INTRODUCTION
World of Warcraft as a game needs little introduction, at its height it boasted millions of active subscribers and mainstream popularity. That peak popularity is long gone but the game continues to pull an extreme profit and continues to hold the players attention. I have personally sunk hours into this game, I meet many people who I continue to communicate with through this game even when they begin to drift away from the game. Developed by Blizzard entertainment World of Warcraft is a continuation in a series of games that originated as a top down strategy game. The tolkienesque fantasy setting gained its thematic legs through 3 main titles of Warcraft as a strategy game. However in 2004 they would release this world to the public but this time in an MMO RPG format allowing for players to interact with the world and each other in a cooperative and antagonistic fashion as was the norm for many previous MMOs.
AS A GAME
As a game World of Warcraft offers its
players an extreme amount of content to play through and progress on. Having been a running game for more than ten years the amount of things one could do is staggering. However for a player like me all the extra bits are just that extra. I continue to play for the sole community reasons. I’ve been a part of a guild(group of players) for years now and I continue to be a part of this guild because to put it simply I want to kill big monsters that require the cooperation of 19 other real people. As a game this is easy to define through Caillois “The Definition of Play and Classification of Games”
- Free, While I do have a obligation to my friends I am free to drop the game at any point and when it fails to be a fun experience I will exercise this.
- Separate, while the some people take this game into the real world and let the results affect them in real life for me it still remains a recreational activity.
- Uncertain, How well we do or what items I will acquire is random and this adds a sense of surprise to the experience.
- Unproductive, While I have gained real world wealth through the game I never went out of my way to turn this into a job.
- Governed by rules, this is obviously a game that is governed by preprogrammed rules.
- Make-Believe, While I may not exercise this aspect many people find this sort of game exciting because they can make-believe within it, I do not.
AS ART
What is interesting is that people also begin to group themselves and create spaces based on that they enjoy about the game. https://www.wowprogress.com/ this allows for people ranked their groups based on who kills the current bosses in the shortest amount of time. This is a news site that focused of guides for people who either need help or are focused on completing every aspect of the game. http://www.wowhead.com These groups form within this game as the way people interact with the structure provided differs dramatically fr
om group to group.
This is a little more complex especially
when we take into account all the different groups playing this game for different reasons. To start we could have the people who wish to defeat large scale group content (player versus environment) or raiders create sites, communities, and videos to not only teach but to share their experiences and victories with the community. Those who do this well and can prove it through percentile ranking consider what they do an art. Something that can be shared and held up within their community. There is also more traditional forms of art like fan art, but this exists outside of the game and so this can’t be considered as the game as art. However when it comes to comedic sketches and story based videos through Machinima that is done within the game and is also in some cases able to be relevant outside of the games community.
…it also illustrates its role as a part of critical play genealogy that has its origins in avant-garde movements. -Hjoth
The idea that this game and it’s combat system can combine to relive a classic Abbot and Costello bit “Who’s on first” is charming and funny to the average person thanks to its avant-garde style. That a futuristic video game that allow for people to play as a multitude of things, can be molded into a classic silver screen era comedic routine is not what many would expect.
Conclusion
With so many opportunities for World of Warcraft to reclassify it’s Game play, and provide varied amounts art the game has become and will remain a cultural cornerstone for not only the players but thoughts who have ever interacted with its many groups and artistic products.
a, who are using in this game the intellectual property of Games Workshop Warhammer. 
at allow us to roleplay, have a challenge or discover new options upon new. While the property of Total War is owned by Sega, and Warhammer is a property of Games Workshop we don’t credit them as Artists in terms. The mechanics and there for the aesthetics are all part of the development team at Creative assembly. “Mechanics are the various actions, behaviors and control mechanisms afforded to the player within a game context” (pg. 3) Every person at the development team is responsible for creating a mechanic of the game in some manner, from art rendering, to AI programming. They used the collective talents to create Total War- Warhammer.
rching situations, many references and the setting of the show are direct references to the game Halo. But the web show is more than just about Halo. I have little knowledge of Halo outside of what my friends or class mates have imparted on me I’ve never owned a Microsoft console but I could enjoy the humor non-the less. I want to use Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction to show why this unique form of art. However, for me the fact that a non-Halo fan can enjoy the humor, situations and characters of the show demonstrates that this is more than a niche webs series or fab but a form of comedic art like that of TV sitcoms and comedic cartoons. The Characters of Serge, Grif, Simmons, Donut, Lopez, and Caboose Tucker Tex and Church all have unique personas interact within comedic situations we can all relate to.
passed with sites like YouTube becoming popular. Benjamin puts it very well on page 31 “During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence.” How one viewed the web series is much different from normal media and that comes with its own advantages and disadvantages however it is simply the changing of human perception and this changes nothing when it comes to deciding if this work is art. The exchanging s sharing and re watching of the web series does nothing to discredit it as art as well on page 28 “In principle a work of art has always been reproducible.” The work is not only reproducible in the sense that more could be created but the work can be pulled up in a variety of formats and resolutions at any time of the day. The jokes and camera work all the same and giving the same comedic value no matter how it is presented. Lastly, we have the way in which this series was created. We now call this style of entertainment Machinima simply everything shown on screen was directed in game without manipulation outside of the player’s interaction through a licensed controller. This while it might not be like a cartoon in this way it certainly is more like a television show where the director manipulates his actors to appear on stage where he wants and he directs the camera to show what he wants to show. “The camera that presents the performance of the film actor to the public need not respect the performance as an integral whole. Guided by the cameraman, the camera continually changes its position with respect to the performance.” (36) While the director uses a controller to place his camera the actor’s performances are controlled like any other media and if other forms of recorded media can be art then Red vs. Blue can be art as well.
t, no I don’t consider this app a game. It is simply a time sink or cash grab with the skin of a game attached. The Perhaps if they set a limit to your score and added a you win or you lose message I might be swayed to think of it as a game. Instead we get a never-ending system created to extract time and money from the user until their “death”. In a way, it’s life in your phone a small slice of capitalistic life right in our pockets.
al of an arcade is to get money, games as a consumable. Something to be purchased. When I play this game, I must acknowledge that I feel burnt out within the first ten minutes. I know that this game has given many people hours of enjoyment and can even hold up as a game today for many people. However as a person who has lived his life in service to games I can’t stand to waste my time. If I don’t have fun I can’t play a game. Fun is something That comes from playing a game. However for me this can’t be considered a game as defined by Caillois in his article “The Definition of Play and The Classification of Games”.
njoy it, however after a few play sessions I began to see it more as a chore, part of an assignment rather than something to do on a whim. It became work quickly to my surprise and I soon found myself turning my brain off like one does with busy house work.
Video Games and/as Art 