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(+2)

Thank you for the article, it was really interesting  to read.  I think too that we should look way more into others medias to improve our way to view and understand videogames. I mean yeah i think that theater has so much in common with video games.  Following a path, incarnating a character. In some way the public is just watching a let's play.  I really liked this moment:

" I do think that video games, just like theatre, has the capacity of breaking the reality of the actor/player, the difference being that theatre is always confined by the "rules" of this world, and games are not. This is why games need to strive to sub-verse rules and systems, instead of just creating others that push us further out of our already alienated lives."

I really liked it because according to me games are about rules. This is what makes them so interesting, to play. You're incarnating somebody, following the rules he has to follow. Like "hey be stealthy cause now you're a ninja". Or "hey go to the right, and jumping is you're only interaction with the world. GL" The problem is that too often we're in the body of the same white guy with a weapon that aims at everything he's interacting with..

So, I don't think video-games should aim at like, putting no rules and making you experience "freedom" but to make you experience new rules. I think this is another way to escape our alienated lives. Maybe the fact that video games put rules that can let you win is a thing that go in this way too.  Cause in our alienated lives the rules doesn't let you win like in games. 

Anyway this is just some of my thought, thant you again for the article it was cool to read.


(sorry for my bad english)

(+1)

Yeah, in a way I agree with what you're saying, games have to put new rules that can actually make us empathize with people that are different to the typical white dude in his quest for glory or some already established notion of what is "good". I guess this is why a community like itch.io and other places are needed, so we can get to experience existing in the body of different kinds of people and get to understand them better.

About "freedom".... Well firstly I think that true freedom is only reachable is only attained when you recognize the world you're living in and the game recognizes you (a game like GTA for example, doesn't make you free, as it makes you the master of the world, you can't be free if you re not existing in it), so being truly free, by definition, is adhering and seeking to understand the world you live in. 

What I do think games have, is that they are not perfect systems with rigid rules, they can be break and change in various situations, the game can all of a sudden change the input  of the keyboard, or change completely it's internal rules. And this "specificity" that games have over the world, can be used as a way to criticize or subverse our already established notion of rules and systems in real life,. What scares me specially is that this is largely discouraged  by our ideas of "good game design" and "game feel" that most of the time want you to live this fantasy of power and so on.

Your comment was very insightful ! Thank you.