I recently discovered Ollivier Pourriol, a smart french philosopher that use popular movies and tv-series to explain the ideas of the main philosopher such as Spinoza, Leibniz, Cartesio and others.
Some of his videos (in french, sorry) can be found here: http://www.cinephilo.fr/regarder/studio-philo-special-series
Sure the same operation could be done with videogames! But I'm not so deep in philosophy... :-[
I think that Friedrich Nietzsche' ideas ( the Ãœbermensch, the eternal return, will to power) can be easily found in a lot of games, so let's skip him.
What videogames you would use to explain the philosophy of Zoroastro, L e F. Socini, Saint-Simon, Pirrone, Pelagio, Luis de Molina, Averroé, Fichte, Schelling or others you know?
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Well, it can be done re some types of philosophy. For example idealism (up to solipsism). I am sure some games have that (a rather crude version of idealism can be seen in the first half of the True Detective series1). :)
Isn't philosophy just about asking questions?
If so, then wouldn't this constitute as video game philosophy: "Why do we always play to win?" "What would happen if a game was made to make losing more engaging than winning?" "Why do people who hate grinding, participate in it anyway?"
Not only. Philosophers have to give, if not an answer, almost a logic or the instruments to satisfy the questions.
Ok, let's put in another way: on what philosophy is based a game like Harvester?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-OZisUSfQQ
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Fatalism (laugh)
<Harvester guy kills a number of random people>
<Sheriff tells him that it's ok, he can go this time, and consider it as his "get out of jail free" card>
:D
Fatalism. Another point for Nietzche. :(
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I think it is potentially a good idea to make use of the specific abilities the medium gives you; in the case of a game, it isn't a story but something the player does stuff in. So you can play with that: do the player's actions really mean anything? You can easily give the sense they do (player needs a key to open a door, so if they find a key they did something of note), but later on it may be revealed that it didn't matter. Maybe the door can be walked through anyway; you just never tried :D
There was something similar in a game: there was a gap in a high bridge. So the player would jump so as not to fall. Sadly the jump never was quite enough; you still would fall. But if you didn't jump at all... you somehow didn't fall and just passed the bridge :=
So the most important thing (in videogames) is the action? Seems Kant to me (freedom of action)... :-\
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https://www.youtube.com/user/thugnotes
tackles noninteractive media with philosopical emythology
https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz
tackles interactive media often more philosophically literate