The ludological definition of "game"

Started by Janos Biro, Sun 13/04/2014 00:01:05

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Janos Biro

:-D

Here is another pearl for you to laugh on: I think programmers and game designers are not the best persons to explain what game is. They just make it happen...

Hey, no one here wants to strip genres from their classic features, so relax. I'm not your enemy.

Yeah, modern art, who gets it? What about those kids playing with computers? How crazy is that? We all know REAL games are cardboard games, right?

Love is just the last refuge of the primitive.
I'm willing to translate from English to Brazilian Portuguese.

miguel

But no, I'm cool about this debate, sorry if I sounded aggressive, it's just my poorly written sentences that cause that impression.
I'll let it rest for a while so that others may join into this very interesting debate and so that I can actually do some work on a game! :=
Working on a RON game!!!!!

Babar

I think everyone can agree that the narrative forms an important part of what an adventure game is. I don't think it forms a necessary part of what a "game" is, though. Certainly, I feel much more fulfilled when I play a game with a strong narrative, but I don't think it constitutes a necessary part of what a game is.
Janos, I cannot find this academic paper of yours (and probably wouldn't have the willpower to read it if I did :P), so perhaps you can summarise for me what a game is, according to you? As far as I've read in this thread, you haven't said.

I do believe that a game can be an incredibly effective means of telling a story, though, yeah, but I wouldn't consider it a very effective game (or a good use of the medium) if it didn't use the framework and elements of interactivity for something more complex than what could be reduced to "Press button to continue story"- in that case, you may as well have written a book or made a cartoon.

PS: I have no idea about Juuls and Zimmermans and Simons. The limits of my education in Philosophy is Sophie's World :(.
The ultimate Professional Amateur

Now, with his very own game: Alien Time Zone

Janos Biro

Hi Babar,

I understand your point. I don't think narrative constitutes a necessary part of what a game is. The same is valid for fun, interactivity, rules, variable/quantifiable outcomes, challenges, etc.

My paper is not published yet. It is being evaluated. I wish I could summarize what a game is to me, but I can't. The best I can do is to question what theorists say a game is, and have some idea of what a game is not.

I may be incredibly wrong about that, but in this case I would like to be corrected. Here goes:

Games don't have to be fun. They don't have to take you away from reality. They can do that, but they can also do the opposite. They can bring your attention to very serious aspects of reality. Games don't have to be specially challenging or interactive. They can be as challenging as a bottle of wine, and as interactive as a light switch. They don't have to give you more freedom or goals than any other action too. They can be completely straightforward or completely open ended. Games don't rely on rules more than any other human creation. Rules are, in fact, in the eye of the beholder. In the same manner, everything can be seen as something with variable and quantifiable results. Your brain can categorize and quantify and attribute value to anything. You can feel connected to every single thing in the world. And finally, a game can have real life consequences, like Lose/Lose by Zach Gage.

Games don't have to be anything in particular. Like art, what sets games apart from other human creations is a mystery, not an objective fact. Social conventions help us using the word “game” in a practical way, but they can't be used to impose gameness.

Imagine you start playing a game that you don't know anything about. You first spend some time in the menu, and then you start a new game. A cinematic intro begins to play. You get excited, the games looks awesome. You can't wait to start playing, but the cinematic intro is taking too long. It's telling a very long story. It is a very good one, but a very long one. It introduces a lot of characters, and shows the protagonist making a lot of important decisions, and overcoming a lot of obstacles, and you start asking when you will be able to do all those things too.

Then a friend enters the room and asks what you doing. You say you are playing a game. He says: No, you are just watching this cinematic for half an hour. And you say: The game will start at any moment now. Then you wait, and you wait, and you wait. The cinematic is great, very exciting, you feel like watching a very good movie. Your friends come and invite you to play another game, but you want to play this game, so you refuse. Then, suddenly, it all comes to a climax, the story comes to an ending, the protagonist faces the final challenge, and his victory is memorable. The screen fades out. You can see two sentences fading in: “The End. Thank you for playing”. Then the game goes back to the initial menu. You are skeptical. You choose the “New Game” option again. Nothing changes. You faint.

You feel cheated. You feel the game is a lie. Then you enter the game's forum. People are discussing what the point of the game is. There are comments about the game mechanic, the strategies to complete the game, and so on. You say it is not a game, but you get something like that as a response: it is a game, you just don't know to play it!

