WHY I DO WHAT I DO

Of all the things you can do to attain what you want, 'nothing' probably isn't one of them.

As both as consumer and creator of video games, I, of course, wholeheartedly believe games to be an artistic medium, and no argument that a person external to the ecosystem of video games can provide is ever going to convince me of the contrary- I am steadfast in this belief. However, what I do concede is that, to an outsider, who does not have the same knowledge of the length and breadth of games, in the same way that they might be familiar with film, music or literature, and with only the understanding of the sort of works that are lauded with praise and advertised most heavily and which receive the awards for supposedly being the most artistically rich games of that year, it is not hard to imagine why they would be unconvinced by this offering, and would come to the conclusion that I am either biassed, delusional, or have zero media analysis skills in order to think that these constitute artful pieces. When I say ‘aftful’, I am primarily discussing such through the lens of video games being a story-telling medium, akin to films and literature, and will, for the sake of simplicity, and ensuring utmost relevance to my work, be casting games which endeavour to be artistic in other means external to this outlook to the side for now. As someone more intimately familiar with video games, I could suggest a dozen examples of video games grappling with complex themes and providing nuanced discussion of societal ills, I could provide a dozen more of games which provide deeply emotional stories that are impactful to as great and extent- if not to a greater extent- than a film of book attempting the same thing, I could provide half-a-dozen examples of games which utilise the interactive nature of video games to elevate the story by having said interactions convey the story, rather than cutscenes and loading screens, and I can even provide a handful of examples that do all of the above. However, the issue then becomes the fact that, despite the fact that the Scientific method- as weird as it may seem to invoke such within a discussion about art- suggests that only one of those examples would be sufficient to disprove this hypothetical detracter, all that I have instead proved is that video games have the capacity to be art, as opposed to whether or not the medium of video games is an artistic one.
And this is where the wheels largely start to fall off, as, whilst the likes of film, music and literature do not need to justify themselves as artistic mediums, as there is both an extensive back catalogue of artistically rich films and books and songs, and more that are created every single year, whereas a handful of artistically rich works across the entire (effectively) 4 decade long history of video games seems to suggest that the industry itself has yet to catch up with the medium’s capacity, rather than the capacity being pushed by the industry, as was and still is the case in the aforementioned other mediums. Essentially, the industry, to be frank, doesn’t care about making art, and the bulk of the industry makes games with the intent of making money first, being an entertainment piece second, and being a work of art last, if at all. The frustrating part of this, as a creative, is that there is very little pressure- internally or externally- for this to change. Video Games already gross more than film and music combined, and have done so for years; general audiences do not demand art- though are more than happy to claim that video games nonetheless are to inflate their own sense of self worth by passing off their hobby as ‘consuming art’.
And this is why I don’t think that the excuse of Video games being a ‘burgeoning Artform’ holds water anymore: we’re at a point of diminishing returns on graphical improvements, 5 nanometre chipsets are already entering the market in spite of a global chip shortage, and we’re starting to see more previously experimental technologies such as VR taking up a market share. By all accounts, we should be in a renaissance of video games, where all previously thought of limitations begin to be removed. Alas, that world has yet to materialise.
Now, to be clear on something, since I fear that if I don’t address this, that the wrong impression might be given (even though I didn’t a smooth way to transition into this, but oh well), is that under no circumstance am I saying that so-called “low art” is invalid- to suggest otherwise would make me a massive hypocrite, nor do I believe that every video game necessarily needs to have a deep message and emotional story, cleverly conveyed in ways exclusively possible in a video game, rather, that like in film, music and literature, the supposedly “low” does not undermine their claims to being artistic mediums, because there, equally, exists ample examples of the “high” concept pieces that have deep messages and themes conveyed through means unique to their respective mediums. My concern is that, with so few titles in the mainstream trying to attempt these complex narratives- and a portion of those that do not necessarily succeeding- that such might be falsely attributed to Video Games and complex storytelling being fundamentally at odds with one another, even though such is verifiably false.
And I want to do what I can to tip the scales in favour of changing the perspective of video games however best I can, no matter what that takes.