Ludosophy
10 September 2007
What’s the difference between literature and philosophy?
At the core, philosophical works have a truth value. It is true, or false, or something in between. This core value can be measured and proven to be false. Literature, on the other hand, can be measured by its truth, but it’s not its core value.
Researching psychology in the hopes of creating a simplified model for Shrink, I discovered myself building wacky theories on how the human psyche may work that would make Freud come back to life so he can die again. If he measured their truth value, that is.
Games are not valued by their truth (in fact, most people still believe they should be measured by how “fun” they are). But like in literature, you may find a grain of truth in them.
This, I believe, is the ultimate goal to games: to make other realities in which you can find yourself.
15 Comments so far
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..like Freud had any ability to measure the truth value of psychological theories.
By brog on September 21
Sure but he knew what good coke was all about…
A very brief way to state a very long and complex truth. Well done!
By Patrick on September 26
Hey… good point. Thanks for that.
(Wow, this is an old article)
By David on May 7
I don’t agree about truth value in philosophical and psychological works. That’s just too platonic/freudian. Anyway, I do agree about the grain of truth in games as well as in art. I enjoy your search for that grain in your games. Thanks for the experience.
By Dennis Moore on May 8
…wait, why is “fun” in quotation marks? I do think that a game, by definition, is for the enjoyment of the player.
By g0m on May 12
Enjoyment is not the same as fun.
Take a movie like “Waltz with Bashir” or “Schindler’s List”. Are they fun?
But they are enjoyable. The spectrum is not just fun-boring… that’s my point.
By Daniel Benmergui on May 12
“To find yourself in”, oh so true, how I’ve waited for someone else to have that thought. Looks like you should be given a big budget
By Mikail Yazbeck on May 16
[...] un vecchio post hai scritto “Il fine ultimo dei giochi: creare altre realtà in cui puoi trovare te [...]
By Indie Vault » Intervista a Daniel Benmergui on May 18
I wonder why do people ignore the little step before finding yourself (we could even call it a ‘truth’)namely, that you first need to LOSE yourself in order to FIND yourself, or a new self of yours. It may happen in games, it may happen while reading philosophy/literature/psychology/anything in which you may emerge, it also happens in psychotherapy.
By Eva Pollak on July 1
The people just follow what is selling the most,
Which is the midia sells,
which will be the game that requires more money and make the ppl forget about everything else, like Halo, it’s trilogy, plus the xbox 360 to play all of them, and in there we have a certain amout of spent money
Plus, the midia is giving to ppl what High politics and Riches empresaries wants: Something to distract their mind.
Not to let them happier or something, but to make them work to buy the games, or buy the games to unstress the work.
Also, a kind of game like Halo, which isn’t bad, just the first example came to my mind, is in the market for people just buy these kind of games: the games that people won’t be able to think about something important going on at ‘Real-Life’
it also works with musics…
Because with they attracted by the game, those riches can make more money with something that people won’t be able to discover, ‘coz they’ren’t able to think that might exist some kind of thing like this…
Of course, it’s not all the time, but i can garantee 90% of the games are like that, and 98% of the people are like i said…
By Utiru on July 22
Hi Daniel,
Great article and very thought provoking.
Thank you
Regards
Dawn Pugh
By Dawn Pugh on August 3
Hey daniel.
I Love your games they are very sweet and poetic, i love today i die and i iwish i were the moon the best, i hope you keep on making amazing games, thx x
By Karan on December 30
[...] som bygger på enkel drag and drop-mekanik och hela spelet utspelar sig i en och samma bildskärm. “De flesta tror fortfarande att spel ska bedömas efter hur roliga de är”, skriver Daniel Benmergui i sitt manifest. Storyteller är inte vad man vanligtvis kallar roligt, [...]
By Tv-spel, datorspel, indiespel – Blog 'em up » Ett lyckligt slut on March 3
Sure but he knew what good coke was all about…
A very brief way to state a very long and complex truth. Well done!
By Fotoğrafçı on June 30
“To find yourself in”, oh so true, how I’ve waited for someone else to have that thought. Looks like you should be given a big budget
By Havuz on June 30
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