First Response to Prompt (No research) Emma Spittel "This proactive production by players of story elements, a visual-motoric-auditorydecision-making symphony,

and a unique real-virtual story produces a new form of performance art coproduced by players and game designers. We have as yet no useful tools for analyzing the elements that make up this art form. But it is a form that has the potential to integrate pleasure, learning, reflection, and expanded living in ways that we expect from art." -James Paul Gee, from "Why Game Studies Now? Video Games: A New Art Form" In this excerpt by James Paul Gee, he argues that video games are in fact an art form. Gee relays how in art views expect to reflect, learn, take pleasure in and expand living and that video games, too, offer players these same attribut es. Art resides in various unexpected ways throughout society and often goes unnoticed by the citizens within them. I agree completely with Gee in that video games truly are yet another New Art Form. For many it is difficult to recognize art when it is n ot smeared onto a canvas, molded with hands, or words crafted to become a poem. For this reason it is difficult for most of society to see a video game as an art form, but there is a canvas involved, there molding does occur, and there are words crafted. The canvas of the digital world is a screen. In high contrast to a painters typical white canvas the screen is black. The artist in a video game has a much more difficult task in order to create his image. This artist cannot layer the paints on top of the canvas instead he must meticulously place pixels beneath a screen without ever touching them. The hands of a game maker have a very different job than a painter, the commands are not the same, it is not a bush stroke but instead a computer code which can lead to an equally spectacular display. Molding occurs through not only the maker of the game but the player as well. The maker weaves a beautiful web of possibilities forming multiple paths to many conclusions and the gamer pulls together the components to mold a story all his own. Each gamers unique story is their free expression, very much a reflection of some part of themselves. Artists stories are relayed through a series of depictions, be it a painting, sculpture, words or even games. These aspects of an artists life

relay a message about who they are which is why it becomes important to recognize this in video games. Video games tend to have a complex storyline explained through a combination of text and vocals. Together these mediums create a story just like any other piece of literature. Video games pull in an even more moving aspect to the literature, the sound. Sound can account for realism as the story plays out which can cause the game to have more depth. By the end of a game the player will have lived another life, just like they would through a novel. Video games tell stories. It may be difficult for the world to view video games as an art form. This may be due to the fact that they are a combination of such a multitude of mediums and when so many come together it becomes more difficult to single out the art that occurs within the game. Gee likens the events that occur within a game to a symphony, which is very beautifully put. The symphony plays an orchestrated song featuring dancing pixels along an amazing web of events to the ever playing background music of sound effects layered with text of an occurring quest. A video game is a symphony, to the tune of the player, it is his art.