Two big musical events took place in Vancouver in the last couple days. Muse, touted as the best musical act on the planet, a must see event, packed the Pacific Coliseum. Muse is a big act rock band. The other event was a performance by Philip Glass. Glass is a prolific composer of ascetic pieces that flow with a trademark, mathematically precise, cadence. Glass is a 73 year old man at a piano on an empty stage save for a microphone stand. I didn't see Muse but I did have the pleasure of seeing Glass.

These two shows lie on the opposite ends of the live music spectrum. Muse is huge and loud and bursting with special effects. Glass is simple, quiet, and pure. Both are performances by artists at the top of their game. But Glass has been doing this for decades Muse only a couple of years. Muse probably wont last another five.

Video games strive to be the Muse of digital media.With digital media,specifically video games,  a medium rooted in technology, there's a constant obsession with better graphics, more levels, more content, more weapons, more 3d, bigger environments, complex artificial intelligence, surround sound. The medium is driven by the notion that bigger is better, more is marvellous.  And this has worked. To a point. The 'triple a' titles are becoming less economically feasible even as technology makes them easier to produce, there are few games that remain popular after their first couple of months. They go out of style fast.

Is there a place in digital media for Glass style pieces? The type of entertainment that leaves gaps for interpretation. That's the beauty of work like Glass's, you can hear the patterns and know the historical context but the listener is left to deconstruct the abstraction. You get lost in the music as your mind gets hooked by the patterns and nuances. A performance by Muse doesn't allow for this. Everything is provided for you. It's so loud you can barely think. Your ears are ringing, your eye balls hurting from the light show, every sense is dominated by the show. It as an experience of the body while Glass is an experience of the mind.

There are certain games and certain game makers that reach for this level abstraction. But they have yet to find a sizable audience. However, there's a certain longevity to these games. I have no doubt that 10 years from now we are more likely to pick up and play Flower than we are Half Life Two. Abstraction doesn't feel old because the most important part of the experience takes place in the mind. Is there a place for the minimalist aesthetic in video games? I think so. When a piece of art has space for interpretation it doesn't go out of style nearly as quickly as the game that tries to dominate every sense. It's a lot harder to craft this type of experience though. It takes a virtuoso.

Oh yeah, I graduate in a week. This is my second to last blog post. I'll continue blogging somewhere on the internet, don't worry.

Ryan Nadel is graduating in a week.