LONG BLOG
Games that Inspire; Games that Change
This is why I’ve had trouble believing it when people say that video games can’t be art. The idea that games don’t have anything worthwhile to teach us, or that the medium is incapable of inspiring emotional change inside of a gamer just isn’t true. The fact that we’re only just starting to see the real power of this medium tells me that other people realize this, and that we’re moving into some extremely exciting times for video games. We are at a point where we’re capable of delivering ideas in such a way that the player is experiencing them directly, taking those experiences into themselves as if they were happening to them in the real world.
Art, to me, is taking something meaningless and making it life-altering. Flickering images on a screen, letters on a page, paint on a canvas – all of these things have been called art over the years for the profound emotions they’ve stirred up in their observers. Watching the violence in games has made people think they would never be capable of reaching this stage; that they would never have a worthwhile emotion or idea to communicate under all of the bloodshed. As we’ve begun to see, video games are capable of so much more than anything we’ve ever seen before. Games have helped me see the world through different eyes, to cast off my darkest thoughts and to reunite with some people I’d truly hurt through lack of understanding. They’ve made me into a better person; made me want to be a better person.
If this isn’t art, then I don’t know what is. If this isn’t art, then art is worthless to me.
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About JoelCoutureone of us since 11:26 PM on 05.27.2013
Contributing Editor for mashthosebuttons.com, destitute but determined fantasy novelist & short story writer at joelcouture.com. I wish I was paid for either of those jobs.
I love horror games. If you scare me, I will give you money. I also love terrible games, as it's a lot harder to make a game that's so bad it's hilarious than it is to make something that is just bad.
For some reason I'm not super clear on, I am obsessed with J. Jonah Jameson.