Faulkner would have been a gamer

Maria Medem for Wired

The humanities are sometimes derided as a useless frivolity of higher education. Why major in literature if your goal is to become, for example, a video game designer?

Cindy Frenkel teaches video game design and she writes in Wired that some of the best video game designs incorporate elements of…classical literature. And history. And philosophy.

She writes that in the same way The Odyssey inspired Tolkein to write The Lord of the Rings, great literature can influence designers who are trying to create a compelling game. She cites several examples that are rooted in Joseph Campbell’s model of the Hero’s Journey. In fact, that is a model she teaches in her classes.

Frenkel also teaches Ibsen and Faulkner, who were masters at building imaginary worlds with memorable heroes and villains. As she points out, great characters are just as important in video games as in literature or cinema. In those media, you read about or observe the characters, but in video games, you become the characters and embody the hero’s story.

As with all innovation, great ideas in video game design arise from people consciously or unconsciously drawing on disparate influences that come from all directions.