Now imagine this is really a game. Imagine there are things you can do while watching the cinematic that changes the result of the game, according to a system of rules, with quantifiable results, and so on... But you decide not to change anything: you like the game exactly how it plays without your interference. Your friends insist you are not playing because you are not interacting with anything, but you disagree. They say it's not a game because it is not fun if you don't have a challenge, and they try to convince you to do something different. But you think that your “challenge” is not to interfere. Doing nothing is a valid form of interaction too, you argue.

Now imagine a very advanced game. One that reads your mind and that you can control with your thoughts. You only need to use your brain to complete the game. Now imagine you are reading a book, and I can somehow block the neural signs that connect the story together in your memory. So you can understand every word and sentence you read, but not the story. You can read the book to the end, but you have no idea what it is about. What is the difference between the “interaction” in the first case and in the second case?

This probably sounds ridicule, but the hero is incapable of killing the dragon without a reader. He can't kill it in the book, you have to make him kill it in your brain. The book only gives you a "formal system of rules" to make it happen. What happens exactly depends a lot on the reader. You can read The Trial by Franz Kafka many times, and it will be a completely different experience depending on what you imagine the trial is about. You may argue I'm going too far. Sorry about that.

P.S. There is a hidden link in one of my posts that points to a very good game I think you all should play.
I'm willing to translate from English to Brazilian Portuguese.

Babar

I dunno. In that case, again, I'd say it is a good story, but not a very good game (your cinematic example thing). Sounds like the intro to a Final Fantasy game (X, maybe? :D), minus the "good" part. My enjoyment of the story wouldn't really change what it is (to me).

The problem with defining something by what it is not, is that you can find edge cases, chip away, find more edge cases on those edge cases, chip away more, etc., until you're left with nothing at all, and everything. Everything in existence COULD be a game, somehow. But it isn't. You could apply that ambiguity in defining to literally anything ("What's a dog?"). Personally, I don't believe that "what sets games apart from other human creations is a mystery".
Sure, it may be different according to who is playing, in that the rules are man-made, so you can make them too (My self-imposed rules for a playthrough of Hitman might make for a different experience than someone else's play of Hitman). In your example case, my initial experience with your example "game" wouldn't have it as a game at all.

Now to be clear, I don't consider this a BAD thing. If something is not a game, it doesn't make it worse for me, I don't think less of it.

I think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a great movie. The story is cool too. I don't believe it to be a game, though. If I had it on simultaneously with a friend, and at the end of every scene, we'd both roll dice, and skip forward the number of minutes shown until someone reached the end, that might be a game (a pretty boring one), but it wouldn't really be Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade anymore.
The ultimate Professional Amateur

Now, with his very own game: Alien Time Zone

Janos Biro

#25
Exactly. Yours is a very reasonable position. What I has trying to demonstrate is that we don't understand games by what they are alone. We understand games by applying a value judgement. What is the value system behind what makes someone, like Chris Crawford or Jesper Juul, think that the "power" of games is X or Y?

My examples were only to show that defining games is still connected with defining what makes one game "better" than another. Maybe this happens with every concept, but I think games are a special case, mostly because computer games are still a very recent phenomenon. We don't have so much theory on gaming as we have on literature, for example. (Other important detail is that computer games were born on a very different society than books were born. They were already born as commodities, and only later claimed to be art.)

Ralph Koster, for example, says that "fun" is nothing but a biological feedback mechanism, generated by the brain, which releases chemical rewards for successful employment of survival tactics. Can you guess what I think of it? Well, based on that, he then suggests the story is just a "side dish" in a game. It is there just do deceive the brain into thinking that it is doing more than what it is actually doing, like Miguel said. The story is almost like the wrapping of the real thing. See the problem here? It goes way beyond game theory.

Weston has a different opinion. He says the story and the interaction always go together, and that you can't separate them. It is a moderate position. My examples are here to complicate things a little bit for him, not because I totally disagree.

There is a third position in which the story is the real content of a game, and the rules or whatever are just a frame. I only tend to "defend" this point of view because I think it has been shunned. What I really think is that gaming possibilities must be opened more and more, not closed to what the market says is good.
I'm willing to translate from English to Brazilian Portuguese.

Intense Degree

Quote from: janosbiro on Tue 15/04/2014 14:13:26
Games don't have to be anything in particular. Like art, what sets games apart from other human creations is a mystery, not an objective fact. Social conventions help us using the word “game” in a practical way, but they can't be used to impose gameness.

For my money, this is where that whole way of thinking falls down.

