Comments on: Game Studies Agon http://grandtextauto.org/2008/05/06/game-studies-agon/ A group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art. Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:43:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: Mark http://grandtextauto.org/2008/05/06/game-studies-agon/comment-page-1/#comment-245402 Mark Wed, 07 May 2008 18:13:47 +0000 http://grandtextauto.org/2008/05/06/game-studies-agon/#comment-245402 It's a somewhat odd criticism. If anything I'd make the opposite one, that game studies is often <i>too</i> deferential to the stereotypical versions of games and gamers. There's a tendency to treat the large-budget, mass-market, commercial game as the paradigmatic game, to a much greater extent than a film-studies scholar would hold up the big-budget Hollywood blockbuster as the paradigmatic film. But film studies academics are helped by the fact that a lot of film aficionados and reviewers "in the wild" don't think much of many big-budget Hollywood films, either. There doesn't seem to be an analogous set of game aficionados and game reviewers who don't think much of what the commercial game industry produces. Perhaps this is partly because the film folks have more alternatives---the experimental, indie, art, DIY, etc. film community is quite large, almost every city has a film festival devoted to it, etc. It’s a somewhat odd criticism. If anything I’d make the opposite one, that game studies is often too deferential to the stereotypical versions of games and gamers. There’s a tendency to treat the large-budget, mass-market, commercial game as the paradigmatic game, to a much greater extent than a film-studies scholar would hold up the big-budget Hollywood blockbuster as the paradigmatic film.

But film studies academics are helped by the fact that a lot of film aficionados and reviewers “in the wild” don’t think much of many big-budget Hollywood films, either. There doesn’t seem to be an analogous set of game aficionados and game reviewers who don’t think much of what the commercial game industry produces. Perhaps this is partly because the film folks have more alternatives—the experimental, indie, art, DIY, etc. film community is quite large, almost every city has a film festival devoted to it, etc.

]]>