Are video games art?

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Official ICO boxart for Japan

If you are a so-called "hardcore" gamer, you probably have heard about this discussion. The recent matter in the USA Congress in which games were decided to be protected under the First Amendment just made the topic even more popular. You may not just heard about it, but participated in the debate through forums, with your family or friends, or even at some school debates. Also, there is a high chance that you are a gamer who hates internet trolls and fanboys of certain consoles (either Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony). Still, I have found that almost ALL gamers are fanboys of the industry itself and behave in a trolly way (yeah, you too) when it comes to call games art.

Why oh why do you gamer fellas want games to be art so desperately? Forget Roger Ebert's infamous declaration about games not being art, in which he also stated that he doesn't know a thing our most beloved form of entertainment. Forget what art curators have said. Forget the Smithsonian exposition. Forget all that and just answer this: Why the heck do you want games to be considered as art?

What is art?

I've seen lots of pseudo wannabe hipster-snob dudes and dudettes thinking they know all about art, while they obviously don't even have a clue of what "obnoxious" means. I have seen that stupid attitude in lots of gamers. Could it be that those hours we've put into gaming would feel like an investment if we could say they were used in some kind of interactive art? Maybe we want to consider ourselves somewhat more educated than other people because "we can understand and play games and you cannot". Or maybe it is because the pretentious attitude towards the definition of art that mankind has, in which art seems to be something deep for just a selected few.


There are as many definitions of art as Lady Gaga fans out there. According to de Saussure and Barthes, we could say that art pieces are those which try to NOT be signs. So think a little more about it before you hate and troll me. Is every single movie artistic? Is every song ever created a great piece of art? All existing books perhaps? No they're not, so we cannot say "video games are/aren't art", we should talk about specific games.


How to define artistic games?


Here is where the problem gets bigger. What are the most cited examples? Team ICO games, Braid, Alan Wake, Okami and Limbo... see what's going on here... see the problem? All the "artistic" thing here is mostly the visual and narrative aspects. I say we got to start thinking beyond that to know if music, sound effects and over all of these the gameplay itself and the story (not just narrative techiques) 


I'm not saying these games have some art within them or nor, I'm not even able to, but I can definitely say that generally games are NOT art and discussing over it is dumb because we ALSO love gaming for a bunch other reasons than artistic ones. Why aren't games art? Because they are a mass-produced mass-copied product made to get money. I will say that it'll be awesome to get games defined as art, I'm a gamer and it would make some annoying people take video games more seriously and not just like "kids crap", but apart from that I love the creativeness behind games, the stories, the graphics, the gameplay, the reality they give us BUT I really hate stupid discussions which get us nowhere.


So next time you are about to fight over the artisticness of games, think twice, maybe you won't get anywhere not convince anyone, so do not argue and enjoy your games and the sweet satisfaction of knowing that maybe those people talking to you, will never understand the greatness of a sweet old haduken, a clean headshot, saving your village/world/universe, eating the ghosts or just jumping on top of enemies' heads, reaching the monkey and saving the girl. After all, we know for sure that plumbers can get the rich princess by the end.

17 reasons to tweet

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Yeah yeah yeah, I know for a lot of you are interested in getting a Google+ account invitation. Some others are already using it for either good or trolling evil. But as you may know, some people out there think every digital social network "is just the same thing", they really believe twitter is useless and they even call it nonsense and "too difficult to understand" (yeah right, writing/reading 140 characters is very difficult, now I see why culture and education are gone for good). If you happen to know one of those tweetless souls, show them the next list of why should they start using twitter:

On the producer side:

• Easy way to share your every thought.
• Easy way to share your content from blogs, websites, digital social networks and more.
• All self-respected websites and communities include twitter related services, so you must do it.
• Practice your writing style to become more efficient..
• Share pictures, videos, website links and more without having annoying facebook-like interfaces.
• Chat with people you have common interests using hash tags.
• Get to know who is interested in your content.
• Give customer service directly.
• Join the conversations on different streams.
• Join communities.

