

MoMA Adds Video Games to Its Collection - rpm4321
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/moma-adds-video-games-to-its-collection/

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bhousel
Slate article has a little more info:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/11/29/moma_s_new_vi...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/11/29/moma_s_new_video_game_collection_museum_of_modern_art_proclaims_video_games.html)

"As with their film collection, MoMA aims to obtain the games in their
original format—as well as acquiring the source code."

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sanxiyn
It would be also necessary to collect old hardwares or emulators.

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InclinedPlane
And in some cases old televisions. The NES light-gun, for example, only works
with CRTs.

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gecko
I know the Super Scope relies on CRT scanlines to operate, but I was fairly
sure that the NES' gun should work on any display that can change fast enough
to black out all the screen except the targets, which (IIRC) go white with
striped lines; is that not correct?

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T-hawk
No, the NES Zapper does both. It detects light level changes frame-to-frame as
you describe, but it also uses the CRT beam timing to determine _where_ on the
screen a target was hit.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NES_Zapper>

Also, even if the NES Zapper worked only on luminosity deltas, it could work
on other types of displays -- but the response time (lag) of the display would
have to be frame-accurate in order to detect the hit in time before the
software moves on. (Software could compensate for lag, of course, but actual
NES games don't.)

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lazerwalker
Their selections show a lot of thoughtfulness, especially when it comes to
negotiating the tricky balance between selecting for historical/cultural
significance and selecting for artistic significance.

I never in a million years would have guessed they'd choose Vib Ribbon, but it
totally deserves it.

~~~
lewispollard
I loved Vib Ribbon and I'm very glad to see it there too, it was
groundbreaking at the time but never really gained any popularity and has long
since been forgotten.

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VonGuard
We have Vib Ribbon on display now at the MADE <http://www.themade.org> so come
by and play it before it's changed out for another exhibit on December 17th.

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lewispollard
I'd love to but I live in the UK!

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pdknsk
The creator of one of the exhibited games, Katamari Damacy, went there. You
can read about it (in English) on his blog.

[http://www.famitsu.com/cominy/?m=pc&a=page_fh_diary&...](http://www.famitsu.com/cominy/?m=pc&a=page_fh_diary&target_c_diary_id=41433)

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lambda
What's with the "word-break: break-all" in the CSS? It's really weird to wrap
English text that way; and removing that doesn't seem to affect how the
Japanese text is wrapped.

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bennyg
Ahh, about time I think. I'm very excited to see these in MoMA, if only for
the discussion that was lingering around finally being brought to the
forefront. Videogames (and now computer programs) are an art form. Some
certainly deserve getting discussed and becoming part of a dialogue that
treats them as such before diving in critically. Maybe it opens up entirely
new dialogues for when new-release games come out.

As an artist, and a person who really appreciates the context of Art History
as it relates to war/political history, this is good news. Video games are a
cultural phenomenon that deserve to be in the art discussion, similar to how
it took a while for hip hop to earn merit in the music discussion, even though
its proponents knew it was art from the get-go.

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VonGuard
For those of you in the valley, the MADE is in Oakland
<http://www.themade.org>

It is, to my knowledge, the only dedicated videogame museum in America. This
MOMA thing was interesting because we've been designing an exhibit about
visual artistry in gaming, and we're going to be showing some of the same
games as the MOMA, all playable.

It was reassuring to see the MOMA picked some of the same games we did,
because it proved to us that we were at least as competent as MOMA. It's been
a difficult road to build this museum, and we were excited to see we weren't
going in the wrong direction.

Our visual arts exhibit, Games you can Frame will be on display starting
December 17, and at GDC next year.

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dwerthen
How nice it was to see Dwarf Fortress on that list!

~~~
kibwen
DF, Another World, and NetHack were three pleasant surprises out of that list
(though I might have preferred Rogue or DCSS in place of NetHack, depending on
what their focus is).

Then again, in increasing order of bafflement: Canabalt (fun and beautiful,
but not sure if it's world-class-museum-quality), Animal Crossing, and Passage
(what the hell??).

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Fargren
I think both Canabalt and Passage are great exponents of current schools of
game making (if you can call the "indie game" and the "art game" a school).
They show what people with similar interest to those that made Katamari Damacy
are doing on much lower budgets.

Animal Crossing does seem odd though, specially considering The Sims is
already there. Seems redundant at best.

~~~
kibwen
My gripe about the inclusion of Canabalt isn't the game itself, it's that it's
just too recent to determine if it will really withstand the test of time.
Another World was a fun and beautiful game that barely got any press or sales
at all, yet the fact that we still remember it all these years later is a
testament to its merit.

And now that Canabalt's been selected for the MoMA's permanent collection, it
will be forever impossible to determine whether the game was remembered
because of its own staying power, or just because the MoMA told us that we
ought to remember it.