I would think that social conventions are and should be used to imposed "gameness". By way of analogy if I am on a bus it may only be social convention that names it a bus rather than a car and I could try and define my own properties of what a car is which would include the bus. However this approach cannot be valid as it is only social convention that has defined the names and properties in the first place and that is the reference point which must be used.

Questioning whether society is correct in its names and definitions for buses and cars is (aside from being a waste of time) based on an invalid assumption, that cars and buses are entities (or concepts or whatever) in themselves that humanity has described - possibly incorrectly. That assumption is not valid because the cars and buses derive from human creation, naming and definitions (although definitions may be impled rather than express). They are what they are because we have created and defined them through social convention.

Your example of art is a good one for a concept which might be said to be beyond that and a phenomenon that people describe, possibly incorrectly. Other examples would be emotions such as happiness. They were not created by humans but are something experienced by all (comparatively at least) and therefore if we try to define "art" or "happiness" we may well get it wrong.

Games - in terms of video games at least - fall into the bus/car category. They are created by humans and defined by social convention. Therefore social convention is exactly the thing that should (and does in my opinion) impose "gameness" on a suspected game (if I can put it like that).

To try and force a definition outside of this (although theoretically quite interesting) is to say games are a concept in themselves without human creation or control, which they are not in my view.

[/personal opinion]

Janos Biro

Intense Degree,

Nice comment. I just don't understand why you say "for my money" in the beginning...

Let me just say that your opinion is not just a personal opinion. It is an informed critique and a valid argument.

Maybe I couldn't express it very well, but I was not saying that the concept of game, or any other concept, is above the social conventions. I do not think that games are things "in themselves". What I said was the opposite of that. Let me try to rephrase this way: Social conventions allow us to define games, but when a given definition is used by a group of people to promote some games and exclude others, that is not a merely theoretical question anymore. It becomes a political question. I support the fight of some independent game designers to make their games be recognized as such. But I see where this is heading. Some people may be afraid that, if we open the concept too much, it will escalate into chaos and madness very quickly, and it will be taken by opportunists who will to destroy the game industry. Ludologists are, in this case, acting like a "game police", that seeks to impose order using clearly defined concepts. You see, the problem is not the social conventions per se, but a very strict position trying to pose as the only valid "social convention" for games, in a foucauldian way.

I personally am okay with saying that games are human creations. That means we are using a different concept of game than that used in the mathematical game theory, and I agree with games studies on that. It also means gods cannot play with you (just a theological joke, forget it). But if you open the Homo Ludens, by Johan Huizinga, there you see him saying that puppies play games with each other, that gaming predates humanity, and that gaming is a basic kind of social interaction that helped us to create social rules, and in fact, games helped us to become human! (Therefore, we are homo ludens). Even if you state that you are talking only about video games, the question remains: aren't video games just a modern way to play games, just like puppies play? So, as much as I think it is very fair to say that games are nothing but human creations, your personal view is not enough to dispense the hypothesis. You must have a reason to think like that. May be a theoretical or a practical reason, but it still needs to be communicated in words to be valid in a discussion, don't you think?
I'm willing to translate from English to Brazilian Portuguese.

miguel

But a game that would involve and grasp every concept there is and was and a game that doesn't have any concept or purpose at all is a lost cause. There's no fear of such a game because people like simple rules and goals on their games, and people who dig complex (flight simulators) rules are but a minority, and even still there is a limit to where a commercial game can go.
The way I see it there's no police or elite corporation to define genres, and games (from all genres) haven't been this good. We can, for instance, critique adventure games and pick from a list of them, while some years ago the genre was dead.
In fact, I think gamers are much more educated on what to buy and that made the overall quality of games to rise.
Working on a RON game!!!!!

Eric

Quote from: Intense Degree on Wed 16/04/2014 16:10:07That assumption is not valid because the cars and buses derive from human creation, naming and definitions (although definitions may be impled rather than express). They are what they are because we have created and defined them through social convention.

Symbolic Interactionism. Didn't expect to see that one pop up here.

Janos Biro

Miguel, I think I lost track of what you saying. Who defines what people like? Game industry is like any other industry. If you think that a industry this size simply bows down to what people like, well, you are free to believe in anything. But I don't see any rational reason to believe in that, specially when I see so many talents being left behind because of some stupid "not a game" label. Maybe you can give me a good reason to relax. I really wanted to be more optimist about the future of gaming. But I think you will excuse me if I ask for something more "consistent" than your word.

