Video games are a fast-growing market. According to analysts, the rapid rise was influenced by the pandemic because, during the lockdown period, many people began to view games as a space to gather and communicate, while other ways to be together were unavailable. But it seems that this is typically only for those who have not been a player before – nothing much has changed in the gaming community.
Contemporary art consists of the contexts that the artist brings to work and the baggage of knowledge that the viewer can accumulate to interpret the works of the artist. Art is communication. Art is valuable because it acts as an “arbiter” of its time, a magnifying glass that reveals the features of society’s cultural, social, economic, and artistic life. Therefore, video games are already recognized as art among art critics and in the institutional art system.
Over the past few decades, gamers have evolved from Internet pioneers to streamers and esports players. This is quite natural because human leisure is gradually moving into virtual space.
Like any financial industry, gaming creates and saturates new needs and creates new economic relations. As a result, markets for selling gaming products, advertising integrations for bloggers and streamers, and donation platforms are emerging.
There are three key trends in the development of gaming:
- Gaming is a full-fledged $2 billion industry in Europe. The number of paying users is growing, while the number of passive users is declining. Even $5 additional monthly spending can provide up to a 10% increase in market volume.
- Leisure is being digitized. According to the gaming platform STEAM, in 2020, the number of monthly active users among their customers reached 120 million, of which more than half logged into games daily.
- The gaming market is a springboard for launching new products and related categories. A space is being created at the intersection of gaming and new industries. Banks and their goods appear on the market. This means that the demand is high, and the supply is still insufficient.
Digital activities are gaining popularity. Major players in the entertainment and telecom industries are launching their own gaming platforms or buying existing services.
The convergence of in-game worlds gives rise to a huge number of metaverses. Not only the gaming companies Microsoft and Epic Games are responsible for their creation but also Netflix, along with other BigTech companies, are creating new products for gamers and not only.
Art and Game Design
The theme of interaction between art and video games has developed since the introduction of arcade machines in the 1980s. Back then, artists used machines to create installations and other artistic expressions. In Western countries, such exhibitions have already become common, and the discussion about whether video games are art has come to naught. Everyone, by default, considers them to be art.
No doubt, video games are part of popular culture. Huge fan communities, universes that are now subject to film adaptations, genre diversity, and, to be honest, large financial profits – all this is inherent in the modern gaming industry.
Are video games art? Certainly yes. Do they develop and acquire their unique language? Still would! Will serious guys in tailcoats discuss them? Once, on a beautiful day!
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of talented creators already working in the video game industry today. They create their worlds, touch on eternal topics, and, most importantly, create their semiotics, unique for video games. Some projects can be deservedly attributed to works of art. We will talk about them next time. And more than once.
“Art is what the artist is the source of,” Kojima explained. “If 100 people walk by and don’t look, and one person suddenly notices and is fascinated by the work, this is art. But video games are not made for one person. They are designed to ensure that 100 or more people equally enjoy the gaming features laid down by the developers. Their work is a service. Not art”
Are video games art? Rhetorical question, which can probably be answered in the affirmative. How unique a phenomenon, as an object of modern culture, video games can be used as art. The same can be said about stone, canvas, paper, movies, books, etc. Are books or movies art? Of course, they are! It depends on what kind of books, what kind of movies. It is not the medium that determines its belonging to art but the people who interpret this medium.
Video games themselves have probably gone a long way from that. They are more comprehensive than art, transcending its speed and accessibility of communication, audience coverage, selectivity, and applicability. Video games are a special form of play, the most convenient form of learning, action, and manifestation of human abilities. The possibilities of the game take us so far away from art that there is no reason to try to turn video games into something that is already included in them and works for a common task – the formation of a new paradigm of human culture in the 21st century.