I think there are a number of threads floating about that should be addressed. The first being questions of literature, the second being the value of Game Studies.

Literature…the initial question coming out of the colloquium (iirc) was one on the subject of whether or not games could be read in the same manner as print culture is read. I think the discussion here as demonstrated that the answer is…depends on how you are reading it and to what end. That is to say that if one is reading a print text and a video game )as an interactive constellation of visual, text, and audio rhetorics) to disassemble socially constructed symbol systems then it is not only possible but the theory being used is derived from the same well (maybe even the same theorists).

In my mind the more important question is, why the term literature is important. The term itself implies an import beyond the actual text. For a cultural artifact to be literature, is for it to be imbued with a cultural import beyond the actual wood pulp it is stained into. It is my opinion that the reason why there is a sort of skittishness to apply the term to Video Games is because VG’s are not viewed in the same sort of context.

It comes back to (in my estimation) is a false dichotomy, high culture and pop culture. Literature is deemed high culture, and Video Games popular culture (and by implication of the modernist dichotomy low culture). Using Said’s notions of Othering it is now possible to use the concept of negative space to illuminate what high culture really is. High culture (of which literature is an ad hoc member) is very white, wealthy and primarily male.

I will try to cover the second point later on today…

~S~

There’s a whole subset of the education field devoted to using games for teaching. You should take a look at James Paul Gee’s book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, which is all about the educational principles games already use to teach us. It’s a fascinating book and a great read.

As for the modes of reading interaction between the two mediums—that could prove a wonderfully interesting study. Currently, much of our learning is done through literature, or a printed medium. How would games or an interactive media work pedagogically? I’m not the biggest gamer in the world, I’ll dabble in a game here and there, but I don’t religiously play them—but the games I have played, I have picked up on the rules and history behind the story of the game rather quickly. Probably more quickly than the learning I get in a classroom. Why is this? Obviously the government has been using games for quite some time as combat simulators and such. I even read an article that described how games heave been used to help cure PTSD in veterans returning from Iraq (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/19/080519fa_fact_halpern). My completely uneducated guess would be that games are effective tools for teaching because they offer such a strong sense of immersion. This is also why they are effective for helping veterans with PTSD, because they can immerse that person in war-like situations and slowly habituate the person to them.

The most obvious field of study that I feel could benefit from games would be the teaching of language. To learn a language requires immersion. It’s one thing to read the vocabulary of Spanish in a book: banco, Iglesia, carro, perro, etc. But it would be a completely different thing to walk around in a simulated world, fully immersed in the culture. Seeing the signs that say banco, hearing an owner yell at his perro, or be asked if you are going the la Iglesia this Sunday by an avatar in the game. The language would surround the student in a real-life fashion. This language could also include different dialects or accents, which might further aid us in our learning. Video games are a fairly new media, only 40 or so years old—I feel as of now they are an untapped resource, especially given how many people play them. Also, given how games’ graphics and the engines that drive these games are becoming more advanced and complex, the immersion would be greatly enhanced because the games would appear to be an accurate representation of the actual world.

Perhaps digital media and games will never be considered literature—personally it wouldn’t bother me much if they weren’t. But games do have an artistic quality to them, and because of this, games should not be simply rendered as child’s play and unworthy of academic research (once again directed at the snobbish remark of a person in the philosophy department). Dialectical conversations always yield the ripest fruit, and this topic has a lot of room for such discussion—as we have seen here.

So, please note: I’m not suggesting that a digital story ought not to be considered literature. I’m talking about the technology – print – used to re-present (or mechanically re-produce) literature, and how that technology enables or disables (encourages or discourages) modes of reading-interaction that (as Chris observes) necessarily impact our interpretation. Again, I’m talking about connections & disconnections between two mediums – print & on-line video games.

