introduction to digital media studies

One of the most interesting readings for me in this class was the one about games. All the way from the forming of the game goals to implementing them into a visually pleasing software, games were a pleasure to learn about. Interestingly enough, I don’t play games and I am still not hooked up enough to start now. Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the story behind of each and every one of them. On one hand, I am curious about the social implementations different games have–why they were created, what kind of game audience they attract, how is the game played and how that affects the players’ real life. On the other hand, I am simply mesmerized by the advanced methods used to create such life-like environments and characters. I think a big part of attracting audience has to do with how a game “looks”, not just how it “feels”. I feel like this is what makes games nowadays different from games of the past–it is not so much the content that has changed but rather the visual representation. Why are interactive games that involve violence, fast cars, zombies or popular characters more popular than brain-twisting games that require logical, strategical thinking and planning? Are gamers looking for more fun and easy rather than slow and difficult? It seems like games have been engulfed by the entertainment industry and their purpose is only to blow brains out rather than blow minds out (intellectually, that is). Of course this is a very general overview coming from an inexperienced “gamer” but I tend to make this observation based on the video games that I have seen and that are most popular from my point of view. What is really cool, however, is that even in times like that creativity finds its way out of the cage. Even if strategic games are not so popular, some people explore their imagination by creating machinima videos from their favorite games. Thus, those players are now actively participating in the game– not blindly following a mission but creating their own goals within the limitations of the game. The task remains for all the passive viewers as well as gamers to ask themselves the question of why they are playing and of whether it is worth the time.
When it comes to evaluating technology used in our projects, my favorite by far was the video project. I enjoyed the long quiet hours of trial-and-error xhtml programming, the audio experiments and the multimedia dimension of Sophie but I think one of the most effective ways of conveying a certain idea is through a visual presentation, preferably a motion picture. My opinion is definitely biased though since the area of media studies that I am focusing on for my major is digital/film production/editing. Overall, I found all of our projects very educational and interesting and I “secretly” wish I could be a super-duper awesome xhtml programmer.