acedia, you make many interesting points, which I would like to respond to:

Quote:Originally posted by acedia
Now, granted, things become a bit more complicated when we get to games. To use the terminology from a few years ago, every other artform is 'push' technology, whereas games are 'pull.'

This sounds an overly simplistic contrast. A lot of games involve little more than the requirement to follow through a number of mechanical behaviours in order to get the next chunk of art pushed at them. Is this your definition of "pull"?

To me, many games, in fact, have very little 'artistic' content at all, despite so much media content. What I mean is that most of it is neutral, made up of icons of little or no symbolic complexity, and are merely representations of simple things: enemy/opponent, doorway, measure (e.g.: weapon, money), counter-measure (e.g.: armour, health), focus (e.g.: ball in sports games), objective (goal, exit, treasure). Again, these are manipulated mechanically by the player.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to use sexualized icons, but they will lose their emotional power very rapidly, except as a simple source of arousal. However, sexual arousal does not seem to inspire one to play the game more diligently, whereas violent themes seem to inspire conquest urges which do intensify gameplay. If I may be suggestive, sucess in games inspires one to play more, whereas success in sexual fantasy inspires one to go find something else to do (like play games).

Quote: A filmmaker can take responsibility for what's being expressed by her work because she maintains complete control over its images. This 'control' is actually what 'art' is (or at least how we have always classically thought it to be). What happens, though, when that control is given over to the audience/player?

See above -- players really don't have any "control" over the artistic content in 99% of games, except over the rate at which they can reveal new areas of the game (new/better opponents, new maps, new measures/counter-measures). What they do control is their own strategy for gameplay, which has nothing to do with the artistic content at all.

Quote:Sex and violence can serve valid functions in art, but the *function* must come first. They're tricky to incorporate, not because they're immoral or whatever, but because people tend to react to them hysterically/emotionally, and therefore unpredictibly.

That's a whole other thing that I don't want to get into, since that's an issue of how games are interpreted in a social context. It is difficult enough just to match up sexual content to game mechanics in a non-stupid way that people would also not tire of quickly.

Quote:When I see Nazi gibs coating the walls of Castle Wolfenstein, I see good triumphing over evil, but obviously Senator Joseph Lieberman experiences something completely different - And when games become sexually explicit, hoo boy, imagine the communicative chaos then! If you include the facility for sex in a game, what results when the player can use it for whatever function they want? At the very least, bad art.

When I see gibs coating a wall in Wolfenstein, I think about the use of the stencil buffer. Good and Evil, eh? I guess I don't believe in those so much anymore, so I usually just think of "Me triumphing over Enemies (read: obstacles) which are in my way, with special effects reminiscent of movies". Like I said a few months ago in the "religious content in games" thread, games are all about ego and self-serving behaviour. Goodness, righteousness, and social justice run against the central purpose of playing games.

Lieberman is just a reactionary of the simplest kind. He is obsessed with depiction and cannot tell the difference between a theme and the real thing the theme borrows from. Even children know the difference.

Quote:The question isn't, should it or should it not happen, because it's inevitiable. The question is, will it be done eyes-open and responsibly, or not?

Art and media are static -- responsibility has nothing to do with it. Teach people to think and they will laugh when you show them lies, and pay attention when you show them truth.