QuoteSymbolic Interactionism. Didn't expect to see that one pop up here.

Yeah, it shows up when you least expect it. But when it does, ironically, it usually shows up as a universal truth...
I'm willing to translate from English to Brazilian Portuguese.

Ghost

#31
I always enjoy reading these discussions and then feel bad for not taking much part apart from reading.

But here I have something!

Quote from: janosbiro on Thu 17/04/2014 01:18:44
Who defines what people like? Game industry is like any other industry. If you think that a industry this size simply bows down to what people like, well, you are free to believe in anything.

Industry or not, games (all games, but video games especially because they are already based on real-world games) are subject to the old creativity paradox: It is impossible to create something truly new, but still we do.

Back in the golden age of video games you could come up with a video game that had not been done before, but even those were based on ideas that have been around somewhere else. Eventually genres solidified. Then genres were mixed- again, "new" games were made out of established elements. That's how it works: All the elements are there, have probably always been there, ingrained in our culture. We're just shuffling the bits around and tweak them a little, and call it "new".

And that is it- we are in fact playing the very same games for ages now. Apart from the medium there is little difference between Minecraft and a box of LEGO, The Sims or a collection of dolls to play with, an FPS game and kids pointing their fingers at each other shouting Bang bang. If nothing else any adventure game is like a little bit of escapism. "I'll be the hero wannabe pirate, okay, and you can be... yes, you are the evil LeChuck, now let's imagine what'll happen..."

The "industry" clearly is a factor. Games make money, people like money, so they make games that sell and even do their bit to steer the masses. But that can never last forever, and even without anything like the Big Video Game Crash back then repeating itself, the industry sells and thus needs customers. They can pander to the customer, they can influence the customer, but they can never be without the customer and that does give "the industry" less power than it may (or may not) like. It is absolutely possible for the customers to take an active part in what hits the shelves.
Take the "indy scene". It took away power from the mainstream industry (when it had become properly fat and greedy) by becoming another industry.
And that will happen again once the indy scene has grown fat and greedy.

"Game crazes" always start with a forerunner, an establisher, a lot of clones, then oversaturation and then evolution into something else. And since nothing new can be created, the same things will always, in a way, find their way back into the world.
I find that somewhat comforting, actually.

Janos Biro

Ghost,

Let me try to understand your beliefs: There is a natural cycle in the big business that will go on forever. The relation between industry and costumer will always find a natural equilibrium, and there is nothing to worry about. Things will eventually go wrong, but then they will naturally go back to balance. It's evolution, baby.

Yeah, that brings a lot of comfort, if only it was truth. I wish I could take part on that religion, but I don't have enough faith in that god. What I mean is that we have very distant political positions, and this is a political question.

There is a very good documentary about Interactive Fiction, Get Lamp. Right in the beginning, you can see a man talking about the sudden disappearance of the IF industry. It was the future of gaming in one year, and a forgotten art in the next. But why am I bringing this subject? You found comfort and I am feeling obnoxious. If everything is fine, I guess I have nothing else to say.
I'm willing to translate from English to Brazilian Portuguese.

miguel

Ghost's last paragraph is a accurate portrait of how things go, in my opinion. And yes, because somebody, somehow, will always find a way to "refresh" some old ideas, I feel "safe" about being able to play good, diverse games for the end of my life.

I am generally against conspiracy theories and you're (Janos) claiming that some games aren't being given a chance because they don't fall down on any genre. Well, there's nothing to be surprised here, it's the same with any other form of art.
To be honest I've never seen the indie gaming scene so alive than now. There's hundreds of places to promote and showcase indie games and to indie devs to share ideas and concepts.

Concepts that major companies seek like gold, believe me. There was never a better time before for the indie dev to "sell" his ideas and games.
I'm okay when you consider me optimistic but then you're sounding like some herald of doom, Janos. These are "happy" times and not the contrary. You can finish a AGS game today and if it's good enough you can have it being played by thousands of people tomorrow. And there's no "evil" industry telling you what your game should be.
Working on a RON game!!!!!

Ghost

#34
Quote from: janosbiro on Thu 17/04/2014 10:01:47
Let me try to understand your beliefs: There is a natural cycle in the big business that will go on forever. The relation between industry and costumer will always find a natural equilibrium, and there is nothing to worry about.

This is mostly my belief, yes. It's not a natural cycle though, it's a man-made cycle powered by elements that nature does not usually employ.

