Editor's Note: Hideo Bruckheimer

[Jordan Deam]

Hideo Bruckheimer

Ebert might still turn up his nose at them, and they certainly don't have their Citizen Kane just yet, but that doesn't mean videogames aren't gaining ground on their more culturally relevant, less interactive brethren.

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[KDR_11k]

Oh hell, not Hideo Kojima. That guy doesn't turn games into art, he turns games into movies with gameplay instead of ad breaks. Though I like how your great film examples were all from the first half of the last century... If that helped movies establish their cultural role the second half of that century undid all that work and then some. Or maybe it's that culture shaped them into what they are today. Maybe that's a question to explore: Does art shape culture or does culture shape art?

 

[Blayze]

We don't have our Citizen Kane?

Clearly someone has never played Planescape: Torment.

 

[rohit9891]

Well there are many games that have better story lines and settings than most of the movies...
but I think games do not get the same recognition bcoz most people are so ignorant that they don't even care to look at the what's going on in the games industry...
people are only interested in finding faults with the games.

Also adding to this is the bad film adaptation of all the good games out there by some idiots

 

[GonzoGamer]

I think part of the problem is that games are too often compared to other visual mediums like movies when I think it has more in common with literature: more of a dependance on the user's imagination and they're both forms of entertainment you get through in spurts rather than all at once like a movie.

Thankfully the wii has been attracting a lot more people who either hated games, or didn't care about them, so I think the medium is slowly adapting. When we're old and Roger Ebert has long been forgotten, games will be appreciated as much as movies, books, or music.

 

[KDR_11k]

We don't have our Citizen Kane?

Clearly someone has never played Planescape: Torment.

Not just someone, a whole lot of people didn't play that if we go by its sales. Then again Citizen Kane barely broke even so I guess there's a difference between pleasing critics and pleasing customers.

But why always the talk about the medium movie? What about the board game? Did that ever have to prove itself as art or anything?

 

[ReverseEngineered]

Let's not forget that video games aren't movies. Comparing them is like comparing literature to music -- they are entirely different art forms. It wouldn't be appropriate to say that songs should be more like short stories -- they don't even share the same qualities.

In mention of Planescape: Torment and Citizen Kane, it's true in all art throughout history that those works which were the most celebrated decades later were typically panned when they were first displayed. We as a people fear change and the unknown, so we are always quick to shun something different, even if that different is better. Hollywood knows this, and so does the gaming industry. The gaming industry never had a chance to try art because the pressure was already on to emulate Hollywood, which they are doing quite well. It's only now that we are starting to see artistic games made for their own sake.

It's too bad that it takes so much effort to make even a short game. It really raises the bar for getting amateur artists with new ideas into the mix. It's not like the other arts where a few hundred dollars of equipment and a few weeks of work can get you 80% of the way there.