But have people ever accepted/considered video games to be an artform? That I’m not sure about. They had a big stigma before the monetization got so bad and by the time they became more mainstream, they were at the peak of some of their worst elements for the computerized medium.

We’re very much on the same wavelength here. I think games are materially and inherently artistic projects, but are overwhelmingly produced in a way that’s more adjacent to toys. Problem is the latter is much more profitable than the former. Games with addictive gameloops are much more valued by developers and publishers than a game that uses its mechanics to deliver a message.

It’s such a sorry state of affairs that I think games as art are the exception, and not the norm. Games can clearly be art in how they use mechanics to make you feel something, or say something about the human condition - see DayZ, Lisa, Undertale, Pathologic, etc. These games subvert mechanical expectation and force the player to feel something other than fun/challenge.

But those four games are what came to the top of my head, and I don’t believe the list of ‘mechanic as the message’ games extends more than a few dozen. The market is otherwise made up of pure toys (Fortnite, Call of Duty, etc) or games that carry the aesthetic of art but use nothing from the medium to extend its message (Last of Us, Telltale games, most AAA ‘cinematic’ experiences). These games can easily be movies and the impact is the exact same. In the case of Last of Us, this is provably true.

So, like, no, games aren’t really considered art, are they? They clearly can be art, they have been art, and they have amazing ways to impact us, but the productive forces behind this entire artform are not interested in that. They’re exclusively interested in the money they can extract from younger audiences. Such is capitalism, right?

If anything, video games may be one of the weaker means of that in the west because the industry is so overtaken by the worst tendencies of late stage capitalism that it can be radicalizing just to be a video game enthusiast. Not that one will necessary find their way to marxist-leninist theory because of being a disgruntled “gamer”, but it can sure speed up their dislike of capitalism

I think this is an excellent point and something to really sit on. Games as an artform have flat-out not existed outside of the context of our modern neoliberal globalized world. Stories, music, and even movies have all had a chance to be produced under different economic contexts, but games have always been the realm of capitalists trying to make money.

It’s probably why capital G gamers either turn into anti-woke chudsters (video games were better back in the day!) or hyper libleft political advocates (we’ll solve all the problems of crunch with a developers union!!) Their preferred art medium is largely devoid of art that isn’t completely subsumed by capital.

I mean, the Adobe website flashed me pop-ups about not being in the right location, about cookies - I would choose GIMP based on this.

I choose FOSS 90% of the time because they are not beholden to the same conventions that compel most for-profit products. A lot of the concerns I’m reading about readability, marketability, etc ring absolutely true for life-or-death for-profit ventures, but there are definitely people who don’t mind missing all of that stuff in exchange for good and decent software.

The goal, after all, is to be image editing software, not an advertisement.

Yo I cannot give this deranged grifter 40 minutes of my time. From my skimming he’s way off though. Steam is a great consumer-driven platform that actually has a somewhat open market, which gives the impression that ‘anything goes,’ but anything absolutely does not, in fact, go.

Of the sexual content allowed on Steam, skirting too close to loli/shota/pedo shit will get your game removed. Steam has a history of rejecting VN’s and adjacent content for having risqué scenes or dialogue in it. This includes simply having a school anywhere near your sexual content - even if ages are explicitly marked as 18+.

You will get your community forum deleted if you allow hate speech to fester there. All community discussions are bound to a universal set of rules that do not allow hate, harassment, etc.

As developers, Valve are champions of innovating for accessibility. Their modern games contain diverse casts of characters, PoC get huge representation and the next chapter of Half-Life was originally going to revolve around a cast of disabled characters. Their latest game release - Half-Life: Alyx - can literally be played with half a hand because of their dedication to accessibility functions. Remember, Half-Life: Alyx is VR exclusive.

And, you know, Valve itself is a horizontally managed company with little to no hierarchy. Despite Gabe’s obvious libertarian streak it’s clear Valve has no interest in that side of the culture war. They just want to shut up and make money and to their credit, that’s what they do - it’s just not because they’re anti-DEI warriors.

when the extent of your gaming hobby has turned into annual revisits of the same three or four games

I agree entirely - especially a game like TF2, which continued limping along as a live service generating money from key purchases and the like. We really need greater protections on art preservation in general.

Honestly reminds me of Civ VI’s Australia, themed exclusively after colonial Australia complete with mixing Aboriginal music conventions with, like, waltzing matilda. Like, really.

Thanks for the mod recommendation, making this post actually made me take a trip back to Civ IV and try the ‘Caveman2Cosmos’ mod, which is absolutely unhinged in how expansive it is. Civ V was my personal favorite so knowing there’s a decent overhaul mod (especially one that adds vassal states back in) gives me another civ-related thing to look forward to.