Bioshock and objectivism. Braid and determinism. Senua's sacrifice and free will. Videogames frequently borrow concepts and tropes and sometimes are based entirely around philosophies. In what is eventually a limited medium – as one has to 'win' the game – is this a misguided attempt to elevate an ultimately flawed art form? Or can videogames be an entry point towards encouraging philosophical thought in others?
While this topic would be very interesting, it would be very broad to apply philosophy to 'video games' generally, but could be very interesting if written as specific articles focusing on a certain game or genre of game and relating a philosophical theory or thought to it in that way. Although this area is something I would definitely like to see more of at The Artifice. – Nodgnal7 years ago
I think "one has to 'progress through' the game" is fairer because maybe getting stuck is the point of some games. Or other games like The Stanley Parable or Until Dawn finish no matter what you do.
I think this is a good topic though and l suspect the case will be that philosophy can absolutely be explored through video games. I look forward to seeing some obvious and less obvious examples about video games that do this. – CallMeMaybe7 years ago
Acheivements have been available for quite some time in the form of PC gaming on Steam. However, with the addition of these starting the XBox 360/PS3 era, I think there has been a shift in how many people perceive playing games. For myself, I research video game literary studies, so I have seen my own perceptions in playing games. When I was younger, I played simply to enjoy a game, play a story, do a little grinding, but when it moved to this acheivement system, I found myself playing game differently. No matter what, the trophies are in the back of my mind. I am constantly thinking about what I need to get the Platinum. Also, when I play as a researcher, I am looking for more story moments, so games that are combat heavy (BioShock Infinite) that have a great story tend to feel like a slog. How can we, as gamers and researchers, keep these different gaming "personalities" in check so that gaming doesn't feel like a job or chore, and what does it mean for gaming in the future? Looking at somthing like a David Cage game (I'm looking at you, Detroit: Become Human) is obviously great for the research, but playing to get the Platinum is an entirely new beast altogether, and they tend to meld when playing.
To boil it down, how has the advent of achievements/trophies changed the way gamers look at, and subsequently, enjoy video games? Do the trophies make them more fun or more of a chore after so long?
I think this is an interesting topic. I have found that chasing platinum trophies keeps me playing a game well past the point of it being fun. The competitiveness of a given game reaches into a kind of meta-realm where the achievements of gamers are comparable through an achievement/trophy system. The desire to escape this phenomena could possibly be linked to the resurgence in retro gaming. No recorded achievements, simply gaming for gaming's sake. – Kormax7 years ago
The newly released first-person, open world RPG "Kingdom Come: Deliverance" has been criticized in some quarters (perhaps unfairly) for not including black people in the game. Vocal defenders have emphasized the game's commitment to historical accuracy (after all, there would likely have been no black people in a small village in medieval Bohemia, where the game begins) and have frequently mocked the criticism as further evidence of the ridiculousness of the social justice warrior.
What does historical accuracy even mean when it comes to this RPG? Is it historically accurate to exclude black people yet to include the possibility of becoming a "bard" or a "knight"? The term "bard" wouldn't apply to medieval Bohemia, either, and lowly blacksmiths of that time simply didn't climb the social ladder; they pretty much lived and died in the same lower class that they were born into. Is it historically accurate to not have fantastical creatures to battle yet still to allow the player character to craft potions using a skill called "alchemy"? Those potions create short-term buffs that don't look at all the different from the buffs created by magic potions in medieval fantasy RPGs such as The Witcher or Baldur's Gate.
