Our Ludic Sins – A Survey on our Belief in Videogame Axioms

Authors

Abstract

Creativity has not been as pervasive an element in the videogame medium as would be desired. In this paper is proposed that one underlying cause resides in an imperfect study of the game design discipline, permeated by a number of prescriptive axioms on videogames’ form, value and expression that impair creative processes. To support the contention that these have become ubiquitous in the medium, reaching the community as a whole, a survey intended on testing the agreement of subjects to these misconceptions was realized. 95 subjects replied to 41 sentences in Likert scale responses, and 10 responses had high agreement. Results indicate that the majority of subjects sees videogames as both an art form and an extension of games and narratives, consisting necessarily of interaction, rules and challenges, and serving primarily as a form of intellectually stimulating entertainment. Conversely, there was no agreement to videogames being a qualitatively new medium, nor as a medium that need be emotionally expressive or mediator of discourse on real-life issues.

Keywords

Games, Art

Subject

Prescriptive axioms present in the game design discipline.

Conference

Videojogos 2013, September 2013

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