[voldacar]

Yeah like I said in another comment, I'm really not trying to deny the validity or value of individual games or anything like that. Portal is brilliant, and I really liked DA:O (though not quite as much as Baldur's Gate or Pillars of Eternity). I just think that the Shakespeare of the video game medium, whatever form that would even take, hasn't been born yet.

[watwut]

Portal may be ok puzzle, but I just really fail to see that as some kind high art equivalent. I mean, it is fun for enough people for me to be sure it is something valuable, but calling it "exploring human condition" would be a massive stretch.

It is enjoyable puzzle that was big deal when puzzles like that were rare. But it is not a game you will show next generation of children so that they learn something about human condition or some such.

[manifestsilence]

Yeah, that's fair. But I'd put it in the category of like sci-fi movies (she's obviously based on Hal from 2001), and Portal 2 has movie-equivalent levels of storyline.

I think it's an art form in its infancy, and that different arts have different levels of both time spent and depth of understanding gained by taking them in. How much does a painting teach you about the human condition?

[watwut]

Most paintings don't, but that standard came from top thread and not from me. Imo it us ok for majority of them to not be that special.

Most paintings are ideally fun to look at and then get forgotten. Others have some practical purpose (showing war at the time with no photos, celebrating personality for propaganda purpose etc) or are simply moving craft to higher level.

The human conditions ones were the ones in what I called practical category. For example when I was reading about John Brown, that famous painting of him helped me to keep in mind the personality. I have some more examples like that but way more obscure.

I think the best of contemporary writing (whether fun or human condition level) is in movie series. That is format that is currently at the top, having the most complicated and touching and what not storylines. None of that was possible before streaming services.

[manifestsilence]

Yeah, that could be. It's a young genre and I think that paintings from before perspective became systematically understood are super awkward. That's a cool thought. I'm totally okay with blowing some hours to experience the Hamlet of games.

[krapp]

> I just think that the Shakespeare of the video game medium, whatever form that would even take, hasn't been born yet.

But Hideo Kojima was born years ago...