GAMES ARE ART (Part Deux - The Reckoning)

[Transcript Follows]

Most of us know that by the early ‘90s, video games had climbed out of some serious troubles, and were fully coming into their own.  Still, making the case that games could be called fine art was a very tough sell indeed.  Tough, that is, until in 1997 this happened:

(Cue FFVII Intro)

Leaving aside the emotionally wrenching storylines, music, and compelling gameplay – the crowning achievement of Final Fantasy VII was engaging gamers and non-gamers alike in a fully immersive multimedia experience that simply hadn’t existed before.  Stunning visuals, thoughtful composition, and relatable character designs finally managed to turn some heads in the main stream.

(Cue FFVIII Intro)

And if that weren’t enough, a few short years later came the fully engrossing experience that was Final Fantasy VIII.  Like its predecessor, this game featured the breathtaking design talents of Tetsuya Nomura, and presented lush visual representations of an epic which transcended time, space, and of course love.

But Fan boy though I might be, I can’t give Final Fantasy all the credit for moving games into the halls of accepted art forms.   Though they did lead the charge, those games set the stage for a host of later efforts which range from impressive to downright mind-blowing.

Thanks to this precedent, modern games not only present a unique opportunity to experience visual art in motion, and allow us to interact with it in historically unheard-of ways, but each game presents a plethora of opportunities to examine ourselves in ways we never had – all bundled in one convenient piece of new visual media.

‘Bundle,’ in fact, is a fantastic term to describe what games offer us.  In one sitting, we can be empowered, encouraged, sickened, tickled pink, deeply disturbed, love-struck, heartbroken, or perhaps just mildly amused.  While traditional forms of visual art are limited to a single composition – a single moment, great games offer us a lifetime.  That is why we love them, and that is why they are art.

(Follow all links to get the full story.)

“… Because everyone is now, right?”

The game generation is climbing into its thirties, and we’ve finally started rubbing off on the ‘normals.’  These days, most everyone enjoys some casual platforming or Wii-bowling with their post-work cold one.  But for me, and many more passionate folk I know, the story is a bit more complex.

It’s a story we’ve been passing between ourselves — this unorganized ‘club’ of devoted hobbyists — for decades now.  For each of us, the details and settings are naturally a bit different.  But the larger themes tend along fairly universal lines.  We all discovered the wonder of sight, sound, and interaction that was the early game-scape of the 1980s and 1990s.  All of us have been madly in love with this ART MEDIUM ever since.  And we’ve all let friends, relatives, and significant others into our lives with the explicit understanding that they would never replace games in our hearts.

So, here in the cherished season of the greeting card, it seems as good a moment as any to rewrite this archetypal love letter for the uninitiated (Wii users).  And though I can really only speak from my own perspective here, many an old friend should find a piece or two of his or her persona collected here:

• THE ATARI DAYS Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and LOVE the BOMB … *Errr* … JOYSTICKS
• 1997: Age of the Professional Score and the Point of No Return
• VIDEO HEROINE(s)
• THE RUMBLE: Force Feedback and Motion Control