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Also by Shanna Compton:

Gamers, November 2004
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Gamers
Shanna Compton

Writers, Artists, and Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels

Soft Skull Press
November 2004
280 pages
ISBN: 1932360573
Trade Size
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Non-Fiction

Novelist Salman Rushdie once remarked to "eXistenZ" director David Cronenberg, that while he didn't consider current video games to have attained the status of art quite yet, we should "[n]ever say never. Somebody could turn up who would be a genius. But if one thinks about noncomputer games, there are many which people say have the beauty of an art form. People say that about cricket, people say it about every game."

Never say never. The writers, poets, programmers, visual artists, cartoonists, game testers, and championship gamers who have contributed to this anthology aren't ready to. Video games have provided each of us with reasons to love them, whether as nostalgic links to childhood, imaginative escapes from the workaday world, competitive challenges to be met and conquered, or as vibrant steps toward a promising new art form. From the creation of "Spacewar!" in 1962, through the golden age of the video game arcade in America, to the console-in-every household proliferation today, games have provided us with something books, music, the plastic arts, and even film have not. We get to act as well as react. We get to play.

Comments

2 comments posted.

Re: Gamers

This applies to Manhattan itself, each district of which is literally
teeming with trifles. The developers did not make it an exact copy, but
there was no more similarity in video games - where else can you walk
from East Midtown and Tertle Bay to Times Square, visiting
Pennsylvania Plaza and Sewing Quarter in passing? And at the same
time, and appreciate some of the sights, many of which will have to
walk on the plot. It's a pity that the story could not make it exciting -
neither the heroes nor the villains in it get proper development until the
finale. However, the world is helped to look convincingly collectible
items like laptops and records of telephone conversations. These are
not useless chests and feathers from Assassin's Creed, and an
excellent opportunity to learn more about the epidemic and its
consequences. It is not recommended to skip them - in many they tell
very interesting stories.
(Daimond Salvadore 11:52am May 20, 2018)

It looks plausible, including because of the enemies we have to face.
The authors made only people enemies by dividing them into bandits,
cleaners, prisoners and "The Last Battalion" - these are former
representatives of the Special Unit, who were left without support and
became villains. So they all look the same, they only wear different
clothes and use a unique weapon. There are conventional arrows, there
are snipers and throwers of grenades, which at high difficulty rush with
amazing accuracy. There are also runners with shotguns or with axes
and golf clubs - they better stay away.
(Daimond Salvadore 11:53am May 20, 2018)