Video games don't create violence in society, they reflect it

I mean, we are talking about games here - well, I am, the article kinda isn't - not about "stories". Yes, games are accompanied by stories, they used to have title screens and now have backdrops for the options menu, they had cover art and now have thumbnails in the steam store, etc., there is an intro, an outro, and while you play you also are exposed to lots of little artsy pieces.

Does singing while driving your car turn car driving into art? In the same way I argue adding art to games doesn't automatically make them art, either. Which doesn't mean you couldn't theoretically make art with your car, and sing while you do it. But if you're just commuting, that ain't art (unless it's the opening sequence of Office Space :P). And that's on the level of creativity most AAA games are made.

Looking at the gameplay, they are more or less the same. What little art is in them they borrowed from movies, which still do that part so much better I really wish games could go back to actually being games, instead of just bad kitsch. Then we could find out what we still don't know; if a game - the mechanics, not how those mechanics are dressed up - can be art. We're still at the stage were anything that makes you feel something, anything, gets wildly applauded, which seems kinda of sad. Instead of being honest and just saying "hey, this one is not pure shit, which is a welcome change to the usual", people get super emotional and attached. To me that's just Stockholm Syndrome. I'm sure on this planet there is also a person who has the facebook "like" thumbs up tattooed on their body, because it means so much to them. Would it make that symbol art? Not for me. That would just make that person a really sad one in my eyes.

Again, definitions vary, but I also wouldn't call anything that obsesses about statistics, sales, and how to addict people to your product even more as "art". As in, the exact same product I might consider art or not art depending on why and how it was produced. I'm not even sure I'd allow anything produced while wearing a tie period. Artists are rare, they're kinda the original hackers if you think about it.. and just like everybody and their dog considers themselves a hacker, so it is with art. That's fine, but so is being a jaded critic.

Yes, violence can be used to tell a story about courage. But when it comes to games, and even many movies, the stories about "courage"* are actually just a pretext for violence.... duh! I doesn't take Albert Einstein to notice that, either, so it's really hard for me to assume ignorance instead of malice here. That crap hiding behind what precious few of truly great things humanity created, just bah!

* I put that in quotes because it doesn't take courage to be shot at by 20000 people and not get hit once, even if the actor pants and acts all tense.. same goes for most games, where loosing, or not getting a hint what to click within 5 seconds of starting, might loose potential customers and therefore gets cut from the game, where every slightest challenge is after a checkpoint, unless it's a roguelike or bullet hell shooter. Courage, pah. That's just dreaming. Every game has a wiki dedicated to them and in general, most gaming is about trying to avoid challenge while getting to see the art assets.

People are min/maxing because that's the best you can do with this stuff. They don't play games to grow as persons or see life from different angles; who the fuck does the article author think they're kidding? Games are played to kill time. I think it was Thoreau who said "as if you could kill time without injuring eternity". I wasted a lot of time on games in my life, but I will not waste even more by standing idly while such hideous crap as the article linked here is spouted... I can at least take all that wasted time and turn it into venom. I'm a former hardcore gamer warning casuals of the vampires that are indeed lurking. Don't believe a word these assholes say, don't even bother to pirate their products, and don't you dare paying for that cycle to continue. Just look at them, point, laugh, and move on.

And yes the amount of violent activity in games far outweigh that in real life but there is another huge difference. Games are not real and even the most naive of us have a very clear differentiation: there is no respawn in real life.

So maybe the violence is an optional component of this sort of game after all.