The Art of Videogames

“As a new entertainment medium, videogaming has the power to engage intense, even obsessive attention. But are the other-worldly, imaginative experiences videogames provide authentic experiences of art? In this astute and compelling book, Grant Tavinor shows how videogaming marks a genuine advance in the history of artistic expression. No one interested in the future of aesthetics can afford to ignore The Art of Videogames.”
–Denis Dutton, author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution

"Timely, sharp and thoroughly engaging. Equally informed by philosophy and gameplay, Tavinor makes a compelling case that game-designers would profit from engaging with philosophical aesthetics and that philosophers who want to contribute to 21st century aesthetics would do well to buy a PS3."
–Ian Ground, Senior Lecturer, University of Sunderland

Grant Tavinor (Author)

9781405187893, Wiley

Hardback, published 2 October 2009

240 pages
23.9 x 16 x 2.1 cm, 0.499 kg

The Art of Videogames explores how philosophy of the arts theories developed to address traditional art works can also be applied to videogames.

• Presents a unique philosophical approach to the art of videogaming, situating videogames in the framework of analytic philosophy of the arts
• Explores how philosophical theories developed to address traditional art works can also be applied to videogames
• Written for a broad audience of both philosophers and videogame enthusiasts by a philosopher who is also an avid gamer
• Discusses the relationship between games and earlier artistic and entertainment media, how videogames allow for interactive fiction, the role of game narrative, and the moral status of violent events depicted in videogame worlds
• Argues that videogames do indeed qualify as a new and exciting form of representational art

Acknowledgments.

1 The New Art of Videogames.

Subject Areas: Philosophy [HP]