On the consumer side:

• Search for content you are interested in.
• Stay updated with info from people/websites/organizations/media that you follow without having to read through entire sites to find what you really  need and/or want to know.
• Find out about local national or worldwide common topics by the constant change within trending topics.
• Keep in touch with your friends, acquaintances or just people you met online.
• Choose who and what to include in your Timeline. Unlike FB, My___, hi5, etc., you won't become "friends" by adding someone, you can follow and/or be followed but one is not required for the other.
• Receive direct customer service (NOT from funny accented India nor weirdly accented Mexico... yeay!).
• Get a lot of information (which you can expand) on a few minutes.

Those are just SOME basic reasons to join the twitter community. Go ahead and tell your untweeted friends.

GAMER PLEA

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What's this all 'bout?

No, it won't be online stores what punches retailers and contributes to worse-quality games, it will be the creation of so-called online passes what will take on retailers. Steam and several other online stores drained the HP for sure (and please oh please, if you thought that meant Harry Potter GET OUT OF HERE), but the fatality will come from that smart stupid strange idea of creating online passes for games.

(NOT SO) Quick explanation, (if you already know about this subject skip the following paragraph or just read it for the lulz). Online pass is not the official name, it's the way EA calls them, but other companies use this concept (or will start doing it). It is this ohsosmart idea that game producer companies (specially third-parties) have about making it sure to get some money from you. How? Well, each new physical copy of the game includes a code that you must redeem on the internet to register your product so you become able to use the online components of your new game (in most cases multiplayer and leaderboards). But what happens when you go to that nice retailer who offers you cheap and well-taken-care-of used games? You MUST pay some extra bucks to get a new code you can use, and you must pay that money to the creators of the game. If not, you will suffer the consequences... no multiplayer for you. Sweet isn't it?

You may wonder WTF were they thinking! (AVGN style) when they did that. Then you might have looked through the internet for some kind of explanation just to find that almost all kinds of media supported this OHSOGR8 idea because, let's admit it: the poor poor crybaby-pussies some game companies have become really and desperately need those $5-15 in order to pay their employees. I would personally like to say to EA: STOP BEING SOUCH BIG DOUCEHBAGS. Stop buying small studios for 3 bucks (yeah millions, but for EA that's like taking a piss), just to close them 6 months later and making more people unemployed while keeping their IP's.

ONLINE VS. OFFLINE. Which one should be the main focus of today game studios?

We can start a very long discussion about this and get nowhere. We wouldn't reach an agreement before FFvsXIII is out and believe me, Nomura told me it would take a while. The point here is that whether you prefer to play MAG or Mass Effect, you want a GOOD GAME. It is a shame that some game studios don't think that way. They think games are not expensive enough, some of them got together at an orgy important meeting (I think I saw some CEOs on that "Eyes wide shot" scene) and decided to PWN us with DLC invention and now, they must have been too bored swimming in money that they got out of the green stool pool, and said as a chorus: Hey! gamers are not Marcellus Wallace, so why don't we create these online passes... and so our story began.

I know this is not new, and I don't think it's an entirely bad idea. The problem is as follows (Master Yoda voice please): Greed leads to fast-produced games. Fast-produced games lead to focus on multiplayer aspects. Focus on multiplayer aspects lead to online gaming. Online gaming leads to poor offline components. Poor offline components lead to online passes as a must. Online passes as a must lead to gamers' suffering and we all know where that got good ol' Anakin. Of course, as we know a lot of games are great ones on both their online and offline parts; some others are good just on one side (take Mass Effect or the first Uncharted and Assassin's Creed games as a reference), but how can we expect new games to keep getting better when studios just keep thinking about how to get money. YES it is an industry and you , the guys who make games, sell us a product, but at least don't let your product become lame. "I love gaming" (Butler, 2010), and I own a bunch different titles and consoles since I was a kid, but that doesn't mean you can treat us gamers as stupid-minded people. There are a lot of good games today, but each year some IP's seem to go down the toilet, if you still disagree, compare KZ2 with KZ3.

About studios' poor lame crybaby reason...

Go talk to Larry and you'll remember good old games and about being pussy-whiped. Go lame studios (and no, EA is good, they just act stupid sometimes), go ahead and keep wanting to get our money to build more and more servers for more and more online games, until GLaDOS takes over Skynet and rips us all a new one.

