Contemplating Ian Bogost’s “How to do Things With Video Games”

Due to the depth and breadth of the material in this book, I intend to take a more free-form approach to this information. Just as the author seems to journey from subject to subject, my response will be similar.

Media Microecology:

In the introductory chapter of this work, the author discusses the influence of the internet and mass information on the world. He begins by discussing two extremely disparaging arguments about the subject. Nicholas Car’s book “The Shallows” suggests that people are being under-served by the mass amounts of information available to us and as the title implies, that we as a people are not gaining true understanding of a subject as we just flip through headlines and brief descriptions. The other side of that coin is Clay Shirky’s “Cognitive Surplus” in which the author states that it is a great boon to modern society that we have a wealth of information at our disposal.

In this debate I have to agree with Bogost, in that he argues that there is a third way of looking at things. Bogost states that the middle way is beneficial to all. Sure we have access to massive amounts of information on an infinite number of subjects, but when we find a subject intriguing, we can really delve deep into that subject, and often find other outlets providing more information on that subject. In this way a person can stop flipping through the randomness of the internet and become well versed on a subject from a great many perspectives. This “wholeness” of perspective is, I would argue, a great forward leap from the days of the library and a single volume of an encyclopedia. Do not get me wrong, there is still much to be said for encyclopedias, but today they are just not the final word.

Chapter 1: Art

Yes video games are art, no I can’t tell you what art is. I will say that anytime a person’s personal perspective shades in any way a work in any medium, it should be considered art. I believe that anyone that would argue against video games being art feel that way because they do not have the requisite experience to judge it appropriately. It’s as though they are trying to judge poetry from a language they don’t know how to speak. But this is the way of art, first it is created, and then it is up to society to figure out a way to quantify its value.

Chapter 2: Empathy

I’m not as familiar with this subject as the author. However, I will take a moment to talk about “ET, The Extra Terrestrial” the video game. I played this game as a kid and was able to beat it after a time. It was not as bad of a video game as history will tell us and it was certainly unique. The problem people had with the game is that they did not read the instruction manual. This makes the game a bit more worthwhile, a bit. It was also crushing to see ET’s avatar turn grey after too many encounters with authority.

Chapter 3: Reverence

Again, I’m not too familiar with this subject and it seems the author is only talking about a specific incident. I’m not a religious person, so I’m not offended by any use of religious iconography, even if it’s perverse. I am much more concerned about the legal ramifications implied by using a public building’s image as copyrighted material. This would cause game designers to get permission to use any building in their material. This idea is ludicrous and would have far reaching implications on all forms of art in the future. Let us please not go there.

Chapter 4: Music

Oh, this chapter made me so mad. It’s not that the author does not do a great job of relating music to video games, it’s just that he misses a huge influence on the rhythm action genre, “Parapa the Rapper”. One of the best games in the genre. I would argue that the genre would not have been as prolific without this wonderful game. Everyone that I new with a PS1 was playing it for a time and you could sing out some of the lyrics in a public place and inevitable hear the proper response. This was a really big miss in this book, but I’ll hold my overall judgement until I finish it.

I’m going to end here and I’ll pick up with another post as I finish the book and draw some conclusions.