or that they have to be, but many genres of games are, and I hope more uninformed people catch onto this. If only I could show this article to certain people I know...

I don't think that video games are somehow better than reading, though. They're about equal in my mind, give or take some horrible prolefic autobiographies or Call of Duty.

 

[Wolfram23]

Well, this can be true. I think it depends a lot on the games you're playing. Shooters and brawlers don't require deep thinking, it's more like a sport. You get in the zone and just act.

RPGs though can be more engaging and creative at times, especially ones with puzzles like Zelda (as simple as they often are). RTS/4X also definitely require critical thinking. Games like Minecraft and the earlier portion so of Spore, though, allow true creativity in gaming.

So basically what I'm saying is that gaming is diverse and can certainly offer a lot more brain function that books and movies, but they don't always do so.

 

[TheCommanders]

I'm studying for a BS in Game Design and this is a frequently discussed topic among some of my professors.

 

[kyogen]

I'm studying for a BS in Game Design and this is a frequently discussed topic among some of my professors.

On the one hand, good. Games are a class of media worth taking seriously.

On the other hand, academics of all stripes spend a lot of time justifying the social--and by extension, financial--value of whatever it is they work on.

 

[TheCommanders]

I'm studying for a BS in Game Design and this is a frequently discussed topic among some of my professors.

On the one hand, good. Games are a class of media worth taking seriously.

On the other hand, academics of all stripes spend a lot of time justifying the social--and by extension, financial--value of whatever it is they work on.

Christ, you're not joking. I took an art design class as an option (long story) and good god, half the time in that class (most of the other students were full time art majors) was going: "it's ok to be an artist, you are all valuable parts of the community." Maybe it's just me, but if they didn't already believe this, why the hell would they go to an expensive private college to study art (unless they just really felt like wasting their parent's money).

 

[Kahunaburger]

While games are a fascinating emergent art form, I don't think that the games being made now are up to the standard of literature in terms of critical involvement by the audience. This may change a few centuries down the line.

 

[kyogen]

While games are a fascinating emergent art form, I don't think that the games being made now are up to the standard of literature in terms of critical involvement by the audience. This may change a few centuries down the line.

That's why some academics spend so much time insisting that the standards applied to literature and other forms of human expression don't apply to games. I disagree, though I certainly acknowledge that discussing games requires a basic shared vocabulary.

Personally, I think there are real masterpieces in gaming worthy of study. Perhaps they shouldn't be put side-by-side with Michelangelo's "David," but that statue can't really stand in direct comparison to something like The Iliad, either. It's not meant to; it has it's own set of merits. Nevertheless, analyzing the form and content of a statue or a text or a game draws from the same set of skills at base, and these can be cultivated and adapted as media themselves evolve.