Reading 3- Sarah Proctor

In Gamic Action Four Moments, the author goes over every possible way to view video games through what we already know about media, i.e. video and still images. However, in doing so, the author actually outlined how video games actually break most rules attributed to these to media art forms and makes it's own rules.

Video games are like a interactive art piece. They ebb and flow as you want them to, for the most part anyway. While the user/operator has a lot of say in what happens with in the game, the machine also does a lot of the work as well. While an operator could explore a world and collect things and do actions, the computer has to create all of these things and enable all of the actions. Without a machine or an operator, a video game could not exist.

The game itself, while tried to place under categories of diegetic and nondiegetic, breaks the molds of both by incorporating nondiegetic processes into the diegetic aspects of the game. The play of the game is what makes a video game so unique. The user is whisked away into a virtual world of possibilities, where they can, for the most part, control their destiny. This idea of freedom in game play is essential to the very essence of the video game.