DEI/CISUC Seminars
November 16, Friday,
13h (sharp),
Room A.5.4. DEI-FCTUC
Invited Speaker: Rui Craveirinha
Title: Art at play
Abstract:Can video games be art? The question has been fuel for a debate that raged in and outside the video game community for many a year. The reason the question is pertinent still today is that art constitutes the highest standard of value in a creative medium, one which many game designers either aspire to, or would be content to be the bearers of. Existing Player Experience Evaluation Self-Reports are adept at measuring entertainment value, but are ill-positioned to measure other forms of value, namely, cultural and aesthetic. By studying the nature of art and video games' relation to that class of objects we hope to better understand how video games are experienced and valued by their audiences, and how they can be designed to improve said valuation. We will start by briefly reviewing theories on what constitutes art, and arguments exchanged in the 'video games are art' debate. From these elements, we shall present an empirical study on the hypothesis that aesthetic experiences are incompatible with game elements (challenges and rewards/penalties). With this we will show that Player Experience Evaluation self-reports focused on assessing an artifact's aesthetic qualities can provide new insights into player experience and valuation, and that the games are art debate was more than just an academic onanism: it touched on the very essence of what constitutes a game... and what constitutes art.
Short bio: Rui Craveirinha is a Guest Professor at the University of Coimbra and at the Porto Lusófona University. He has a Masters in Informatics Engineering and a PhD in Information Sciences and Technology, with a specialization in Human-Computer Interaction. His main research interests are User and Player Experience Evaluation and Game Studies