Though slightly tangential, this might shed some light on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk – ProtoCanon7 years ago
The video is really good and very relevant to the discussion. Thanks for the link! – JamesBKelley7 years ago
An interesting factor to consider is how 'historical realism' affects the look and feel of the game itself. In some games the inclusion of a small number of historically realistic elements conflicts with a fantastical game setting, and can have a negative effect on the player experience (dependent on their awareness of the relevant historical culture). A colleague of mine, Gareth Wild https://jamescook.academia.edu/GarethWild has commented on this regarding the 'Imperials' in Morrowind, who are the only faction clearly derived from a historical culture - ancient Rome - and in appearance are almost identical to Roman soldiers of the period. This interpolates the impression of a well known 'real' culture into a fantasy setting which does not include that history, which conflicts with the 'imaginary' history of the game environment... – Menadue7 years ago
Menadue, the very same sort of thing occurs in Fallout: New Vegas, with Caesar's Legion. For some reasons, ancient Rome is commonly resurrected in our fantasy RPG games. That would make a great essay topic in itself: Ancient Rome and Modern Fantasy. – JamesBKelley7 years ago
Even casual fans of Zelda have heard of the triforce. The mystic golden triangles, left behind by the 3 goddesses after their divine act of creation, each represent a particular character trait, power, wisdom, and courage. The bearer of each piece of the triforce is said to personify the character traits that each piece represent. In addition, complete balance and mastery of the triforce requires one to have all three pieces at the same time. Without all three pieces at the same time, a person's soul is out of balance.
In a lot of ways, this characterization of the triforce shares similarities with Aristotle's virtue ethics. Aristotle wrote that in order for a person to reach eudaimonia (sometimes translated as 'flourishing' or 'happiness') they must have the proper balance of the different virtues, such as courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice. Aristotles ethics would provide a unique lens to analyze the different character in the Legend of Zelda and how the embody their respective virtues . Link obviously embodies courage, and its easy to see why. Link consistently takes on monsters 3 times his size, is motivated solely by justice, and is steadfast in his duty. An article examining the major characters of the series through the view of virtue ethics would be a neat take on the series.
I thoroughly agree. This is something I would love to see explored more: developing and analyzing philosophies with video games and virtual experiences. At the moment, there's very little or not prominent academic work discussing the ways the virtual medium can explore these topics and this would be an excellent addition. I admittedly don't know much about Aristotle's philosophies but with the familiar characters and plots of the Legend of Zelda games, I, and many like me, could begin new inquiries! – TheNayobian7 years ago
A look at the prevalence and effects of sexism in tabletop RPGs, such as DandD. How are female players and their characters treated by their male counterparts during a game session? How does this differ from a female character played by a male player, if at all? Some women who play RPGs have gone to certain lengths to avoid sexism during game play, such as forming all-female leagues. How is extreme sexism that wouldn't otherwise be tolerated in everyday life by male players justified during a game? There are many routes this could go, but it is, I feel, a fascinating subject with many points that could be taken away by various audiences.
I would definitely read an essay on this topic. I wonder how a person would go about getting the information, though. Are there internet discussion boards on the topic? Or existing articles? Or some other easy-to-access resource? Ideally, interviews or observations -- I'd love to play some D&D and call it "field ethnography"! -- would be be used, but that would take a lot of time and effort. – JamesBKelley7 years ago
^ The idea originally sparked for me when I was reading a discussion thread on reddit between female RPGers, so I expect there will be online discussions or people who would be willing to talk about their experiences with someone exploring the topic. I see your point, though. Some time and effort will definitely need to be put into finding reliable sources of information. – Analot7 years ago
As always 'Critical Role is' a great show to look at for these discussions. Currently voice director Sam Riegel is playing a female character - a goblin rogue, and so far it has been very interesting and very respectful. I agree that finding authoritative sources will be difficult, but if you developed your own case study based on observations from different shows currently available through YouTube or Twitch and then as Analot observed, look at the discussions in Reddit this would make for a really interesting piece. – SaraiMW7 years ago
In 1954 François Truffaut coined the term 'auteur' in his groundbreaking work "Une certaine tendance du cinéma français", a descriptive that would subsequently be used to describe directors whose style or approach is so idiosyncratic that their films would be easily recognized (See Wes Anderson, Scorsese, Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Bros). But could this perspective and theory be possibly applied to the video game world?
We don't hear much of names in the video game industry, but the ones that come to the top of my head include Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto, Toby Fox (for his sheer creative control in Undertale), Ken Levine (of the Bioshock games) and Sid Meier, who has built his own empire from his Civilization games. So my question is: is it possible to consider such visionaries auteurs? Can their games be considered solely products of their own unflinching vision? Or is another step in order: wherein we ought to consider companies/collectives as auteurs in their own right?
