How do you enjoy literature after being spoiled by video games...

>implying you can't embellish those exact same traits while playing a video game

seriously everything you just wrote can be applied to a video game, a game is limited to pixels as a book is limited to words, just a different medium

>after being spoiled by video games?

nigga

Video games are noisy, colorful light shows designed for children.

> How can I enjoy this 1976 Chablis after being spoiled by Pepsi Max

Video games aren't art. They're electronic toys. And you're embarrassing yourself by playing them after age 15.

Videogames have weird ego-inclusive properties. Any characters you control feel like "you" and any characters you don't control feel alien from you. This isn't the case with fiction, you can alternately feel involved and uninvolved with the same character over the course of a passage. Or you can identify with all of the characters or none of them in a book. If you had control over no characters in a game it wouldn't be a game. If you had control over all of them it would be supremely boring.

Also videogames aren't very good at making you feel powerless because you just feel frustrated instead. The sensation of powerlessness can't be aesthetically pleasing in a videogame because it's frustrating your desire to play the game. Whereas that's like one of the main determining factors for why tragedy is good, according to Aristotle.

>Also videogames aren't very good at making you feel powerless because you just feel frustrated instead

play nier

You're telling me you can't relate to a character in a game because your playing from the POV of another character in said game? You can't simply separate yourself and see the player character as a lens?

What about city builders, or games where the gimmick IS switching perspectives?

People sell games short as fuck these days, even when they can make for just as interesting pieces of story-telling/narrative through interactivity, something that no other piece of medium in history has ever been able to accomplish

>The sensation of powerlessness can't be aesthetically pleasing in a videogame
videogames are shit but have you ever played the final level of halo reach?

I'd argue that videogames are actually the most similar to literature out of anything else, because in both there's a constant requirement on the player or reader to participate in the work by imposing their own interpretation upon it. For instance, when you're reading a book you might imagine a character looking a certain way or talking a certain way, etc., because there are always blanks to be filled.

Though obviously 99.99% of videogames have almost no literary merit whatsoever regardless.

I read the most when I'm also playing games. It lets me alternate without getting tired.

I don't know if this is going to be a trend or not, but it might be that you will soon get to enjoy games based on movies based on books...

youtube.com/watch?v=-Ai0Ebklbuc

>you're letting the plasticity of your mind conform to certain aesthetics, motifs, morals, etc
But this is exactly what can happens in video games. The relationship between you and the game is symbiotic. The game presents you with environments, situations, symbols, etc., and you respond. In turn, the game responds, presenting you with new information to interpret. You become an agent learning how to navigate this novel experience. You become changed by the game, and the game becomes changed by you. In this sense, you and the game are one and the same.

It may sound pretentious, but you still don't get it. What's ''it''? We can't explain it, you have to experience it at least once by yourself, after that first time reading will become effortless, if not a necessity. You still have never gazed at another human being brain, your reading is still superficial.

Force it to yourself, eventually you will get it. If you find yourself procrastinating too much quit video games and social medias, since your being incapable of reading means that your attention span is currently fucked up. Be violent in this negation, do it cold turkey, and costantly aknowledge how much of your time your wasting.

These things are not corrupting by themselves, but you're probably abusing them so it is better to be critically aware of your actual relationship with these technologies.

The choice of your first books will not be trivial. Don't go academic immediatly, start with some entry level philosophy with which you could relate (there are probably many big unanswered questions you've got, so you may be interested in what the smartest guys in history had to say about it), or you could start with easy classics of literature. From my experience Kafka is a great first author to tackle. His books are really easy to read, and you may relate with many (if not all of them, considering that we're on Veeky Forums) of his themes. Keep reading until the actual action of reading becomes effortless. In your first sessions it will be tedious, considering that you're used to so many more stimuli, but after a while you will overcome these withdrawal symptoms.

t. user who overcome his internet addiction

One problem I have is: what do you do for leisure? More importantly, how do you distinguish leisure from "work"? Do you consider reading leisure or "work"? Some reading is leisurely because it requires little effort, but other reading - particularly of dense technical works - is "work-like" because it requires a dedicated effort. To me, it's important to be aware of these things because the ability to concentrate is (presumably) not infinite. Moreover, sometimes reading is boring, but necessary for whatever reason. To me, life becomes flat if we do not vary our activities, if we focus too much on one goal, if we don't do something else occasionally to "let go," to step away from the serious things; it may not have to be potentially destructive, like the internet or video games, but at least something that brings color to life. And perhaps, if we have learned how to properly restrain ourselves, we could even pursue those dangerous things without abusing them.

