Wagner James Au / New World Notes

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Great comment from reader madeline blackbart bringing much needed nuance to the eternal "Is Second Life a game" conversation:

The whole "SL is not a game" or getting mad at that comparison always bothered me. It's rooted in the outdated concept that video games are toys and not the legitimate form of art that it is.

I mean I know how the concept arose. Namely that after the video game market crash (in the US specifically I believe it wasn't as bad in europe?) Nintendo more or less revived it by marketing video games as a high end toy for kids. I think for many people (not just in SL) who are not gamers the association with games as toys still exists which is a genuine shame.

In my opinion video games are definitely on par with movies in artistic merit. Look at games like Gris and exploration of the stages of grief through color and gameplay. Or Spec Ops The Line which explores PTSD in a way that puts you the player in the place of the sufferer, or Cuphead that utilizes hand drawn animation (a dying art sadly). These are things that require very talented artists and programmers to create who deserve far more credit then they get.

I'd add multi-player games as some examples here, such as the acclaimed game Journey, where the interaction of two or more players creates something profound.

Here's the problem with denying Second Life is a game, Ms. Blackheart goes on:

Denying SL is a videogame, to me, is like denying an oil painting is a painting. Virtual worlds/sandbox games are a subset of videogame. Videogames themselves are just a medium or genre of art. Even if you could make a good argument for it not being a game, that's still like getting mad at comparing SL to the medium of painting.

 

TL;DR: Videogames are a form of art. It's not bad to be a videogame.

Co-sign all this. And adding that to say: This makes Second Life (and virtual worlds in general) a work of collective art. You know, like Burning Man. Which… inspired Second Life. Indeed New World Notes would not be possible, except that SL's users have come together in a consensual alternate reality to create stories that illustrate essential facets of the human condition.  

Pictured: AM Radio's SL installation The Faraway written about here.