Unknown Possiblilities of Existence

Keynote Address by Ian Bogost
Author of Persuasive Games
A good summary of Persuasive game in the Ecology of Games.

This was a very interesting speech. If I can find a copy of the text, I will link to it. This will need significant editing. I'll update it and repost.

"Like any self respecting geek, I'm going to start with Star Trek".

He begins the presentation by synopsizing the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

What is it that makes play or the games that facilitate it, "meaningful".

Bogost worries that "Serious Games" tries to separate entertainment and seriousness into two different categories, and then by extension the seriousness to which these topics can be perused. There is in Serious Games a drive to external recognition and validations.

ART

This is a word that insights terror in me. It's so convoluted and big, and that talking about it just drives one to madness. What could be worse:

ARTGAME

This talk will be about ARTGAMES.

The talk will sit somewhere between analysis and manifesto...

A theory of Artgames

I want to look at things through some sort of matrix...a lens through which I see things as Artgames:

• Introspection
• Authorship
  The willing attribution of authorship is somehow a necessity with "artgames". Or auteur figure.
  
• Procedural Rhetoric
  An argument made through a computer model, as opposed by words or thoughts/depiction/description
  
• Historicity
  (Art games seem to have a stronger sense of historicity that other games...both game & culture contexts)

The Usual Suspects

• Passage
• Braid

Who could be other candidates to see how they fare as a "Serious Games" or Artgame

• Go
• Monopoly
• Tennis
• Turbo Grafx World Cup Tennis
• Interactive Fiction: Futopia
• Interactive Fiction: A mind Forever Voyaging
• Boomshine
• The Marriage
• Flow
• Something shooter by Johnathan Mack
• Adventure (Atari)
• Some new thing Bogost has been doing
• The Graveyard
• The Night Journey
• Bioshock
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Katamari
• Animal Crossing

What do artgames not have? (Or not have to necessarily have)

• Beauty
• Fine Art (The games are not meant to be shown, they are meant to be played)
  
• Independence (no relationship between Artgames and Indie games, even though they came about parallel.)
• Visual Aesthetics
• Mechanical Innovation