I like the games you listed, but you just don't get it if you think that they offer the same "ideas, values, themes etc" as good lit. Majora's Mask is great, but it isn't about ideas, values, or themes. It's a hero story with some good imagery and fun puzzles. The only ideas it explores are those of being a hero, like pretty much every action flick. Dark Souls is also a great game, but it's not exploring any ideas in depth either. It touches on ideas of good and evil, but not in any original or deep way.

These games are beautiful and fun, and some of the only game experiences worth having imo, but they just aren't offering the same stuff that literature is.

>what do you do for leisure?
I shitpost about 1 year everyday on Veeky Forums while checking various things on the internet. Aside from that I walk in the city, spend time with my friends and read poetry. This last one in particular is a effortless practice that you should cultivate.
The first times you'll read a poem you will have to analyze it in order to find every detail, but once you'll know everything about it reading it, understanding it, feeling it and contemplating it becomes second nature. A collection of poems that is 80 pages long can accompany you for a lifetime without ever becoming stale.

>Do you consider reading leisure or "work"?
It depends on the book. If I'm reading Kant I'm working, if I'm reading Borges I'm not.

>To me, it's important to be aware of these things because the ability to concentrate is (presumably) not infinite.
It is, you can learn to focus on one single thing for the rest of your life. Of course focus is a skill, and you have to practice it. At the moment is probably weakened by your internet and videogames habits.

>To me, life becomes flat if we do not vary our activities, if we focus too much on one goal, if we don't do something else occasionally to "let go,"
I'm not arguing against it, rather I'm arguing for aknowledging to what extent are we letting it go. Most 4channes waste a ungodly, unnecessary amount of time on trivial things that bring no sort of advantage in the long run. This is clearly not healthy, and will hinder you in many more ways than you can imagine. It is worth it to practice both your concentration and discipline, after all if you'll ever do something worth doing that ''something'' will require both of those skills. See learning how to read as a way to improve yourself in general.

>Majora's Mask is about being a hero
>Dark Souls is about good and evil

His main point still holds, though. Video games (currently) hold little artistic merit when compared to literature.

I could see that in the future, video games (or "interactive media," if "video games" holds consumerist connotations for you) could be on the same level as other forms of art, but not now. I still don't think film is even there, yet.

found a sweater for you, OP

Lol what ideas exactly do you think these games are exploring?

>especially when you consider you're not trying to beat the book you're reading
Maybe YOU'RE not...

Majora's Mask is more about accepting your mortality, understanding that your actions play a role in the contingency's of others lives, wondering if how others see you is more important than how you see yourself, and denying your ego than it is about "being a hero." Hell, for someone who was basking in the light of being a "hero" at the start of the game, he sure did get his shit kicked in by some randy.

He's completely wrong when it comes to dark souls, though, because everyone in the game is wrong and nothing you do really matters.

Majora's Mask isn't about accepting your mortality at all. In fact, the entire conceit of the game is found in having a unique power to postpone death until you can escape it entirely.

