Bogost Defends Serious Games

I blogged in June about the controversy brewing between Ian Bogost and Justin Peters over Peters’ comments in Slate regarding serious games. Peters said, essentially, that any game promoting a serious agenda immediately begins losing aspects of fun game play. In particular, Peters singled out Bogost’s Stone City, a game designed to help new Cold Stone Creamery ice cream workers learn the ropes in their job.

Now, following considerable blog comments left in several places, Bogost has written a thorough repudiation of Peters’ article, and provided several personal philosophical viewpoints. Take a look at Persuasive Games: How I Stopped Worrying About Gamers And Started Loving People Who Play Games over at Gamasutra.com.

Bogost sees a future of mass mainstream appeal for video games, a future in which people don’t consider themselves gamers or non-gamers.

I have started to take rejoinders like Peters’ as compliments instead of criticisms. Gamers are predisposed toward a single response to video games. Those people who don’t love games, to use Peters’ words, simply don’t love the games that gamers love, or they don’t love games in the same way.

 

I wouldn’t say that I love magazines, but I do buy and read some. If video game playership is indeed broadening, then video games will no longer fall under the sole purview of the video games industry. There will no longer be a single court in which the legitimacy of games will be tried. There will no longer be three great video game gods to whom all creators and players will pay homage.

 

Instead, there will be many smaller groups, communities, and individuals with a wide variety of interests, some of them occasionally intersecting with particular video game titles.

This article is a good look into the mind of one of the renowned practitioners of the day. Well worth the read.