<story><title>Prison Architect, a gaming crowdfunding success story</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/10/prison_architect_s_crowdfunding_proves_the_kickstarter_model_for_video_games.single.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Chathamization</author><text>Not just the economic aspect, but the game aspect. Board games and role-playing games have been around much longer, and aren&amp;#x27;t considered art (and there doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be any push for them to be considered as such).</text></item><item><author>Kalium</author><text>Games are frequently something that most instances of arts culture struggle with - commercial. This means that trying to treat games as artistic artifacts, made of beauty and aesthetics, free of the drudgery of economics, is a misguided thing at best.&lt;p&gt;Games are not generally produced as solely artistic works. The economic aspect is significant. Attempting to discuss and critique games as solely artistic artifacts means missing one of largest influences on any such artifact. It&amp;#x27;s like discussing architecture without admitting that materials and physics and humans impose limits.</text></item><item><author>tailgate</author><text>Games are sadly just on the cusp of developing a true arts culture - but we have yet to move out of the consumer mentality, where the only value of a game is if you were entertained by it at your most base level. It also doesn&amp;#x27;t help that a lot of internet commentators can&amp;#x27;t distinguish between someone criticizing something they like and personal attacks.</text></item><item><author>the_af</author><text>A bit of an off-topic rant, but:&lt;p&gt;I think the author is wrong to dismiss Ian Bogost&amp;#x27;s article as &amp;quot;as an opportunity to ignore gameplay in order to pontificate on race and show off the Foucault they read in college&amp;quot;. The author is probably unfamiliar with Bogost, and also misunderstands that Bogost&amp;#x27;s article in The Atlantic about &lt;i&gt;Prison Architect&lt;/i&gt; isn&amp;#x27;t a game review. I found the analysis of the game and how it relates to cultural perceptions of imprisonment in America (and the world, really) very interesting.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s political and it&amp;#x27;s about games-as-culture. It&amp;#x27;s not a shopping recommendation, and I think this is what the author of TFA misunderstood.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Lawtonfogle</author><text>I could definitely seem board games as art.  As for RPGs, the books themselves are art as are the stories produced.  A given session of play would also be art; akin to some kind of improv&amp;#x2F;acting, though not done with any thought given to an outside viewer.  As for the system of rules... that one I&amp;#x27;m left unsure of but it may be art in a same way some see elegant code as art.</text></comment>
<story><title>Prison Architect, a gaming crowdfunding success story</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/10/prison_architect_s_crowdfunding_proves_the_kickstarter_model_for_video_games.single.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Chathamization</author><text>Not just the economic aspect, but the game aspect. Board games and role-playing games have been around much longer, and aren&amp;#x27;t considered art (and there doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be any push for them to be considered as such).</text></item><item><author>Kalium</author><text>Games are frequently something that most instances of arts culture struggle with - commercial. This means that trying to treat games as artistic artifacts, made of beauty and aesthetics, free of the drudgery of economics, is a misguided thing at best.&lt;p&gt;Games are not generally produced as solely artistic works. The economic aspect is significant. Attempting to discuss and critique games as solely artistic artifacts means missing one of largest influences on any such artifact. It&amp;#x27;s like discussing architecture without admitting that materials and physics and humans impose limits.</text></item><item><author>tailgate</author><text>Games are sadly just on the cusp of developing a true arts culture - but we have yet to move out of the consumer mentality, where the only value of a game is if you were entertained by it at your most base level. It also doesn&amp;#x27;t help that a lot of internet commentators can&amp;#x27;t distinguish between someone criticizing something they like and personal attacks.</text></item><item><author>the_af</author><text>A bit of an off-topic rant, but:&lt;p&gt;I think the author is wrong to dismiss Ian Bogost&amp;#x27;s article as &amp;quot;as an opportunity to ignore gameplay in order to pontificate on race and show off the Foucault they read in college&amp;quot;. The author is probably unfamiliar with Bogost, and also misunderstands that Bogost&amp;#x27;s article in The Atlantic about &lt;i&gt;Prison Architect&lt;/i&gt; isn&amp;#x27;t a game review. I found the analysis of the game and how it relates to cultural perceptions of imprisonment in America (and the world, really) very interesting.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s political and it&amp;#x27;s about games-as-culture. It&amp;#x27;s not a shopping recommendation, and I think this is what the author of TFA misunderstood.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Vaskivo</author><text>[EDIT] Why is my parent being downvoted? It is a legitimate question, and we should try to answer it.&lt;p&gt;Yet there are a lot of board and roleplaying games pushing their boundaries regarding theme and mechanics:&lt;p&gt;You have boardgames exploring difficult themes (Train[0]) and others being defined as they are played (Fluxx[1])&lt;p&gt;On RPGs, You can have rpgs about simple themes as being a housecat (Cat RPG[2]) or serious one like rape and domestic violence[3]. In terms of mechanics, there is Dread[4], a horror game that uses a Jenga tower instead of dice.&lt;p&gt;There is no push to be considered art, but there are folks doing some really cool stuff with the medium.&lt;p&gt;What is happenning with videogames is that there are people who thing &amp;quot;videogames should grow up&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;stop playing around&amp;quot;. That, in my opinion, is stupid. You don&amp;#x27;t tell a 15 years kid to &amp;quot;grow up&amp;quot;. It will come out naturally. KLEt games mature on their own.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;speakeasy&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;24&amp;#x2F;can-you-make-a-board-game-about-the-holocaust-meet-train&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;speakeasy&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;24&amp;#x2F;can-you-make-a-boa...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Fluxx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Fluxx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;johnwickpresents.com&amp;#x2F;product&amp;#x2F;cat-a-little-game-about-little-heroes&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;johnwickpresents.com&amp;#x2F;product&amp;#x2F;cat-a-little-game-about-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] sorry, the internet failed me :(&lt;p&gt;[4]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dreadthegame.wordpress.com&amp;#x2F;about-dread-the-game&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dreadthegame.wordpress.com&amp;#x2F;about-dread-the-game&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>