It's really been too long since I played Majora's Mask to argue about it. I mean, maybe those ideas are present in the game, but as far as I remember you basically spend the whole game in an effort to save people. Majora might be a complex villain, but Link's quest is about things which are simple. It's about saving people, being a hero. Maybe the ideas you're talking about exist in the game, but I'm pretty sure they aren't the main thrust. (If you really wanted to explore something like "is how others see you more important than how you see yourself" would you really center the game around saving people? That's not exactly how I would explore the psychology of that idea. And as far as understanding the role your actions play in other people's lives, that idea goes line in line with a hero story)

As far as Dark Souls goes, the game basically isn't about ideas at all. It's hard to say it's even a hero story because when you first play through it, you don't know if what you're doing is right or wrong or just random, and you're hardly a character at all. It sort of is about good vs. evil, but it also sort of pivots this dichotomy to "status-quo vs. change." But then it doesn't play with that idea at all. The choice you make at the end of the game is just arbitrary, it doesn't mean anything either way. And anyway, most of the game isn't necessary to set up this conflict and this idea. Most of the game is just about exploring an interesting world and killing some dudes. It's fun, and it's one of my favorite games, but it has a very surface-level exploration of its ideas, and most of the game isn't necessary in order to understand its main ideas.

just read, book>game

>just read, book>game

Is this meant to be past or present tense?

Well its more like two sides of the same coin. Books are an experienced created subjectivley and are interacted with subjectivley, while video games must be created objectivley and are interacted with objectivley (as in there is a curtailed experience, but in literature its purview is wide, and in videogames its small). So although they are both interactive mediums, given your supposition so is all art, and by that virtue video games would be the least interactive medium, and literature the most.

>to get many similar values, ideas, themes, etc

>studying literature is just cataloging devices

This has to be bait. Jesus Christ. Video games can't even compare to the raw expression of literature.

>not enjoying both

I would brand you a philistine in witty 4chins fashion if not for your choice of Killer7, which at least shows you can acknowledge true art regardless of medium.

It's not hard. You just have to like literature, which provides richness precisely because it eschews the explicit spectacle for pure semiotics.

You don't seem to appreciate literature to any significant degree.

t. gamer

>tfw addicted to video games
>want to stop once and for all but still can't find the motivation

any books who deal with video game addiction?

>t. user who overcome his internet addiction

teach me master

Why not? Do you mean current video games, or do you think video games as a medium is inherently incapable of being as expressive as literature? If the former, I agree.

Are there even games with interesting storytelling and themes worthy of analysis? Most of games are painfully basic.
>Silent Hill 2
I actually enjoyed this one, I have a soft spot for Freud.

Formalist narrative video games are fucking garbage. Esports is the only redeeming feature

I have the opposite problem. I used to play video games and only read occasionally. Then once I started reading more frequently I found I could no longer enjoy video games.

>tfw

>The entire conceit of the game is found in having a unique power to postpone death until you can escape it entirely.
Thats the initial conceit, but as the game moves on it seems more appropriate to interpret it as accepting to move on. Link eventually has to admit he cant fix everything and face up to his own demon. Its about grief and finding a way to live a new life. The motif of escaping from a neverending cycle is a very asian form of the hero's journey. But the hero doesnt escape death, he escapes the cycle of reincarnation and finds the only true, liberating death.

Halo is a good narrative driven videogame

This. The worst part of Veeky Forums are the self-conscious types who think that because they enjoy one thing they aren't allowed to enjoy another. A Pointless elitist trap that they'll grow out but probably don't think they will.

>How do you enjoy literature after being spoiled by video games?
By not being a manchild.
>Majora's Mask, Dark Souls, Killer 7, and Silent Hill 2
I mean really, you can't be serious.
>Especially when they have sound direction, art direction, and gameplay direction to compliment the narrative and themes.
Video games are games first, everything else second. You're better off watching a film for its ideas, themes, etc. than a video game.
If you're serious about wanting to "enjoy literature", pick a book that is generally highly regarded and read it. If you really don't get anything out of it then just forget about books and keep playing games.

This.

>Video games are games first, everything else second.
Why do you assume that every single videogame director thinks the same exact way? Shouldn't you have learned by now that different people have different values? On the other hand, if you think that videogames SHOULD be about gameplay first, everything else second, then isn't that just arbitrarily gimping the potential of an artistic medium?

I don't assume every single videogame director thinks the same exact way, I know that all video games follow the exact same principle because that principle is what makes games games: they are games. Very difficult to understand, I know. The core characteristic of a game is that you play the game. Nowadays obviously you can watch other people play the game, but that isn't actually taking in the medium. It's like instead of watching a movie you read the screenplay and look at the storyboard.

