Games You Can’t Win

I'm torn about the personal benefits of creating a game like "The Dragon, Cancer" because of the last comments of its creators in the video. They describe their ultimate loneliness despite the game's bringing their grief to a broader audience, but that is the nature of grief. It can inspire great works of art, music, humanity, charity, and all those other great acts of love, and those works can deeply affect others, but they can never replace what was lost. It almost seems that repeatedly reliving the dying and death of the child interrupts the grieving process for this couple by keeping them stuck in the "loop" of the loss. However, grieving is highly personal and individual and what works for some doesn't apply to others, so I can't judge them too harshly. I do hope that eventually they will be able to move forward to the acceptance stage in which we accept that our losses don't define us and that it's okay that the larger world goes on even though our personal world has been devastated. (That was the hardest lesson for me when I lost my mom young.)

Video games are art. There's no doubt about that. It is really a shame that they are looked down upon as these violent, chaotic mediums of expression that only "losers" play. I mean sure, some of them have guns, and in a lot of them there is violence, but it's not all meaningless. If we look at games that have come out in the past 10 years, at the likes of Bastion by Supergiant games, about a boy, traveling alone through a world destroyed, when I played it, I didn't want to kill anything, because everything had personality. Or Braid, by Hothead games, an absolutely stunning game, from almost every point of view, the writing, told through books at the beginning of each level set, telling the seemingly generic story of a man trying to find the princess, whom he used to love. And yet it isn't that, it is the story of a stalker. Throughout the game, you use the power to reverse time to prevent to stop yourself from being killed and to help yourself progress through the levels. But when you reach the last level, once you reach your "princess," this goal that you have been striving towards throughout the entire game, runs away from you, and despite having this power, this absolute amazing, incredibly power, you can't do anything to stop it, and it feel dreadful, like you're being betrayed by everything, the princess, your powers, and yourself. And this is only the surface of the game. The way that video games are seen in today's society is truly very sad.

These kinds of games aren't new and groundbreaking in and of themselves. There are many other story or experience oriented video games, including many that are free to play: "Loved" (where gameplay is oriented around whether you choose to follow the directions of a mysterious voice) and "One Chance" (a technically unreplayable game where you have one chance to decide what to do in the last days before the impending extinction of humanity - which you helped cause), Yume Nikki (a game where you wander a dreamscape that reflect the main character's fears and preoccupations) -- and that's just to name a few that are free to play. Even in the mainstream, there are games like "Life is Strange" where (vague spoilers) you don't really 'win', you end up needing to choose between what you wish to save.

The fact that so many of these games have gained cult followings - and that some have very mainstream followings - makes this article come off as quaintly out of touch. Video games are not a new medium for storytelling. That said, I'm glad that they're becoming more visible as a medium for storytelling, because there are novel concepts for storytelling that are more uniquely suited for the player interactivity found in video game format as opposed to movies or books.

I am a 26 year old, 6'4 215 Male who works full time and volunteers at the hospital near me and I am also a long time Video Game fan. I want the public to understand that video games are not just for small children, or only seek to raise the stakes with as much violence as possible for shock value. From the age of 5 (1994), I have always seen a much greater potential for this new medium. In case people havent ever taken an interest in them, video games have become incredibly complex, with an amazing blend of graphics and story development. Atleast, sometimes they are, but typically they end up being poorly developed no different really then most hollywood films these days. When developers get these games right, the sky is the limit for video game players. Eventually we could have these games take on a much larger role at challenging moral norms in our society. The only limit is what companies or fans are willing to invest in. This could be a part of that transition.

Brilliant and accurate title for this article. I suspect very few games anymore could surprise us with how they are designed one can win. But life throws many and various things at us, with ways we cannot win, and I wonder if we have much understanding or wisdom regarding those. Some fascinating work by these individuals.

Interesting stuff, but I don't believe I'll ever play games like these. I'm a gamer to an extent, playing strategy games and MMO's for years. But my reason for playing is as an escape from the annoyances and mundanities of life; I enjoy flying spaceships with friends or building an empire starting only with a handful of primitive settlers, and the only way to do these things is with video games.

My mom just passed away from cancer, and it was a depressing and painful time, I'm still getting over it. Why on earth would I want to immerse myself in the experience of having a child die of cancer? I'm fully aware of how agonizing and bleak it is, no need to go through it again with a game.

As for the ones about severe mental illness and being transgender, I'm lucky enough not to suffer those conditions, but I understand them fairly well. Why would I want to pretend, virtually, to suffer them?

