Avinash Binand, Grade 10
If anyone has ever met me, they’ll know I am passionate about video games. I own over 40 games, and I play them for hours daily. My father used to work for a company that developed them too, so I basically grew up playing them. In recent years, video gaming has gotten much more intimate with the player, with heart-wrenching storylines, beautiful graphics, and loveable characters. My favourite genre of games are open-world RPGs (Role-Playing Games), which, in my opinion, bring out the best in video games, and allow some amount of creativity in virtual problem-solving. Throughout the course of this article, I’ll be discussing video games’ evolution from arcade games to works of art, and talk about my personal favourites, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Minecraft.
Let’s start with how video games came to be: In the year 1958, Sir William Higginbotham decided to create ‘Tennis for Two’ on a computer at a museum because he thought the display was ‘too boring’. In 1972, Atari, the first Game Dev company, bought the rights to the game from Mr. Higginbotham and re-branded it as pong. This was the first licensed arcade game. Since then, we have moved through 8 generations of video game consoles, all the way from the Atari 2600 from 1982, to the PS4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch in 2020. PC gaming has also been steadily improving, with an entire community dedicated to it, called the ‘PC Masterrace’.
Video Games started out as a simple form of entertainment. It was a way to let off steam after a stressful day, but soon it evolved into something so much more. By 2007, in the era of the PlayStation 3, the Wii, and the Xbox 360, gaming already had a cult following, with entire news channels dedicated to just video games, like IGN and GameSpot. It was a time of classics, with games like Super Mario on the Wii, Halo on the Xbox, and Uncharted on the PS3 quickly becoming classics.
I got my first video game in 2010 when I was gifted a Wii for my 5th Birthday. I instantly fell in love. I remember playing Pokémon, Mario and Wii Sports for hours daily. By 2012, I was introduced to PC gaming, with my first computer game: Minecraft. I play Minecraft daily to this day. I had my Wii till 2016, then I got a PS4, and I had found my new addiction. Uncharted 4, Spiderman, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Horizon Zero Dawn consumed my life. I’ve probably played more video games than I have watched movies. And I’m proud of that.
Now let’s move on to why video games are art. We’ve heard people call iconic movies ‘art’ before, so I think the question has to be asked: How do you classify something to be art? Merriam-Webster defines it as ‘the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination’, and that is precisely what video games are today, the only difference between a painting and a video game being that the ability to be creative and imaginative lies not only in the creator but in the player too. The ability to solve problems in unique ways is what sets apart video games from movies. The non-linearity is beautiful and, in a way, poetic, in the fact that the power of action truly lies in the hands of the player. Be it the sheer horror of Amnesia, to the dystopian future of Detroit Become Human, I think video games should be considered to be an art form of the most unique variety.
Now on to my personal favourites (NOTE: This portion of the article contains spoilers to Red Dead Redemption 2, so if you plan to play the game, please don’t proceed past this point):
Red Dead Redemption 2 is the heart-breaking story of Arthur Morgan and his gang of Wild West outlaws in 1899. America is slowly becoming a land of law, and gangs like his own are dying out. To escape, they run from the west to the American Heartlands. Arthur soon catches tuberculosis after beating and robbing a sick man for his money, and after realising his mortality, follows a beautiful redemption arc, helping people and giving to the poor. He watches his mentor and father-figure slowly descend into insanity, while trying to help a fellow outlaw and his family escape the life of lawlessness. The game is ripe with detail, with a 1000 voice actors, beautiful graphics and a serene and detailed open-world map. It requires the player to eat, drink water, bathe, shave and sleep on a regular basis, adding immersiveness to the playthrough. The game also has a morality system, called the Honour system. If you have high honour, NPCs (Non-Player Characters) treat you like a fellow citizen, and in the final scene of the game, you die of tuberculosis. If you play with low honour, every NPC will treat you like a criminal and you’ll be shot in the head at the end of the story.
The only way I can think to describe this game is, as The GameReactor aptly put it: “We have no issue calling RDR2 what it is, and exactly what it deserves to be: a masterpiece.”
Minecraft, on the other hand, is pretty much the opposite of RDR2. It discards the real-life-esque graphics for blocks that are 16 pixels each, and it completely lacks a story. Minecraft is a game where you, the player, are the artist, and the creator has simply handed you a paintbrush. The world is yours to build as you please. I’ve played Minecraft for nearly 9 years now, and I’m not about to stop anytime soon. It is the best-selling game of all time and a classic in gaming circles. I guarantee you that by the time we are 40, our children will be playing a game that is, if not Minecraft, at least reminiscent of it. Minecraft created a genre, and that genre will no doubt, live on.
Thanks for reading this, and I hope I’ve convinced you to try some video games out!
Comentários