Videogames are often depicted as a monolithic entity—and an economic juggernaut—that engages users for endless hours in idle entertainment. In terms of their individual effects, they are deemed a psychologically addictive, destructive, or stultifying force that ought to be resisted in favor of more "meaningful" forms of aesthetic experience. Not Yet Real: Videogames, Theory, Criticism rejects such interpretations. By inviting inquiry about the critical possibilities within videogames themselves, the nature of play, representation in games, and the experiences of playing them, Not Yet Real highlights new and emerging approaches that pursue a more nuanced analysis of what is, by nearly any account, one of the dominant art forms of the twenty-first century. 

Not Yet Real: Videogames, Theory, Criticism is a three-part program presented by the Goethe-Institut New York and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. While there is a vast popular literature and a growing array of academic studies concerning videogames, Not Yet Real brings together several elements inviting new perspectives and hopes to encourage a wider public conversation on videogames from critical theoretical, humanistic, and aesthetic points of view.

Games, Representation, and Experience, is a roundtable discussion on January 30 featuring Adrienne Shaw, Sarah Wanenchak, and Dave Riley, who will hold a wide-ranging conversation about games, game criticism, and their specific contributions to Not Yet Real.

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