I know my IF inside out, Janis, and even as we have this discussion IF is very much alive, being subjected to studies, powering a couple of highly interesting approaches to software design and still being written and played by many people. In the same way that adventure games are "still alive" (though not a huge player in the commercial sense) IF can't die because it is merely one shape of the age-old desire of man to tell and experience stories. Escapism, playing with ideas, exploring stuff in a "fun environment", that's never going to disappear, no matter WHAT we call it.
THAT'S my comfort.

[edit]
Quote from: janosbiro on Thu 17/04/2014 10:01:47
Yeah, that brings a lot of comfort, if only it was truth.

That sentence sounds like you imply to know the truth, so you know what's right and I am wrong.

I read that as "Ghost, you believe something, but it is wrong. And I know what's right so I can't get the comfort you get from it."
Or: "You're wrong. I'm right."

I think we're merely at a clash of words here though. As in any discussion there are opinions and yours is different from mine (thus allowing a discussion in the first place). Is it possible to absolutely prove me wrong when I say "Games have been around for almost as long as humanity, new games are based on old games, and as long as people are around playing games, games will be played by humans?"
I think not.

Quote from: janosbiro on Thu 17/04/2014 10:01:47
I wish I could take part on that religion, but I don't have enough faith in that god.
Religion has no part in that. It's just an opinion. :)

Janos Biro

I agree that it's the same with any other form of art and that the indie gaming scene has never been so alive than now. What I don't believe is that we can relax and assume that someone, somehow, will always find a way out of any problem that may come. I can't do that because I see no good reason to do that, and not because I want to promote paranoia. I guess the real cause of this discussion is that we have very distant world views.

I was not saying that you are absolutely wrong. I said I can't see how this can be true. From my point of view, things may superficially look good while internally things are getting worse, like a snake eating it's own tail. Sorry about comparing it with religion, but religion to me is to believe in something without rational explanation, and I see no reason to believe in this portrait of a naturally balanced (though man-made) cycle. My idea probably looks madness to you too. But you are the one saying that things work this way. Well, I don't have to prove you are wrong. You are the one that needs to show me a good reason to think that way. Because when I look at history, I see people thinking in a similar way, and they were almost always wrong.

The question is not survival of the minor, but the overgrowth of the major. Yes, we will keep playing all kinds of games. The problem is that the major players dictates the rules of the game. Here, let me give you a real example:

See this comment on Steam about 9.03m, a short charity game about the tsunami disaster in Japan:

QuoteLook, I'm all for supporting charity and a good cause. Especially when I get a game for doing so, I donate at least a hundred dollars every year in total to Humble Bundle sales alone. This "game" though, if it wasn't 1.99 I'd have asked for a refund. It's too short even for such a low price tag. I was expecting something with a little more substance, instead you click on 7 items and the game is over.

I understand that this is supposed to be somebody's "deep" artistic vision and a way to honor those who lost their lives during the Tsnumai and that's fine but don't tout this as a game in any respect because it's not one. I was hoping for a Stanely Parable/Dear Esther/Coming Home kind of deal. You get none of that. You can "beat" the game in as little as 5 minutes.

Here you can see the whole problem: “too short”, “too artsy” and “not a game”.

When people expect to get satisfied as a consumer, getting the maximum fun for the minimum price, they become incapable of enjoying all the other things you can do with a game. So, while there was never a better time before for indie ideas and games, there was also never so much insensibility and intolerance than now. And it is growing everyday. Shall we pretend it is not there and just let it roll? Can we still think of games as art that way?
I'm willing to translate from English to Brazilian Portuguese.

Ghost

#36
Quote from: janosbiro on Thu 17/04/2014 15:35:20
Well, I don't have to prove you are wrong. You are the one that needs to show me a good reason to think that way.

But that would require me wanting to convince you (or anyone following the discussion). I think I did not make that clear- I was just stating a personal opinion, though in my eye some facts are clearly in my favour. That's why I really like these threads, they discuss. You come in, see points of view, maybe discover your own or take a side but ultimately you're not pushed into joining Team X.
If this were an argument I'd be hell-bent to convince you with big words and plenty of punctuation ;-D. But it isn't and I don't; your opinion is as valid as mine.

This may sound lazy- "Oh he's just tossing something in and won't defend it, boo" ;) but that's how I roll.