~~~
nsfmc
_"it will be forever impossible to determine whether the game was remembered
because of its own staying power, or just because the MoMA told us that we
ought to remember it."_

Isn't that the case with all contemporary art acquisitions, though? I'm
reminded of this quote by Dave Hickey from Air Guitar:

"Since there is no absolute authority in the art world, or in the economic
world either, we may presume that for every opinion, there is a contrary one.
Thus, the social value of a work of art, or an art critic, or a theory, or an
institution must be distinguished from its social virtue, since bad reviews,
stupid acquisitions, and theoretical attacks, even as they question the social
virtue of an object or investment, must necessarily invest it with social
value. The raw investment of attention, positive or negative, qualifies
certain works of art as “players” in the discourse. So, even though it may
appear to you that nearly everyone hates Jeff Koons’ work, the critical point
is that people take the time and effort to hate it, publicly and at length,
and this investment of attention effectively endows Koons’ work with more
importance than the work of those artists whose work we like, but not enough
to get excited about."

I mean, give it time or ignore it, or both. All museums make questionable
purchases. Being in the permanent collection is certainly a boon, but it won't
change how people fundamentally feel about the art in a few generations. Maybe
it'll remain successful, maybe it won't, but it certainly captures _something_
which i guess is reason enough to acquire it.

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sanxiyn
I have a question. I understand Pac-Man and Tetris in the collection. But what
does it mean to collect EVE Online? I presume it does not mean MoMA has
collected its server code and data?

~~~
Steuard
From close to the end of the article:

"some of the games we have acquired (for instance Dwarf Fortress and EVE
Online) take years and millions of people to manifest fully. To convey their
experience, we will work with players and designers to create guided tours of
these alternate worlds, so the visitor can begin to appreciate the extent and
possibilities of the complex gameplay."

(Dwarf Fortress is clearly more about the "years" than the "millions of
people", mind you.)

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dmauro
So is it more difficult for them to get Japanese games in their collection?
The lack of Japanese games, save for Katamari Damacy, is pretty striking.
Seeing Passage on the list also got a groan out of me.

~~~
dfxm12
Pac-man, Tetris and Vib-Ribbon are also Japanese.

Their "wish list" includes many more Japanese games, like Donkey Kong, 2 Super
Mario Bros. games, The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter II, Chrono Trigger and
Animal Crossing.

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larrik
Tetris is Russian, not Japanese...

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dfxm12
The Tetris _board game_ is Russian. The Game Boy game is Japanese.

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jgv
Notable that they chose to collect these games as design as opposed to art.

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danso
I went to their exhibit last year which featured Dwarf Fortress (as a mural)
and Passage (playable)...there were a few other games too, including he PS3's
Little Big Adventure...I think Katamari is actually on display as part of
their Century of the Child exhibit right now

[http://tumblr.eyeheartnewyork.com/post/9525690645/at-the-
mom...](http://tumblr.eyeheartnewyork.com/post/9525690645/at-the-moma-indie-
videogames-passage-and-dwarf)

I hope the games are playable...what better way to cement the idea that gamess
are art in the mind of kids who may see art initially as just paintings and
Greek sculpture?

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iron_ball
I love Dwarf Fortress, but I would not characterize it as "playable."

~~~
pavel_lishin
I tried playing Dwarf Fortress over and over. I really want to love the game,
but the UI is just miserable.

Different keyboard shortcuts for different types of buildings, that really
aren't all that different. No easy way to manage your dwarves, or get vital
statistics. I still have no idea how to actually get the little guys to get
out there and beat something with a sword. I couldn't figure out how to trade
with the damn caravan until I googled for it.

Aren't there any people out there as monomaniacally dedicated to crafting good
UIs as whats-his-face is dedicated to building this huge world simulator?

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chadzawistowski
You pretty much need to follow the wiki in order to get started:
[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Quickstart_gui...](http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Quickstart_guide)

I agree with you that the default interface is pretty miserable, but it has
it's own charm in some way. Dwarves become much more manageable with the
DwarfTherapist app. It acts as a usable interface extension for me.
<http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=66525.0>

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pavel_lishin
Yeah, I followed the wiki, but I still ended up having to google around and
keep a few browser windows open just to list the keyboard shortcuts.

And unfortunately, Therapist isn't available for mac, and I'm not willing to
install a VM just to play it :/

