Interactive Gaming

I don’t have a major relationship with video games.  I’ve had my share of time with friends huddled around some game console but I’ll always be the first one to get bored.  I never cared to actually buy a game and finish the journey and win all of the gold tokens.  I have spent many hours with one of my good friends though discussing video games and their importance beyond a way to rot your brain or procrastinate writing a paper.  His name is Fred.  Fred is less concerned with the graphics, character design and environment in gaming, and more interested in an actual connection with the viewer beyond aesthetics.  This seems to be very relevant when playing some of the games linked on the lit and media BlogSpot.  The creators want the viewers to experience something while playing, they seem interested in connecting some sort of memory the player has back with the game.  If you notice, the games are pixel games or flash games.  They are not rendered meticulously for four years while rigged up to monster servers with 2500 employees doing lighting effects.  In fact, plenty of the games on the blog were created by just one person.  There is obviously no right or wrong, a game with near photorealist humans can still have a story line and it still even shoot for something more than expected. 

There will still always be the demographic who continue to spend sixty dollars each year on the new call of duty or Madden 2013 on release night to witness the new graphics, the new guns, the new levels and the new draft picks, never wanting to admit they’re playing the same game from last season for sixty more dollars.

In class it was mentioned that certain video games, probably some of the ones I mentioned, are now getting the budgets of Hollywood movies to make a minute in a half trailers to hype up all the gamers. 

Then there are dinky little flash and pixel indie games, created by gamers at home.  The creators seem most invested in evoking some type of reaction with the viewer or making them reconsider certain things that maybe the creator has experienced.   They don’t look perfect, often times terrible but in a sense aren’t they trying for so much more?