An interesting topic - I would argue that the "auteur"-theory is also controversial within the film-community. Theses days, the tag " A Spielberg/Scorsese/Coen Bros... -film" seems to be as much about marketing than about artistic vision. Is the screenwriter not as important in the development of a film than the director? After all, he creates the story/plot, themes, characters? I think the same argument can be made about the production of video games. A video-game does not need to reflect the vision of one individual creator to be considered a work of art. – Nightshade7 years ago
As video game players have risen from a small subsect of people into a large swath dominating the country and planet, how has this effected how we humans interact with one another. The Tetris Effect is when a repeated activity shapes the way your brain functions, as the repetitive action causes the brain to assign importance to said action. Given the prevalance of gaming today, how may be the Tetris Effect be changing society, and how may this look in our future as gaming becomes further mainstream.
Interesting topic! It may be making a few leaps to go from talking about local changes in the brain function of an individual to talking about behavioral changes in that same individual to talking about behavioral changes throughout society. I'd encourage someone to take this topic on (I'd like to read the result!) but would also encourage the writer to think about the difficulty of establishing cause and effect. – JamesBKelley7 years ago
Interesting, since gaming is so prevalent in modern culture. However, that since the Tetris effect is more of an analogy than a specifically gaming culture related idea, if you just want to talk about that, you should try to extrapolate the Tetris effect to other places (i.e. doing math problems causes dreams about numbers, playing basketball nonstop causes one to throw everything into containers like a field goal, etc). If you're looking to talk about gaming's prevalence in modern culture, you could also talk about other gaming-related terms that have become accepted in modern vernacular (i.e. politicians referencing video games, Let's Play celebrities, video game movies and tv shows, internet memes about video games, and events related to video games (like Pikachu Festival, E3, etc). Hope this helps. – tedytak7 years ago
Interesting, would love to know more on your thoughts about this – galalhassan7 years ago
Approached from the perspective of being an interactive story, what is unique to games like MMORPGs (esp. sandboxes), metroidvania, war games or survival games, as stories? What are some of the ways that gaming has innovated new ways of telling stories (think non-linear, interactive etc). Games can pull together disparate storytelling techniques like visual, auditory and interactive in a way that books, comics or film alone can't. Has the gaming industry harnessed this potential?
If you want to narrow it down to a specific category i'd recommend visual novels and RPGs, as they feel a lot closer to the question.
It would be very helpful to mention Final Fantasy XV, which one could argue spread itself too thin with the multimedia storytelling. It was a double-edged sword: People could access the series through the anime, the feature length movie or even the retro style gaming experience of A King's Tale. For someone like me, who was heavily invested in the series already, it was wonderful and got me excited for the game in the lead up; but for a casual gamer who just wanted to play the game, or a movie-goer just wanting to watch the film, it would make it difficult for them to grasp the entire story without turning to the internet to fill in the blanks. – AGMacdonald8 years ago
You could also look at the different ways games try to pull a story. For instance The Last of Us is an excellent example of envrionmental storytelling and how you won't get the full plot without actually interacting with the space around it. If you're mentioning comics, the Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us (anything Telltale, really) are great examples of how the universe expanded beyond the game (or how the game expanded beyong the comic) to create a larger universe – Mela7 years ago
I think a good recent example of non traditional story telling is the game Nier Automota. In order to play the game to completion, you have to complete three different storylines, each of which that follows the more or less same story, but each is from a different character's perspective. Depending on which character you are playing as, different information about the story is available to you. For example, one of the characters cannot read or understand the language of the primary antagonists, so when you are playing as that character, the language and writing of the antagonists look and sound like gibberish to you. However, when playing as another character who does understand their language, you are able to read and understand the speech of the enemies. There are also multiple endings that differ substantially depending on which storyline you are playing, The game also breaks the 4th wall a lot. The way that the game represents your character's status is seamlessly integrated into the gameplay. As another example, since your player character is an android, some enemies can hit you with a computer virus that will mess up your vision. The game does not just make it harder for you to move, or harder to attack though; the game actually screws up your visual display so its like your own vision is messed up. Other attacks may cause 'glitches' where your screen jumps in and out. Overall, I thought the integrated HUD did a great job of immersing you in the world and it was probably one of my favorite narrative elements in the game. – alexbolano927 years ago
