Trigger Happy
30
from traditional cartoons into videogame development.
Musicians who might once have become television or
film composers are now writing videogame
soundtracks, and there is even such a beast as the
professional videogame scriptwriter. There’s a huge
amount of thought and creativity encoded on to that
little silver disc. And aesthetics, by which I mean in the
most general terms the systematic study of why we like
one painting or one film more than another, cannot
ignore this bizarre digital hybrid.
The original Greek meaning of “aesthetics” refers to
things that are perceived by the senses. Modern
videogames—dynamic and interactive fusions of colorful
graphic representation, sound effects, music, speed and
movement—are unquestionably a fabulously sensual form;
furthermore, the simple fact is that some videogames are
better than others, yet so far no serious attempt has been
made to understand why. Videogames are an increasingly
pervasive part of the modern cultural landscape, but we
have no way of speaking critically about them. The noisy
lightshows competing for attention in living rooms around
the globe appear as some kind of weird, hermetic monolith:
mysteriously exciting to the initiated, baffling to the non-
player. But both kinds of people are
