Gaming Academia Gets More Mainstream Press

jimharris writes "Eventually every area of human activity comes under the scrutiny of scholars. After thirty years, it's time for video games to go to college. The New York Times has an article (free registration required) called 'The Ivy-Covered Console', that talks about several lucky professors who play games for a living. The challenge, they say, is to develop a language of criticism to analyze video games." One particularly unfortunate quote: "Dr. [Barry] Atkins admitted that he didn't finish Half-Life before writing about it in his 2003 book, 'More Than a Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form,' (Manchester University Press), and only later realized he was two minutes from the shocking plot reversal at the end when he stopped. 'I am very nervous that I got it wrong,' he said."

Comments

plot twist at the end and game as fiction..

[gl4ss]

that's what happens to lot of players.

they see only half of the story, since the game is too boring, too easy or too hard to finish. this is something that they should have take into consideration when writing up the critique.

I remember fondly some games from my childhood that I never got around to finish :)

Unfinished Games

[Jodiamonds]

Yes, many players end up not seeing the whole story of a game because they don't finish the game. But that's just a sign of a bad game.

I shouldn't be *forced* to keep playing because the game might get better *later*. The player should be having fun the whole time, right? Obviously, some parts will be better than others, but ten minutes of boredom can kill a gaming experience. Especially if there's ANOTHER game that will be fun RIGHT NOW. =)

Re:Unfinished Games

[Alkaiser]

Exactly.

How many games have you played where the gameplay is just horrid 95% of the way through, and then all of a sudden gameplay mechanics change for the last 5% of the game, and it totally rocks?

None?

Yeah, me too. Even so...why would you make your game crap half the time? That IS the mark of a bad game. When I play good games...I don't wait for them to get better...they're just good, there's not these huge peaks and valleys in enjoyment. Repetition kicks in at some point...but that's totally different.

Subjective Criticism

[leadfoot2004]

As with any kind of evaluation, it is very difficult to come up with a 'formula' in analyzing video games. There is some element of subjectivism when critiquing video games -- just look at thousands of game reviews sites. I think scholars have given up trying to analyze movies and press a long time ago. It would be interesting to see how long would the novelty of video games in academics stay before it wears off.

Re:Subjective Criticism

[Snowspinner]

I can assure you, scholars have not given up trying to analyze movies and press.

We have largely given up the notion of "review," I'll admit - but popular culture studies remains big.

And, believe me, we're well aware of subjectivism - it's there for most things.

I doubt this is a novelty thing - we'll be around to study video games as long as they remain popular. And if they die off, some people will focus on them in 150 years when they do 20th and 21st century studies.

Narrow selection of games

[MMaestro]

Why do I say this? Simple.

Researchers shouldn't use cheat codes, she said.

Yeah, lets see you get all 150/250/whatever they're up to now Pokemon without cheating while maintaining your job as a professor. I spent over 50 hours in the original Pokemon and didn't even get 100 of them. Good luck trying to get double that number while writing an analyze of it up. Admittedly not exactly a fair statement considering the game, but how about RPGs? On average they now tend to average about 30-70 hours. Each.

Others say that games need a Shakespeare, someone who can catapult the digital medium forward.

You mean someone like John Carmack who is already considered to be the founder of the FPS genre, one of the best programmers in the industry, and the creator of some of the most recognizable video game serieses in history (Doom and Quake)? What about the people at Valve? They got Half-Life right, something great must be there. What about Hideo Kojima? He makes storylines so dense even hardcore gamers get pissed at him.