Do you find it worthwhile to engage with video games on an i

It can't hurt to think about video games on a deeper level than "gee that was fun" and try to analyze them but I don't care enough to read someone else's opinion

>>373189518
Pretty pretentious desu.

>>373189013
Not really. I analyzed text in school and it was boring as fuck. As long as the surface is interesting I'm all good.

>>373189013
Yes and I love it. I'm too stupid to think about these things myself however so I just read others thoughts on it instead.

>>373191629
That's what you get for not readin books.

Kastel-sama hardly mentions anything "deep" (as in, above "basic") in his text, but it might seem so if you never interacted with an idea before.

I don't really look to talk about games like that. I usually will post my thoughts but that's it.

Yeah, but not with pretentious shit like Nier.

>>373191936
Then what?

>>373192019
Super Mario Bros

>>373192019
Fallout.

>>373192118
>>373192151
>not The Last of Us

>>373191728
Well I haven't read OP's article yet, but I'll probably have understood most of the themes on a surface level, just not able to really dig into the meat of it or put into words how I feel about them.

>>373189013
>Do you find it worthwhile to engage with video games on an intellectual level?
On what level? There are two levels on which you can analyse games on an "intellectual level", actually:
1) Formal level - analysing games as a medium, examining how they communicate and engage with their audience in general.
2) Content level - analysing individual games and their individual themes and ideas.
Article that you provided falls into the second category.

I like to do both, but honestly the second level is always harder to do, because not every game presents themes and ideas worth analysing - in fact VERY FEW of them do. And without wanting to be an asshole, I don't think Nier Automata is one of them.

There is a desperate lack of good academic or near-academic materials on gaming, actually. Which is a shame - it's a fascinating and still largely theoretically unexplored medium.

I actually held a couple of lectures on narrativity in videogames few years ago, in front of an academic audience. It was quite a fun and the reception was pretty positive too, though nothing ever came out of it as I had to cut down my academic ambitions shortly after.
But yeah. I have classic education, I teach literature from time to time, and I like to expand that view on gaming industry occasionally.

>>373192347
>put into words how I feel about them.

That can be hard. Currently, in this very moment, I'm writing the main part of my master's thesis (not in English though) and it's a struggle to word everything nicely.

>>373192409
Why isn't Nier Automata one of them?

>>373192409
I haven't played automata yet. Did you play the original nier, and how did you feel about it?

Also, examples of games you think are worth it?

There's already a visual medium that can convey complex messages. They're movies, and they're generally shorter than video games. All a video game can add is stuff like "the game told you to move the character and you did, you're like a slave haha".

So I don't think it's worth getting too intellectual about games.

>>373192975
The Last of Us. More like The Art of Us, hehe, cause it's true art.

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>>373189013
>Taro's all fucked up in the head because he witnessed his best friend jump from the edge of a building
>see this image

>>373192807
Because honestly, it's silly and stupid. I mean: I have nothing against the game, I actually think it's charming and good fun, but it has the depth of Matrix: the philosophy and the "profound" undertones within it are paper thin and given Taro's gleeful, child-like lack of any restraint or greater plan, very difficult to take seriously. I don't think it actually says anything worth saying - though I do believe that it offers a lot worth playing and seeing - not on an intellectual level, but on level of pure kinesthetics, visual arts and naive silly charm. Taro is one step above Kojima, as far as I'm concerned: postmodern babbling nonsense with nothing worth to say on the level of individual themes, but still inexplicably likeable.

>>373192975
I had not played the original Nier.
As for games that are worth analysis:
DEFINITELY Icepick Lodge games, which are probably as close to classic fiction and art as gaming industry ever got. Pathologic, The Void in particular.
Then there is Silent Hill 2, probably the best psychological story in all of gaming industry.

I'd further argue that Homeworld, Morrowind, Thief, Bastion, Cryostasis, Planescape, SotC, original Fallout games, Deus Ex, Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, Talos Principle, SOMA (and to a lesser degree original Penumbra) and many others that I can't think of right now as good examples of works that offer interesting insights into Genre fiction and it's possibilities as a narrative medium of some worth or weight.

