Against Slop

It’s usually understood that time wasted is art wasted. To edit down to the lean core, that’s often considered in most mediums the mark of quality (or, perhaps more accurately, and sometimes to a fault, professionalism). Historically, that’s been part of the cultural stigma against video games: not only is wasted time a given, it’s an integral part of the experience. Interactivity inverts the responsibility for moving the plot forward from storyteller to audience. A linear, self-propulsive story squanders the medium’s artistic potential. In games, the tension comes from not only the uncertainty about how the plot will resolve but also whether it even can. When the player fails, the story ends without ever having reached a conclusion. The work necessarily has to reset in some manner. Which creates a minor paradox: How can time discarded not also be time wasted? Isn’t this all noise and nonsense for the purpose of keeping a couch potato on the couch so long they sprout roots?