Okay, first, pop-culture and art are inseperable, they define each other. So to hear the argument 'are games art?' is to question what art itself is. As an artist I can't even begin to answer this question, the line between design, functionality, artisan-ship and integration into popular culture is completely blurred for everything from a pencil to a skyscraper. For example is a pencil art? Is the same pencil representative of an idea or ideas? Does that pencil (or the image of the pencil) convey a cultural meaning across languages?
Second, the plot lines will never be open until you have a sentient computer that makes up stuff on-the-fly. As a game developer, multiple plot threads are a nightmare to develop satisfactorily. You can't have the player leave the games setting because you a) can't define the rest of the world b) sell a game where it's possible to get into a situation where the player never completes the game.
In conclusion, I think that studying games and gamers will produce nothing more than useful marketing info. Whether Gaming has a cultural longevity is up to the people who make and market games (What you thought TV Ads didn't change your behaviour?).
Sorry if this is post seems aggressive or obvious.
I am just starting out and having read this amongst many other articles on the pro's and cons of Linux I am still unperturbed. My biggest problem so far has been getting bittorrent to download mandrake, so after a brief visit to linuxISO.org I am using IE to get it. The issues raised here though are of particular interest to me since I have ideas for a half way point of Open Source versus Commercial Viability.
My ideas in brief consist of a commercial base OS that will work as a default OS, with openly available interfacing and a unified set of standards for developers to comply with. The main point is to find a balance between Windows and Linux. If this sounds dumb, then fine that's your opinion, but I'm sure that someone else out there has had similar ideas. I know it doesn't sound too different from the various distro's out there, but the differences will become apparent when I layout the basic specification on my journal in the future.
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Second, the plot lines will never be open until you have a sentient computer that makes up stuff on-the-fly. As a game developer, multiple plot threads are a nightmare to develop satisfactorily. You can't have the player leave the games setting because you a) can't define the rest of the world b) sell a game where it's possible to get into a situation where the player never completes the game.
In conclusion, I think that studying games and gamers will produce nothing more than useful marketing info. Whether Gaming has a cultural longevity is up to the people who make and market games (What you thought TV Ads didn't change your behaviour?).
Sorry if this is post seems aggressive or obvious.
Thankyou.
My ideas in brief consist of a commercial base OS that will work as a default OS, with openly available interfacing and a unified set of standards for developers to comply with. The main point is to find a balance between Windows and Linux. If this sounds dumb, then fine that's your opinion, but I'm sure that someone else out there has had similar ideas. I know it doesn't sound too different from the various distro's out there, but the differences will become apparent when I layout the basic specification on my journal in the future.
Thoughts please?