dsheinem wrote:It isn't a "common misconception" - it is a commonly understood term by people - like myself - who do write about video games from a critical perspective professionally. I don't want to tote out my credentials here, but I have read widely in game studies, have presented on games at scholarly conventions (by invitation), have reviewed and responded to other game studies scholars on multiple occasions in person and in writing, etc.
Okay, but many others who write about video games have reviewed The Path and other "games" like the ones made by Tale of Tales with the caveat that they "aren't really games" so clearly the term is not
all that commonly understood? If their credentials are similar to yours, then what authority or rationale is there to say that your understanding is more correct? This is an emerging area where there is a lot to be worked out and defined, and not all that much precedent as to what is "commonly understood". In fact, the idea of what a game is has been "commonly understood" for much longer than video games specifically have existed, and something like Graveyard or The Path doesn't even begin to fit into it.
Besides, you're waiving your credentials as a critic around even if you don't want to, but I am an artist. I don't think approaching a disagreement about art in that direction is going to be fruitful for either of us
dsheinem wrote:By analogy, you could claim that radio isn't a medium but just a subset of the medium of "sound" or that TV is a subset of the larger medium of "moving pictures" or that VHS is a subset of "the medium of film," etc. - but all are considered mediums in their own right, with their own distinct features.
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They absolutely are. To say that video games are part of the medium of "interactive video software" is as broad claiming that TV is part of the medium of "moving pictures" - it may be true, but it doesn't tell you much about the specifics of the medium.
And calling a non-game work of interactive art a "video game" implies something about the specifics that isn't true. I'm not sure why that's any better. If term A is too vague and term C is too specific, then it would be better to figure out what term B is, rather than choose one side to err on.
flamepanther wrote: but instead let me pose this question: under what rational circumstances would you have a VHS tape that, when discussed by someone who writes about VHS tapes professionally, evokes a statement like "to understand this, you have to stop thinking of is as a VHS tape"?
I am not sure what exactly you mean by this - I didn't say anything that leads to this question, or else I am not understanding your question.
The latter, I think. When you were attempting to make a
reducto argument, you suggested the absurdity of calling VHS tape a subset of "the medium of film" as a comparison. I'm pointing out that the comparison doesn't work. Here's why: professional game reviewers have in the same breath praised The Path and asserted that it is not really a video game. People group it with games because there's not an established category that it belongs to, because art experiments like these share a common ancestry with proper video games, and because games are superficially what it most resembles. If The Path is a video game, and video games are to "interactive video software" as VHS is to "the medium of film," then there should be some conceivable example of "X" in the following: "X" is to "VHS" as "The Path" is to "video game." There should be some imaginable instance of something that somehow is a VHS tape, but has to be considered
not a VHS tape in order to be appreciated properly. If not, then there must be some kind of mistake in your comparison of the categories.
I agree. But the medium of "painting" is very specific and well defined. The technologies are limited. By contrast, the medium of "interactive video software" - which is a multimedia technology - is too broad for critical analysis to be productive. It has to account for to many kinds of things. That's why professional critics usually break down this non-useful and all-encompassing category into more specific mediums. Otherwise, when assessing the features of the medium we have to include God of War, GPS technologies, DVRs, MS Paint, etc. as all belonging to the same medium. It doesn't get us very far in understanding how the medium of video games function culturally, which is usually the aim of the critic.
I think we've misunderstood each other. See, as an artist, I'm trained to think of the "medium" as the raw materials I'm using, regardless of whether that's useful for classifying what I do with them. The mediums of "found objects" or "mixed media" are so vague that you may find them completely useless, but would mean something to me. "Medium" to me says something about how something is made, but nothing at all about what's being expressed with it, who it's for, or what venue it's to be presented in. Let's chalk that up to a difference of usage by different professions.
That said, here's the way I'm looking at it. Painting is a medium to me. I could paint a portrait, and I could paint a landscape, and those would be two completely different things that I could do in one medium. Those are genres, not separate mediums. There could be some overlap, as there might be some background landscape behind the person in the portrait, but overall these are two separate categories of painting and one is not the same thing as the other. If I were to start with a portrait that had a landscape behind it, and somehow erase the person, I would now have a landscape, not a portrait.
What I'm suggesting is that "video games" and "whatever the hell it is Tale of Tales makes" are to "whatever useful medium descriptor I should use instead of 'interactive video software' as "portrait" and "landscape" are to "painting." The two can cross over just fine, but they are not the same thing. There's nothing to preclude making an immersive, expressive video game at all. It's just that when you
remove the game for the sake of the immersion and the expressiveness, you're left with
some other valid art genre (or medium or whatever you want to call that level of categorization) that is no longer a "video game," regardless of whether it uses the same raw materials and techniques.
If you want good portraits to get noticed
as portriats, the answer is to make really stand-out portraits that are focused on being portraits. Making portraits that focus on landscape isn't a problem and can make for a great painting--even a great portrait, but it's totally the wrong direction if I want to be known for portraiture. Likewise, deeper cut scenes and interactive stories aren't where our attention should be if we want
video games to come into their own as an art.
) has to do with whether or not the term "medium" can be applied to video games, or whether it is an ill-fitting term. In the absence of another more descriptive term - which I agree would be useful - many media studies critics find it practically necessary to define games as a medium so as to differentiate video games and video-game like programs from other forms of software...