New Communities of Gamers
As the video game industry expanded, so did the community of gamers. Today there are many new communities dedicated to gaming or discussing games. YouTube is a great example. There are hundreds of channels that provide news about the industry, reviews, or just play games and commentate over them. There are even people who make a living off of commentating games or making reviews of games. There are also groups of community members who band together to make small games. These are called indie games, which stands for independent developer, which means that they are not affiliated with any major companies. These indie games come from people who love to program and develop games, and are usually created when one of these people are struck by a creative idea and want to see it come to life. Most indie games are not very successful, but there have been very successful ones.
One example is Minecraft. Minecraft was made by a single innovative man and currently has millions of copies sold. Because of the fact that indie games are usually made because a developer sincerely wants to make a game, and is not interested just think of a game of a way to earn cash. These are the situations where video gaming could be viewed by as an art, with faithful artists working to make beautiful masterpieces.
Also, some of the indie games can be looked at in a very philosophical way. I will use Minecraft again as an example. As a game Minecraft can be considered terrible. The combat mechanics are one of the worst in any game, the graphics look like their from 20 years ago, and there is no end of the game for the player to reach. In adition, there is practically no story line that it follows. BUT, that is not what people play Minecraft for. People play Minecraft because it has a rather unique mechanic of letting you build something with your own 2 hands. Well, virtual hands, but still hands. In the game you can harvest materials and mine with no worries other than a rather deep fall, but at night monsters come out of the wilderness and you have to either hide of defend yourself. That is what makes it fun. The fact that if you build something, you remember that you went though a huge challenge to actually get the RESOURCES required for it. The time and energy spent acquiring them gives you a feeling of accomplishment, and the journey of building something ends up making you feel better, despite the other benefits it lacks.
One example is Minecraft. Minecraft was made by a single innovative man and currently has millions of copies sold. Because of the fact that indie games are usually made because a developer sincerely wants to make a game, and is not interested just think of a game of a way to earn cash. These are the situations where video gaming could be viewed by as an art, with faithful artists working to make beautiful masterpieces.
Also, some of the indie games can be looked at in a very philosophical way. I will use Minecraft again as an example. As a game Minecraft can be considered terrible. The combat mechanics are one of the worst in any game, the graphics look like their from 20 years ago, and there is no end of the game for the player to reach. In adition, there is practically no story line that it follows. BUT, that is not what people play Minecraft for. People play Minecraft because it has a rather unique mechanic of letting you build something with your own 2 hands. Well, virtual hands, but still hands. In the game you can harvest materials and mine with no worries other than a rather deep fall, but at night monsters come out of the wilderness and you have to either hide of defend yourself. That is what makes it fun. The fact that if you build something, you remember that you went though a huge challenge to actually get the RESOURCES required for it. The time and energy spent acquiring them gives you a feeling of accomplishment, and the journey of building something ends up making you feel better, despite the other benefits it lacks.