Video Games
In the lecture today, the topic was on Video Games and the types of video games studies. These types of video games include Arcade Games, Consoles, Computer Games, MUDs, MMOGs. Arcade Games, Consoles, and Computer Games I have heard of, but not MUDs, and MMOGs. Huh???
There is a serious study of video games much like internet studies. Video games studies can be broken down in the term of Narratology and Ludology. Narratology is the study of Video Games from the perceptive of them being stories or literacy works. This allows video games to be studied more like text (meaning book, cultural products, films, paintings and music) than anything else. Early video games did contain some cinematic elements (such as cut-scenes) but the act of playing the game was usually dramatically different. Video Games are becoming a new form of cultural practice, in the same way people now think about radio, newspapers, television and films.
Ludology is the contrast of Narratology, and is not concerned with the story elements of games but rather the Game Play element. People who have written a video game based on Ludology have basically made the game for decoration only.
When is comes to video games, there is so much more than just the story and the game play. Video Games are getting very technical, somewhat like computers. This can be seen when comparing say Alex the Kid (primitive Sega game in the early 90’s, to say Need for Speed Underground, so much more complex) The origin of the video game came from computers. Video Games encompass all of the following smaller genres.
· Arcade Games
· Computer games
· Console games
· Hand held devices eg PSP. etc
“Games are popular art, collective social reactions to the main drive or action of any culture. Games, like institutions, are extensions of social man and of the body politic, as technologies are extensions of the animal organism. Both games and technologies are counter-irritants or ways of adjusting to the stress of the specialized actions that occur in any social group. As extensions of the popular response to the workaday stress, games become faithful models of a culture.They incorporate both the actions and the reactions of whole populations in a single dynamic image.”
-Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
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