> it eschews the explicit spectacle for pure semiotics
This user is close to an actual answer to OP's question - what it is exactly that literature offers over a game's buffet of stimuli and vectors of meaning.

We can quibble about the exact wording, but it's literature's restriction to text and language that distinguish it from other forms.

>but they just aren't offering the same stuff that literature is.
*AHEM* Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty *AHEM* Deus Ex - what the genuine fuck is wrong with you?
Kill yourself.

Yeah, those are great games. Why are you responding like a child, though? Those don't offer the same stuff as literature any more than literature offers the same stuff as they do.

>Why are you responding like a child, though?
I thought it's the norm on this Malaysian sewing forum.

Fuck, that one's for you

Drakengard 3 is the best game.

Don't you have your own standard of behaviour, though? Even if it isn't absolute, you should be able to eschew the conventional trappings of a dialectic space in order to better communicate and be taken seriously when the need presents itself.

>Don't you have your own standard of behaviour, though?
It is my standard to switch between formal speech and profanity. This is why I became so interested in this site in the first place.

The point of profanity here is to sort oversensitive fucks out, since people who react that way do not usually qualify as outcasts. You won't get taken seriously if you get offended of miniscule things such as words.

Do you consider me outed as an oversensitive fuck, then? If not, was this sorting worth the clarity of your message? Is it important to our discourse that I be an outcast? Why?

Words form ideas, which form narratives and ideologies that direct our lives. People have literally murdered each other over words.

>art games

w e w l a d

>Do you consider me outed as an oversensitive fuck, then?
Yes.
>If not, was this sorting worth the clarity of your message?
Even though it is not not the case, yes.
Is it important to our discourse that I be an outcast?
Somehow, yes.
Why?
Certain familiarity.

>Words form ideas, which form narratives and ideologies that direct our lives. People have literally murdered each other over words.
No shit. But did you ever consider context? This isn't a diehard dicussion about ideologies where lives could be possibly at stake. It's a Chinese cartoon forum, where we're talking about the comparison of literature and video games, or to be precise, why the latter is supposedly better than the former. You, as far as my reading comprehension doesn't deceive me, claim that no video game could have the same depth as literature. I provided two examples, which are, by my humble opinion, Magnum Opi in what they tried to accomplish, therefore naturally succeeded in satire and thought-provoking subjects.

Instead of psychologizing unnecessary bullshit, you could just chose to not get offended and stay focused on the topic.

I could be wrong, and you may be a good conversation partner and the standard Veeky Forums filter of profanity failed me to see you as such. But the fact that you initiated it, rather wasting time than engaging in dicussion, assures me it would be a waste of time nonetheless conversing with you.

Was the hassle worth it?

It's an IQ thing.

Not offended, just asked a question relating directly to my interest in the discussion. Don't tell me after that rant of yours that you don't know the difference.

>as far as my reading comprehension doesn't deceive me
It did. You can say it's my fault, or imply that since communication is a two-way street that somehow absolves you for misunderstanding, but consider that maybe you just overreacted to a question because you are looking for an adversarial confrontation rather than a collaborative discussion. Another nice byproduct of being profane and retarded as some kind of shibboleth.

Yeah, the hassle was worth it. I managed to get you to express your value system and the rationale for your behaviour. To me, that's a good starting point for a discussion; that it seems to you to be the appropriate moment to declare a conversation a waste of time is indicative of the difference in our basic conversational philosophies.

Cheers, mate.

>but consider that maybe you just overreacted to a question because you are looking for an adversarial confrontation rather than a collaborative discussion. Another nice byproduct of being profane and retarded as some kind of shibboleth.
Appearances tend to be deceitful.

>Yeah, the hassle was worth it. I managed to get you to express your value system and the rationale for your behaviour. To me, that's a good starting point for a discussion;
That's a lot of effort for a discussion that gets archived anyways. Conversing in writing is more of a hassle and too unprecise of creating a psychological profile. I don't see the necessesity for it, given the risks of misinterpreting written nuances easily.

