Response to Wolf – Abstraction in the Video Game

In this week's text, Wolf resurrects the age-old debate of realism versus abstraction in the art world. In this incarnation, video games are at the center of the situation. The degree of accuracy with which the dots and pixels of games present and past ressemble their inspired-from-life counterparts is certainly a subjective matter. It likens the discourse offered by Pixar when describing how "real" they can make food, hair, people and more appear in their 3D films. As a viewer, it is important to understand that it is a good thing that this company is not charged with serving up a gourmet supper during my outing but rather enchanting children with animated classics. Video games emerged from an era fascinated with art as performative and riddled with interaction in forms contrasting today's touch and motion sensitive play styles. Looking into the latest progress from the open source hardware community, I can see this starting point's advantages. The Wayne and Layne Arduino Game Shield has reached a major milestone by sending abstract graphics to a screen. This is certainly the beginning of an inspiring product as its creators admit not pushing the hardware to its limits yet.

Much in the same way Pixar enchants cinema goers, game makers use empathy as a primary tactic to welcome players into new worlds. As was emphasized by Wolf, this is an important way to encourage a lasting bond between characters and their masters. Basic marketing knowledge will also bring to light more prominent ways of building a market around imagined playable spaces projected toward our retinas. Beyond the graphics printed on the box, in addition to the game manuals and past the shimmering cut scenes of today's games, I immediately think of nostalgia as a reason to purchase and play many of the games referenced by Wolf. Video game vendors are not shy when it comes to finding ways to persuade us to buy. Passing the time, there's a game for that! Exercising, there's a game for that! Outlet of rage, there's a game for that! This may be why the author proposes a return to abstract video game styles. Instead of finding clever marketing methods to show off a new title, let the medium's message carry its weight. Is it just me, or can this be (in part, of course) what we can attribute to the Wii's success. It's certainly not owing to it's revolutionary graphics.

Wolf writes of consoles and computers rated only by their hardware architecture's capability. Making impressive graphical presentations leads to satisfied and addicted gamers. Again, this seems a strange simplification of the world of games. A world able to simultaneously take us out of reality and change the substance of our lives. In a similar way as the woodcut adorned the walls of 16th century homes, we welcome digital games into our abodes. Generally not considering the change in pace such artworks can introduce in our lives, we embrace them. Game systems in different environments produce different meanings and messages. I venture the arcade can correspond to a gallery. Games, taking up significant physical space, are lined up to be acclaimed and enjoyed. This is the function of space.

One concept from this article has left me curious. Many games adapt their environments and difficulty level to the player's ability. On the other hand I am not able to come up with a game who's controls are malleable. That is to say, the game's physical function triggers behave differently at any given moment. Searching a similar phenomenon online yields only comments from frustrated gamers who find their customized game settings changed without notice. Would frustration be the only result of such a rude game structure? It is possible that this scenario depicts a first encounter, but subsequent tries may reveal a new meaning to this medium. Using this ploy along with a function based game could potentially define a new genre of game.