Video Game Design Influencing Art
In the beginning, there was Pong’s black screen and white cube. But times have changed. Today, video games are not only works of art themselves; they are influencing other art forms. Game plots are now showing on big screens at movie theatres and being recognized at film festivals. Acclaimed film and television directors are also entering the world of video game design, recognizing the synergy that exists between the media.
Additionally, the artwork that makes computer and video games so compelling is also becoming a respected artistic genre of its own. Gaming artwork is now exhibited at galleries and serving as a new medium for emerging artists.
Cultural Art: Education and Design
Educational institutions across the nation provide young people with advanced artistic training in computer and video game design. More than 250 American colleges, universities and technical schools, including Southern Methodist University, the Art Institute of Seattle and Marist College currently offer programs and courses in video game design and development. Carnegie Mellon University and the Georgia Institute of Technology offer master’s degrees in game development. And the University of Southern California offers a graduate degree in interactive media and an undergraduate degree in video game development.
In December 2008, New York University, long known for its film school, announced the launch of the NYU Game Center. The center offers new courses that compliment the existing game-related classes currently available at the university, and is working to establish long-term undergraduate and graduate degrees in the research, design and development of digital games. The center hosted its first exhibition of independent games in May 2010, followed by a summer Game Development Workshop – an intensive, 6-week studio course in modern game development.
As these programs produce new video game designers, their work is recognized by the video game industry for its entertainment value and by the art community for its cultural value. Video game graphics and designs are widely displayed, publicized and featured in art exhibits across the country and around the world. In March 2010, Paris opened the brand new Museum of Video Games to celebrate the artistic and technological history of video games. The City of Baltimore also plans to add a technology exhibit to Artscape, one of the country’s largest free arts festivals, that would feature web-based interactivity, gadgets and video gaming. In addition, the “Into the Pixel” traveling art exhibit, cosponsored by the Entertainment Software Association and the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, showcases a series of conceptual and production work from current and future video games.
Popular Art: Cinematography and Video Games
The entertainment software and movie industries have influenced each other’s storylines for several years. But now, increased demand for video games has provided Hollywood producers, directors and actors with additional ways of forming partnerships.
Movies and video games routinely borrow characters and subjects from each other to produce hits and unique roles for actors. Beowulf, produced by video game publisher Ubisoft, reprised the role of Anthony Hopkins virtually through innovative digital technology. Eidos Interactive’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, inspired the movie “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” with Angelina Jolie. And Pierce Brosnan and Shannon Elizabeth provided likeness and voice work for Electronic Arts’ James Bond: Everything or Nothing, reprising their work on the movie screen.
Now, the relationship between games and film may be expanding. The 2008 Sundance Film Festival featured a panel discussion on how technology, including gaming, has changed our society. In addition, in 2007, MTV Games announced a partnership with "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "CSI" producer Jerry Bruckheimer. In a multi-year relationship, a Jerry Bruckheimer Games team will work with MTV to create games based on original ideas. The partnership announced in 2009 that Halo 3 producer Jim Veevaert and former Ubisoft Senior Vice President Jay Cohen would join the team and begin building the creative development studio. Recently, three more box-office hits were released as video games; “Iron Man,” “The Bourne Conspiracy,” and “Speed Racer.” And Warner Bros. created a downloadable video game to act as a prequel to the film “Watchmen,” which included an entirely new storyline in anticipation of the movie's release.
Additionally, popular author James Patterson’s entertainment company began producing video games as well as books, television shows, and movies. The company released two video games based on Patterson’s “Women’s Murder Club” murder mystery book series. In Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet and Women’s Murder Club: A Darker Shade of Gray, players assume the roles of Patterson’s heroines. The games feature hunt-and-seek play and provide clues for players to solve a series of murder mysteries.
Popular Art: Music and Video Games
Video games encourage creativity not only in the visual arts, but in music as well. Popular video games provide both aspiring and established musical artists access to a broader audience, with pop and punk music enjoying the most success.
Not only have full-body, music-based video games, like Rock Band, emerged as popular activities at social gatherings, but the new genre also provided musicians a fresh avenue to reach fans. It also opened revenue streams for music labels seeking to create new ways to generate revenue.
Pop and rock aren’t the only types of music finding new audiences through video games; many of the latest games come with originally composed classical music. According to a December 2008 article in the New York Times, classically trained composers are finding new outlets for their creative works in video games. While game soundtracks were once a cacophony of beeps and bloops, now the nuances of percussion, strings and brass are being matched to the nuances of the complex characters and situations of today’s video games. The field has even attracted some of the most prominent film composers, such as Danny Elfman, Howard Shore and Hans Zimmer.
The scores in popular video games are now providing the music for Video Games Live, a concert tour of top orchestras and choirs that include the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The concerts include video footage and musical arrangements, synchronized lighting, solo performers, electronic percussionists and interactive segments – put together to create a unique experience for gamers and music lovers. The “Video Games Live: Volume One” album, released in the summer of 2008, debuted on the Billboard Charts at #10. It was the first video game compilation album released worldwide.
Go Figure
- 502 - As of April 2010, the number of educational institutions worldwide listed on www.gamecareerguide.com for having video game design and development courses available.
- 5 - The number of panelists on the "Independent Video Gaming: A New Medium for Filmmakers" panel at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. They included Eric Zimmerman, founder of Gamelab; Connie Yowell, Director of Education Grantmaking for the MacArthur Foundation; Suzanne Seggerman from Games for Change; and game artists Eddo Stern and Asi Burak, who helped create the game Peacemaker.
- 11,000 - The number of people who attended the first Video Games Live performance, which took place on July 6, 2005, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with the L.A. Philharmonic.
- 40 million - Number of paid individual songs that have been sold via download through Rock Band and Rock Band 2 since the franchise launched in 2007.
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