Cheers.

A discussion that gets archived is less ephemeral than a verbal discussion, so unless your abilities in the written vs verbal domains are uneven, I'm not sure why that would cause you to take their archival as a downside.

The risk and hassle of conversing verbally aren't really less, just different. But I guess that strays back to the original topic of disagreement here.

I do have a question. Why does an increased investment make you more likely to throw a conversation away than to capitalize on it and get what worth that you can? This seems to go against both economic and physiological principles, unless your motivations are something other than what you told me, maybe something other than you told yourself, too.

NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER KEK PSEUD just KILL YOURSELFys with AIDS
>See? I'm an outcast like you. Wasn't our conversation so much better than that tiresome drag with that autistic normie? There's so much more potential for good conversations when we keep them out of our secret club, lol they don't even get irony or basic intellectual matters.

...

I think he means to say that you cannot say that the result of a conversation being that you learned more about the other person is meaningful, since you are on an anonymous imageboard and you will not know whether or not you will encounter the other person again.

>so unless your abilities in the written vs verbal domains are uneven
I'm way better at conversing in real time. When Since I don't have much time to think of an answer the pressure enables to be well spoken, clear and usually dry.

>The risk and hassle of conversing verbally aren't really less, just different. But I guess that strays back to the original topic of disagreement here.
Yeah, that depends on who you ask.

>I do have a question. Why does an increased investment make you more likely to throw a conversation away than to capitalize on it and get what worth that you can?
You, again, generalize prematurely here. Context matters. This kind of conversation isn't worth the investment you put into. It is a topic about two different media - which one is better? I don't see the necessity to put blood and sweat into it, there are far more important matters to invest more of my mental capacity and this Oh man, a very autistic strawman-attempt. Y'know, there's already medication for your disease? No? My deepest condolences then.
>pic addresses you specifically

>investigating the speaker's position and justification in a discussion somehow equates to blood and sweat
It's just a normal conversation, man. It's not crucifixion.

>It's just a normal conversation, man. It's not crucifixion.
>normal conversation
>creating a psychological profile in order to have ground on a superficial topic
This one gets 40 keks.
Quality bait, you got me there.

Every video game story is broken down into do x to get y.

Every video game protagonist is a chosen one, or an anti-hero, with some exceptions for Spec Ops, Torment, and Bioshock games, which are hamhanded attempts at deconstruction.

Every game made by a studio is profit driven, and written by committee. Publishing games are worse.

Dark Souls excels in that it uses the strengths of the medium to depict nightmare-scapes and use vidual media to tell a story. That story is typical genre crap unfortunately.

Games that truly shit on literature are based solely around gameplay. Take Tetris, Dwarf Fortress, Crusader Kings 2. Freedom and gameplay with no defined story, or a story builder is where the medium does things literature cant.

No joke. Forming an opinion about the people you're conversing with is a normal thing that normal people do. Children generally start doing it between 4 and 8.

One of your paragraphs is true, one is barely arguable and the other three are trash.

>No joke. Forming an opinion about the people you're conversing with is a normal thing that normal people do
>about people you don't know and will never meet, which doesn't add anything to the topic in question
This guy.

They might be saying that knowledge of people informs ideas, which is useful when people are kind of shitty at communicating ideas through text.

For me the problem with books is, I cant analyze them. Unless the deeper meaning and such is pretty obvious or spelled out, I don't see the deeper meaning.

Your single sentence is garbage

Don't worry. It's the books, not you. People just overanalyze things in schools.

Man, your saltiness underpins my prejudice perfectly. Noice projetcting you've done. You're doing basically what you have accused me - engaging in any sort of conflict.

And again, another prime example why personal matters don't belong into materialistic conversations.

Then stop being a brainlet. Seriously, stop coming up with irrelevant rationalizations for your deficiency.

I don't get what you're trying to say. is my first post. What am I even supposed to be projecting?

I'm probably feeding into your narrative here but you seem really caught up in yourself. Maybe you should take a break.

