A lot of people in class seemed to have an interest in the future of gaming in libraries. I’ve recently been kicking around some ideas on mainting and adding gaming in libraries. I have yet to see many librarians explore this dimension of video game archiving.
Art House Video Games
In the later 18th Century and early 19thCentury the development in technology gave way to the birth of film. The first experiments in cinema were scientific; Muybridge used film to capture the movement of animals. Throughout the 19th century techniques were borrowed from other art forms, such as narrative, story telling, and philosophy, to develop cinema into a recognized art form. This recognition of cinemas as a form of art was a difficult battle, even one of the founders of cinema believed its use was only in entertainment, and “Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union”. Samuel L. Goldwyn. The importance of film on the human record has been well documented and cultivated within libraries. I fear that up to this point video games have been overlooked by librarians as mere entertainment, something not worth collecting and preserving. In this article I will explain the importance of independent game designers in the development of culturally significant works.
The first hurdle one faces is the popular opinion many have of video games. An example of this is the opinion is found in film critic Roger Ebert, “I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art.” (Cited from here). This statement is the same as Goldywn’s the medium itself will objectively prevent the creation art. In addition to Ebert’s objective statement about the nature of a medium he continues his argument, “But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.” This statement seems in direction opposition to recent studies expounding the healthy mental benefits of gaming. Works such as Got Game and a forthcoming article in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience about poor children and brain activity outline the undeniable impotence of video games in raising brain activity and cognizance.
The article states, “ It’s not just that these kids are poor and more likely to have health problems, but they might actually not be getting full brain development from the stressful and relatively impoverished environment associated with low socioeconomic status: fewer books, less reading, fewer games, fewer visits to museums.” These effects can be amended by playing stimulating video games. For a librarian this obviously points to the importance of collecting popular video games but many have overlooked the blossoming development of independent games. A pioneer in this developing field is Jason Roher. Roher’s came into the national spotlight with his game Passage. Passage contains no fighting, car stealing, or other platitudes associated with the modern gaming industry. The game is about life’s journey and contains a lengthy artist statement, “Of course, it’s a game, not a painting or a film, so the choices that you make as the player are crucial. There’s no “right” way to play Passage, just as there’s no right way to interpret it. However, I had specific intentions for the various mechanics and features that I included. You’ve probably figured most of these out already, but I wanted to put forth a few explanations for anyone who is interested. The “long” screen, of course, represents a lifetime. As you age in the game, your character moves closer and closer to the right edge of the screen. Upon reaching that edge, your character dies.”
Passage, and other independent video games, is more closely related to an Ingmar Bergman film than Grand Theft Auto or Dance Dance Revolution. Librarians should be aware of independently released video games. Most art house games are currently released open source and for free. Many of these games could be saved on a small flash drive, or CD, which should include the artist’s statements. This would aide in preserving the human record, especially pioneer material within this blossoming movement. The development of video games as a valid (“high art”) will develop. We, as librarians, should collect and maintain these works for the human record allowing following generations to look back at the history, playing, and researching this valuable art form.
Image from Passage
Link to Jason’s website where you can download all of his games : http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/
Blog that often covers free / open source / independent games :
http://playthisthing.com/
