The Pure Game: A Short History of Video Game Aesthetics

Juul, Jesper

Title:

The Pure Game: A Short History of Video Game Aesthetics

dc.contributor.author	Juul, Jesper
dc.contributor.corporatename	Savannah College of Art and Design
dc.contributor.corporatename	Georgia Institute of Technology. College of Liberal Arts
dc.contributor.corporatename	NYU Game Center
dc.date.accessioned	2010-08-17T12:57:11Z
dc.date.available	2010-08-17T12:57:11Z
dc.date.issued	2010-02-05
dc.description	Presented at the Art History of Games Symposium at 10:00 am on February 5, 2010 in the High Museum of Art’s Rich Auditorium on the campus of the Woodruff Arts Center in midtown Atlanta.	en_US
dc.description	Jesper Juul is an influential theorist in the field of video game studies. He is currently a visiting professor at the New York University Game Center and has been a visiting scholar in comparative media studies at MIT. He holds a Ph.D. in video game theory from the Center for Computer Games Research in Copenhagen, where he held a position as an assistant professor until mid-2007. Dr. Juul also has worked as a designer and programmer in video game and chat development, and participated in the Indie Game Jam. He has been working with the development of video game theory since the late 1990s. His more recent work deals with the fictional aspects of video games as well. His book on video game theory, Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, was published by the MIT Press in 2005. The book was named by designer Ernest Adams as one of the “50 Books for Everyone in the Game Industry.” His recently published book, A Casual Revolution, examines how puzzle games, music games, and Nintendo Wii are bringing video games to a new audience. Juul maintains the blog, "The Ludologist," on game research and other important things
dc.description	Runtime: 46:07 minutes
dc.description.abstract	With the continuing recognition of video games as a cultural form comes an ongoing discussion about what video games should be. In this talk I will sketch a history of aesthetical arguments for “pure” video games. Such arguments have worked by identifying a single important quality of video games that is then to be protected against dilution. Examples include the idea that video games should only be rule-based systems, and the newer position that video games should be "immersive" simulated worlds. These, I will argue, are flawed arguments, but arguments that nevertheless play a significant role in the history of video games.	en_US
dc.format.extent	46:07 minutes
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1853/34419
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.publisher	Georgia Institute of Technology	en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries	Art History of Games Symposium
dc.subject	Video games	en_US
dc.subject	Game studies	en_US
dc.subject	Cultural forms	en_US
dc.subject	Aesthetics	en_US
dc.subject	Pure video games	en_US
dc.subject	Rule-based video games	en_US
dc.subject	Virtual reality
dc.title	The Pure Game: A Short History of Video Game Aesthetics	en_US
dc.type	Moving Image
dc.type.genre	Presentation
dspace.entity.type	Publication
local.contributor.corporatename	Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
local.relation.ispartofseries	Art History of Games Symposium
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relation.isSeriesOfPublication	644a6cec-c643-4e89-bffd-f6c6dfb47b4a