Games, Narrative and Art

Overview

The emergence in the 1990s of computer and video games rendered with sophisticated graphics has brought them to the attention of those who work with the cinema, and with art. Two great scholarly debates continue to rage over games. One is whether or not computer games are a legitimate aesthetic craft. The other is whether or not games can, or should, or need to, communicate a narrative.

These academic debates are irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of people, for who games became a mainstream, adult pastime a long time ago, rivalling TV, movies and books. Whatever the arguments, games are a well-established part of the media landscape. However, the question of how representation, appreciation and narrative work in computer/video games generates questions about how they have worked in the more traditional forms we have long taken for granted.

The success of games with little or no obvious narrative has overturned the idea of "narrative" as a dominant structural form, and raise the possibility that "games are the art-form of   the 21 st century".

Primary Reading

"Game Art" review by Jeffrey Barlow in 'Interface: The Journal of Education, Community and Values."

http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2005/02/morris.php

"Is It Possible to Build Dramatically Compelling Interactive Digital Entertainment

(in the form, e.g., of computer games)?*1 by Selmer Bringsjord http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/bringsjord/index.html

"Are Video Games Art?" by Aaron Smuts in the Journal of Contemporary Aesthetics

http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=299

More

"Loading the Dice: The Challenge of Serious Videogames" by Stewart Woodsin Game Studies, Volume 4, issue 1.

  http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/woods/

"Beyond Myth and Metaphor: The Case of Narrative in Digital Media." By Marie-Laure Ryan in Game Studies, Volume 1, issue 1.

  http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/ryan/

"On Virtual Economies" by Edward Castronova in Game Studies,Volume 3, issue 2, December 2003

http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/

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"When Seams Fall Apart Video Game Space and the Player" by Laurie Taylor in Game Studies,Volume 3, issue 2, December 2003