[1] The study of game aesthetics is a very
recent practice, spanning less than two
decades. Unlike game studies in mathematics
or the social sciences, ........ are much older,
[5] games became subject to humanistic study
only after computer and video games became
popular. This lack of persistent interest might
seem odd, but only if we see traditional
games and computer games as intrinsically
[10] similar, ........ they are not. We might try to
explain this lack by noting that games are
usually seen as trivial and lowbrow by the
aesthetic and theoretical elites ........ cultivate
the analysis of artistic media objects:
[15] literature, the visual arts, theatre, music, etc.
But this does not explain the fact that
aesthetic studies of games are now not only
possible, but even encouraged and supported
with funding. What happened to cause this
[20] change?
A possible explanation could be that digital
games, unlike traditional games or sports,
consist of non-ephemeral content (stored
words, sounds and images), which places
[25] them much closer to the ideal object of the
Humanities, the work of art. Thus, they
become visible and textualizable for the
aesthetic observer, in a way the previous
phenomena were not.
[30] However, this sudden visibility, probably
also caused by the tremendous economic and
cultural success of computer games, produces
certain blind spots in the aesthetic observer,
especially if he/she is trained in textual/visual
[35] analysis, as is usually the case. Instead of
treating the new phenomena carefully, and as
objects of a study for which no methodology
yet ∃, they are analyzed with tools that
happen to be at hand, such as film or
[40] narrative theories. Therefore we need to
outline and promote a methodology for the
aesthetic study of games, which, given the
current nascent state of the field, will
doubtlessly give way to more sophisticated
[45] approaches in the years to come.
Adapted from: Aarseth, Espen. Playing Research: Methodological approaches to game analysis. Available at: <http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/ papers/Aarseth.pdf>. Accessed on July 26th, 2014.
Select the alternative that could adequately replace given (l. 42) without altering the literal meaning of the sentence.