Ok, on the more serious side, they do not NEED that money. They say buying used games gives all those bucks to the retailer, so they want to assure by using these online passes, that they will get some. The thing is even easier to solve, do you really think gamers would sell their games back to retailers if the game was actually a good masterpiece? Of course not! How many ICO, Shadow of the colossus, God of war, Child of Eden, ReZ, Halo Combat Evolved, Mass Effect and so on, copies do you find under the used section, against the gazillion tons there are of dumb FPSs, movie games and silly adventure titles.

Let me tell you a little secret guys (this is for the CEOs if you are not a CEO, but know one, read it and pass it forward, if you have nothing to do with game studios' CEOs, you may read, but as you don't have an uberbladder for brains, you might not get the point, it's made VERY simple and your complex adult brains won't be able to see it): How about stop producing games as often as babies crap, stop exploiting good franchises, and begin to really think about more than graphics (yeah, gameplay matters too). I know guys, it will be difficult, but here are some advices:

1. Movie video games: stop doing them, they all will have Atari's E.T. fate.
2. Rockband and Guitar Hero (and all "hero" games): Stop them for a decade, it's like having sex and using position FOREVER.    I T   G E T S   O L D...
3. Stupid prices: cut the crap, check how expensive are your products in EVERY country and see why you don't get income from there.
4. Read about the 1983 fiasco. If you are too lazy mr ohsobusyCEO I'll sum it up. Quick production means bad quality means your game will be returned. PLEASE start giving us what we pay for and sacrifice 10 shitty games a year for 2 or 3 good ones.
5. If you still think you are right and I'm wrong read this blog again and again until your head gets my point you dumb-ass.

So this is not entirely about online passes. As you can see this rant is about how we are approaching another game industry crisis and why we gamers desire better games. Online passes are just a confirmation on what is mattering the most to studios.

Mr. Obnoxious Ranter out.

X_X

The (not so real) FF Versus XIII Nomura interview

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Or at least the way I think Mr. Nomura would (NOT) answer to some of my questions.

(Original official transcripti from my brain, made by a very good looking 60 year old gorgon.)

Mr. Rant (MR).- So, about what you said to Famitsu magazine in your latest interview: are you truly considering to enter 'full production' stage of Versus soon? Are you sure of this decision? I think after JUST six years since the original Fabula Nova Crystallis reveal, you might not be ready to even consider full production, no sir. I've got an idea, what about waiting.. gee.. I don't know... MAYBE UNTIL THE NEXT BLOODY ICE AGE!!!??


(Not) Nomura (NN).- You are soooo totally completely 100% O-righty kiddo, we may just wait a little longer to be sure.


MR.- Now, on to creatures and summons. We (FF fans) really think the lesbionic bike-sisters (a.k.a. FFXIII's Shiva) should be included in a revamped desing in Versus, you know, some cool bike for Noctis, he's a prince, he deserves the best. Also a new way to show some of the other classic summons would be awesome, you know like, some creepy Ifrit and a cool looking Bahamut. What can you tell us about them and the summon mechanics?


NN.- Summons? What are you talking about? Those things will be talked about by the staff until we hire some creative designers and that'll be when we start thinking about the main plot and serious things. We don't want to rush the develpoment of the game, remember that Atari's E.T. EPIC FAIL? We are being careful and thorough, that's why six years have been wasted invested in long meetings of how-to create pretty pink flowers and THROWING TO THE TRASH CAN OUR GREAT-KICKASS ILUMINATION SOFTWARE TO DEVELOP A BETTER ONE THAT'LL WE TAKE A DUMP ON NEXT YEAR AND RE-DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN because it'll be too old for us (again). On the lesbionic Shiva matter, and cool stuff for Noctis, that is why we are giving him a cell phone, come on, gadgets should appear in the game, maybe we don't know what this'll be about, but we sure gave Noctis a cell phone to take pics and fill your HDD with nonesense crap within the game because, let's admit it, that is what YOU want from an RPG.