Things are, of course, not "always good" and it would be silly to assume someone else will eventually solve it, but I really believe that games, being man-made, are fully governed by a few typically human modes of operation. Your average middle class first world citizen has little to worry about and that allows him to seek out entertainment. Games are a form of entertainment that's readily available: Safe environment, fun, diverse entertainment, all there. Video games even double on the safe environment. So they are consumed and become a given thing. Something that is "new" then becomes more interesting, initially, but it may or may not catch on. If it catches on, it has good chances of becoming a standard, thereby familiar, thereby making room for the next "new" thing.

I approach things from a different perspective than you and I don't have the essays to back me up ( ;) )but in the end we're all human and humans like to play. And even rules are a form of game. The minute I set down a rule, guess what happens? The rule will be broken. Infallibly. And sometimes the broken rule is more FUN.

About the majority overgrowth thing, yes. That is noticeable. Now. Maybe it's just a trend that will collapse and make room for more diversity. Maybe my kids WILL only play Sims 4 and Ghost Of Duty because that's all there is (and Pokemon). I remain relaxed because as I see it every clone, every mainstream carbon copy of Formula X tests this formula against a huge audience, and that audience does react. Not always in the way we want and not always fast. But reacting it does.

There's a large number of games that failed to raise money or become really really popular while they still remain important and beloved to their players. System Shock never sold well. Beyond Good And Evil flopped. Anachronox had no chance to make even. People refuse to use the 3D switch on their 3DS. Curling is usually laughed at.
Doesn't matter, they were there and were played and they planted a seed. (nod)

edit
----
This all leads away from the original ludological theory maybe, but I think it remains important. :undecided:

Janos Biro

Yeah, I guess you're right. I just don't trust humans. They always ruin good stuff. :-\
I'm willing to translate from English to Brazilian Portuguese.

dactylopus

#38
Quote from: janosbiro on Thu 17/04/2014 15:35:20
See this comment on Steam about 9.03m, a short charity game about the tsunami disaster in Japan:

QuoteLook, I'm all for supporting charity and a good cause. Especially when I get a game for doing so, I donate at least a hundred dollars every year in total to Humble Bundle sales alone. This "game" though, if it wasn't 1.99 I'd have asked for a refund. It's too short even for such a low price tag. I was expecting something with a little more substance, instead you click on 7 items and the game is over.

I understand that this is supposed to be somebody's "deep" artistic vision and a way to honor those who lost their lives during the Tsnumai and that's fine but don't tout this as a game in any respect because it's not one. I was hoping for a Stanely Parable/Dear Esther/Coming Home kind of deal. You get none of that. You can "beat" the game in as little as 5 minutes.

Here you can see the whole problem: “too short”, “too artsy” and “not a game”.
That person was not the target audience.  Players of games are devotees to and critics of many genres, just as people have been with other art forms.  Personally, I don't like country music.  If I were to buy a bundle of music tracks, and there was a deep, meaningful, but short country song in the mix, I would likely be disappointed by it (even if it was incredibly cheap).  I might even be tempted to make a public criticism in reaction.  That does not invalidate the song, nor does it make it any less a piece of music.

Speaking of genre, I'll back up Ghost and say that art in many forms has had popular movements, and they continue to inspire the next big movement.  In painting, Impressionism was a reaction to the typical portraits and landscapes of the time.  It was criticized early on, but gained a large following over time.  Impressionism eventually led to post-Impressionism and Expressionism, among others.  This article outlines the many periods of popular painting and art.  In the article, you'll find links to Dada and other popular movements which originally had critics claiming that it was not art.

In music, let's use Hard Rock as an example.  It has its origins in Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock, and Rhythm and Blues, and has evolved many times over the years.  There was a time when Progressive Rock was the most popular genre of Hard Rock, and that was followed by Hair (Glam) Metal.  In reaction to that sound, a small movement called Grunge began.  This movement eventually grew to become the most prominent form of Hard Rock.  In fact, it was among the most popular forms of any music during its time, despite the claims by many that is simply sounded like noise, not at all music.  In reaction to this American creation, the British began a Britpop movement.  This is a fantastic resource to help understand the ways that genres change over time.  I'll go on to mention Rap music.  Many people were critical of early rappers, claiming that the vocalists were simply speaking rather than singing, and that it lacked a talent in singing.  Today, many of the most popular musicians in the world are Rap artists.

I know that all seems irrelevant, but I feel that it is directly related to the conversation at hand.  Many genres of popular art have had to struggle against the critics and detractors, but eventually gained in popularity, and over time evolved into new genres in a continuing cycle.

monkey424

Interesting discussion..
which I dare not participate in..

But I will direct your attention to THIS VIDEO

Life is a game!
    

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