Post Modern Blog

Video Games Are Art 

When most think of art, they think of paintings, sculptures, or exhibits. However, one of the most influential forms of art in the last century has been video games.  Video games offer many traditional art forms such as painting, writing, sculptor, music, storytelling, and cinematography to mash together in on platform that has an exceptional way of engaging with audiences. Players are given the ability to live the art, and gain the feeling of accomplishment that comes with most games. 

In 2012, video games were officially recognized as an art form, and ever since then, games have continued to get better and more creative. 

Games That Are Considered Art

Portal

Portal is a puzzle game that was released in 2007 by the company called Valve. This game involves using portals that transport the player between distant points in the game. Portal was praised for its innovative storytelling, writing, and mechanics. Portal was then featured as part of the Museum of Modern Art exhibit "Applied Design." Portal is known for its simple dystopian backdrops that leave the player focusing on the story and the portal gameplay. I feel that this game represents the development of technology, as well as deconstruction in the post modern art era. Its use of portals, while difficult to understand at first, gets the player thinking about the possibilities of that which are not often thought about.  


Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 was released in 2018 by Rockstar Studios. The game is a large open world game that is set in the late 19th century American Frontier. The game was praised for its background settings, character development, wildlife, and a rich story that immerses the player into the game by making the choices a player makes directly influence that way that the story plays out. This game has strong influences from when people in the 1960s and 70s began to question tradition. This game leads the player to appreciate the past for what it was. Not what we want it to be. 

Red Dead Redemption's playable character, overlooking a town in game

Hunt Showdown

Hunt Showdown is a first person shooter game that was developed and published by Crytek in 2018. In the game, players take the role of a bounty hunter in a fictional universe after the American Civil War (This version of the Civil War results in the outbreak of a virus) who must hunt and kill a mythical monster in order to claim the bounty and live long enough to reach an extraction point. Hunt Showdown has been praised for giving players an exhilarating way to play and connect with people online. The extreme difficulty of the game leads players to necessitate working together with other players in order to survive. The game is also noted for its lifelike artwork. Often, first person shooter games use more basic artwork in order to keep lag to a minimum. Strangely, this game reminds me of the changes in religious thinking that happened in the Post Modern period of art. The images of the civil war, mixed with the devilish picture that the monsters, players, and environment paint, give players a view into darkness that often is hard to find in art. 

A player in Hunt Showdown against a hoard of zombies

Citations

The Art of Video Games - SAAM

An Argument That Video Games Should be Seen as High Art - Forbes

The Art of Video Games - The Smithsonian Magazine


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