Art has been a relevant subject in human history since the dawn of time, its been used in a variety of ways to express human emotions, ideas, dreams and stories. Its purpose is different for each individual as is its meaning.
Video games are relatively new to human culture, but have quickly gained ground as a form of entertainment that surpasses that of movies and other media. Its a powerful medium to tell stories, meet colorful characters and journey to the most sophisticated and imaginative worlds of the human mind. But this isn't about the achievements of video games and what they mean to its followers (gamers) its more about the overall conscious of society on what they represent and what they are.
Only a few decades ago, comic books were considered nothing more than cheap child entertainment, in an era where there wasn't a TV in every home (like today) and personal computers were something from the future. Children quickly became attached to the characters and stories these books would contain and as the years passed it rose as a very profitable industry that impacted popular culture in many ways and still does today. How far have we've gone from thinking such books were cheap child entertainment when we have million dollar movies being made with those characters and whom many, young and old, flow to see.
Certainly to most people, these movies and books still are nothing more than entertainment but they have entered our culture and have become normal and something that has profound literary value. Why am I mentioning comic books when this is about video games? simple, video games have reached the current status as that of comic books and at a much faster pace (although they still have more ways to go), it is now normal to say you play games because they have entered everyday culture unlike 10 or 20 years ago.
I remember once watching a documentary about comic books and how they were targeted by society as a large contributor to many problems in youth, which led to the censoring of many comics and the downfall of the industry. It took a couple of years and a few comics to get back where they had left off.
Seduction of the Innocent: The book that blamed youth violence on comic books.
Even if video games have been around now for some time, they still suffer a certain backlash from mainstream society like comic books did and they still are not taken very seriously either as some people dismiss them as nothing more than child's play.
Why should video games be considered art? I think this question has been asked many times before and many different answers come out for it, but my question is, why they shouldn't?
Video games have profound ways of telling stories, present very sophisticated and complex graphics and sounds, rivaling and in some cases surpassing those of movies. Most but not all (just like movies) contain a lot of history and research done, to produce believable characters, settings and worlds, from the architecture of a destroyed city to the ancient inspired tribes of some fantasy land.
Aren't movies considered art as well? yes they are, and today anyone has the ability to produce movies and tell stories unlike decades before. They take many different areas of the arts and put them together, to produce a final product. This is pretty much the same process involved in game making, the only difference however, is that movies already have a story set to its audience, some games do not, and they let the player engage the story in different ways so it becomes relevant to their experience and something personal, asking more of the player than a movie through choices and decisions that affect the story or its characters.
Video games are relatively new to human culture, but have quickly gained ground as a form of entertainment that surpasses that of movies and other media. Its a powerful medium to tell stories, meet colorful characters and journey to the most sophisticated and imaginative worlds of the human mind. But this isn't about the achievements of video games and what they mean to its followers (gamers) its more about the overall conscious of society on what they represent and what they are.
Only a few decades ago, comic books were considered nothing more than cheap child entertainment, in an era where there wasn't a TV in every home (like today) and personal computers were something from the future. Children quickly became attached to the characters and stories these books would contain and as the years passed it rose as a very profitable industry that impacted popular culture in many ways and still does today. How far have we've gone from thinking such books were cheap child entertainment when we have million dollar movies being made with those characters and whom many, young and old, flow to see.
Certainly to most people, these movies and books still are nothing more than entertainment but they have entered our culture and have become normal and something that has profound literary value. Why am I mentioning comic books when this is about video games? simple, video games have reached the current status as that of comic books and at a much faster pace (although they still have more ways to go), it is now normal to say you play games because they have entered everyday culture unlike 10 or 20 years ago.
I remember once watching a documentary about comic books and how they were targeted by society as a large contributor to many problems in youth, which led to the censoring of many comics and the downfall of the industry. It took a couple of years and a few comics to get back where they had left off.
Seduction of the Innocent: The book that blamed youth violence on comic books.Even if video games have been around now for some time, they still suffer a certain backlash from mainstream society like comic books did and they still are not taken very seriously either as some people dismiss them as nothing more than child's play.
Why should video games be considered art? I think this question has been asked many times before and many different answers come out for it, but my question is, why they shouldn't?
Video games have profound ways of telling stories, present very sophisticated and complex graphics and sounds, rivaling and in some cases surpassing those of movies. Most but not all (just like movies) contain a lot of history and research done, to produce believable characters, settings and worlds, from the architecture of a destroyed city to the ancient inspired tribes of some fantasy land.
Fallout 3: A post apocalyptic world with the forgotten achievements of human architecture.
Aren't movies considered art as well? yes they are, and today anyone has the ability to produce movies and tell stories unlike decades before. They take many different areas of the arts and put them together, to produce a final product. This is pretty much the same process involved in game making, the only difference however, is that movies already have a story set to its audience, some games do not, and they let the player engage the story in different ways so it becomes relevant to their experience and something personal, asking more of the player than a movie through choices and decisions that affect the story or its characters.
Batman Begins: One of the few comic book based movies considered to be artisticSo why aren't video games art? they are, the thing is they haven't reached that status yet. Compared to other forms of art, video games can't be produced at the individual level, due to their complexity. There have been many self produced games in the past, made by self taught programmers and artists which have made some impressive results, but this is rare and not the norm.
Shadow of the Colossus: A powerful visual epic journey that mirrors that of ancient Greek poems.
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