{"id":251,"date":"2008-06-25T14:01:01","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T14:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/decisionproblem.com\/seminar\/?p=251"},"modified":"2008-09-04T05:48:01","modified_gmt":"2008-09-04T05:48:01","slug":"a-measured-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/?p=251","title":{"rendered":"A Measured Response"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new issue of the Escapist has an essay by Jason Rohrer<\/a> in which he outlines his hopes and dreams for the future of games. Though the piece is wide-ranging, the core of his argument is that the problem with the industry is actually that most developers put gameplay first, trumping whatever artistic visions the creators might have had. According to Rohrer, in order to elevate games to a form of ‘high art’ it’s going to take putting the gameplay, as defined by the mechanics of a game, in service of the expressive potential of games, instead of rehashing old genres and slapping on any theme that comes to mind.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I sympathize with this sentiment. However, in arguing his case Rohrer unfortunately makes several problematic statements. The worst of which comes at the end of the article:<\/p>\n

What other medium places such high hurdles in the way of simple start-to-finish consumption?… In order to make games that everyone might appreciate as high art, we first need to figure out how to make games that are playable – start-to-finish – by everyone.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jason Rohrer is an artist that I admire. I’ve even said that I think of Passage<\/em> as “a perfect game”. My response\u00a0 is that games are not a medium that we consume (they’re technically not even a ‘medium’). Though consumption might be part of their experience, they are really something that we perform<\/em>. Games will never be placed beside The Godfather<\/em> or Transverse Line<\/em>, because they are a categorically<\/em> different form of art.<\/p>\n

Also, I believe that complexity definitely not what’s keeping games from being considered ‘high art’. For example:<\/p>\n

\"Bach<\/p>\n

In order to make [music] that everyone might appreciate as hight art, we first need to figure out how to make [music] that [is] playable – start-to-finish – by everyone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new issue of the Escapist has an essay by Jason Rohrer in which he outlines his hopes and dreams for the future of games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamedesignadvance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}