"What Gaming Can Learn From Installation Art": Reading Response

Early experiments in participatory performance by Allan Kaprow failed to make the audience “co-creators of the work” because the public was not interested in participating in and making the art “come alive”. Many art installations had the viewer become a participant, ultimately turning the viewer into a “material” to be a part of the installation. Most art installations also had specific instructions for the viewer/participant, and the public did not like being told what to do. As well, not all Happenings and installations were as open or inviting as the artists claimed.

I would have to disagree that the principles of interactivity in gaming have changed little since the early computer games. In my opinion, I believe videogames have become incredibly more interactive in recent years, especially with the introduction to motion control gaming, including the likes of the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s Playstation Move. By actually involving the user/player’s body instead of depending just on a controller for movement inside a game, the user/player’s input has become more interactive and engaging. Nintendo’s Wii started the motion control phenomenon, recognizing how a controller moves in relation to a sensor. This new fad opened brand new avenues of videogames, appealing not just to a niche market anymore. Microsoft’s Kinect is a gigantic leap forward in gaming, eliminating the need for a controller and depending on the physical movements of the user and voice commands as well. However, since the Kinect is still new, its use is limited in games. Game developers are still yet to use the Kinect to its full potential.

Games have also recently included more interactive storylines, notably Mass Effect, allowing the user to choose what phrase they want their character to say, and how to navigate the game. Other sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption allow the user to choose what they want to do, when they want to do it. These types of interactivity with games were not present in early videogames. Games like Super Mario Bros have linear paths to follow to the end, in which they have to follow set events to finish the game. In older games, there was only one way to go to progress; newer videogames have allowed users to pick which way they want to go, given more than one option to progress the story. In my opinion, this makes newer games more interactive than their predecessors.