Play’s Republic

So, a while ago I found this article, Persuasive Games: Why We Need More Boring Games by Ian Bogost, who we are well familar with here. In it, he discusses some of the implications of considering games not just as art, but as a media form in their own right. Are games the same as film and writing, media forms which are subject to uses both sublime and mundane?

Film, he says, gives us masterpieces such as Casablanca, but also is used to create things as mundane as airplane safety videos. Does the game form also have the same potential for banalism, and is this a bad thing? He gives the example of Brain Age, for the Nintendo DS, which has no real innovative gameplay, or much of gameplay at all. It presents math puzzles, reaction exercises, and the like to form a game which serves to keep the mind sharp. He compares it to an exercize video, something which serves a purpose, but is not exactly innovative.

He feels that just as in any other media, there exists a continuum between the masterpieces and the banal works, and that we should acknowledge the value of both