You're forgetting

by Leviathan , Hotel Zanzibar, Saturday, June 01, 2013, 20:39 (4003 days ago) @ Cody Miller

You're forgetting that nearly all of the creative works out there are products of the matrix. And like the people in Plato's cave who only see white when they look out the entrance, they can;t talk about what's outside without going there first. You're right that good art is hard to find, but I think it's rarer than you admit.

This is why all great art has genesis in real experience.

This also makes me wonder why you even bother with video games at all if your standards are as high as you say, when they are the lowest of the low when it comes to exploring the human condition in a serious way. I know of 2 that provide original and meaningful insight. Both by the same guy. Both with lots of garbage mixed in. "But Cody, plenty of other games explore worthwhile themes!" I'll answer your objection with a question: "You think that's air you're breathing?"

The reason why games fail should be obvious: most of the people making games never have any real experiences about the things they make games about. At best, they have the matrix to tell them.

I actually had a few paragraphs written up in reply, but I remembered why I usually have a 'Do Not Reply To Cody' policy in effect: I realize I'm not actually arguing with you, I'm just debating a contrarian and pretentious attitude and its claims to know things it can't possibly know.

You may not like a lot of art and entertainment (I think huge swaths of it are rubbish as well), but it's quite a leap to think you know the artist and what they're thinking.

I'm working on a comic with spaceships and whale-frog hybrids right now. And it's all inspired by my 'real experiences'. But you may read it and dislike it, and then, like in this post, might claim I'm just writing escapist rubbish to make an impact or impress people... and you'd be wrong.

Not about it being rubbish, mind you, it could quite possibly be that. But just because you don't like something doesn't mean it isn't sincere and inspired by something real and meaningful. It doesn't mean it wasn't meant to incite reflection back on your own 'real experiences'.

The world outside the cave is a wide one, and as such, different stories resonate with different people for different reasons in different ways.