THE FINAL FRONTIER OF ART: VIDEO GAMES Presented by Logan Buck, is the headline of the presentation given on November 9th 2023. Buck guides the audience through a breakdown of his love of video games. This presentation is brought to life by the different images, games, and sounds presented. He covers his background, the deeper meanings inside video games, and defends Video Games as an art form.
Logan Buck is a Senior Honors Biology major. When asked about his motivation behind the topic he says, ”Ever since I was 5 years old, there’s a picture of me, my dad played a video game with me in his lap with a controller playing. It’s always been a part of my life and I’ve heard from others to brush off video games as a form of art, and I’ve wanted to analyze why do we brush it off and what makes a game art.”
Buck explored various regions of video games to thoroughly discuss the art within video games. A couple points he covered are Art of video games, History, pop culture, and seeking deeper meanings. He also interacted with the audience while he brought into question the morality and quality of art in video games, and when too realistic. The hyperrealism in games allows gamers to make decisions and feel remorse for the true meaning behind the game and story.
Video games have constantly moved forward since the creation of Pong(1972). Pong itself might not be the most beautiful piece of art, however it is a pioneer for the endless potential of video games.Buck says “I think it’s important to see how games are evolving because I think one day they’ll be a prime form of art.”
Video games can be held in the actual world or worlds created by pure imagination. Buck questions the debate of whether video games are art and discusses the elements that bring the art to life. Video games today can be seen in different environments such as 3d worlds, fake worlds, and real locations. This allows video games to bring a connection from the gamer to the World. Dark souls is one of the more talked about games involving immersive experiences, symbolism, perseverance, and different meanings for the players to be involved further.
When asked ,how has this changed your viewpoint on not only these games but video games and storytelling as a whole? Buck says, “I just realize how much effort is put into a video game, and how it can be more difficult than other forms of art, because there’s so much more that goes into it if everything is beautiful, everything works perfectly, but the gameplay is terrible, then no one is going to play it.”