Depression: What good are consoles

As we discussed, my largest gripe with console gaming is that you are locking art to a specific set of standards which are legal property of a third party. I am a very big proponent of the cultural impact of art which inherently implies the permanence. I am sickened by the industry as a whole, even beyond the scope of console gaming, and their attempts to strong-arm content that could very-well be timeless into disposable entertainment. Consoles promote this practice by themselves being disposable along with any content that relies upon them for access.

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Okay, so this page is more ‘depressing’ than ‘depression’. Belated warning.

Art is simply not valued enough by the average person. The purpose of art is the expression of our human nature and our attempt to contain complicated ideas and emotions in a communicable medium. Culture is often created through the experience and study of the received information. This culture advances us as much as it attempts to define us: the issues discussed are just that, discussed; the experiences had are likewise just that, experienced. We see echoes of art as positive forces on society: reduced crime rates often trail the release of violent media (and according to Slate, reduced violent sex-crime rates trailing increased Internet access — food for thought; Avenue Q would agree).

Art should be thought of as a multi-directional entity. Communication is not necessarily from an author to an audience: during your experience with a video game you are constantly interacting and potentially expressing yourself in the process. A complicated interactive packet of content allows the user to express themselves just as much as those who developed the art itself: a little part of you being communicated when you choose to do good, evil, both, or neither in a well-made RPG; a little part of you being communicated in the style you use to gain advantages over your opponents in multiplayer games particularly during strategy games like Starcraft, but also in shooters and other games as well. That piece of you is then communicated when you discuss what happened with friends and others; this thought extends to mod communities without much explanation. While entertainment is important in our lives, the perceived profitability can dangerously encroach on the benefits of art.

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Back in my day, our games had a single-digit number in the title! Even Final Fantasy!

Also, imagine the difficulty to be endured when this art is attempted to be studied. How often have you seen scholarly reviews of art just four years beyond creation? More often forty to four hundred? The merits of video games as an art medium are being debated at the same time as the industry debates the merits of PC gaming to conflicting results. Progress is made in developing timeless narrative for art that cannot be timeless without constant re-release by the original creator should they still exist; also, art attempts to unite a culture that is segmented by purely artificial boundaries.

A final note: the general acceptance of proprietary platforms is not even natural. There were intense apprehensions in the general public preventing the adoption of high-definition media discs for movies as the view was that they could not co-exist. At around that time there were no fewer than seven co-existing incompatible platforms for video games. Unlike the music, video, and print mediums where the constant struggle is to open up: the video game industry believes they are contented with progressively closed platforms despite obviously combating the negative corollaries that fall out as a result.

Accepting that PC Gaming is better?

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