Portal as a required college text
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Portal as a required college text
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Re: Portal as a required college text
#2Calling it a "book" is weird, but in the right context, culturally/technically/socially significant games aren't any weirder a required item than, say, films that also meet those criteria, and studying important films has been pretty well established for decades. Portal is a slightly strange choice, though, because of how new it is. I would imagine the course doesn't usually choose books or films from the past 5 years, but instead looks for things that are more classic?
Re: Portal as a required college text
#3[deleted]
Re: Portal as a required college text
#4Now, I'm fortunate enough that I can afford the necessary hardware (a relatively high-end PC) to play Portal. What about those who cannot? Is their performance in the course automatically degraded simply because they don't have the outside job/rich parent necessary to get the PC or XBox?
Re: Portal as a required college text
#5Calling it a "book" is weird, but in the right context, culturally/technically/socially significant games aren't any weirder a required item than, say, films that also meet those criteria, and studying important films has been pretty well established for decades. Portal is a slightly strange choice, though, because of how new it is. I would imagine the course doesn't usually choose books or films from the past 5 year…
Classic videogames didn't really go for the self-aware pretentiousness that makes Portal a compelling choice for academic study. (I mean that in the nicest possible way: it is a game that knows it is better written than 90% of the stuff on the shelves next to it, and it isn't afraid to hit you over the head with that fact over and over and over again.)
Re: Portal as a required college text
#6Now, I'm fortunate enough that I can afford the necessary hardware (a relatively high-end PC) to play Portal. What about those who cannot? Is their performance in the course automatically degraded simply because they don't have the outside job/rich parent necessary to get the PC or XBox?
A lot of colleges/universities require/provide laptops to students. They also usually have computer labs.
Re: Portal as a required college text
#7Calling it a "book" is weird, but in the right context, culturally/technically/socially significant games aren't any weirder a required item than, say, films that also meet those criteria, and studying important films has been pretty well established for decades. Portal is a slightly strange choice, though, because of how new it is. I would imagine the course doesn't usually choose books or films from the past 5 year…
Classic videogames didn't really go for the self-aware pretentiousness that makes Portal a compelling choice for academic study. (I mean that in the nicest possible way: it is a game that knows it is better written than 90% of the stuff on the shelves next to it, and it isn't afraid to hit you over the head with that fact over and over and over again.)
There's quite a bit of stuff from the 80s that is self-aware of videogames as a medium, and is actually studied by academics pretty frequently. Chris Crawford's Balance of Power / Balance of the Planet duo are two that are frequently discussed. Crawford is so sure that his stuff is better than other stuff out there that he's even written several books about why his game design is so great, and other game design is so bad. ;-)
And in terms of academic interest, I think SimCity or Civilization, among a dozen other choices, is far more compelling than Portal, and we also have enough distance to see how games like that influenced their successors. Mostly the choice of Portal smells to me of a university picking a famous recent title in an attempt to stay relevant--- like if they'd picked The Matrix or Inception as the one film to include.
Re: Portal as a required college text
#8Now, I'm fortunate enough that I can afford the necessary hardware (a relatively high-end PC) to play Portal. What about those who cannot? Is their performance in the course automatically degraded simply because they don't have the outside job/rich parent necessary to get the PC or XBox?
Computer labs usually have decent hardware, and are free for students to use. That should work as long as they can get the administrators to allow Portal on the computer lab machines.
Re: Portal as a required college text
#9[deleted]
It still boggles me that that's Ebert's position. I've played plenty of games which were significantly better narratives than the vast majority of movies I've seen, much less that's out there. A good game can be far more immersive and emotionally powerful than a book or movie, unless you've set yourself up to not notice it.
Re: Portal as a required college text
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Classic videogames didn't really go for the self-aware pretentiousness that makes Portal a compelling choice for academic study. (I mean that in the nicest possible way: it is a game that knows it is better written than 90% of the stuff on the shelves next to it, and it isn't afraid to hit you over the head with that fact over and over and over again.)
There's quite a bit of stuff from the 80s that is self-aware of videogames as a medium, and is actually studied by academics pretty frequently. Chris Crawford's Balance of Power / Balance of the Planet duo are two that are frequently discussed. Crawford is so sure that his stuff is better than other stuff out there that he's even written several books about why his game design is so great, and other game design is so…
One issue with games is that anything older than about 2000 is going to look really dated, potentially distracting students from the substance of the game.