Today MOMA announced that it is collecting video games as examples that "emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects—from the elegance of the code to the design of the player’s behavior—that pertain to interaction design".
It's a super neat idea. Video gaming started as a subculture that hasn't always gotten a good wrap, so it's refreshing to see MOMA take off the cranky pants and celebrate a genre of art and entertainment that's defined a generation, so much so that there is already nostalgia for the good old days of 8 bit gaming (and music).
Design is a great lens to categorize video games under, and I can't wait to see them put together the final exhibit, which I would expect to have an online exhibit counter part. As excited as I am at their recognition of video games as legitimate piece of art, I'm not holding my hopes high for how they put together the exhibit. I imagine it so far to resemble the video game consule set ups at Best Buy where everyone huddles around the one or two games available to play. It seems like it would be pretty lame, to be honest, to just have pods of video games available to play and "emulations" of tetris floating around.
MOMA has an opportunity to make video games really interesting to non gamers by examining how design changes for different age groups and demographics. Video games can be essentially viewed as art by demographic - meaning that the art and aesthetic is primarily driven by the target audience, e.g. adolescent males, children 3-5 years old, teenagers, young adults, or all ages. I would be super interested in seeing how game designers shed their opinion on it, how they make decisions, how they develop games, in addition to seeing the finished product. I'm sure this could be a whole exhibit in itself. If design is conceptualized as an inherent relationship between designer and user, it would be nice to see video games from both sides of the fence.
I'm not a huge gamer, but I do have a special place in my heart for specific video games and consules - SEGA, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Brothers, Mario Kart, Sim City, Kirby, Gameboy - each represents a specific time and place in my life. One of the reasons why I fell in love with video games (and dreamed of being a "professional" video game player at the age of 8), is because they tapped into the same reason why I love books. I don't think it's an accident that video game cases line up perfectly on a bookshelf. Reading and playing are essentially the same mental process of exploring, dreaming, imagining. They are both wonderful exercises in understanding what it means to be in another character's shoes. They are both eerily similar in how a person can get sucked in and detach oneself from the "real world" until the problems in each narrative are resolved. In each, the user/reader is transported to different worlds, play various roles, and develop an emotional stake in finishing the story. Part of the frustration, and fun, of video games was that as a player, we had to rescue the princess, we had to defeat the boss, we had to collect all those coins because otherwise we couldn't advance in the narrative and achieve that well deserved sigh of satisfaction of getting to The End.
I always imagined Mario shaking his fist at the horribly mysterious plumbing design. "What is this!"
It's a super neat idea. Video gaming started as a subculture that hasn't always gotten a good wrap, so it's refreshing to see MOMA take off the cranky pants and celebrate a genre of art and entertainment that's defined a generation, so much so that there is already nostalgia for the good old days of 8 bit gaming (and music).
Design is a great lens to categorize video games under, and I can't wait to see them put together the final exhibit, which I would expect to have an online exhibit counter part. As excited as I am at their recognition of video games as legitimate piece of art, I'm not holding my hopes high for how they put together the exhibit. I imagine it so far to resemble the video game consule set ups at Best Buy where everyone huddles around the one or two games available to play. It seems like it would be pretty lame, to be honest, to just have pods of video games available to play and "emulations" of tetris floating around.
MOMA has an opportunity to make video games really interesting to non gamers by examining how design changes for different age groups and demographics. Video games can be essentially viewed as art by demographic - meaning that the art and aesthetic is primarily driven by the target audience, e.g. adolescent males, children 3-5 years old, teenagers, young adults, or all ages. I would be super interested in seeing how game designers shed their opinion on it, how they make decisions, how they develop games, in addition to seeing the finished product. I'm sure this could be a whole exhibit in itself. If design is conceptualized as an inherent relationship between designer and user, it would be nice to see video games from both sides of the fence.
Though I could never get to be good neighbors in Sim City.
I'm not a huge gamer, but I do have a special place in my heart for specific video games and consules - SEGA, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Brothers, Mario Kart, Sim City, Kirby, Gameboy - each represents a specific time and place in my life. One of the reasons why I fell in love with video games (and dreamed of being a "professional" video game player at the age of 8), is because they tapped into the same reason why I love books. I don't think it's an accident that video game cases line up perfectly on a bookshelf. Reading and playing are essentially the same mental process of exploring, dreaming, imagining. They are both wonderful exercises in understanding what it means to be in another character's shoes. They are both eerily similar in how a person can get sucked in and detach oneself from the "real world" until the problems in each narrative are resolved. In each, the user/reader is transported to different worlds, play various roles, and develop an emotional stake in finishing the story. Part of the frustration, and fun, of video games was that as a player, we had to rescue the princess, we had to defeat the boss, we had to collect all those coins because otherwise we couldn't advance in the narrative and achieve that well deserved sigh of satisfaction of getting to The End.
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