Comments from HNRS 353

I think companies are also starting to realize that games can be good advertisement.

Particularly movies - if you go to a movie website, you will often see a game of some sort. I actually thought that this game might come up in our discussion of Columbine, because the killers were Matrix fans and almost definitely played this game, which was available on the movie’s official website (and still is). In the game, you are Neo or Trinity, you choose a gun, and you play the scene where they shoot up everybody to get to the elevator. There is Marilyn Manson (I think? or someone similar) playing in the background.

But that tangent aside, nowadays I think games are becoming a useful tool for advertising in their own right, not just as a part of an ad. Look at America’s Army, which we discussed, which is basically a giant ad for the Army. Then there is Virtual Magic Kingdom, which I’ve mentioned in class, which has no subscription fee but is a giant advertisement for the Disney parks and is one more tool to get kids to bug their parents to take them.

I definitely get what you say about the Warioware aspect of the flash ads (which I don’t tend to see as much since I have adblock and flashblock on in firefox). Some of the ads, even though they are blatant ads for something I would never get, I have played the little flash game for (and so clicked on) because it looked fun or funny. What better way to advertise a mortgage loan than offering to let you punch George W. Bush in the head with a boxing glove?

May 5, 11:32 AM — [ ] — Games, Games everywhere

I fully agree that all games have narrative qualities. I’ve had games move me emotionally more than films or books.

I was sort of thinking of the written quality in my post. For example, if The Baron, with pretty much the same descriptions and wordings, were made into a short story, it could probably be published. But it isn’t a short story, it is a game, and so it is dismissed. In a way it reminds me of how in 1993, Neil Gaiman won the World Fantasy Award for short story with a comic. The rules were changed shortly after to say that other forms were not valid. What if someone had submitted an IF like the Baron to the awards? Would it have been taken seriously enough to be considered?

When playing IF, I have seen writers who were bad and writers who were good. The good writers were better at description, narrative, pacing, and characterization than Dan Brown could ever dream of being, and yet he is taken seriously as an author and they are seen as game writers.

Apr 27, 10:38 AM — [ ] — A Fusion of Media Forms