/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18187977]

I know this may not be the best place to ask but is there any book about the decline of video games? I know there are few out there about video game history and it seems like gaming industry has undergone a massive shift from an engaging but nonetheless not artistic entertainment medium to a fucking disaster fueling the already evident decline of attention span among zoomers with mobile games and shit like Fortnite.

[Anonymous No.18188001]

>>18187977
It has done the opposite of what was predicted in the 90s and early 2000s, it became more expensive to produce not less. To create a game at a level to compete nowadays you have to sink a ton of money. Also, people are becoming dumber generally and this trend is reflected in all mediums right now

[Anonymous No.18188087]

>>18188001
Thanks but please try to keep the thread /lit/ related. I was asking for books about video game history, especially their recent decline. I don't want this thread to be jannied for being off-topic you know?

[Anonymous No.18188124]

>>18187977
For that you have to read books about the nature of capitalism and consumerism. Quake used to be the best FPS because of its sophistication and it was replaced by CoD and csgo because they were comparably less demanding for a casual person, which is something a democratic society cannot tolerate.

[Anonymous No.18188140]

>>18188087
Fuck you

[Anonymous No.18188148]

>>18187977
not sure about the last decade of gaming but this is a good account of PC game production in the later 80's and early 90's. it ends with romero getting into making mobile games

[Anonymous No.18188209]

>tfw it's even worse than vid related predicted it would be
https://youtu.be/O8-vHp86aEo

[Anonymous No.18188231]

>>18188087
Saving this

[Anonymous No.18188338]

>>18187977
>pc growing
>console constant
>decline
????
zoomers just changed arcade and gameboys for mobiles

[Anonymous No.18188384]

>>18188338
Decline of quality and artistry. Increased revenue supports that thesis, in addition to one's own firsthand experience.

[Anonymous No.18188990]

>>18188384
>artistry
Video games aren't art

[Anonymous No.18189244]

>>18188990
Why not?

[Anonymous No.18189302]

>>18187977
While not video game related, I found "What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains" to be a great non-preachy book on internet use and psychology. You may find in tangentially important to the rise of skinner box games and other predatory games.

[Anonymous No.18189324]

>>18189244
Something is artistic when it is pleasing in itself without using your psychology to draw you in. Videogames stimulate you in the latter manner because the activity is pleasurable.

[Anonymous No.18189333]

>>18189324
I don't agree with your summation.

[Anonymous No.18189363]

>>18189244
Because video games are addictive substances that are manufactured by megacorps for sale to minors.

You might as well ask "why aren't cigarettes art" or "why isn't crystal meth art".

(Because the intent isn't artistic, despite whatever marketing is used to distribute the product.)

[Anonymous No.18189395]

>>18189324
>>18189363
So Call of Duty isn't art. Why isn't Alpha Centauri?

[Anonymous No.18189412]

>>18189363
I'll argue that cigarettes and crystal meth are art.
My definition of art is:
>someone deems it as art and appreciates it as such
>it can be evaluated as art

Your definition sucks because its basically
>something I like
>something that is traditionally appreciated as art
This just makes the word art a gatekeeping bludgeon you can use to win internet arguments with. Fuck you.

[Anonymous No.18189417]

>>18189395
> Why isn't Alpha Centauri?
Because it's an addictive substance made by a megacorp to be marketed to minors.

Just because someone might decide to put Nietzsche quotes in a cigarette pack for marketing purposes doesn't suddenly make cigarettes art.

[Anonymous No.18189428]

>>18189412
>Your definition sucks because its basically
>>something I like
No, you moronic retard. Intent matters; 'art' implies the intent to convey spiritual/philosophic truths and/or elucidate the human condition.

Selling an addictive substance to minors so you can buy a third Ferrari intends to do no such thing.

[Anonymous No.18189440]

>>18189428
I'm sure the people who made the cool sunglass camel had intent to convey to people. Just because its shallow doesn't mean its categorically not art.

[Anonymous No.18189444]

>>18189333
Feel free to explain why!

[Anonymous No.18189452]

>>18189302
Is the tldr that it shortens our attention span and divides us into echo chambers? Or what is in it that has not already been said?

[Anonymous No.18189461]

>>18189440
I'm not the guy you're arguing with, but your definition or art is so broad that it doesn't seem to make much sense. What about cigarettes and sunglasses makes them art?

[Anonymous No.18189481]

>>18189461
Cigarettes have design, they are white and yellow and were intentionally made this way. If cigarettes are not art, how come I can evaluate them with artistic principles in a way that makes sense?

[Anonymous No.18189484]

>>18189440
I repeat again, you absolute pinhead moron: it's not about 'shallowness', it's about intent.

Maybe the contractor who was hired to do promotional art for cigarettes thought he was doing art; and maybe whatever he delivered was, in a small way.

But the final product of the cigarette pack is not art and cannot ever be.

In the same way, the final product of 'video game' is not and cannot ever be art, even though some of the components (music compositions, some of the art scenes, etc.) that went into making it can.

[Anonymous No.18189486]

>>18189417
Just admit you never played it. Or know anything about its "marketing".

[Anonymous No.18189487]

>>18189481
Many many things have design. My very post has design. What about design makes it the indicator of artistry? Why must everything that has design be artistic?

