UFRGS FIS LIT ENG 2015

[1] The study of game aesthetics is a very

recent practice, spanning less than two

decades. Unlike game studies in mathematics

or the social sciences, ........ are much older,

[5] games became subject to humanistic study

only after computer and video games became

popular. This lack of persistent interest might

seem odd, but only if we see traditional

games and computer games as intrinsically

[10] similar, ........ they are not. We might try to

explain this lack by noting that games are

usually seen as trivial and lowbrow by the

aesthetic and theoretical elites ........ cultivate

the analysis of artistic media objects:

[15] literature, the visual arts, theatre, music, etc.

But this does not explain the fact that

aesthetic studies of games are now not only

possible, but even encouraged and supported

with funding. What happened to cause this

[20] change?

A possible explanation could be that digital

games, unlike traditional games or sports,

consist of non-ephemeral content (stored

words, sounds and images), which places

[25] them much closer to the ideal object of the

Humanities, the work of art. Thus, they

become visible and textualizable for the

aesthetic observer, in a way the previous

phenomena were not.

[30] However, this sudden visibility, probably

also caused by the tremendous economic and

cultural success of computer games, produces

certain blind spots in the aesthetic observer,

especially if he/she is trained in textual/visual

[35] analysis, as is usually the case. Instead of

treating the new phenomena carefully, and as

objects of a study for which no methodology

yet exists, they are analyzed with tools that

happen to be at hand, such as film or

[40] narrative theories. Therefore we need to

outline and promote a methodology for the

aesthetic study of games, which, given the

current nascent state of the field, will

doubtlessly give way to more sophisticated

[45] approaches in the years to come.

Adapted from: Aarseth, Espen. Playing Research: Methodological approaches to game analysis. Available at: <http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/ papers/Aarseth.pdf>. Accessed on July 26th, 2014.