Episode 50

Ep50: Are Video Games Art? Part 1 - Brecht and the Ancient Greeks

Dups and Dr. Warkentin discuss whether video games qualify as classical art. They examine the philosophy of play and compare traditional theater structures to modern game design.

Key Topics:

  1. The Philosophy of Play: A look at Schiller’s concept of the "drive to play" (Spieltrieb) and how playing games connects logical and emotional thinking.
  2. Aristotle vs. Brecht in Gaming: Comparing linear, fixed narratives (Aristotelian) like The Last of Us to interactive, choice-driven narratives (Brechtian) like Baldur's Gate 3.
  3. Player as Co-Author: How a player's individual gameplay style and decision-making process become part of the artwork itself.
  4. Digital Ephemerality: The challenge of preserving video games as technology becomes obsolete, and the role of archivists in saving early games.
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About the Podcast

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Tales under the cat tree: Conversations on Imagination, Tech & Human Adventure
Hosted by tech leader and storyteller Duleepa Wijayawardhana, this podcast explores the intersections of technology, fiction, and human adventure. Words create the worlds we live in—join us for weekly conversations that spark your imagination.

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About your host

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Duleepa Wijayawardhana

It started with late nights, glue sticks, and a university newspaper / radio.

That early obsession with how words reach people took me from student journalism to a career spanning the globe. I’ve gone from designing newspapers and having radio shows to building systems at BioWare (yes, the RPG legends), managing data at MySQL, and now leading tech at Supermetrics in Helsinki.

But at my core, I’m still that geek who believes writing is just code for the human mind.

While a computer chip executes code exactly, your imagination runs stories based on your own unique wiring. Tales under the cat tree is where we run those programs together. Whether we're exploring the fiction that inspires us or the tech that defines us, my goal is to spark your imagination and—most importantly—never make you go "meh."

Words create the worlds we live in. Let's explore them.