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a forum for the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment
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Indie Games Have No Mainstream to Oppose March 7, 2008 - by Ian Bogost Andreas Jan-Sudmann has an article in the newly released issue of the journal Eludamos. In Innovation NOT Opposition: The Logic of Distinction of Independent Games, Jan-Sudmann argues that indie games have no coherent mainstream to oppose, and they founder partly for this reason. The author locates this problem both in indie and mainstream games, wondering if the latter aren't mainstream enough culturally to support a viable indie opposition. Here's a key part of the argument: That such an aesthetic in which the oppositional logic is embedded visibly does not exist yet or only marginally may have various reasons - and that is beyond the doubtlessly basic problem that the aesthetic conventions of popular games still are too vague and on the part of producers and game users have been internalised only insignificantly to enfold directed dynamics of distinction in the sense of a much-cited 'indie spirit'. Perhaps digital games are primarily understood to be an aesthetic practice that should be or is decidedly accessible (popular) and not resistant or difficile. Perhaps the discomfort with cultural mainstream forms is not that much pronounced that it presses developers of independent games forward to create explicitly visible or tangible counter culture aesthetics. Perhaps it is because popular computer games are not regarded as mainstream.
While independent films have distinguished themselves from the cultural mainstream by constantly displaying controversial, provocative images and topics, in computer games there already are numerous blockbuster products that represent these very attributes of an alternative practice. Not least due to the lasting controversial image of commercial computer games in general independent games find decidedly less starting points to individuate as an alternative culture via provocative 'subversive' forms of games. At any rate, excessive violence as an articulation of distinction drops out. It's an interesting argument, and I find myself wishing the article had been longer and more detailed. Specifically, the alternate strategy of innovation gets short shrift, despite the title's promise to oppose the two. The author uses flOw as a counterexample, but doesn't generalize a theory of innovation in indie games. One way of making this more explicit might be this: indie games have tended to innovate at the level of mechanics rather than at the level of representation. POST A COMMENT
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