>>373193064
This is painfully stupid to read. What the actual fuck?
There is another visual medium. OK, so what? Before cinema there was theatre. Which does nto mean that movies are not or were not worth getting intellectual about either. Plus, and I think you admited that yourself: games actually offer greater space (and far more communication channels) to offer meaningful content than cinema. And how is movies being shorter make them more "intellectually worth"?
The fuck, man?

>>373193529
>because honestly, it's silly and stupid

Nice essay. You should work on the opening sentence, though. Nobody's gonna read the rest if you start with that.

>>373192409

Yoko Taro games seem to tie in the second point to the first, the themes are nothing exceptional but the ideas are tied strictly to the medium, neither NieR game could succeed and be as much as a cult classic in any other medium, it only works as a videogame, similarly for DoD1/3.

Also you content level seems to be judging video games with the standards of other mediums, interactivity hugely changes how content is perceived and how it can be used.

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New Vegas, Deus Ex and the recent Dark Souls 3 expansion are pretty thought provoking.

The game doesn't need to be deep, it just needs to provoke thoughts and find similarities in the real world. Concepts are more fun to think about and helps you relate with scenarios.

the best thing is for you losers to be purged and jump off a building yourselves

you're worse than these losers jacking off to cartoons

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>>373193731

Taro fags everyone.

>>373193731
OK. Thank you for announcing that you are a retard who is not even willing to read what your opponent says: we all appreciate that level of brutal honesty here. Have yourself a cookie.

>>373193796
>but the ideas are tied strictly to the medium,
First of all: this is actually somewhat annoying tendency in the industry it's surrounding discourse: the whole "it's unique to its medium, and therefor it's good". It's kinda a stupid attitude, really. It's the same logic that drives people to claim that gameplay is universally the most important part of a videogame because gameplay is unique to the medium: it actually makes no sense.

Also, I'm not sure if I agree. I mean my experience with it is limited (only played Automata), but I honestly don't see how it provides anything that would be unique to the medium. I don't see it doing anything particularly specially, or saying something that could not be said in other forms.

Unless you mean that the game narrative is silly but the fact that it's a videogame excuses it. (which it does, actually. Again, I think Automata are really cool and I'm happy that games like that are being made): but that does not make the actual narrative aspect of it particularly valuable, and thus not really worth particular academic interest.

>>373193529
Well I like and agree with most of the games you said and I think the original Nier fits too. I definitely don't think the original Nier doesn't have anything to say. I'll have to see about Automata when I play it.

>>373194293
lol nigger and gameplay isn't worth academic interest?

>>373194371
>Well I like and agree with most of the games you said and I think the original Nier fits too.
I can't judge the original Nier. So I'm entirely willing to believe you are right: pretending that I can judge it from my very limited knowledge about it would be silly. But Automata did not convince me - not on academic level to be really particularly interesting. It's a fun and colorful game though, I don't think lack of profound meaning actually makes it worse. While my own main focus has always been on classic literature, I'm the first guy to say that genre fiction should never be underestimated and that has equally valuable role to play in society, so looking down on Automata for lack of profound message would be fucking hypocritical of me.
I viewed Automata much like I've viewed what I've played of Drakengard: as close to an actual carnival culture in videogames: an interesting form of spectacle and subversion than anything else. It's somewhere up there with MGS and Suda51 games for me: not profound or meaningful, but just fascinating on level of sheer playfulness and imagination.
Maybe Nier is different, I can't tell.

>>373194838
I never said anything like that. And this is again just further illustration of the problem: I have no idea why people somehow managed to make this into a binary opposition thing in the first place.

>>373194293
>"it's unique to its medium, and therefor it's good"

Not that guy but that's not my thought process at all. It's usually something I think about after I've beaten the game. It just so happens that games that take full advantage of being games for their narrative are incredibly more effective at drawing me into their world and making me care about it. That's just the power of interactivity and the freedom of being allowed to make my own choices.

