The reading this week that I found most interesting was Bogost’s How to Do Things With Videogames. Early on there was a specific line that grabbed me.
“In the year 1500, fifty years after the printing press was invented, we did not have old Europe plus the printing press. We had a different Europe. After television, the United States was not America plus television; television gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry.”
This line summed up Bogost’s premise, on that looked at games not in isolation but as both a product and a catalyst for the society in which the game might find itself in. I actually feel that this idea sums up the entire course quite well. Games are another facet of society, and the act of exploring their role and place within the larger society, as well as the subcultures and sects that form from various types of games is important.
I did feel that the portion discussing music was, frankly, lacking. It explores the idea of taking music and applying it to games, either through the visualization methods of the Atari or using music as a backdrop for a type of game, specifically timing and rhythm games like Guitar Hero or Rhythm Heaven, but it never touches on music being used in a game in a similar fashion to its use in movies. Many modern games use music like movies, but due to the variability of play and timing within the game, more complex systems have been implemented that divide up the music into different sections, with different mood and player actions tied to each portion of music.
This use of music in service of the game instead of as window dressing for the game was a topic I expected and was disappointed not to see. The portion in the Texture chapter about the game Rez had more to do with music in a holistic sense than anything in the actual Music chapter did. I want to read more about music in games because I think it is a neglected topic; most conversations about music devolve into Guitar Hero, which is, while fun, mostly one note.