[Anonymous No.18189503]

>>18189486
> you just never tried my artisanal weed in this hand-made Guarani bong, dude. Trust me, it's like totally art

[Anonymous No.18189506]

multiplayer games mastered economy of time and became soulless for-profit only products

[Anonymous No.18189524]

>>18189484
Well I disagree fundamentally with your definition and I think its a limited way of thinking about art, cheers
>>18189487
Limiting the word "art" to just intentional art prevents us from evaluating something through the medium of art.
>>18189503
This but unironically.

[Anonymous No.18189537]

>>18189484
>intent
Art isn't solely about intent. That way Archimedes Eureka moment wouldn't be science either since it just happened to him.

[Anonymous No.18189541]

>>18189524
You can evaluate things that aren't art though the prism of art, you insufferable mongoloid.

[Anonymous No.18189550]

>>18189524
>Limiting the word "art" to just intentional art prevents us from evaluating something through the medium of art.

But it isnt an either or situation, things don't exist only because of intent or design. You're professing a radical black and white view without explaining why it is right. And yet nontheless, you've also yet to explain why design categorically means something is art....

[Anonymous No.18189588]

>>18189503
Tell me about the marketing for the game, since you're certain in your knowledge of it. Tell me how it was marketed to minors and the size of the corporation that made it and how it's addictive in a way a novel is not.

[Anonymous No.18189597]

>>18189550
My definition of art is right because being able to evaluate something through the medium of art implies that its art. Why this inclusive definition is important is because it allows people to gather more meaning about something, which I believe is a fundamentally good thing.

Something having design implies it can be evaluated through the artistic medium, hence its art.

[Anonymous No.18189610]

>>18189597
>to evaluate something through the medium of art implies that its art.

So if I evaluate the ratios of a Gothic cathedral does that render it a mathematical subject? If i can evaluate something through the medium of mathematics that implies it is math.

[Anonymous No.18189618]

>>18189524
If you’d had genuine relationship with real art, you wouldn’t be saying this. But still, I agree that some video games can be called artistic; not art though. Art should make you reflect upon the human condition, video games just don’t do that.

[Anonymous No.18189632]

>>18189597
>Something having design implies it can be evaluated through the artistic medium
Youre not answering the question. What about design makes it artistic. Saying something is art because of design and design is artistic because it can evaluate art. This is a circular definition.

[Anonymous No.18189644]

>>18188140
Lol

[Anonymous No.18189670]

>>18189610
The ratios of a Gothic cathedral are mathematics.

[Anonymous No.18189677]

>>18189610
Gothic cathedral ratios are math, yes. Not really a fair comparison though because nothing physical is a mathematical principle. The same way that an oil painting isn't color.

>>18189618
I agree that cigarettes are shitty art if it makes you feel better

[Anonymous No.18189697]

>>18189670
>>18189677
Thats my point. You're saying evaluating something artistically makes it art. I'm using a foolish equivalence because that is the conclusion of your position. That by YOUR logic me thinking of cathedral solely through its mathematical qualities makes it a mathematical problem. Understand?

This is obviously an absurdity but it is the consequence of your position not mine.

[Anonymous No.18189704]

>>18187977
What drives graphic designers to make graphs like this?

[Anonymous No.18189713]

>>18189697
>cathedrals are not strictly a mathematical endeavor therefor cathedrals are not mathematical
Retard

[Anonymous No.18189741]

>>18189713
Why are you people so autistically absolute? Do you even read the things you're responding to? My entire point is to say that things can have varying degrees of qualities, mathematical or artistic or anything else, contrary to the other guy who say saying that if something can be thought of artistically it is therefore art.

[Anonymous No.18189767]

>>18187977
I would look into retro gaming books, for inspiration on what went wrong...but I don't know any books that address the topic directly. Scruton's Modern Culture talks about the decline of modern art basically, and The Soul of the World has a subchapter on art & addiction so maybe applicable to games.

On the art topic, I don't think video games 'made it' as art. In their origin and adolescence, the golden age of the 80s and 90s, video games had their own "language": all means of artistic expression have their own, and it is usually conditioned and VERY marked by the limitations of the medium itself: for example, look at how ingenious some of the first silent films are, how great the humour of the first conversational/graphic adventures is; something similar happens with video games, but unfortunately much less interesting: continuing with the example of cinema, cinema was defining its OWN language together with the technical improvements, but in the case of video games only elements of the language of cinema are being assimilated, to the extent many games are basically interactive movies, or just addictive collectathons.

[Anonymous No.18189771]

>>18188148
Seconding this. It doesn't go into the modern decline of videogames, but you can contrast the cultures of the older 90's work environments with newer ones and use that contrast to come to a conclusion on why videogames have declined.

[Anonymous No.18189818]

>>18189741
>My entire point is to say that things can have varying degrees of qualities
I agree, as long as we agree that I can evaluate cigarettes as art I don't have a problem. Where I have a problem with is
>video gaymes aren't art because da author intended only XYZ (source: my ass) and not some fundamental truth about the human experience!!!!! video games are shallow and not worth examination XDD *voilently cums over disregarding an entire artistic medium*

[Nemo !!GgBWHLRiayD No.18189862]

>>18187977
The reason for decline in general, and for the contemporary hypermodern one in particular, is the same in all ambits of life: the submersion of spirit into materialism, with the superfluous preponderance of appearence over essence, and of hyperintellectuality in place of wisdom, that this spiritual languishment entails.

[Anonymous No.18189869]

>>18187977
cult of the new

[Anonymous No.18189882]

>>18189452
more so attention span, not revolutionary but a nice exercise if you want to wallow in "muh negative externalities of da internet"

[Anonymous No.18190301]

>>18188140
Based