And all three of these games put their own type of suffering on a pedestal without considering that everyone suffers in life anyway. None of the levels of pain shown here are anywhere near the agony of everyday life in Syria, North Korea, Haiti, Sudan, or the other worst places on earth, where hundreds of millions currently suffer. Nor would I particularly want to play a game simulating life in a North Korean prison or anything so excruciating.

So it's interesting, yes, but I gotta say, it's not my game type of choice.

“It was surprising, John, to see that these so called “gamers” in fact, now stick with me here, in fact displayed some semblance of human emotion. I know John, I was as shocked as you are.”

The beginning of this article still provides the hackneyed notion of video games and gamers, which really made me think when the mainstream media would be able to pay video game industry and video games and gamers their due attention. The Game Developer Conference this year also featured this game, along with many others that may not fit easily into the violence and explosion category, like Undertale, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Ori and the Black Forest, Her Story etc. The industry has grown and evolved, so should media's ability to document and communicate the changes.

The beginning of this article still provides the hackneyed notion of video games and gamers, which really made me think when the mainstream media would be able to pay video game industry and video games and gamers their due attention. The Game Developer Conference this year also featured this game, along with many others that may not fit easily into the violence and explosion category, like Undertale, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Ori and the Blond Forest, Her Story etc. The industry has grown and evolved, so should media's ability to document and communicate the changes.

What a great use of technology! Someone should design a game about what it's like to be poor in America, and then make Republicans play it.

A real, untapped application for video games may be in the fields of psychology and cognitive neuroscience. I would think that video games could be created to, simultaneously, diagnosis (based on gaming decisions) and individually treat (by reward and game experience changes) common psychological conditions, like autistic spectrum disorders. Just a thought....

ART IMITATES LIFE But in and of itself is not life. Nor living. Rather, the object of art is to result in the process of catharsis, which is Greek for purification. Ultimately it is the means by which artists purge themselves with the purpose of moving beyond the feelings that require a cleansing of the mind. Yet it is the case that the Greeks also believed in the cathartic process as being the goal of their plays. The viewers identify with the actors and their emotions and all move toward a spiritual purging and purification. So the purpose of art in this context is not to invite others to live the lives of others, but rather to share the feelings of others to arrive at an emotional understanding. Catharsis may be considered a necessary part of the process of bereavement and healing. I have found that focusing on music that I find powerfully moving is cathartic for me. It reflects who I am and what I need. If others can profit from sharing those experiences through their own feelings, so much the better. The extreme pain and grief of those courageous persons who shared their struggles shows great courage. But what I have to offer them is a sharing of a cathartic experience. i cannot enter their lives and relive precisely the time nor events that caused so much pain and anguish. Indeed, catharsis is intended to neutralize suffering in reaction to the trauma. Said plainly, some claim that time heal all wounds. I've got my doubts.

For game lovers like myself, playing video games has always been a bit like going to church. At the very least you find yourself in an enclosed space with resonant music and luminous images.

Now games have entered the confessional. Whether the public is qualified to serve as Confessor is an open question, but video games have always been a democratic medium.

On a critical note, some if these games just imagine a maudlin and pathetic protagonist (thinking of Braid and Firewatch here) and really pale in comparison to the more serious works.

The last video game article on the New York Times, on February 5th, was also about “That Dragon, Cancer”. This would be easy to see if the video games section had not been scrapped near the end of January.

I suppose this is the end of another attempt to cover the medium in a meaningful way. Although it is disappointing I cannot say I will miss the latest try, which was mostly an aggregation of stories about anything from tech breakthroughs, sexism in gaming and… the review of the movie “Pixels”? Speaking about cinema (well, attempted movies, ok) how come the paper found a way to talk about that medium while being selective in what it wanted to discuss, curious about small budget productions and still covering the main side stories of the business?

Video games have been a biggest industry than any other art section in here for years. Isn’t it time to give it a go and hire a team of journalists able to write critical pieces about productions that matter? Sure, there should be a couple lines about “Call of Duty”. “Pixels” had its 300 words, after all.

Or do we have to wait for enough of these “special” titles to be able to separate them from “other” video games? Do we need more of these new “Games We Can’t Win”? Like, say, Missile Command in 1980? Which, interestingly enough, was born of the nuclear nightmares of his author.

“That Dragon, Cancer” is a very interesting experiment. It does not come out of nowhere.