Huh, I mistook you for the other guy I had the long exchange with. And I thought you'd be sarcastic, since I think knowledge is better to convey via text than through speech.

Sorry for that.

Would you elaborate your first post though? I didn't quite understand it.

I'm glad you two schmucks could kiss & make up. Now tell me the meta physics of squid kids plz.

It's a loli-hentai (tentacle porn) propaganda by the Japsanese.

I enjoy both. Only recently did I start reading. But if you're like me, and play and play a lot of rpgs. You'll end up reading a shit load, half the genre is reading. So, the transition should be easy. I remember in Oblivion I would read every little book I could get my hands on. Maybe a book about a existing universe you like, could work.

Wow what a silly argument. In that sense everything is "interactive" whether it be music, film etc. Also everything can be interpreted in different ways, all experiences are rather subjective

There is a difference between passive and active interactivity. Additionally, all things being subjective does not mean all things are equal.

Really hits home actually ;-; thanks op

well how can one fully appreciate Majoras Mask without having played Ocarina of Time?
How can you fully appreciate Ocarina of Time without playing a link to the past and Links awakening?

how can you fully appreciate legend of Zelda without intmate knowledge and playthroughs of many other games?

same deal with literature, cant fully enjoy Ulysses or hundred years of solitude by simply reading them by themselves alone in a vacuum

Well, I got sick of video games when they sucked up too much time during my MA, and quit them. Haven't played anything more complex than Angry Birds or Tetris since (and very little of that). I don't need to shit on video games, I just decided I'd rather be reading.

I like to actively imagine the story in my mind as I go when reading. Video games used to entertain me, but then I realized that most of the 'interactivity' is extremely repetitive by nature.
I lost interest when I realized I wasn't actually getting any better at the game, and that I wasn't having that much fun with the repitition. Books/stories are always changing, always have new paradigms, whereas a game's story is usually very cut and dry unless it's a story focused game like a visual novel and those are a whole different level of potential that I don't think will likely get respected for a long while.
One thing I ask myself about a game's story is that would I want to read it if it was a book? For some reason, the answer is always no, even the dialogue and story heavy games like Bioware/Bethesda have fairly generic stories and mostly uninteresting characters. If they have a good character, it's mostly a shallow one based on a gimmick and those don't work for me anymore. I'm sure they work for most people though. Literature adds an entire layer of subtlety, insight, and wisdom that video games can't reproduce precisely because they have to spend the majority of the resources of the game flexing themselves around repetitive tasks.
Probably the best game story wise I played was Deus Ex: HR, and even that fell into dogshit later on due to plot fuckery. It's like they suddenly lost all sense of the entire rest of the story and atmosphere and decided to throw it down a drain.
The coolest parts were when you could randomly hack into someone's computer sneaking through a level and read about office drama. That kind of expansiveness that gives a great deal of levity to the universe and the game world was something I found far more interesting that press x to kill this guy and see a cutscene you've seen 80 times already.

The games OP mentioned definitely are YA tier, but Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is quite possibly the best media ever written.

When my dad was in college some people failed out because they'd been playing too much tetris.

Actively imagining a described scene is still passive compared to deciding what happens. Please keep in mind I am not using the relative and context-dependent labels "active" and "passive" as synonyms for "good" and "bad" and am not rooting for one medium over the other with regards to profundity or replaceability. I am but not .

>One thing I ask myself about a game's story is that would I want to read it if it was a book?
I can't condone this line of thought, though. They are fundamentally different mediums with different concerns. Also, just ask around on Veeky Forums what people think of reading for plot.

Thought #1: the most redeeming quality of videogames is atmosphere, by which I mean the combination of visual and sound design used specifically to create an aesthetic, immersive environment.

Thought #2: Narrative and gameplay are conflicting forces and games usually struggle to reconcile the two.

Thoughts on my thoughts?

#2 is true. I disagree with #1, as atmosphere is not the defining trait of games and is arguably best presented in movies, where action is controlled in a similar fashion to the elements you listed.