Opinion: Games As Art – Another Perspective

As the ‘Hollywood’ era of the video game pushes our hobby further and further into the public consciousness, there’s a tendency within our community to champion the idea of games as ‘growing up’ – gaining the ability to be something serious, something meaningful or productive, something that can rival the cultural importance of film or literature.

Games are increasingly regarded as worthwhile relative to how well they can match or exceed the proficiencies of older media. Gaming magazines, blogs and websites regularly point to modern games telling grand sweeping narratives in Mass Effect, exploring deeply emotional themes in Braid and political themes in Spec Ops: The Line, provoking legitimate aesthetic responses in millions of people daily. The aspects of graphical fidelity, sound design, dialogue and rhetorical messaging are also well-discussed in terms of whether a game is progressively worthwhile.