A rebuke gladly taken (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, February 20, 2014, 08:31 (3929 days ago) @ Flynn J Taggart
edited by Cody Miller, Thursday, February 20, 2014, 08:35

Part of the problem is still focusing on the sign value of art. There's prestige in owning an original Picasso, since it's utterly unique, and the man himself laid hands on it. There's no prestige in owning a copy of a film or video game, yet we still cling to that idea by attaching a creator's name. So "A Hideo Kojima Game" has more sign value than "A Shinji Mikami game", even though the latter is better art :-p

Could you please expand on your idea of sign value? Do you mean strictly dollar-conversion of a developer's name on a game, or something more? We here sure put a lot of sign value on Bungie's name as an organization, don't we?

It relates to the value of art as a signifier. Imagine you have a perfect forgery of a Renoir. It is identical to that of a real Renoir. Well, given that it should be equally valuable right? It's not. A real Renoir is seen as more valuable, since it is old and rare, which is irrespective of the actual quality of the work. The forger might have cranked out 50 last month.

So you can see having a particular artist to give praise to can help enhance a work's sign value.

This is why rich people pay tons of money for shitty abstract art - it signifies that they are of a higher class and able to afford it. This is also why Hipsters like obscure shitty art - it gives them a unique identity.

Most normal people just buy what they like.