MR.- Are you freaking kidding me? Have you seen the Frostbite 2 engine capabilities? It looks REAL enough. Understand us, we want a good-ol revamped-Soraished fighting style Noctis Caelum NOW and not a damn piece of art (well we do but come on... over six years already?) by 2015's PS4 announcement (which will cost around 799,000 bottle caps).


NN.- Frostbite is not enough for us, because, RPG-ers don't want great plots, oh no, what they want is believable hair in real time cut scenes and pretty clouds.


MR.- O.ô... (Mumbling) That is SO not what we talk about when we mention Cloud.... but that's what we should expect to get from a guy who create this characters and this SO realistic names. (finished mumbling) Anyway, Where do you stand on a Dissidia tridecim discussion? A game in which Noctis appears together with KH guys and more?


NN.- That will happen for sure


MR.- ★.★ really...?


NN.- No, I'm trolling you, LULZ...


MR.- ¬¬


NN.- ...


MR.- Finally, when should we expect KH III?, maybe after DreamDropDistance?


NN.- Hell no. We plan to exploit the franchise with a lot of nonsense like toys and ill-named games that tell you the same stories over and over again (KH 837583 days and KHDDD) until every KH fan becomes an emo boygirl and kill themselves until just 3 or 4 survive and then we'll make KH for those few. You gotta understand THAT is what being a hardcore gamer is: being able to wait for your favourite game for years without turning into an emo. On a side not, we will be saving an endangered species by doing this... emos are almost gone... some day we'll miss that hair, that's why Noctis, Cloud, Lightning and all my zipper-filled characters look like that, we support a cause above everything.


MR.- Thank you for your time Mr. Nomura, and thank you for giving killing all hope for me of seeing Versus in the near future. Oh and by the way, please do not ruin Versus by doing this.


NN.- My pleasure.

X_X

For every n00b out there, this is obviously intended to be a joke, I'm a fan of FF and Nomura's job and this originated in a conversation with a friend who, like me, is waiting desperately for FFvsXIII. And no, no rage agains emos, for a time I was close to becoming one.

SPOILERS ahead: gamer siblings + stuff

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Yeah, some more fun material from the World Wide Web...

...I sounded soooo 90's right there.

Hi everyone, after lots of weeks without posting regularly, I'm finishing some entries that were on my "to-do list" and you will be seeing them soon. After the Avenger's one, I want you to know some of the upcoming material, but first I'd like to give a big geeky apology. I will update weekly again, I'm back at college so I've been having a hard time updating the blog due to projects, books and homeworks. Anyway, won't happen again, here's the plan for the next entries:

- There is a new blog in the recommendation section. It's made by my dear geek friend Number XIII. Check it out, show some love and give some feedback =D.

- I'll be posting some geek-movie analysis (I have already decided which one, but is a surprise for you. Also if you'd like me to talk about some particular movies, just post them as a comment or send them to me by mail).

-  A new Paradigm Shift-section entry related to digital discrimination.

- Also, I'll be beta testing the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multiplayer so expect a review about it as soon as I get my hands on it.
-  I've found some amazing and funny stuff around so expect more "SPOILERS" entries.

- I may attend the Electronic Game Show by the end of October, there are no big revelations expected to be made, but still I'll be covering the event. I'll tell you whatever I can. 

If you wonder why I'll be talking so much about video games is because we like them right? Also with the recently over Comic Con and Gamescom, and the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, there is a lot to say in that area, and there'll be even more. Nonetheless I will be balancing it with some other material, like some technology and science news. I also want to make an statement: The reason I "moderate" comments posted here so I get emailed every time you post one, I AM NOT a censor and I APPROVE every single one.

Now for the "SPOILERS" part of this little piece of blog let us watch and admire the not-unknown, random and great...

Burch siblings!!!

You may know Anthony and Ashly Burch for their "Hey Ash, Watcha Playin'?" (HAWP) videos. They basically make reference to a different video game (or sometimes a movie or event) in each of their videos and make somewhat of a parody/fun situation out of it. Here you have on of my favorite ones, the Uncharted 2 HAWP video.


Tell me what do you think about the video? I think they are great. If you wanna go see all their videos you can go here. They upload a new video each week so go check them out =D. This one is taken from GameTrailers.

Video Games | HAWP | Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii