Making Statements With Video Games 329
You may have heard about the recent controversy at the Leipzig Games Conference over a modification of Space Invaders in which the invaders are slowly demolishing the World Trade Center. The creator intended it as an artistic expression, but has since removed the game, saying, "it was never created to merely provoke controversy for controversy's sake." Kotaku took this occasion to ask whether "statements" can and should be made via video games, and how it affects the ongoing question of whether video games should be considered art.
"The entire issue begs comparisons to Danny Ledonne's Super Colombine Massacre RPG!, an unsettling and involved title that tasks players on the most basic level with acting out the 1999 Littleton, Colorado school shooting in the role of killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Ledonne told the Washington Post that his intention with the title was never to glorify the tragedy, but to 'confront their actions and the consequences those actions had.' Like Stanley's Invaders!, Ledonne and his title stopped short of providing a direct interpretation - neither artist has been especially specific about 'what it means,' or in instructing players on how they should interpret their work or what 'message' should be taken away."
Free country (Score:1, Informative)
PRETTY SIMPLE...
If you don't like it, don't play it.
Otherwise STFU or move to somewhere you can use the gov't or others to control people you don't like.
Re:You can make whatever statements you want. (Score:3, Informative)
ps. Sharia Courts are bullshit: "In instances of rape some interpretations of Sharia law require for an allegation to be validated, victims must have four witnesses to the crime or else the victims risk being charged with fornication or adultery making a rejected allegation a potential death sentence for the victim. In Yemen Sharia law required compensation to be paid to the husband in the case of a 10 year old child bride who requested a divorce after rape and abuse (the age of sexual consent under Sharia law is 9)"
Re:there is no question (Score:2, Informative)
Video games are art. They may be terrible, terrible art, but they are art.
Re:Oblig. Southpark (Score:1, Informative)
the statue of David never came with an instruction manual directing people how to interpret it, but somehow people called it art instead of porn until the conservative extremists got some media bandwith to play with.
Not entirely accurate. The statue of David has gone through many "ups and downs" regarding its offensiveness or lack of offensiveness as "art". There is a "leaf" attachment that was created to cover the offensive part with. I can't remember what year this would have been (we're talking 18th century most likely, and at the behest of some queen...) Point is, it's been censored, uncensored, etc... for centuries.
Re:You can troll with them = you can make statemen (Score:2, Informative)
I refer you to Tycho's review [penny-arcade.com] of "Shadow Of The Colossus", wherein he starts feeling pretty creepy about genociding peaceful giants. As far as I can tell, that "um...what am I doing this for?" feeling is the point of the game.
Re:there is no question (Score:3, Informative)
Name one painting, song, sculpture, poem, or play that has the intellectual depth of a sophisticated and intellectual video game.
Painting: There isn't a game on this planet that's broken my brain as much as Relativity [meridian.net.au].
Sculpture:After seeing some of Joe Fafard's work this weekend, I'm still waiting for some of his sculptures [flickr.com] to follow me home and stare at me.
Photo: You didn't request the name of a photo, but I'll still provide one, because Man vs. Tank [manbottle.com] sure says a hell of a lot
Poem: Following the theme, I dare you to try to look at a poppy in the same way [vac-acc.gc.ca] after reading In Flanders Field
Play: Oh, dear frog, where to even begin with this one. Hell, I'll just plug one of my sister's plays for this one, Bigger Than Jesus [biggerthanj.com], if for no reasons other than even as someone who isn't religious, I found it enlightening-- and because the end of the airplane scene still haunts me.
Song:Rather than point out yet another example, I'll simple refer to the massive cross-pollination of video games and music. Chopin's Prelude in D Flat Major, aka Raindrops, used in conjunction with a certain video game trailer [xbox.com]
Re:But he said "World Trade Center"!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong!
9/11 = 0.82
.81 repeated, actually - and only if you use floating point arithmetic. If you use integer math, you get zero... So you want "9.0/11"