>I don't see it doing anything particularly specially, or saying something that could not be said in other forms.

The message is not what can't be translated to other mediums, it's the way it is delivered in, and in my opinion that is more important than having a having a new and unique message to deliver. I think Automata does something very special when it makes you play through half the game again just from the "sidekick's" perspective, it gave us a whole new understanding of both him, 2B and what their relationship means to each other, and I don't think any other games have done anything like it before. I think it gives a much more profound and eye opening effect than if they had just tried to do this in a traditional linear narrative way. I know a lot of people think it was boring or too repetitive on a gameplay level, and it probably could have been handled better, sure. At the same time however I think it's okay to make us go through unfun parts of a game as long as it's leading up to something significant for it. There's also literally no way at all it could do anything like it did in the ending where it breaks the 4th wall and involves you as a player and gives you the option to sacrifice all your data for the sake of helping someone just like you had been helped up to that point. I thought it was such a brilliant way to remind us to be good to other people, without forcing us to either. You had the choice to be a dick instead if you wanted to, but I'm pretty sure damn near everyone chose not to.

>>373195893
>Not that guy but that's not my thought process at all.
You might be a bit of an outlier in this regard, as far as I can judge from the volumes of discussion around here. And I'm definitely not saying gameplay should not be taken into consideration: my point was merely that that assuming that gameplay is universally more important than other aspects of a videogame because it's what we use as "distinctive trait" to define games as a formal medium is wrong. My point is ultimate value of any medium always lies in realm of relevance: which is mostly semiotic domain. How the game achieves its relevance is a formal question: the source of its relevance, the content and experience it produces is what gives it the true weight. The two should not be confused with one another, as form is NEVER a guarantee of value or worth.
Games are interesting because they allow for agency: but that does not mean agency has to be the main source of the games value. For an example, Silent Hill 2 offers nearly no agency, but I think its still one of the most valuable experiences gaming as a medium has to offer.

>and in my opinion that is more important than having a having a new and unique message to deliver.
I agree that uniqueness or novelty are not actually important. But I don't agree that "how it is delivered" is more important than what is being delivered in the first place. Again: form can enhance meaning, but form does not create meaning: and we play and value media due to their meanings (even if those meanings are simple, or have been provided before).

>At the same time however I think it's okay to make us go through unfun parts of a game as long as it's leading up to something significant
I love Pathologic, so I literally cannot raise any complaint about this statement.
My problem is that I'm not sure if what Nier Automata offers is really all that significant.

>>373196781
>My problem is that I'm not sure if what Nier Automata offers is really all that significant.
To be honest I'm not even sure about that myself yet, I just have this feeling that it is because of how deeply it struck me emotionally. But not everyone has to feel the same way, I understand if others weren't as affected by it. Either way I need more time to think about it, I did only beat the game last night.

>>373189013
>>373191728

Quit saying Sama you fucking cumsack weeb

>>373197607
>clueless faggot doesn't know Kastel-sama

No I don't. Most video games have nothing profound to state that hasn't already been done at greater depth by a film or by the man who discovered and created the concept.

And especially not by shit done and directed by Yoko Taro. He can't write for shit and everything that happens in his games happens to push his disjointed philosophy on human nature.

His characters get too little attention for me to give a fuck about anything he has to say about human nature.

>>373197714
Yeah. I dont wank over e celebs you gigantic homo

>>373189013
I guess it's fun for some

>>373189013
>Reiterating the core themes of the game without adding anything new or interesting

I can't believe I wasted my time reading that tripe

I'm interested if these essays are contributing new information.

They usually seem like a wank fest.

Comes across as insanely corny.

>>373197714
Please stop shilling yourself you fucking hack

>>373192019
Dark Souls.

>>373189013
Nah, fuck that. I'm going to replay Killer7.

I like in on a surface level but most the shit is too deep for me to care