How much longer until videogames are accepted as an art form or beneficial to society?

[TheAbominableDan]

There's a lot of talk in here of it happening when the media frenzy and public mistrust dies out.

I don't think that's the case. I think it's when a generation of gamers becomes the old guard. And not people who played Asteroids and the like. Those were games yes, but they didn't have the stuff we love about games today.

It's a generation gap. None of the people who are taken seriously when they talk about films as art grew up playing the games we did.

 

[Chomajig]

All major technology has had the finger of blame pointed at it at somepoint.
Even Books.
Our time will come to be socially accepted.

 

[Dusk17]

Why should it matter if video games are or are not considered art? The only thing that matters is that they should be enjoyable and fun.

 

[Orekoya]

Never, so long as they keep finding xboxs in murderer's houses, games will always be seen as a bad thing

Yea but most murderers tend to own toothpaste or a refrigerator and those aren't seen as bad things.

Why should it matter if video games are or are not considered art? The only thing that matters is that they should be enjoyable and fun.

Because there are people out there who think they need to justify their time-wasting hobbies to total strangers or their parents instead of just enjoying themselves.

Crazy, I know.

 

[Piction Froject]

.

it's actually worse than that, because it's not about anyone dying, but rather about a whole mindset "dying out". basically, a large majority of people have made up their minds and will never be convinced otherwise. there was actually an interesting study i read recently that examined the strange tendency of people with erroneous beliefs to actually cling more strongly to their beliefs when confronted with proof of their error.

that is something I'm familiar with. Sadly my grandmother is like this and I hate her for it but I wish she would change.

 

[cystemic]

i think they tried that with heavy rain and even though it was awesome for us gamers, everyone else could give less than two shits about it and swept it under the rug

 

[kouriichi]

Years. Tens, maybe hundreds. It wont happen over night with how new the media form is.

 

[Hateren47]

Around the same time football, poker and kalaha is considered art I'd imagine. Why do games have to be art?

 

[Ironic Pirate]

The people that play games are mostly younger. They need to start to hold jobs, most importantly jobs as some kind of critic. Once they start praising games, those who don't play them will start to listen.

In addition, the older critics that don't like games will have to die, or retire. Popular opinion is often decided by a few, and if they aren't spouting anti-game rhetoric, people won't believe it.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Hopefully before I pass my prime.

 

[Piction Froject]

Why do videogames need to be accepted by anyone other than the people that enjoy playing them?

Things that I require my videogames to be:
-Fun

Things that I do not require my videogames to be:
-Artistic
-Benificial to society

I'm not saying that they should not be fun, But that if they are not accepted they will or beneficial sooner or later they will no longer be of any worth. Also all those games you play are artistic in their own way it's one way the developers and designers make you entrenched in the experience, now beneficial to society will just make it easier for them to become better, don't you want that?

 

[Gudrests]

if Portal wasn't "The Game", there never will be one.

and to answer your question: not until there are no more religious (or otherwise closed-minded) zealots out to cockblock the whole world.

Did you honestly attempt to blame society's unwillingness to accept video games as a medium of art? You are very closed-minded.

On topic, once the current, video game friendly, generation replaces the older generation it will become much easier.

huh? i'm not sure what you just asked, and i'm not sure why what i just said was closed-minded.
i was saying that to a large degree, games are not accepted as having any true merit by the majority, because there is a substantial majority of people who are too closed-minded and focused on negative aspects of games that they will never acknowledge games as art. because, let's face it, whether you liked the game or not, Portal was art. it should have had enough appeal that anyone could stand back and look at it and say, "yes, this is art." but that didn't happen, which i believe to be for the reasons i stated above.

yeah i read this 3 time and i agree...WTF did you say?...and i agree here..altho the religious part not so much except most religion is led by an older person who thinks video games are useless like so many do...

 

[drbarno]

My guess would be when something else is made to be the new whipping target of society

and off-topic you guys made me lose the game big time.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

Who cares if they're art or not? Just play them and have fun with them; as long as the medium persists, it will become a form of art in time.

If you really must know, it's going to be when games are more or less embraced by the entire public as a viable means of expression, which will happen when (a) it gets the same install base that TV/books/film has, and (b) when publishers and developers stop pushing out white male power fantasy shooters in a world with lots of bloom and a cor palette that ranges from "brown" to "light brown" that seem to come out on a biweekly basis.

 

[Jazoni89]

Give it twenty years and gaming will become much more accepted as a form of media.

Give it another twenty years and videogames such as ocarina of time, Donkey Kong and super Mario brothers will be remembered like old movies are such as Casablanca, Star wars and citizen Kane.

It's all to do with certain older generations not accepting new things. It happened with rock and roll aswell and it was always the young people who where taking into the new craze. While most of the older people fell through the generation gap and became ignorant to newer things.

Gaming itself is now forty years old and many people who grew up with the old consoles such as the atari are now in their late thirties and have kids of their own. So nowadays it is not uncommon to see many grown men playing videogames like they did when they were kids.

The average age of a gamer is up in the thirties and it continues to rise every year. So by the time many of us now in our late teens/early twenties have grown up to middle age the average gamer would be way into their 60s and by then their won't be many people left who remember a time before video games.

That is when videogames will be accepted by many and all and will be alongside cinema in terms of legacy and history.

 

[The Arbiter of Cool]

Why do videogames need to be accepted by anyone other than the people that enjoy playing them?

Things that I require my videogames to be:
-Fun

Things that I do not require my videogames to be:
-Artistic
-Benificial to society

I'm not saying that they should not be fun, But that if they are not accepted they will or beneficial sooner or later they will no longer be of any worth. Also all those games you play are artistic in their own way it's one way the developers and designers make you entrenched in the experience, now beneficial to society will just make it easier for them to become better, don't you want that?

Art is in the eye of the beholder. A media's benefit to society should not be a factor in its overall quality.

 

[DazBurger]

- snip "The Game"

-snip "The Game"

-snip "The Game" -snip "The Game"

Gah! And so... I lost the game!

Did you guys really have to spell it out like that? Did ya?!