Yesterday, Polygon printed a book exerpt by Phil Owen that made what I consider to be the ultimate rookie mistake in the ‘are games art?’ discussion. They suggested that game designers and developers are failing at art because games do not do some things as well, such as storytelling, as the movies. While this is, in fact, true, it’s also a very silly point of view. It’s roughly akin to saying ‘movies can’t give detailed prose as well as books can, so they fail at art!’ or ‘music doesn’t do character development the way that television does, so it fails as art!’
Each genre or medium of communication and art has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each has elements that are true challenges for that genre, and other areas where it simply crushes other genres. Television didn’t really succeed until it stopped trying to be radio, for example, and embraced doing visual things that it does well. It took a while for TV to mature as well – some would argue that the genre took sixty years to mature, and didn’t fully until the advent of premium television and rise of quality serial television. Even that was a product of the times — binge-watching on Netflix makes serial television a net positive, where in previous decades it was more likely to bewilder viewers and push them away.
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