Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Interactive Art-form and the Industry that holds it back

First off, games are art plain and simple. No matter if you actually like or play video games or not, they are still art. Art isn't an opinion, its not subjective. The definition of art is the creation of something through a medium, games fall in that category.

That said, It's Industry and the extreme competition not just between the artists but between the technology and the companies that own it. One problem that holds games back from being on the same pedestal as movies and music is how fast they go out of print. A game that came out 2 years ago or longer is really hard to find, you have to find a used copy and sometimes you can't even find that. When there are amazing trilogies like Mass Effect but its hard to find a new copy of Mass Effect 1 is really discouraging. When there are movies they are still printing box sets of like star wars and the godfather and those movies came out over 30 years ago, and I have trouble finding a decent copy of a game that came out less than two years ago. So games need to be more acceptable for it to be recognized to the art community as a true form of art.

Secondly the industry itself is far too competitive with its technology. PS3 versus Xbox 360 versus Nintendo Wii versus PC and so on. There are some games that are exclusively issued to be only played on one console as well as for PC. No one says the Godfather has to be only played on a Sony DVD player and if you want to play it on a Philips you have to buy the Philips copy of that movie, no its all compatible. All games are on DVD format(except PS3 which is blu-ray but that's different, the console still plays dvds) Its just their licensed to be only played on the console that its meant to be played on. In order to play Heavy Rain I have to buy a PS3 and until I do I won't access to one of the decades best games. This very competitive capitalist system is detrimental to games as an art-form in my opinion.

And then on top of all of this we have publishers that publish games that don't even work right just for face value. I know the film and music industry makes crap movies and music sometimes but at least you can still watch and listen to them. Its not the movie keeps pausing or the cd keeps ejecting itself. These games have severe technical issues and still make to the shelves to be bought be people that don't no shit about games, and thats what they prey on, casual games that see "Dirt Monster Extreme Basher...with Tits!" and think ""Bo I Gots to have me one of these!! for 60 bucks! I love America!"

Lastly we all know, well at least the ones with brains know that the best movies and music comes from the underground scene of Independent studios with actual artistic ambition. The same goes for music, the Indie and Underground music scene have the best and most artistically interesting music out there. In the game world there is no underground. Sure the developer have genuine artistic ambition but they still have to go for household name publishing companies to ever get into the stores. We don't find games shops like indie record stores with garage made indie games that still have modern technology. its not like the indie bands are still using tin cans to record, unless they are extreme purists. I think in order for more artistically interesting games to come out we need more of an underground of Indie developers. To have that major graphical engines and the software for making new engines should be more accable. It needs to be just as accessible as Final Cut Pro or the Adobe Suite so more artists can tap into this Interactive art form, I know I'd like to.

In Conclusion it may sound like I hate games when in fact I am a hardcore gamer that loves a good story driven campaign and I love a good multiplayer its just the shark filled gaming industry I have a problem with but really te same goes for hollywood and the mainstream music scene but thats all gaming has got, is the sharks. We need a Indie gaming scene that is one bandwagon I would be happy to jump on.

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