I'd like to start off my first posting with a public apology to anyone who has conducted an audio interview with me over the last few years.

I'm so, so very sorry.

I just finished up an interview with a fellow over some strangely arcane chat program. I've done this several times in the past, but this one was different because I had the chance to record it for future unedited listening. If your readership significantly dropped after those 45-some minutes of my flat monotone voice babbling about something vaguely related to the subject, I can only beg for your forgiveness. How could I have possibly known that I was so boring? I never got that particular memo. Crap.

Right, so after I recovered from the small shock of knowing my entire array of beliefs was a terrible lie, I got back to work on my game design. Actually I didn't, because I am in a terrible design/writer's block at the moment. My time was spent discussing games, and whether or not they actually qualify as art.

This incredibly important issue has but two sides: Games are a work of art, or the other side that claims video games are nothing of the sort. I've always pushed for the former. When people think of art, they generally think of a painting on a wall. You think about the "greats," such as Picasso or da Vinci or whoever else public schooling pounded into your head. A smaller percentage of those people think about books or films, of Terry Pratchett and Alexander Payne respectively, though most will often accept all of these things as art and artists.

However, very few people will recognize a game as a form of art. Despite that a game can and does include other recognized forms of art - paintings, books, movies - it will never be recognized by a large majority as the art that it truly is. Maybe it takes a degree in design to see the gentle ebb and flow of this form of interactive entertainment. You can't put a label on what makes art or what defines it, but my personal belief has always been that if something can make you smile or teach you an important lesson, or inspire you to do things (be they great or small), or give you an answer to a question, or simple make you sit back and say "wow," it's art.

To get away from the mushy crap, art is what you make it. I don't think a pure red canvas is art, but apparently the schmucks who paid several million dollars for the thing would say otherwise. That doesn't stop me from questioning your sanity when you claim a video game isn't art, though, after you've been shown a beautifully rendered cityscape flush with bustling traffic, NPCs who react brilliantly, emergent interaction with a nearly infinite number of possibilities, as well as a lot of polygons and technical mumbo jumbo that would leave me giggling with glee for hours on end.


posted by AppleMask at 4/18/2003 05:35:00 PM

Introductions. I hate them. They never go right. But we have to start somewhere.

Hi, I'm AppleMask. You probably don't know me. You think you do, but you're probably thinking of someone else. Chances are, you've read other "blogs" (crap, that sounds like a noise my cat makes), and they always begin with someone spouting off how nervous they are and how they never thought they'd do one of these. Yeah, neither did I. I laughed at and I still laugh at the majority of you people who believe in publishing your personal lives for the rest of us to see. But then, I'm here right now, so that certainly says something about my character.

Let me tell you who I am, and dagnabbit, I'm only going to say this once. I'm in my twenties and I am an 'amateur' video game designer. I write, I sing, I program, I click buttons on a mouse to create nifty 3d spaces and then I do more singing. But don't let that period fool you; I actually do a lot more. I also breathe and consume a fairly small amount of space. I sleep at least 8 hours of the day.

Actually, I don't do a helluva lot now that I think about it.

Anyway, next stop. What you'll see here: Ranting. Raving. Ignorance. More Ranting, perhaps mixed with more ignorance. Thankfully, you will not see me giggling over my newest girl or how SO, like, totally inconsiderate that dude was when he like pulled out in front of me, man. I hope not, anyway.

So yeah, there'll be more to come after this. Stay tuned.


posted by AppleMask at 4/18/2003 03:36:00 AM