This is a quite late submission for this blog post about the artist lecture on October 9, but I hope it is still acceptable.
On October 9, Brock Rough from the University of Maryland came to give his lecture "Why Video Game Criticism is Hard". Rough began his studies in Art and then ventured into philosophy. his lecture did not focus much on video games themselves; he did mention that his lecture could be applied to many other arts other than video games. So, his lecture seemed more philosophically-based than art-based.
Rather than going into detail about the outline of Rough's lecture, I will give my reactions to his lecture and explain what I found particularly interesting. After establishing definitions for fiction, props, and narrative, Rough outlines the basis for two different worlds that are portrayed in art- the work world in which the reality is defined by the environment, and the game world in which an individual's freedom to make-believe in context of the work world determine's that virtue. So, in other words, each individual understands the work world as influenced by their own established beliefs or fictions about said world. This is not a foreign concept to people seeing as how truth can be relative, and personal experience nurtures one's perception of a work.
However, the lecture became more interesting with the introduction of the ideas of primary and indirect truths. I enjoyed his example of these truths in stating that a primary fictional truth is one directly stated by the work, such as "this is a person", whereas an indirect truth that depends on the foundation of primary truths could be something such as "that person has blood in their veins" though that is something that cannot be proven in the fictional world.
Without going into the more complex and extraneous terms and issues that Rough introduces about why video game criticism is hard, I will attempt to summarize his conclusions based on this information. When there are multiple people playing a game in which the world is fictionalized, each individual is going to experience this playing field differently because they interact with the fictional truths of the world based on their own prior experiences. Therefore the nature of the game world is further fictionalized by the interpretation of the player's own make-believe, or interpretation of indirect truths. Therefore, the established overall truth of the game world is not stable or the same for everyone. Furthermore, the game worlds often have multiple outcomes in their story-lines based on the decisions that the individuals make in the game world. The plethora of options and outcomes makes it very difficult for people to experience every possible play in a game, thereby further increasing the range of experience of individual players. There is also the combination of player experience with the advent of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMO RPGs). In this, multiple people are influencing the outcome of each other's experiences, such as in Guild Wars 2 where another person stepping in to help in combat may effect your experience by decreasing your chances of earning experience points, or increasing your chances of survival.
The infinite of outcomes makes knowing how to determine what defines a sufficient level of experience of a game in order to give a credible critical response to the game. If there are infinite outcomes, how much time does one need to spend playing a game in order to know the game to an extent in which they may give a well-researched criticism of the piece. Rough proposes becoming more determinate in creating this distinction, but I question how possible this is given the fact that there are very few people who are willing and able to play a game multiple times in order to gain greater knowledge of a game. And, how well do those experiences sufficiently reflect common criticism for the population at whom these games would be targeted, or by those who would buy them? How would better criticism affect the marketing of these games?
The content of the lecture was great and and complex, so Rough needed more time in which to fully grate upon his ideas and definitions, especially given the diverse crowd that attended the lecture, but his ideas are fascinating and great because they are extensive in application.
On October 9, Brock Rough from the University of Maryland came to give his lecture "Why Video Game Criticism is Hard". Rough began his studies in Art and then ventured into philosophy. his lecture did not focus much on video games themselves; he did mention that his lecture could be applied to many other arts other than video games. So, his lecture seemed more philosophically-based than art-based.
Rather than going into detail about the outline of Rough's lecture, I will give my reactions to his lecture and explain what I found particularly interesting. After establishing definitions for fiction, props, and narrative, Rough outlines the basis for two different worlds that are portrayed in art- the work world in which the reality is defined by the environment, and the game world in which an individual's freedom to make-believe in context of the work world determine's that virtue. So, in other words, each individual understands the work world as influenced by their own established beliefs or fictions about said world. This is not a foreign concept to people seeing as how truth can be relative, and personal experience nurtures one's perception of a work.
However, the lecture became more interesting with the introduction of the ideas of primary and indirect truths. I enjoyed his example of these truths in stating that a primary fictional truth is one directly stated by the work, such as "this is a person", whereas an indirect truth that depends on the foundation of primary truths could be something such as "that person has blood in their veins" though that is something that cannot be proven in the fictional world.
Without going into the more complex and extraneous terms and issues that Rough introduces about why video game criticism is hard, I will attempt to summarize his conclusions based on this information. When there are multiple people playing a game in which the world is fictionalized, each individual is going to experience this playing field differently because they interact with the fictional truths of the world based on their own prior experiences. Therefore the nature of the game world is further fictionalized by the interpretation of the player's own make-believe, or interpretation of indirect truths. Therefore, the established overall truth of the game world is not stable or the same for everyone. Furthermore, the game worlds often have multiple outcomes in their story-lines based on the decisions that the individuals make in the game world. The plethora of options and outcomes makes it very difficult for people to experience every possible play in a game, thereby further increasing the range of experience of individual players. There is also the combination of player experience with the advent of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMO RPGs). In this, multiple people are influencing the outcome of each other's experiences, such as in Guild Wars 2 where another person stepping in to help in combat may effect your experience by decreasing your chances of earning experience points, or increasing your chances of survival.
The infinite of outcomes makes knowing how to determine what defines a sufficient level of experience of a game in order to give a credible critical response to the game. If there are infinite outcomes, how much time does one need to spend playing a game in order to know the game to an extent in which they may give a well-researched criticism of the piece. Rough proposes becoming more determinate in creating this distinction, but I question how possible this is given the fact that there are very few people who are willing and able to play a game multiple times in order to gain greater knowledge of a game. And, how well do those experiences sufficiently reflect common criticism for the population at whom these games would be targeted, or by those who would buy them? How would better criticism affect the marketing of these games?
The content of the lecture was great and and complex, so Rough needed more time in which to fully grate upon his ideas and definitions, especially given the diverse crowd that attended the lecture, but his ideas are fascinating and great because they are extensive in application.
