Abstract

This paper is written to introduce and review Shinji Matsunaga’s The Aesthetics of Video Games which published in Japan in 2018. Shinji Matsunaga has studied video games from a philosophical and aesthetic perspective. In The Aesthetics of Video Games, he took video games as a hybrid form of traditional games. Shinji Matsunaga particularly notes that video games can design human behaviors and experiences. From this point of view, he tries to construct a theoretical framework that will be able to describe the ways of signification in games and fiction respectively. In previous studies, video games have been mainly discussed in the context of cultural studies and entertainment culture in Japan. The Aesthetics of Video Games is distinguished from the previous studies in the following points. First, The Aesthetics of Video Games pioneered the method of studying video games in art theory. Second, it established various types of relationships with video games and traditional aesthetic concepts. Third, this book connects new concepts that emerged in the age of artificial intelligence to video games as an aesthetic action. Through this work, not only video games were discussed academically, but also the fields of aesthetics and art were expanded. The Aesthetics of Video Game is like a collection of philosophical concepts for video games. Through this book, it can be said that the path for artificial intelligence to approach human secrets is closer than before.