Good Gamer, Bad Gamer

C.S. Lewis and Prof. Leeper's points about judging art really struck me today. Never before have I related the "quality" of a work to the "quality" of its audience. Sure, I've thought about the fact that your judgement of a book or movie has a lot to do with how deeply you dig into it. But evaluating yourself as an audience member and comparing that to aspects of the movie itself? That struck me as a very interesting concept. 

My interest was particularly peaked when Prof. Leeper mentioned video games in class. In my mind, video games are more valuable the more I allow myself to analyze them and open my eyes to the statements being made by the creators in their work. When I do that, video games are less about escapism and more about culturization. (I know that's not a real word, but it fits what I'm trying to convey.) 

The specific example I think of in this context is the 2013 award-winning FPS, BioShock Infinite. 

To a lot of people, the BioShock series is simply a satisfying shoot-em-up game with lots of gore, cool environments, and a couple of jump scares. But the games are so much more than that.

BioShock Infinite takes place in a utopia above the clouds: Columbia, a city based on the 1900's American ideals of patriotism, religion, and of course, racism. You, the protagonist, are former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, and you've been hired to kidnap (or rescue?) a young girl in the city of Columbia. The game is jam packed with challenging issues, including theories on time and space and how the choices we make affect the universe, including religious ones. 

In the interest of not writing too much and not spoiling the ending, I won't say any more about the game itself. (Maybe I'll write more about this later - there's a lot to be said.) But I will say this is a game that, as the credits rolled, made me question everything (or at least wonder). It opened up my mind to possibilities and opinions that I didn't even know existed beforehand. It immersed me into the sad reality of racism both in the past and today. It challenged my ideas of beauty and justice and motives. All of that, and it was a gorgeous and well-created game.

I don't think I picked up my Xbox controller again for a week.

At least for this game, I think I was a pretty good "reader." I now see the importance of savoring and analyzing all art, not just the stuff that happens to catch my interest.

I highly suggest the BioShock games if you're into stuff like that, particularly the first of the series, and Infinite.