One aspect of art that I find particularly beautiful is its ever-changing dynamic. New tools, methods, and mediums are always emerging as artists find new ways to express themselves. An excellent example of this is the dynamic world of video games. 

The art of video games starts, like many creative industries do, with an emergence of new technology. Computers took the world by storm in the 1940s and 50s, allowing the world to solve complex mathematical equations in minutes. As humans normally do though, computers quickly became a source of entertainment and fun as well. Games like tic-tac-toe or “Tennis for Two” were programmed into these room-filling computing machines as coders learned how to challenge the device’s capabilities and add more functions. 

Atari Inc was formed in June 1972 and their first arcade-style game, Pong, was released to instant success. The sensation ushered in two decades of pockets filled with jingling coins and blinking dots searing their colors into our retinas. Since then, we’ve seen arcades move to cartridges to VCS to discs to consoles to handheld devices like our phones. With each iteration of the technology came progress in the artistry of the games too. 

The ability to show moving characters with human-like faces and abilities pushed the story-telling abilities of these games to the next level. Gone were the days where  a yellow sphere being chased by ghosts was the most interesting thing to play with. Now we have “campaigns”, in which personally designed characters walk, run, fly, and shoot through the world, engaging with it as though the players were truly walking through it themselves. 

This change didn’t come easily though. In 2006, game designer Jenova Chen took issue with the fact that no photo or video could properly reflect his experience being outdoors. “I can feel the wind. I can hear the sound of the grass waving. You just can’t capture that with video. The only way I can capture the truth in this place and this feeling is by artistic exaggeration.” He then coded over 200,000 blades of 3-D grass for his game “Flower”.

The world of video games is ever growing as artists and programmers (now often synonymous terms) dip their toes into the world of virtual and augmented reality. They continue to strive to mirror Chen’s sentiments of making the virtual world one we feel has brought the beauty and dynamism of real life onto our screens.

RESOURCE 1 – Video Game History
RESOURCE 2 – Art of Video Games
RESOURCE 3 – Art of Video Games 2