Why can’t I resist contributing to this discussion? Good evening.
K

I’m with Kirk in saying that what is not literature is not literature, and there is no reason to expand the definition of literature to include other things. Why would we? What is the motivation behind this? What is to gain by including video games or mutt-media in literature? Is a play script literature? Yes. Is a play performed literature? No. I think that any piece of media (movies, music, games) could be described as “literary”, that is, deep/learned/provoking-scholarly-study, but there are various forms of media and the term media is sufficient for them. We should NOT muddle with the definition of literature in order to include games (or plays or movies or music).

I love literature. But I’m pretty standoffish towards literary studies. I’m often skeptical of the slight connections and conclusions that are drawn in texts. I do read works and wonder “What does this mean? or why did the author do that?” What is the purpose of literary studies? (That’s not a rhetorical question, want an answer). It seems to me that it’s main purpose is historical. At least in the past is where the focus tends to be. Perhaps that’s because the time has done part of the work of filtering texts, and scholars can then look at what is still standing and see how it interacted in its context, which is hard to do in real time. I know there is at least one Harry Potter scholar, I saw his analysis of, I think it was, Twilight. Also I don’t know where the line is between contemporary media critics and scholars. I guess the former is saying this piece is good or bad, and the latter is looking at how a piece is constructed and interacts with its culture?

I have little experience in the field of literature studies, so much of this is just speculation. Um, well, I had some more thoughts, but they’re not cohesive so I’ll stop here.
Cheers,
Zachariah.

Now, in response to Dr. McAuley (not trying to draw you back in), games may not be considered literature yet, but I think in time they might be after they have been around for a while longer. While I steadfastly believe that games have an immense potential to transmit a rich and complex narrative, I also understand that games do not meet the definitions many people have for literature. For most, literature is something which must be print. That being said, I am currently taking a “Digital Storytelling” course taught by Rebecca Goodrich, where we are learning new ways to deliver stories via different medias. Essentially, we’re creating non-print narratives. These narratives are rather interesting, in that, one interacts with the narrative, but at the same time it is utterly sotry-/text-driven. These digital narratives (I’ll include a link to a good example below)seem to bridge the medias of video games, movies, and literature.

As I said though, it’s probably too early to begin calling games literature. Games are just now becoming sophisticated enough to express a complex and driving narrative. Perhaps game designers will begin experimenting a bit with new models for their game designs. Just recently I stumbled upon a game called Midkemia Online, which was designed after Raymond Feist’s novels set in a fantasy realm similar to Tolkien’s. What makes this game interesting, though, is that it only uses text. There is no user-interface or heads-up-display. One simply reads what is written, and responds back with writing of his or her own. One must conjure up his or her own world and use his or her own imagination to play this game. It’s rather interesting. Anyways, this is an interesting discussion—and frankly only time will tell whether or not a game may be considered literature.

http://www.inanimatealice.com/
(An example of a digital story. Perhaps digital literature?)

Not necessarily. Like all popular media, videogames exist in a complex whose engine is capitalism, so the big-budget (we say “triple-A”) products, with the biggest marketing campaigns, get lots of attention, from the public and the academy alike. That’s certainly been true of World of Warcraft. Actually, I see mass popularity as a good reason to study a game; marketing aside, the most popular texts are popular because they hit cultural nerves, and I want to know what those nerves are. Plus, AAA games are usually the most polished and complex, and offer a lot to chew on.

That all being said, a lot of us left-leaning academics look upon the corporation-dominated mainstream through narrowed eyes; we enjoy undermining it and championing others who do so. There aren’t a lot of articles on Halo or Solitaire, despite their popularity, because we generally deem them as too simplistic or derivative. The games industry has already developed its own independent sector, with a lot of clever, low-budget, small-distribution games that attempt bolder stories and gameplay than the AAAs are willing to try. We like those. We also like outfits like the Games for Learning Institute and the Serious Games Initiative, which study and make games with non- or counter-hegemonic messages. There have been a handful of videogame histories published lately, and the ones I’ve seen have been extremely thorough at discussing games that didn’t achieve mass popularity alongside the ones that did.